Reviews for April 2024
The completely non-special anniversary episode
We did it. It’s been an entire year of monthly reviews. Let’s celebrate by getting right to it.1
2024 update: I’m retroactively adding the modern ★/* highlight system to the top of each old monthly review post, as it was a well received feature.
★: Winning Peace
*: Zenith of Sorcery, I’m on TV!, A horse with no name
Previously on Record Crash…
3 Body Problem
This is the Netflix adaptation of the Chinese book series.2
My issue with reviewing this is that I haven’t read the books, so I’m working off what other people have told me about what Netflix has changed.
Yes, Netflix added at least four new characters because the original books were very dry in that area,3 and it makes the plot feel “more human”. But in my opinion, most of the new characters suck. Was it worth it anyway, a net positive? I have no clue.
I’ll just ignore the source material and evaluate this objectively, with a preamble on the plot: the show takes place in the modern world with few alterations, but there’s a conspiracy in the background that has been in contact with aliens for decades. This conspiracy is intentionally pushing scientists into suicide or into at least stopping their work, in order to prevent technological progress.
Why are they doing this? The aliens, the San Ti, are still 400 years away from Earth, and they know from our respective histories that we develop much faster than them. They want to keep their superiority so they can take over when they get there. The conspiracy agrees with the aliens on this, because their leaders are environmental activists and think humans are fucking up the planet with no solution.
Most of this is in the background of the show, slowly revealed. We’re mostly looking at individual scientists and how they react to things. Conveniently, the most important ones are in the same friend group. There’s also a mysterious VR game the aliens are using to recruit people to their cause.
As I recount this, I’m realizing it’s kind of a huge mess. It’s not just poor communication skills on my part, I swear, there are legitimately ten different plotlines. There’s some drama with one of the main characters slowly dying of cancer, but by the end of the season he’s taking up 40% of the screentime and providing absolutely nothing to plot progression. There’s an incredibly annoying woman (the annoying one in the video) who keeps flipflopping on whether the ends justify the means, which is stupid given the “ends” are probably aliens taking over the planet and enslaving and killing everyone.
But almost none of this matters, because the problems the plot presents are technological, not really moral or character-related. So it can’t help but feel like filler, if sometimes entertaining.
Overall, it’s just something to put on the TV. It makes you think after you shut it off, but I think all the interesting parts were probably the ones kept from the books. I should probably just read those…
Incidence
If you read these reviews religiously you probably remember that one Tanya/Psychonauts fanfic, the one I praised exclusively because how it adapted the game elements.
This is a Deltarune fanfic, and my reaction was much the same: what a bizarrely decent translation. Deltarune is a weird pre-sequel to Undertale, in case you don’t know it, but it’s the same genre, a topdown RPG with some meta gimmicks and secrets all over the place.
So how do you even adapt a video game that relies on player choice to a linear medium? It’s a challenge, but the writer stepped up to it pretty hard. The save points become fuel for time loop plots, the ACT actions are combined with the former to turn the loops social-munchkin-themed, and a myriad of side characters are recontextualized to help push the story forward.
It’s fairly original, and excellently executed. The mission statement really seems to be novelizing the game, but since Deltarune is so weird and vague with its worldbuilding, it pays off more than not. Additionally, there’s one big difference from canon, with Noelle taking Susie’s place, so it dodges the potential repetition of dialogue skillfully.
Sadly, the overall plot is nothing special, slightly below mediocre even. This is clearly an author that’s better at worldbuilding and ideas than they are at anything else, leading to a story that really fails to justify its word count. It also drives off a cliff the moment the fic surpasses the games, which have only released 2/7 chapters after what, seven years of development? But it’s a nice read up to that point, if you liked the games.
Leprechaun in the Hood
Not to be confused with its sequel Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood, this movie is really making me regret my self-imposed task to review everything I consume.4
It’s a movie about three guys’ ascent in the rap industry with the help of a magic flute, while an evil Leprechaun played by Warwick Davis is trying to get it back and kills them one by one. It was one of those so bad it’s good movies, but not remotely memorable in any way—
Holy shit, Substack lets you embed financial charts now!!!!111
The Saga of Tanya the Firebender
This is the mandatory Tanya fic this month. Remember I put off reading any stories for the longest time, so now there’s a sizable backlog, which… might be done with this? Wait no, I actually also read the first chapter of A Young Girl’s Criminal Record, the itself mandatory Worm crossover. I dropped it nigh immediately, but I’ll just review that in a footnote.5
Anyway, this ATLA crossover is solidly mediocre. If anything, it only distinguishes itself by its flaws, making Tanya notably dumber and more emotional than in canon. Now, being fair, there are like four different Tanya canons with the web novel, light novel, manga and anime all portraying slightly different versions of the character, but even then, this fic clearly picked the wrong version.
