Fanfic Recommendations: The Next Generation

[Mamorien]

"Recommendation" is a relative term here.

Ripped from today's screaming Internet headlines! Review it before it's outdated! A burning question! A vexing riddle wrapped in a mystery inside of a Chinese box! What will your answer be? Contains some rude, harsh language.

It's a naive domestic crackfic without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its lack of pretension, especially if you remember the Question of the Millennium or are familiar with enough of the fandoms (said to be) represented.

Mahou Sensei Negima!, Medaka Box, To Love-Ru, Toaru Kagaku no Railgun | A Certain Scientific Railgun, Boys Empire, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Dance in the Vampire Bund, Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei, Keroro Gunsou | Sgt. Frog, Bible Black (Anime), Dangan Ronpa

https://archiveofourown.org/works/3600138

[classicdrogn]

Black Hole Heart is the first new Naruto fic I've found readable in years, with the premise being a Sakura who doesn't suck because the Inner Sakura joke the fandom makes so much of is actually the Venom symbiote (likely based on the 2018 movie version, but adapted to fit the setting anyway) has been passed down through her maternal line as a sort of faux bloodline limit technique.

Note that it is still Venom, so there's some very casually treated cannibalism going on, but I'm pretty sure I put more actual gore into my own Naruto fic while filing it under "canon-typical violence" in my mind. The characters do tend to feel like older teens rather than twelve year olds, but that too is typical of Naruto in text form, so, whatever. Just a warning for anyone who really doesn't want to deal with that kind of thing, as part of my ongoing "don't be an asshole" campaign. It's a work in progress.

AO3 index link

Alas, it seems to have run into that fanfic meta-trope of the author getting distracted by something shiny and new, posting one more chapter after a couple of years and promising to finish it with another update "soon," and then dead-ending, but what is there is fun and it manages to be a decent stopping point even if it is open ended due to the lack of a wrap-up chapter or two. Possibly better than even many professional works end up being when they do have that wrap-up, Vision of Escaflowne and the Harry Potter crapilogue springing immediately to mind.

[classicdrogn]

In a will of fire by a_sassin, Azula (AtLA) is reborn as the third child of the head family of the Uchiha, a few years after Sasuke. This works out surprisingly well for all involved.

“I am not cute! I will crush my enemies!”

But these people – her parents – had only smiled, and said –

“Of course you will, darling.”

“And you’ll make sure they never get up again.”

And, well. Wasn’t that refreshing?

AO3 link

[SilverFang01]

Fyre, Fyre, Burning Skitter by mp3_1415player: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527022.../133306393

There's a very old concept in magic: Never call up that which you cannot put down. Shame the Death Eaters didn't know that...

Now they have Skitter.

Whoops...

A little present to mark the end of 2023! Just in time for the end of this year and the beginning of the next.

[classicdrogn]

"We have these skull masks, and the killing curse!"

"We have a Skitter."

And that was when they knew, they done fucked up.

[Matrix Dragon]

CRYSTALS WERE INTEGRAL (Worm/Atomic Robo)

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...t-97921357

A dimensional portal dumps DR. DINOSAUR into Brockton Bay in April 2011. Earth-Bet is about to get everything they deserve.

(What's that? You copied the link but forgot to actually paste it? I have no idea what you're talking about...)

[ECSNorway]

This Star Wars fic just updated and reminded me that it existed.

The Sleepover To Restore The Republic

In which Luke decides that the best way to process the revelation that Vader is his father is to, well...

“Anyway, I kept thinking it over, and since we both want the Emperor gone, we’re basically on the same side, right?” Luke points to himself. “Rebel scum.” He points to Vader. “Also, rebel scum, except you come in black.” 

[zojojojo]

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/th...t-18227289

Ghost Spider … what do you get when you drop a symbiote-equipped Gwen Stacy in the middle of Gotham? A lot of confused bats and many misunderstandings…

[ECSNorway]

Last night, Grace was an ordinary teenager in Ohio, who thought the war was something a long way away that mostly impacted other people.

This morning, she's an Abyssal. Or is she?

