Fics you love that are MASSIVELY flawed.

I definitely defend most of Confession21's One Piece works. Yes, they have Gratuitous Japanese, some begginner mistakes and her Genderly Challenged fic can be...divisive. Especially on Gender Politics. I LOVED the shit out of them. Denial in particular made me cry and was the first fic I remember dying to read the next chapter of.

Then comes Kaotic312 and their Naruto Works. Major Plug N Play pairings (As in pairings that get along immediately and loves comes easily). Some REALLY cringe worthy Japanese in the Hinatax Kankuro (YEAH REALLY)fic and overall an emphasized focus on shipping. I couldnt not get enough of them. Massively entertaining even if a bit light read.

Then comes the fic I LOVE to describe as "MORDO AND RIGBONES OH CEE KEEDS THEY HAD WITH MARGARET AND EILLEEN HAVE REGULAR ADVENTURES YOU GAIZ!" Yes, Mordecai and Rigby from Regular Show. It makes EXTREMELY AWFUL mistakes like Authors notes in the middle of the story, Song in the middle of the story, descriptions that constantly avoid describing and just tell you "It was like X from Y". And tells more than it shows at least early on. I will never call it a terrible fic. I was extremely disillusioned by a VERY well written and Promising fic whose ending I hated and I decided to give it a try. While those flaws are extremely present throughout the fic, it was very warm and sweet. The characters were extremely likeable and everyone had screentime. Even if they did they had very memorable scenes to make up for that. The OC's are very likable and felt like a natural extension of the "Park Crew Family" and they never took away screentime from the Canon Characters or vice versa. You are as likely to see Maddie and Robbie (The OC's,Mordo Girl and Rigbone's son) day at school as you are to see Mordecai and Rigby takeover a Knight Joust. Everyone was very In-Character or at least I never felt that the characters betrayed their canon conterparts. The rest of the Park Crew was extremely present and well represented in the fic. Skips in particular as the kids Teacher at their school, and Benson and Pops as the Uncles! (They are together in this fic and it never feels gimmicky. Its extremely sweet). Muscle Man was also very present, he even had a kid of his own with Starla, Mikey who starts out as an annoying bully brat. But even he gets development and pathos. If any fic ever succeeded to portray "The Park Crew" as a family, its this one.

Also a couple of How To Train Your Dragon fics by a person named Determamfidd. The first one (The 2 fics tell a whole story) starts out very cringeworthy. Its Astrid narrating Hiccups return from some very far away place and how hot he became in the mean time. Oh and He accidentally pissed off a a psycho Viking Woman Chieftain. Astrid has to train Hiccup at fighting. It starts insanely gushy about Hiccup's newfound hotness (Astrid is telling the story to her dragon), Hiccup treatens Ruffnut's ass (Our Hero!). But the story definitely improved by the chapter. And by the end of the sequel you will DEFINETELY be glad you stuck around.

There's definitely a lot of this in my library...

But it stems more from Bile Fascination and less from genuinelly thinking it's good stuff. I mean, I like badfic and trollfic and all that stuff. While there's certain stuff I find truly intolerable, for the most part I actually love reading shitty fanfiction that is shitty in hilarious ways. It's much like a trainwreck, to be honest.

A bunch of kind of terrible Nanoha High School AU's that I binge read a couple of months ago. I really enjoyed reading them, but at the same time I recognize how bad some of the writing definitely was.

Admittedly, Nanoha on drugs is hilarious. OOC, but hilarious.

edited 26th Mar '15 1:31:03 AM by 32ndfreeze

Possibly for me, my fiancee's stuff, ( Ark North - multiple fandoms, mostly anime. notably Pokemon-anime, Trigun and Haibane Renmei ) in that his work is creative and fascinating, but is the kind of stuff that scares off a lot of readers in the whole fanfic culture because he treats it as something of an extension of his original writing (which features an "all multiverses are true" kind of thing) and usually ties stuff into a massive 'verse that only people who are familiar with his stuff are going to fully understand. He writes doorstoppers, first of all, so reading him takes an investment. Second, he likes to focus more on the worlds he's exploring than the typical fanfic writer's way of canon characters and tends to create a lot of original cast. (For instance, he has an unfinished/unpublished Trigun work I know about where he said that that Vash the Stampede will be mentioned as a news report, but that's it - all original characters). — I've found that most fanfic readers don't go for that... the world-exploring original cast stuff. He very much goes off-canon.