If you’ve read any Fire Nation self-inserts (obviously you have, copy of me I’m imagining reading this review) you’ve already read this fic. It’s just Tanya as a princess slowly growing through the ranks until she’s in charge of the entire army. The plot is not worth recounting beyond that. There are some fun interactions with the protagonist gang, but they’re far and between. Everything is average, and Tanya’s Idiot Balls are often what prevents the story from rising above.
Overall, I finished what was released of the fic, but borderline regret it.
Samurai Cop
A terrible “so bad it’s good” movie. The first half had a lot of funny moments like the above, but the second is full of extremely repetitive action. Honestly, with this one I actually do recommend just watching the short review by RedLetterMedia instead, there isn’t a lot to it.
Uninspired
Don’t make the obvious joke.
This is a Mass Effect fic with a self-insert with access to the Inspired Inventor superpower. It’s basically a tech tree that lets you unlock different technologies from worlds of fiction.
I actually read two fics with the exact same premise this month. This was the bad one. I only kept reading it because it’s made by my favorite type of writer, the weirdo who keeps putting bizarre political opinions in his work with the slightest excuse.
I was already reviewing colleges online and trying to find one actually focused on STEM and not trying to force students into the indoctrination camp that was ‘humanities’ courses. I didn’t need to waste multiple semesters’ worth of my time (and money!) learning the communist manifesto or how awful I was for the original sin of being born with ‘privilege’ to justify the continued existence of those courses and departments full of useless bloat, when I could instead be studying stellar bodies… and science, too.
He quickly becomes overpowered and takes over the galaxy with his crew of hot android women. But the opinions never quite go away. I absolutely do not recommend reading this unless you have the same personality defect I do.
Don’t make the obvious joke.
A horse with no name*
This was (accurately) recommended by a reader of this blog as outsider art to the Harry Potter fanfiction scene. It’s written by someone who’s never read or watched anything in the world, and is working off the wiki. The main character is Narcissa Malfoy in an alternate universe where Voldemort is an actual character instead of a vehicle to deliver Rowling’s famous “death is good actually” moral. No characters are recognizable, the world barely is.
It’s well written, though I’d say it’s an evolution of the AO3/Tumblr school of writing instead of my usual FFnet/SB branch, which might alienate some readers a bit. The author’s background leads to a unique gimmick, which is… a spoiler. I can’t tell you, you need to find out for yourself. This is a very short fic, so you won’t waste any more time than needed. Give it a try.
Rango
Unlike the previous story’s misleading name, this one is actually about cowboys. The Wikipedia page sums it up:
Rango is a 2011 American animated Western comedy film
Oh, it’s not a children’s film then, despite the animation and the fact 90% of the jokes are slapstick or the main character being comically incompetent? The word “child” is nowhere in the description at least—oh hey look at the bottom of the page:
Categories: 2010s children's adventure films
The mixed signal Wikipedia is sending here is not really its fault. The movie itself doesn’t seem to want to settle for either category. This is mostly to its detriment, like having prostate jokes in the middle of goofy animal shenanigans, or mixed morals I’ll get to.
The comedy is generally really, really bad. The drama is actually pretty decent, and it’s actually making a point about how stupid making golf fields in the middle of the desert is, or having Clint Eastwood himself show up and help Rango realize playing a part can itself help people as much as being oneself.
Ultimately though, the comedy is most of the film, and while it’s initially amusing, every single joke starts looking the same. The film is way too long, mostly caused by its tendency to foreshadow everything twice, even when the payoff is not worth it, and partially because its third act has like three separate climax showdowns,6 none of which really land, and the one that gets closest, one of the villains tipping his hat to Rango and accepting him as a cowboy, falls a bit flat, given he’s a murderer and Rango shouldn’t want his respect at all.