A Crown of Biosteel

[Aleh]

I will freely admit that my first thought from that description was of an Exalted isekai.

[classicdrogn]

Sakura Haruno the Gaming Addict and Her Gsmified Life is exactly what it says oni the tin, in the key of crack played on a musical saw. It's often funny, but the violence and consequences are played straight, with some AU elements (mainly RL online games and gamer/internet culture being things that exist to allow for the premise) also included. Currently only mid Wave arc, and Sakura is pretty much In Name Only again due to the premise, but it's been a fun read even if it's not any kind of great literature. Stories where something gets both Sakura and Kakashi to pull their heads out of their asses from the get-go are too rare to skip over for less than utter wallbanger plot holes and errors.

SV threadmariks link

[Matrix Dragon]

All the things that you stood by before (Mass Effect 3)

See, the difference here is that Alenko is having to come up with his position on the spot, without really understanding what he’s done wrong. Garrus has been putting the finishing touches on this resentment for a galactic standard year.

Garrus has a specific set of concerns, with Kaidan Alenko on board the Normandy again. They're not what most of the crew predicted.

[ECSNorway]

Hadal Blue Orchid

Congratulations, you've just been isekai'ed into someone else's xianxia novel.

Zhao Zi Lan, up and coming young cultivator, remembers her past life as an ordinary person on Earth.
She is also Chief Servant to the Blooming Peony Sect's Young Mistress, Wang Mei Lin.

And then there is Apparently Nobody, Chen Hui Qing, come out of nowhere to join the tournament for entry into the Sect.

Time for intrigue and adventure!

[Shepherd]

Tonnage: A Gotham teen winds up inheriting the powers of Marvel's Fred Dukes (aka The Blob). Up to chapter seven and it hasn't gone well for him so far.

https://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-34246/Da...onnage.htm

[SilverFang01]

Wednesday Potter & Enid Reveal Some Secrets at Hogwarts by Writing_Heroics
https://archiveofourown.org/works/471103.../118690408

What it is!
- Wednesday Addams' mind somehow merges with 12 year old Harry Potter's memories and she calls out a bunch of strange things in HP canon
- Fluff with Wednesday and Friends
- Slice of Life with plenty of 'Tongue in Cheek'
- Characters are considered to be complex and flawed
What it isn't!
- Canon rehash
- Bashing

Want a single story? Read to 83 and stop. Alternate AU endings happen after that.

[Jinx999]

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/62125/...k-gamer-si

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...i.1046809/

Ghost in the city. Cyberpunk.

Yes, it's a SI.
Yes, the SI is a Gamer.
I'm still recommending it.

[Aleh]

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/62125/...k-gamer-si

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...i.1046809/

Ghost in the city. Cyberpunk.

Yes, it's a SI.
Yes, the SI is a Gamer.
I'm still recommending it.

As... utterly incomprehensible as it is... I'm presently 90-ish chapters in and finding myself seconding this. Have the end-times come? Dunno, but it's a surprisingly good read given its premises.

[Mamorien]

The works of Nathan Goldwag, DBA EmperorNorton150, particularly the scholarly-toned works, like the specific piece that pororoca'd me over from TwiXter, Seven Days That Shook the Galaxy: The Tarkin Doctrine, the Dissolution of the Senate, and the Destruction of Alderaan.

Professor Nath Li-Le
Galactic University of Coruscant
Coruscant
New Republic
The Journal of the Galactic Civil War
68 ABY

"Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station." - Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." - Senator Leia Organa

A more rigorous examination of the events of 0 BBY will show that, while the year is just as pivotal to Galactic history as it usually assumed, the emphasis has often been misplaced. In truth, while the Death Star project did prove to be central to the Galactic Empire’s undoing, the fatal blow came not from DS-01’s destruction at the hands of Luke Skywalker, but from the political implications of the project writ large. It would be going too far to say that the Battle of Yavin was irrelevant, but it would be accurate to say that by the time the Battle Station arrived in the Yavin System, the balance in the Galactic Civil War had already irrevocably shifted, though in ways that would not become apparent for months and years to come.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/45500191

I also found myself surprisingly fond, for someone who stopped watching DS9 early in season 3, of the five-parts-and-counting series Winning the Peace: The Alpha Quadrant after the Dominion War.