That said, don't think I'm bad-mouthing my man here. I MET him through mutual fanfic-writing admiration! I'm just saying that the atypical nature of his fanfic work means that a lot of them strike me as working better as original tales than the typical fanwork.

Then there is some of my stuff. I'm not going to get into it because this isn't a place for self-criticism, it's just that I know one particular long Legend of Zelda fanfic of mine - "The Great Desert" seems to get this kind of reaction from people. I'm not even sure if it still has readers these days, since it's complete and old (my co-writer... a friend of mine... and I did it before some of the newer games came out that kind of mess with the timeline we had set up for it). But, even from sources reviewing it at the time when it was fresh - there's a lot of "It starts out so awesome, but then derails!" Or they people liked some aspects of it, but not others. I've seen this reaction from people on TVT - since someone put it in the Fanfic Recs years ago. I tried to do a remake and lost my interest. So, if anyone puts that thing up on here... or any of my fic, really, I won't mind.

I have a friend whose fics are generally so OOC I would normally lose my Willing Suspension of Disbelief (notably many of her stories make a character who canonically crosses the Moral Event Horizon into a Jerkass Woobie, and another makes a character who is canonically The Woobie (vanilla) commit a Moral Event Horizon... towards an Asshole Victim), but somehow she manages to make them seem relatively plausible.

Another friend I used to have wrote cookie cutter Slash Fic, but as I was really obsessed with my OTP at the time, I was happy to have a writer providing a steady stream of them.

I know it wasnt your intent at all. But please dont say "I feel my work...", I am to blame for the unclear title but this thread is for fics by other people you loved despite being REALLY flawed. Its not that I think you are a dreaded self promoter or anything, but if we allow this deviation from the topic at hand lots of people will follow suit and derail the thread further.

Now that I think about it a thread about one's own extremely flawed work that is still beloved by its author could be really interesting. But its not the topic of this thread.

Also, your boyfriends work doesnt really seem "Flawed" per se. Its just VERY different from Canon. Are there more tangible Flaws? Or does he do it badly or...? Dont get me wrong, this post is DEFINITELY a great and fitting post for the thread, but I would like some further explanation/

Your post was terrific. Im just being a party pooper! Sorry for that.

I only mentioned my own fic because I've seen the kind of reaction, like finding review sites where people loved it but thought it got derailed, "This is wonderfully written, but here's how it sucks!" And, knowing that was at least one of the reactions in a review on the Fanfic Recs here, I brought it up just in case someone's itching to rant about it here and is afraid because I (one of the authors) happens to be a part of the board and they're all too afraid of offending a Troper / too polite. I'm saying "Don't worry at all."

As for my guy's fics, I really can't think of anything in the usual flaws department, just in the unconventional nature. Some people have accused him (mostly people who only read the summaries of his fics or people who had an axe to grind against him and me) of writing "Mary Sues" but I think that's only because he uses original casts a lot and some of his protagonists are female - and he actually uses male and female OCs. Occasionally, some of his protagonists do get a little more canon power or technology or general specialness, which can strike some readers as "Sue-ish" if only because the fanfic well was poisoned for OCs long before he arrived and because what makes a Mary Sue or a Gary Stu for some people is pretty subjective.

The only thing I actually find a little aggravating is that everything he writes fanfic-wise is tied into his multiverse stuff. Unlike me, he seems to be unable to do a simple one-shot set completely in-world. I'd like to see him try.