That might just be a general cowboy thing, though. But I, controversially, believe murder is wrong, and having that kind of beat just shows how much this fails at being a children’s movie.7
Cool, memorable ideas, overall bad movie. I was so sure it had to have flopped but it made back twice its budget at a time when that didn’t mean failure. Must have gotten really good marketing.
Winning Peace★
This is the good Mass Effect Inspired Inventor fic.
Instead of dwelling on how cool and overpowered our protagonist is, the story focuses on the societal effects of this guy advancing technology, with a twist. As we find out later, there’s another guy with a similar power doing the best to ruin it, using memetics and social-fu. This leads to a nuclear war destroying most of the planet, with Kessler syndrome putting a barrier between our guy’s moon base and the main villain’s Anarcho-Primitivist cult back on Earth.
But this conflict is in the background for most of the fic. The brunt is composed of many interludes with a liberal amount of timeskips, leading to an Accelerando-style8 experience on how the societies are progressing and reacting to each other. For example, one of the interludes takes place on Earth, where a mute girl in the third world is falling in love with a non-sentient teaching AI our guy invented.
This isn’t “published quality”, but it’s one of the best things I read this month, especially with how low my expectations were set by the genre.9 I only wish there was more of it.
Renfield
The unironic “*record scratch* yep that’s me” moment in 2023 really sets the tone.
It’s still a pretty good B-movie, however. Nicolas Cage steals the show far more than that clip makes it look, and Nick Hoult as Renfield isn’t bad at all. There’s some funny and clever (if extremely bloody in a bad CGI way) action, and the movie never lost my interest. It was generally fun.
It does have flaws, the main one being Awkwafina, who “plays” (it’s hard for me to take the attempt seriously) a cop investigating a gang. That whole plotline is a mess, merely an excuse for action scenes, but the cop has no chemistry with Renfield at all, and they push a weird romance between them.
Ultimately, I think the good outweighs the bad, but I know this is an uncommon opinion to have. Hollywood, I beg you, stop giving her roles.10
Quantum Bugsort
This is the vanishingly rare Homestuck fic that isn’t about boys kissing.
It’s about programming. In the webcomic, there’s a plot device about a programming language that can execute “real world code”, from summoning time demons to cursing people and exploding computers, all set on conditions based around the deaths of things.
This language is ~ATH (pronounced “til death”). It’s basically lore minutia in the original comic, not dwelled on or really explained. In this comic, the hacker character explains how it truly works, and it’s terrible, and terribly entertaining. Good, in-character dialogue, and good ideas.
It’s completely possible this is only enjoyable for those in the intersection of “programmer” and “Homestuck fan”, let me warn you, but I recommend it even if you’re just in the latter camp.
Celestial Hymn
The Celestial Forge is an incredibly broken Game System-style gimmick, where you get random access to certain technologies based on word count. You wrote 1000 words? Okay, roll the dice, you get to build laser guns. Or maybe you get nothing, if you can’t afford the power. Don’t worry, the reader will be told when that happens, repeatedly.
This fic, where our protagonist is a minor vassal in the Game of Thrones universe, only kept my interest because the latter case kept happening. Despite the broken powers, which usually push characters into Mary Sue territory five chapters in, this guy kept rolling the weaker aesthetic powers (to the point he had to become a popular artist to get anywhere), and failed to afford anything else. When he finally gets real tech, it’s a library of weapons without its accompanying manufactory, or a crew of cyborg slaves he can’t use without getting inquisited by the Church.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t stay unfortunate forever. He hits on a good power and the fic immediately turns even shittier than it already was. This is not worth reading, but at least it was fun to see this gimmick backfire for once.
Camera Shy
I caught up with this fic, or maybe dropped it, when it was very early on, back in 2018 (main reason why I don’t remember which one it was). Recent positive reviews made me give it another try.
I got further in this time, but the fic’s got issues.
The concept is genius. Taylor has a seemingly shitty power with infinite clever applications, a rare quality it shares with her canon power. She can turn into a ghost if people don’t look at her, but she can do little but move around and slightly “stack” force against objects when she’s in her ghost state, which will apply all at once when time stops. She’s got very little stamina, and she can’t see anything that’s being seen by other people…
It’s complicated. Taylor is technically blind after her Trigger Event, so her power is themed around that in multiple ways. Her new status also leads to some fun non-cape scenes.
