Discussion FanficRecs / NeonGenesisEvangelion

I'm moving now

Also, plugging on the above discussion.

Recs can be removed if there's a strong negative consensus. One more bad review, and I say we nuke that puppy.

I would contest removing any fic that one person thinks is worth reading, and willing to put their name to that effect. The reviews can add supplementary information, and provide info for people to avoid if they want to, but end of the day this is Fan Fic Recommendations and someone recommends this fanfic. The page is doing its job, and the reviews are doing theirs.

True, but I still think that overwhelming consensus (i.e., not just a couple of folks who don't like it relative to lots who do) is a good grounds for removal simply because unlike the rest of the wiki, quality actually matters on a recs page. Otherwise, it is no longer a useful tool.

I'd disagree, I think it shows it is working perfectly. Anyone can recommend a fic as worth reading, but if it is a bit of a duffer then that recommendation is balanced out by the reviews and the reader can make their own judgement. Once we start getting into judging a fic's quality or worth for inclusion then we are setting ourselves up for another Antvasima situation.

There are several fics for various fandoms that I know I would recommend as being well worth reading, but would garner huge amounts of negative reviews under current fandom fashions (in particular, the "everything must be pure canon and indistinguishable from a broadcast episode" faction which is really noisy right now. Alt-universe is entirely out of fashion, and get shrieked down no matter how entertaining it is). And would end up being removed.

Trouble is fandom fashion changes, and those fics would, a few years back, be massively supported as great examples (it used to be the reverse, alt-universe was loved, and written to be an episode fics were decried as bland, useless, and lacking imagination). However, I think those fics are worth reading, I enjoyed them tremendously, I think others would like them, I know they benefit fandom by their existence, so I recommend them despite current fashion (which will change on its own in a couple of years).

We have to be aware of that. That is what the rec&review system does.

Fandom fashions are one thing. Accusing a fic of being misogynistic, OOC tripe is quite another. Misogyny is rarely fashionable, and OOC, unless deliberate, is generally considered one of the biggest sins for a fic.

terms such as accusations of misogyny are the usual when someone wants to attack something, find a nasty term and apply it (we even have a trope for it). And OOC wasn't always the biggest fic sin, in fact at one point it was desired (quite a few people still like it, and frankly why should there not be recommendations for those people? They are fans too). Which is exactly what I mean by things being in or out of fashion. What you are actually saying is that a person's recommendation should be removed on basis of other people's personal dislikes about what the fic is. That's what the reviews are for. To say something along the lines of "well, yeah, they might find it good but I personally don't based on my own likes and dislikes", and then the reader can form their own opinion.

Aww, c'mon, you really think that they can't be calling the work misogynist because they do, in fact, find it misogynist? The Abomination Accusation Attack is rarer than media tends to portray it, mostly because it's such an effective silencing tactic for shutting down legitimate complaints. And let's face it, with that premise, misogyny is a very real possibility.

I think that Once More With Feeling has largely gone dead too. Since I'm no expert, what's the official opinion on this?

I wrote to OMwF's author a while back, and he said that he was working on new material...but it has been a while, hasn't it? I hate to call any fic dead unless the author's made it clear that it won't be continued (such as The Open Door), but calling them "ongoing" seems to be misleading...maybe we can come up with a new term.

Dormant perhaps? Like volcanoes, they look dead, but could erupt at any time.

I agree with the above. Dormant is good.

I like dormant. Thirded. Although I think something needs to be written on page to indicate the difference between dormant and dead, somewhere.

Alright, I've run with this idea. I don't have time to check all the fics, but if I've goofed any that I've changed, go ahead and put them to the correct status.

If the author is still active but the fic in question is not really being updated, I'd consider it ongoing, so I'll just make that edit. EDIT: but I'm new to this so if anyone disagrees, feel free to revert.

I disagree; the author may be active as hell, but if the fic in question isn't getting updated, then calling it ongoing is a little misleading.

I think this is surprising enough to note in another post. Crazy-88, the author of OMWF, had a profile update on ff.net. Just a few days ago as of this post. Maybe OMWF is coming back?

He posted at Spacebattles.com that a new chapter was coming fairly soon, but let's hold up on changing the status until it actually hits.

Can you link the post? I've been unable to find it by googling.

Here.

As of 8/18/2010, Crazy-88's profile on ff.net says that OMWF should be updated within the next couple of weeks.

And as of Sept 26 he reaffirms that he's working on his next (yet unposted) chapter.

What's being worked on? Chosen or Once More With Feeling?

Whoops sorry, I was referring to omwf.

WHOA! chosen has started updating again! WHAT IS THIS!?