"It's not enough to win a war. Anyone can do that. It's what comes next that's important." - Min Zefe, President of the United Federation of Planets, 2375

The Dominion War (2373-2375) was the single most destructive conflict in the known history of the Federation, and eventually entangled virtually every major power in the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Quadrants of the Milky Way. Though the UFP and its allies were able to win a decisive victory on the battlefield, that was only the beginning of the long, weary struggle to build a new and better Galaxy.

It helped that I knew enough nuTrek before then, and have gotten a sufficient sense of subsequent developments, that I wasn't entirely at sea with (for instance) the most recent instalment, Transcript of Interrogation of Female Changeling in Regards to the Assassination of Senator Vreenak.

LZ: “I’m curious, Ms. Changeling. You’ve shown no shame or guilt about anything else you’ve admitted to in these sessions. Why so much reluctance to discuss the senator’s death?”

FC: “Shame is a solid emotion. Why would I feel shame for doing what was necessary to protect my people? I am not reluctant to discuss Senator Vreenak’s death, I simply don’t understand the point. I will tell you again: we did not kill him.”

LZ: “The Romulans believe you did.”

FC: “In my home quadrant, there is a planet called Qu An Seth, where the native inhabitants believe that if they do not perform the proper ritual dances each night, the sun will not rise the following morning. This is despite the fact that they have been under Dominion protection for over seven centuries, and that our scientists have demonstrated proof to the contrary to them time and time again. They will accept that other suns do not require it, but not their own.”

(Recording includes sixteen seconds of silence)

LZ: “Point taken. Let’s begin at the beginning them, shall we?”

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3921682

In notes to WtP, Goldwag acknowledges his debt to Tranquility Press's We Have Engaged the Borg: The Oral History of the Battle of Wolf 359.

On stardate 43975.2, Starbase 23 received a distress signal from the New Providence research colony on Jouret IV. The garbled transmission spoke of a large cube-like vessel that had entered the system and destroyed the small number of colony defense ships. The last transmission before all contact was lost showed a massive, black monolithic shape slowly descending over the colony.

Although not widely known outside the upper echelons of Starfleet Command, this was the Borg: a powerful race of cybernetic lifeforms, first encountered a year prior by the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701D, c. J-L Picard) over 7,000 light-years away.

What was to follow over the following days would rock the Federation to its very core: the destruction of 39 starships at Wolf 359, the loss of over 11,000 sapients, and Earth – the seat of the UFP Government and home of Starfleet – threatened with total assimilation.

I spent large wodges of Monday and Tuesday falling down that particular rabbit hole, and I consider none of that time wasted.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/49418989

[batzulger]

https://www.webtoons.com/en/slice-of-lif...isode_no=1

Bat Family slice of life, amazingly hopeful.

[classicdrogn]

It's very... AO3, but I've been enjoying Nor Is He Early, a Transformers fic set on pre-war Cybertron, in which Sentinel Prime dies in a shuttle crash and young cargo terminal worker Orion Pax is elevated to the Primacy considerably earlier than in the canon timelines. This means he's just in time, more often than not.

[Matrix Dragon]

https://www.webtoons.com/en/slice-of-lif...isode_no=1

Bat Family slice of life, amazingly hopeful.

This is the fanfic recommendation thread, not the official DC comics thread (I mean, we don't have one of those, but you know what I mean...)

[batzulger]

It may be DC comics but it reads like a fanfic.

[Lunaludus Scribex]

Piggybacking off the Bat comics:

Dark Matter

MCU/DC crossover, dumping Spider-Man in Gotham after the Snap. A significant portion of the fic deals with Peter interacting with the Bats (both in and out of uniform) and the feel is very similar to those strips.

[nocarename]

I haven't finished it, nor have I read the comments.
All the World's a Stage [Naruto/The Muppet Show]
Pre-canon for Naruto, and the Muppets are, as always, timeless.

...And crazy. You can't forget the crazy.