The main flaw of this fic is the pacing, compounded by the secondary failing of too many original characters. The author looked at a forgotten, “early installment weirdness”-style line by Wildbow, which said Brockton Bay had “a few dozen vigilantes”.
This was obviously not true, given the Worm we read, but our writer became obsessed with it, and added like twenty new capes to the city. We won’t even get to meet most, but they keep coming up in dialogue, with their powers explained over and over.11 I guess if you have a fic themed around a really good power, it sometimes is because the author can’t stop thinking about OC powers in general.
The OCs slow down the pacing slightly, but it’s not a fast story in the first place. Expect multi-chapter fights and multi-chapter reactions. She stays at street level, with little plot progression as of the point I dropped it.
This is a rare fic where I don’t mind recommending it regardless. It’s possible original characters in fanfic annoy me more than the usual person, and it’s possible you have a longer attention span than I do. The power is really good, and the author is clever in its applications. Godspeed.
Zenith of Sorcery*
The new story by the creator of Mother of Learning. That novel had a big, often overlooked flaw: it took nine years to write, which wasn’t exactly justified by a stellar quality of writing (the guy’s first language isn’t even English).
This one is similar. It came out last July, but I’m only now reading it, because it took this long to reach 70,000 words, my usual threshold for picking up ongoing works. A normal writer like Alexander Wales would have taken under two months to get there, releasing his usual two chapters a week.
The plot is the radical opposite of MoL, with a protagonist that’s already at the top of his field. The strongest wizard in all the lands, only limited by the weaknesses of the magical system itself. He’s returning to his homeland after a long self-imposed political exile—he tried to take over a wizard academy but all his allies stabbed him in the back and chose a different guy at the last second.
The extended vacation has helped him realize he didn’t really know what he wanted at the time. He’s grown as a person and now he just wants to reconnect with people, find a new goal in life.
As he travels back home, he gets embroiled in a few adventures along the way. The best way to describe the general plot is “a WRPG, but you’re playing all the sidequests first”, which has lead to people calling this novel slow-paced.
I don’t think that’s true, though. If I understand the core of the story right, which I’ll admit it’s hard with only ten chapters out, the distractions are the plot. They’re all loosely designed around themes of legacy, thinking about the future and raising people to face it. I think that’s mostly what the story is about, an incredibly powerful man realizing the best thing he can do is help other people be powerful instead of protagonisting all over the place.
Anyway, it’s controversial in the circles I’m in (all complaining it never gets anywhere, that it’s “fillery” and nothing happens), though I agree with its top-rated position at Royal Road. This is well written, and I gel with it. I will follow its monthly releases with great interest.
Also, this novel fucking LOVES trees.
Marcus was once again standing atop a big tree. It was admittedly not sacred in any way, but it was even taller than the Sacred Oak had been. The view was very impressive, too. He slowly turned around to take in the view around him, taking care not to fall off the branch he was standing on. He was surrounded by trees, but the one he was standing on was considerably taller than the rest, giving him a clear view into the distance at all sides. Towards the east, where he had come from, the trees seemed to stretch forever […]
[9 chapters later]
It was an impressive example of tree-kind. A very large oak with a lush canopy, a healthy bark, and strong roots that poked out of the ground in places. All other trees had been cleared away from its vicinity, creating a grassy clearing centered on the oak. Yes, the Sacred Oak was certainly majestic, but Marcus had seen bigger trees, especially in the Sea of Leaves. It was really just a large oak tree […]
I’m on TV!*
Let me warn you beforehand that this is the dreaded Real Person Fiction, or RPF. At least, if you consider rich celebrities people.
I’ve reviewed a very similar fic before, Snakes and Ladders (previously named “I’m An Actor!”), which had a Gary Stu (with the power of Gaming on his side) take over the entire industry. I still read it ironically, and his current objective is being nominated in every Oscar category at once. It’s very silly and poorly written.
This one is a stark contrast. Our main character is charismatic, sure, and he technically has a power that allows him to remember information that would have been publicly available in 2024 (letting him know which movies are successful ahead of time, opportunities, etc.), but he doesn’t use it for becoming a producer or open his own studio or anything huge.