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/285515/25/Chosen

I'd love to see some better synopses and more expansive reviews for a lot of these fics, but the latter is entirely up to the people who originally wrote them...I may try to work on some of the synopses, but I've got other projects I'm working on including the reviews. As far as the Open Door response fic, I have no idea.

Aha! Found it. It's actually on the MGLN page, rather than the Evangelion page.

Ramenth: If you want better synopsis then add them, we are a wiki. As Willbyr says it is up to the original poster to use that to sell their recommendation, if they put a poor one up then it should tell you something about both the quality of the fic and the judgement of the recommender.

Here are the culled comments from Shinji And Warhammer 40 K

• Sean Tucker: My god... I think I've found the absolute Holy Grail of fanfics. Requesting permission to find out if the author is a troper, and if he is, shower him in Made Of Win awards. Seriously... they turned Shinji Fucking Ikari into a Magnificent Bastard Badass Bookworm who gets at least one Crowning Moment Of Awesome every minute. Even Super Robot Wars wasn't able to go that far with its awesome
  • Shay Guy: If you read closely, you'll notice that the later chapters have some nods to the wiki here and there, so I'm guessing he started reading the wiki at some point. Seems to start somewhere around chapter 21, with its Genre Savvy and Impossibly Cool Clothes references. Most recently, chapter 28 has the line "YOU PEOPLE -FAIL- BIOLOGY FOREVER!" Or chapter 24, which refers to Magnificent Bastard, Sufficiently Advanced Alien, Obfuscating Stupidity, and others. Chapter 23 has Asuka call herself a Badass Normal, and there are probably some more I missed.
  • Nornagest: Unfortunately, the TV Tropes references completely destroyed my Willing Suspension of Disbelief once they started. I guess you can't please everyone.
  • Looney Toons: The latest chapter (as of 15 June 2009) has an explicit thanks to the wiki in its endnote, specifically referencing the Useful Notes area.
• Shockz: I found a reference to this fic by accident, and started reading it with some basic WH40K knowledge and a vague (if completely spoiled) understanding of NGE's storyline. It gets a little verbose (and it's tough to keep track of some of the minor characters if you haven't seen NGE yet), but is nonetheless one of the most awesome things I have ever read. Give this man a budget!
• No...words. Should have sent...a poet. I have only one thing to say after reading this; Other Fan Fic writers, DESPAIR, and accept that nothing you ever write will be half as fucking awesome as even a chapter of this epic. The Emperor's hand guides us all.
• Space Chief: As much as I think the original series was genius in Deconstruction terms, I've accepted this fic as my own personal canon. Sorry, Anno, but there's a reason that this is one of the few fics that has its own page on this wiki.
  • I go so far as to just say that the entire original series is just a nightmare that Shinji is having had he never found that fateful black box.

  • ArcVaranus: I burst out laughing at the above troper's Disgaea jab, but he's right. The characterization runs in very straight lines here, and Shinji really does become a blatant Marty Stu but... Tropes Are Not Bad. The story celebrates it's sheer Beyond the Impossible insanity and is just plain fun to read.
• FLCNPNCH: Personally, the best part about this fic is the politics, my god the 'politics'! Shinji... Kaworu...both want the best for humanity, both have perfectly valid methods...but neither can exist while the other survives and they'd quite gladly kill each other to decide the final fate of humanity, and you might even find yourself questioning whether or not Shinji's the best man to control the future of man. Brilliant!

Here are the culled comments from Children of an Elder God that weren't redundant with the material in the rec.

• Comments:
  • Lightice: It starts out incredibly well, but the quality deteriorates as the plot advances. Do yourself a favour and don't read the two final chapters so far; they pretty much kill the absolutely fantastic concept.
    • The Tygre: Seconded: Personally, I read ahead and didn't even finish Hastur I was so put off by it. I mean REALLY? What Hell man?! What Hell?! I'm still angry at this fic for leading me on a certain pairing and then DOING A BLOODY TURN-AROUND HALF-WAY THROUGH. Without an ending, thank you very much... Trust me, just stop at Hastur. If you stop at Hastur, you'll lead a better life than I.
      • Thirded. The chapter with Ygolonac was the real Jumping-the-Shark moment for me, though. Although the pairing change was extremely annoying as well (and very evil to one of the characters involved). However when you look at the disturbing way the whole relationship subplot seems to be proceeding, I'm guessing it'll be concluded with everyone on-everyone, in a style reminiscent of IT. If it ever finishes. The story is still pretty good though.
  • Tze Tze: Obviously Your Mileage May Vary, 'cuz I think the Hastur thing was the first real cosmic horror. Pretty cool. (but then, I don't care about shipping)
    • The Tygre: No, no, I meant read Hastur and then stop. Hastur was awesome, to teh extremez. And it wasn't just the shipping that annoyed me after a while it was...a lot. It's like... Just, why did everyone have wings?!
    • Tzetze: 'cuz it's awesome? Besides, the He Who Fights Monsters aspect got really played up after that.
    • The Tygre:...Touche, Signore Tzetze, touche indeed...
    • FLCNPNCH: In regards tho the He Who Fights Monsters aspect, it's implied in the later chapters that something very similar to the Chzo Mythos is going on but with the Gods instead of Chzo and Nylarhotep instead of Cabadath, hence why Nylarhotep's so freaked out...