As it is, though, he's too busy keeping a roof over our heads and everything working around here to do fanfic anymore and he doesn't have the twitchy mania that I do that keeps me prolific.

@Shadsie: I have no idea about your fiancee's work and thus can't say anything about it's quality, but from what you're describing I think I can get why people would be scared or peeved. If I ran into a fanfic for X that not only had a completely original cast but was also building up stuff that had nothing to do with X the first thing on my mind would be "Why is this a fanfic for X?"

Not trying to be mean. I can't say I have any idea what your fiancee's stuff is like. Just trying to give what the impression is from an outsider.

As for the main topic, it took me a while to think of one, mainly because I don't have a lot of fanfics as Guilty Pleasures, but I did manage to think of one: the Ranma One Half fic A Careful Destiny. There's a good reason why it wound up on the rec page: the premise alone is fairly interesting, and the writing is really solid. However, the biggest flaw it has is that a huge chunk of it is developing an incestual relationship between Ranma and his new younger sister (quasi-Selfcest, if you treat her as a personification of Ranma's girl form). Anytime it's not doing that it's driving Cerebus Syndrome for drama, far beyond just doing the "treat all the Comedic Sociopathy seriously" thing that everyone does.

OH YEAH! That would be terrific and VERY Heartwarming to see. It would be nice if someone loved my work despite knowing its flawed. And Im also happy to see you admit when your work has flaws and work on them.

I really like the way you think.

I'm a fan of a lot of Fallout Equestria fics, myself, but my main problem with one that I'm following, Fallout Equestria Project Horizons is that it's too dark. Like way darker than the original fic.

That's why I never even started that fic...

Yeah. Numerous gory injuries, cosmic horror, a rather detailed rape scene...That and it's just really depressing at points, like it seems that Somber does things like that simply to make the story darker.

Um... lets just focus on flawed fics we like instead, please?

Still, I appreciate that your post allows me to bump the thread without the need to double post. Thanks for that.

I found this fic about Skips and Benson, its really weirdly written but I liked it a lot. Despite it ending on a cliffhanger that the author has said is unlikely to be resolved. Oh well.

I have a friend that tends to go for dialogue heavy, overly gushy stuff- but it's still enjoyable.

For Spider-Man fanfics, Harry Osborn's characterization is a huge sticking point for me (people tend to write him OOC), but there are a few fics that mess up his character I'm still able to like.

I found this really sweet One Piece fanfiction that is kind of amateurish but still really charming. I cant find it anymore.

The First Bloodbender.

It has quite a bit of grammar and spelling errors...

But it's not enough to take you out of the story.

Hama's backstory is expanded upon, and she's made even more sympathetic.

Even if it's not completed in the way the author planned to finish it, the last chapter feels like a bittersweet ending that could lead straight into the main show.

Universe Falls by Minijen, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11533939/1/Universe-Falls

Its mostly a good story, but it has a bad tendency of being angsty for the sake of angst. Especially with story ideas that will incorporated in the future (Stonemason mainly).

Edited by Groverman62 on Mar 23rd 2019 at 6:43:15 AM

Naruto Echoes by Kageseo. I hated this fanfic once upon a time - namely because it had a huge trope page and used a premise that I liked - but over time I've admired how much the author put into the story and how developed its ideas and characters were. It used a lot of cliches - horrible treatment of Naruto, Sasuke being a Butt-Monkey, Sakura and Kakashi and Jiraiya being ultimately responsible for everything wrong in Naruto's life, Naruto being an elegant, ruly individual.

Then it all got flipped on its head when Naruto actually becomes the villain and, while it still reeked of "God Mode Naruto" it counteracted this with him fighting another Naruto GM.

And then it ended with a war between main Naruto's army and an interdimensional Akatsuki, and finally with all of the other versions of Naruto peeking in on the "canon/Naruto 616 universe" and it even tied in Kaguya and Sasuke's dimension-traveling abilities into the plot. I thought that was genius.