He simply uses it to ace an audition and take over Daniel Radcliffe’s titular role in the Harry Potter movies.
What follows is a fictionalized version of the shooting of the saga, including scenes like our main character intentionally breaking his arm to replace an action heavy scene with a more book-accurate one, which helps with allying himself with Rowling behind the scenes. This is almost a fix-fic for the terrible parts of the adaptations, but it mostly reads like a normal story about a child actor learning to be a proper one, which is more interesting than it sounds.
Though it’s not all that well written, it’s a massive improvement over Snakes and Ladders12, and I enjoyed it a lot, but I think this does require 1. not being immediately repulsed by the concept of RPF13 and 2. having consumed both the HP books and the films.
Fateful Findings + Twisted Pair
Two other “so bad it’s good” movies, these ones very unaware of it.
Neil Breen is a famous artiste in the genre, a former architect and real estate agent turned midlife crisis director. He seems to lack any understanding of what makes movies (or stories in general) work. As you see in the clip above, he also always plays the protagonist in his films, poorly.
The plots are also bizarre and poorly explained, leading to much ironic analysis by his fans. For these two in particular, I thought the plot was just a bad excuse to put Neil Breen next to hot, often naked women. And Twisted Pair was the same short film of four scenes repeated six or seven times, until you get sick of it. But it was all worth it for Fateful Findings's final moments, which I don’t want to spoil. I think his other films are less sleazy and more batshit, and I look forward to watching them.
Please don’t let me become a full-time movie reviewer. If you ever see me making a Letterboxd account, you have my permission to kill me.
Abusing Tropes In A Generic Anime World For Maximum Bullshit
A title like that is just baiting me. It’s not very good though.
It’s a reasonably original story14, but one, calling the anime world generic is not hyperbole, and two, the writer isn’t nearly talented enough to write generic anime stories, let alone deconstruct them like this.
This takes place in a town where basically every anime is happening at once, with mental blocks preventing different settings from interacting too much, and different “genres” from interacting at all. Horror, drama, comedy, shonen, etc.
Our main character is the only sane man, the only one who can see the entire town at once. The plot starts with a massive in-medias-res and kind of stays there, skipping the process of discovery. He’s already invoked the shonen training tropes to make himself near all powerful, he has experimented enough to see almost every situation coming… it’s just a boring setup. But there’s more.
Just like in The Simulacrum, a very similar story, a female NPC “awakens” when she comes in contact with the protagonist (and it’s good she’s another viewpoint character, otherwise it’d be even more boring), and the “plot”, if there’s anything beyond the monster-of-the-week arcs, is finding out why people like her are suddenly “waking up”.
But it’s mostly monster-of-the-week arcs. Our guy stumbles upon a random anime’s plot and he defuses it with overwhelming force, rinse and repeat.
There are a couple clever applications, and unfortunately the one I remember most clearly is a fairly horny one. There’s this NTR businessman using his power to take advantage of a group of young idols, Weinstein style.15 The main character, instead of trying to beat him up, kisses a hot woman in front of him for long enough to give the businessman a boner.16 This permanently role-shift him from cucker to cuck, preventing him from ever being a threat to women again. As our “hero” says, with an NTR setting, it was either that or killing him. The genre would not allow the villain to be defeated within its rules, but it will somewhat allow moving characters from one archetype to another.
But no, I don’t recommend this. The Simulacrum’s first arc (and ONLY the first arc) was a better implementation of the concept. I do think a great writer could take this idea and turn it into a banger (and not about fucking anime), but perhaps you could say the same of all ideas.
High Tide
This is a House of the Dragon self-insert, kind of. I guess it’s technically a prequel to that, with material it takes from the lorebook Fire & Blood.17
It’s a self-insert into the body of Corlys Velarion, a guy who looks very different depending on where you’re looking. We meet him as an old man in the show, but this fic covers the period from his childhood to adulthood.
The first ten or so chapters of the fic are pure uplift, our SI going around the world with his modern ships, bringing spices, tea, clocks, compasses and so on to Westeros. We see all of it from the perspective of his brother or love interest, and we’ll never get a protagonist viewpoint. It’s one of those.