Taken from the Ranma crossover section, for NGE: Angel of Light:

• Comments: Shay Guy: I remember this one. Mediocre.

Taken from the Peggy Sue section, for Making a Difference

• Comments: Despite been this writer's first novel, he seems to be quite able to write an interesting and fairly original story, he isn't up to Random1337's league but that's ok.
  • Eh...Shay Guy finds the writing too damn clunky to get through.
  • Willbyr: I didn't even make it past the intro to Unit 01/reunion with Gendo scene..."clunky" is putting it nicely.

Taken from Taking Sights

• Looney Toons: Seconding Taking Sights. It also seems to be written by someone who at least reads the wiki, if not one of the tropers proper, as the most recent chapter had one character challenging another to come up with an "Ass Pull", while another was accused of "taking Refuge in Audacity".
• Don't forget the reference to Rei being Raised by Wolves. Hardly surprising that there are loads and loads of 'em, considering that the author calls it a "Peggy Sue" fic, and names us as the source of the term, in the fourth sentence of the preface. Also references to "Manipulative Bastard," "Ax-Crazy," "Death of a Thousand Cuts"... Shinji and Warhammer40k has been doing the same thing in recent chapters.
• Nerdorama: I propose two separate drinking games. One shot for every gratuitous TV Tropes Wiki reference, and one shot for every time It Got Worse in an increasingly EPIC manner. Either one alone will kill you, but hey, you had fun reading.
  • X Shouldve Died: No such thing as a "gratuitous" Lampshade Hanging. Well there probably is, but your not going to find it in this fic least of ways.
  • Lavanya Six: To be honest, I've tried to cut down on the outright trope dropping though I'll still use concepts I pick up from this wiki. As for It Got Worse... it hasn't. It really hasn't. Not yet.
  • Nerdorama: Don't get my earlier statement wrong, I'm reading eagerly to see just how much trouble these guys are going to get themselves into, and am laughing evilly at this promise from the author.
    • Lavanya Six: As of August '09, I've tried to purge all the examples of Trope Words I could find in Taking Sights. I'd rather not distract the reader with them, and it's a bit embarrassing for me to look over the story and see them pop up.
• Willbyr: Honestly, I found the trope-dropping in S&WH40K to be more in-your-face than in this tale, although it doesn't hurt either story. The story also connects to Kimigabuchi's doujin RE-TAKE in multiple ways, I was very interested in the changes both major and subtle in the characters' interactions (this is one of the darkest spins on Rei I've seen), as well as some of the changes that appear to have been made in the story's future events, especially Shinji actually killing Asuka on the beach, and Asuka's soul somehow being stuck in Unit 01 along with Yui's near the end of the universe.

Taken from The Second Try

• The rest of the author's work is also good, especially his one-shots, if incredibly WAFFy at times. I was amazed to learn English wasn't his first language (though unsurprised to learn it was German).
• Shay Guy: As pleased as I am, and as impressed by the art as I am, why is it right-to-left? And why not just call it a "webcomic?"
• Nerdorama: Well, I called it a "manga" because it's written right-to-left, and I have no idea why he did it that way in the first place. We all have varying lengths we're willing to go for "authenticity" I guess. I'm also well aware that it's a Fan Web Comic, but since it's the sequel to a text Fan Fic, I wanted to mention it here rather than there.
• Willbyr — I would recommend Second Try in a heartbeat. The characterizations are played perfectly straight, and the interactions between post-3I Shinji and Asuka are handled with grace and insight...several of these scenes easily qualify as CMsOH.

Which story is this for, then?

Sorry, I am all made of fail with technology stuff. Matters Of Faith.

Holy crap, no. No, no, a Googolplex of no. Every story is disputed by someone. I think the best way to handle it is a three sentence limit for negative comments. Lets face it, if it goes beyond 3 sentences it's a rant not a comment.