After the initial uplift chapters, the writer gets bored and shifts to the light intrigue House of the Dragon is known for, including dumb choices that seem designed only for drama. Honestly, this fic is incredibly popular, but I don’t really understand why. I have the feeling it was just in the right place at the right time, because I had to drop it after the SI decided to start a war just because the King wouldn’t let his children inherit an entire country. Who the fuck even cares? You’re already the most powerful man in the world after the King himself!18 It’s competently written, I guess, but the author just kept picking the lamest, story-stretching choices, and shifting the focus to the most boring characters outside the action, much like A Dance With Dragons.
If I had to be uncharitable, I’d say he stumbled onto a story that gave him a lot of attention and fanart, and he just forced himself to keep it going forever, even when the idea well ran out.
I am Cersei, Light of the West… And the Avatar?
And this is the complete opposite of the previous story, a SI that just wants to have fun, really.
The title spells it out. A self-insert awakens in Cersei’s baby body, and she’s able to bend all four elements to her will, though she’s pretty bad at it so far since she has no teachers and only vague Avatar dreams. She discovers that bending has been awakening all around the world recently, though it’s consider witchcraft so it’s mostly rumors so far. The SI uses her knowledge from having read three (3) ASOIAF books to change some events for the better.
Very entertaining so far, reminds me a lot of Pokemon Trainer Vicky in both strengths and flaws. On one hand it’s hard to tell whether it’s meant to be crack or serious at points, but on the other, if you turn your brain off, it’s pretty fun.
From Shadows
There’s this extremely common phenomenon in fanfiction, wherein a random kid has an arguably great idea, but completely fucks up when it’s time to put words to paper.
This is the opposite. From Shadows’ writer is clearly relatively competent, but when it was time to actually come up with interesting ideas for his Naruto self-insert fic, he failed miserably.
Some twenty chapters in, after the excruciatingly boring story of a competent ninja going through the motions, never interacting with canon, and never even achieving his goals, we get this author’s note:
I've also been thinking a lot about my writing. I've reached a point where I'm not really benefiting from this like I once was. I was learning a lot when I first started writing, and that isn't really the case any more. I still enjoy it, but most of the issues I have are with story direction which can be ironed out by planning. The stories I have that were outlined well don't have the issues that the ones that weren't planned have.
So really, I'm doing this without getting anything from it.
Yeah, I could tell. Couldn’t drop it fast enough after that, but I should have cut my losses earlier. Learn from me, kids…
Considerations of Flight
This is a sequel of Always be yourself…, the dragon-in-Star-Trek fic I reviewed back in October. It’s actually complete, too.
It covers the period of time after our dragon main character graduates from Starfleet Academy and finally joins a ship in a campaign that will take him from workplace bullying to Wolf 359 (you know, the place with the big Borg battle).
I have the exact same things to say about the sequel: not a masterpiece, but I envy the writer’s imagination to come up with so many good Star Trek ideas. There are some depressing implications to the main character’s life (will outlive everyone around him, and keep growing until he can’t fit in any Starfleet ship anymore, which is already hard), but his optimistic mindset really makes up for it.
So yeah, if you enjoyed the original, it’s a no-brainer to read this one too. This one requires Trek knowledge even more than the original, though.
Systema Delenda Est
I read Paranoid Mage when it came out. I enjoyed the first few chapters immensely thanks to the sheer originality of its libertarian-esque main character just wanting 1984 wizards to leave him alone, but ended up dropping it when it was clear there was absolutely no planning or solid worldbuilding behind it.
This is another serial by the same guy, still fairly early in. I decided to check it out to see if the author had had some growth in the meantime.
He actually regressed. It’s basically a novelization of Warframe meets Generic Dungeon World. It’s set in an alien planet, where our protagonist has decided to go after humans finally defeated the system back on Earth. His motivation? Right there in the title.
Unfortunately, the premise is all there is. Guy tries to destroy every dungeon on his own, with a lot of action and little challenge. The only dialogue we get is from the villains and kind-of-villains as they try to find him. While the specific mechanics of our protag’s biopunk abilities are interesting, there’s just no depth whatsoever, no themes. It’s popcorn with the novelty lasting around two chapters if not slightly less.
Did not enjoy it at all. Boo to it.
Precocious Witches and Where to Find Them
From Shadows was a competent writer tackling the most unoriginal Naruto self-insert playthrough ever, so I was extremely worried when I picked up Precious Witches and it seemed like it was doing the exact same thing with Harry Potter. But I was so wrong.
As you might know if you’ve ever looked into HP fics, there’s this insanely popular series of fan-novels titled Alexandra Quick, about a girl attending an american version of Hogwarts.
I really, really, really hate Alexandra Quick. The main reason is hidden in plain sight: Alexandra herself fucking sucks. She’s most well known for refusing to ever back down from a challenge, no matter the power level. The issue is, she interprets everything as a challenge, she’s very incompetent, and her character doesn’t even have the proper grounding for us to relate to her when she’s “““fighting back”””. It’s watching the chronicles of a spoiled child as she bashes against the wall of authority over and over.
So you’ll be glad to hear I consider Precocious Witches to be a good implementation of what I can only assume the AQ writer was going for. We’ve got:
A girl with a tragic backstory (that we get to see) and enough canon knowledge to justify her mistrust of the authorities.
Hogwarts instead of some way less developed American school.
Enough rule violations and moral ambiguity to fill three Alexandra Quick books, but with a protagonist whose life or status is threatened unless she does those things, making us relate to her.19 There’s always a reason and a tradeoff, and we can see why Sylvia would do those things even if we wouldn’t.
It pulled a dagger from my heart, left by those awful American novels like fifteen years ago.
It’s not all positives, of course. It flags pacing wise at some points near the middle, especially because it looks like it will become way too grimdark for its own good, but it recovers splendidly, culminating in some original if minor twists on canon. I wholeheartedly recommend it if you generally enjoy HP self-inserts, but otherwise, well, it’s no Wand for Skitter.
I’m at the point in my fanfiction blogging career (a thing that exists and is highly paid) where readers are actually commenting often and recommending new things to me. It’s not nearly as frequent as I wish it was, but you can expect a couple of those reviewed next month. Look forward to that.
I’m sorry for complaining about hack unoriginal writers, but I’m on a deadline for once. Finished four different stories over the last couple days.
I’m once again sorry, this time for how shitty this video is, but no one else decided to upload this hilariously terrible scene.
My impression is that they’re basically The Martian without the humor and wit.
It’s bad. It starts in the middle of the Slaughterhouse Nine arc, which is novel, but the Worm cast were so jarringly out of character and the writing so amateurish I knew to drop it ASAP.
I’ve been informed I’m actually describing Homestuck here, but nah, the comic is famous for making all climaxes happen at the same time, during single flash animations. In Rango, the three I’m talking about all happen during the third act, but have one or two scenes between each. Every time, you think it’s the final climax, but then another one comes.
It’s possible this was going for more of an all ages vibe with “hidden” jokes, like say The Simpsons, but I don’t know, the jokes aren’t hidden, and it would still fail at that. I still don’t understand how this weird-ass movie had any mass market appeal at all.
I read two chapters of Accelerando ten years ago, which makes me an expert in identifying Accelerando-style plots.
Wait, how is this Mass Effect, you ask? Well, I guess the Reapers are waiting for our protagonist at the very end of the timeline, though he’s only started preparing for that as of the latest chapter.
If you want to learn to hate Awkwafina as much as I do, and the name doesn’t do it, this is a quick way.
I am told the worst instance of this actually becomes a major character later, but it takes way too long to pay off if that’s the case.
Our protagonist’s stunt double is named “Ricky Sterling” after the protagonist of the other fic, and yeah, that’s appropriate.
Before you ask how far it goes, he’s banged one known Hollywood actress so far, though at least she was over 18. Romance doesn’t even add anything to these fics, and just makes recommending them harder, I just don’t get why both actorfics had to go for it. Fan demand? Terminally horny authors? Both?
Some characters are named after existing anime characters, but that’s as far as it gets. I never felt like I was missing anything.
But not literally Harvey Weinstein, unlike with I’m on TV!
Please George, just write the actual book people want.
Before you bring up that A Song of Ice and Fire has equally stupid characters, lemme tell you I’d complain about it too if I was reviewing it.
Up to and including stealing unicorn blood.
Hey, A Young Girl’s Criminal Record author here. Ouch. But, uh, fair: 1.1 is garbage for (mostly) those reasons.