Ummmm...no. Not that I disagree with the spirit of what you're going for, but some of the negative comments about fics are more than three sentences but do a good job of explaining what's wrong with the fic in the reader's mind. The writeups for Hellstorm Evangelion and DELTA Invasion are prime examples, and I could've broken my critique of Variations on a Theme into more sentences if I wasn't addicted to run-ons. It might be better to put a note somwhere on the page to make comments as much as possible about specifics that you like/don't like, especially for the latter.

So how do we define a rant then? A negative comment that says a fic is bad without going into specifics?

well this really isn't the place for the specifics and critiques. If the work has a TV Tropes page then specifics goes on their review page, if it is on The Pit Of Voles specifics goes in their reviews page and so on... Otherwise we'll just continue to be inundated with Complaining About Shows You Dont Like (and to be fair also Gushing About Shows You Like). Frankly I'd be in favour of withdrawing the comments section altogether if that were possible (especially after what has gone on in certain other pages), the recs should be title, author, link, recommender, and synopsis. Or reduce the comments section to simply warning for tags and triggers (which IIRC was all it was supposed to be to start with), rather than cheerleading or soapboxing.

However, whatever we do, please no separate folder for disputed works.

Given that this is specifically a recommendations page, though, and thus automatically far more subjective than any of our other pages on this wiki, I do find it interesting to see what the rest of the hivemind has to say about a particular fic. Gives me a more detailed picture of whether or not I'd enjoy reading it - which is, again, the purpose of this page; to suggest really good fanfics that the rest of us might wish to peruse.

I disagree with dropping the comments sections, as (at least on this page) there's several fics where the comments say more about the plot than the synopsis. Also, at least for me, the comments are a gauge as to whether or not I might enjoy a fic, in the same way that reviews are a gauge as to whether or not I might enjoy a movie. As I understand it, the Comments field is a standard formatting fixture for all the fan fic pages on TV Tropes; just dropping it arbitrarily might ruffle feathers, especially since someone created a brouhaha on the Ranma One Half page simply by cutting the Sturgeon's Law comment. Off the top of my head, the only feasible replacement would be some kind of positive/negative voting system, much like that used for crowners in the forums, but I don't think that would work for multiple instances on a page.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

well I wouldn't want the comments section removed on just this one page, I would (just as my own personal opinion and not something I would ever take action over without consensus) like to see it removed or revamped entirely from the template. But that is just my personal wishlist-cum-pipedream.

I do think that it should be a lot briefer than it is though. It is way beyond conversation on page and approaching wall of text on some items. That is why I say we should have a three sentence limit on comments, for clarity and conciseness.

Like I say, my opinion only.

Fast Eddie has set up a new feature that will allow us to add reviews to the fan fic suggestions. The code is still in the testing phase, to my understanding, but will go into place fairly soon and will be used in place of the comments sections that are on the recs right now. There may also be a major natter culling, so if you have any comments on the page and you want to preserve them, you may want to rewrite them so they're more like actual reviews or they stand a good chance of being wiped for good.

EDIT: Crap, this was supposed to be its own topic. Oh well.

Go ahead and put in a link; if anyone's read it, I'm sure they'll leave a comment.

I think the fic you are after is Father by Lord Talon. But I could be wrong. On the off chance, anyone remember a Ranma/Eva x-over where Yui yanks Ranma out of canon to replace Toji as the fourth child?

Well.. are you thinking of Tides by Bain?

or if in the fic, there's a romance between Asuka and Ranma, it might be Alternate Future, but then you'd only find it on the Way Back machine...

and then there's Angel of Light by weebee, where Ranma gets possessed by Yui.

Its not Angel of Light or Tides, I'll have a look at Way Back Machine for that other one you mention though. Thank you.

The one I'm remembering, but not finding is that Yui reaches out from the core of Unit One, and yanks Ranma into the future/Alternate universe to prevent Toji from becoming the Fourth Child and prevent Bardiel from taking over Unit 03. Oh and Unit 03's "soul" becomes sentient and gets a crush on Ranma.

Alternate future is a bit more Ah Megumi-sama based, so its probably not it... ppl think yui summoned him, and he becomes the fourth child, and stuff like that. there's a link with a .gz download on Rakahl or whaterver its called.

it fits, i'm just not sure of the "unit 3 gets crush on ranma" part, as some chappies are probably missing

I'll take silence as consent. LMK if I screw anything up.

...and that's all my sleep-deprived brain can come up with for now.

RE: removing Serial Ravist. His fics are good, but part of the intent of the Authors section is to list authors who have multiple Eva fics beyond what are posted here on the page, as well as authors' websites outside Fan Fiction.net. Since Ravist only has the two Eva fics to his credit, this is kinda superfluous.

Put a request in the Wiki Talk forum for that IP to be banned, explaining the trolling.

the same on Ask The Tropers usually attracts Fast Eddie's attention too.