On a technical level: Yeah, the first few chapters are very rough. I'd written... maybe 10K words of fiction in my life before 1.1, mostly for school, and it really shows. I think I more or less got it figured out by 1.6 or 1.7. It's still not perfect, to be sure, but it's probably the aspect of the story that's seen the most improvement, to the point that since 1.X dialogue and prose are semi-regularly highlighted as strong points in reviews. At some point I really need to go back and rewrite at least 1.1-1.5, but of course my current audience would always rather I work on the next chapter.
Character-wise: Alec's personality isn't wrong directionally, I think, but his energy level is way too high. He's never had a big role in the story -- 1.1/1.2 contain about half his lines to-date -- but I still think I've gotten a much better handle on him by now. Taylor's ~50% too strident, which stays a problem for a while; an awkward setup for a conflict I only really got a handle on in 1.12/1.13. And I didn't really have a deep understanding what I was doing with her until 2.5 or maybe 2.8. She's just got a lot going on.
But I imagine the biggest issue is Lisa? Definitely the most off, which in my defense is partially intentional: Coil's already on the back foot since Echidna broke out of his main base and attracted a lot of unwanted attention. Powerful, unaffiliated capes literally dropping out of the sky seems like a perfect opportunity to hit him with something he couldn't possibly have anticipated. (Even Dinah's of limited usefulness, given he has to show her pictures of people to identify them.) So she's trying her best to be accommodating at least until she can set that up... But honestly, I didn't have the skill to pull something like that off when I wrote the chapter, so I don't think it really works even in context. Separately, her characterization is pretty off: too erratic, too sociopathic, and too careless, mainly, though I think those issues are more apparent in 1.2 and 1.5 than 1.1. She's the deuteragonist and I think her characterization has improved the most as the story has progressed; I'm certainly much happier with the voice I've found for her now. 1.8 is much closer to correct and it's pretty much settled by 2.3.
And perhaps you found the PRT's instant violence to be a little too much? Honestly, I never did quite enough to justify it in story, but the idea is that a lot more clones had managed to survive the Echidna response and they've been completely swamped with emergencies for the last few days. (Given the response time, the helicopter had to already be in flight, for one bit of evidence.) And they were already struggling to cope with their (somewhat different set of) Leviathan losses. It was a bad call but I hope somewhat understandable in context.
As for how closely my characterization matches canon? Well, it gets a lot closer, but I've ultimately concluded I'd rather prioritize writing a decent story over perfect canon accuracy. Not enormous departures, mind, and I'd always rather expand on areas WB left blank than alter the things he did write, but it still might be too much if it's really important to you. For example, I decided to run with the 'Miss Militia has perfect memory' fanon because it makes her much more capable -- the heroes need all the Thinker support they can get -- and has interesting character and plot implications, given the role I have in mind for her. That's probably the single biggest change I've made, for reference.
(And there's Tanya's characterization, which you didn't mention but has been pretty controversial over the course of the story. I think I had the clearest idea what I was doing with her out of everyone in 1.1, though some of the execution is embarrassingly crude. It's hard to discuss specifics given a few details that aren't meant to be clear just yet. I think it's about up-to-par (given my understanding of her character) by 1.7.)
The story has (somewhat unintentionally) ended up very character-focused, and I think everyone's gotten a lot deeper and more interesting as I've grown as a writer. Perhaps not entirely for the better, given how much introspection, planning, discussion, and analysis have choked out other aspects of the story. But still, I'm a lot happier with where it is now than where it was when I started out.
But of course it's up to you if you feel like engaging with these points or giving the story another chance. I found this post because I google the story's name occasionally, but I've read some of your other reviews and think we actually have pretty similar tastes. (Those are almost exactly my feelings on Zenith of Sorcery, for one. And unfortunately not far off on System Delenda Est. Though did you read Chasing Sunlight? Kind of a Sunless Skies/Gulliver's Travels thing. The world building is still a bit nonsensical, though probably above average for existential horror, but the episodic nature of a travel log format works well with his style, I think. And it's a lot more focused than either Paranoid Mage or System Delenda Est.) So I like to think you'd like my more recent chapters; or, at least, more than you liked 1.1. And, selfishly, I'd appreciate getting pointed towards things that I don't already know are problems, and it seems like you'd do a good job at that. Appreciate the feedback regardless.