need: Naruto fanfic recommendation

[Shay Guy]

Oddly enough, it's within the top five rated stories in the fandom.

How are you measuring that, and what are the other four?

[Minion]

To amend my statement, I don't know that concretely. I just saw a top ten list of reviewed Naruto stories on fanfiction wiki. (Sigh) I looked for the link to show you but the website is either down or dismantled. Anyway, Team 8 was at the top, and I'm sure I saw NYH on the list as well, because it surprised me.

[MrRigger2]

Well, most reviewed doesn't mean best. Not even close. Though I suppose it is one of the only ways we can measure it.

MrRigger

[Wittgen]

I think number of reviews/page hits is more like TV ratings than anything else. It does a really good job of telling you how many people feel the particular piece of entertainment in question is worth their time. The higher the number, the more people who think it's worth their time, the more likely you'll think it's worth your time.

Sadly, large groups of people can be idiots with no taste, even when they are all acting independently of each other. And hence, American Idol, or Neo Yondaime Hokage, or whatever.

[ewuvi]

and why Firefly got taken off. :(

[U2P]

Personally I'm still in morning for the missing episodes of "The Pirates of Dark Water".

[MrRigger2]

You're not alone in that.

MrRigger

[Tempest Kitsune]

Or the rest of the old Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon, which was given up for Power Rangers of all things! (Yes, alright, theoriginal Power Rangers was awesome, but if we'd known how it would refuse to die I think we'd have been less enthusiastic about it. And the first person to try to compare that abomination-X to the original Fastest Thing Alive gets slapped in the face with a frozen tuna.)

[Ironwolf]

Thought to be clear, you are talking about the one with Urkle, because there have been several other Sonic cartoons, one that is even worse than X (because it is trying to channel classic Loony Toons) and another that had a song break every 15 minutes.

[KingOfShippers]

Thought to be clear, you are talking about the one with Urkle, because there have been several other Sonic cartoons, one that is even worse than X (because it is trying to channel classic Loony Toons) and another that had a song break every 15 minutes.

Are you talking about Sonic Underground.

[Tempest Kitsune]

I'm talking about the one that had Antoine the Coyote, Princess Sally, Bunny Ra-bot, ad Rotor the Walrus, amongst others. In my mind that is the original Sonic cartoon, and the one that set the bar for Sonic's attitude ever after. Sonic Underground was actually pretty good IMO, but yeah, the one where they tried to turn it into another Looney Tunes sucked.

[Ironwolf]

@KOS That would be one of them, it was certainly better than the Chuck Jones wannabe Sonic, but I wouldn't give it really high marks either.

@TK Staring Urkle, seriously Mr. White voiced the title role in that show.

[Kodra]

Sonic the Hedgehog was a pretty awesome cartoon. Somehow they took a goofy mostly devoid of plot game and made it into an epic struggle. I started reading the Archie Comic after watching the show, and I still enjoy that comic. Well... so long as Ken Penders is doing the writing.

There were a couple of truly awful writers that almost ruined the series.

They had to pull out the ol "evil clone" trick just to get stuff back on track.

As for the end of the show? I thought they did a pretty decent job with the ending. Robotropolis was ruined by Sonic and Sally in a combined effort.

[Shay Guy]

Huh. Found the list today by total coincidence. (Seriously, I had Googled "Ebony Dark'ness" for kicks and found the wiki.)

1. Most Reviewed Naruto Fic: Team 8 by S'TarKan
2. : For the Love of my Friends by Foxie-sama
3. : The Mating Frenzy by MSkyDragons
4. : Lost soul by LD 1449
5. : Naruto of the Shikon by LD 1449
6. : The Window by SilverShine
7. : Legacy of the Rasengan I: Naruto by Tellemicus Sundance
8. : Door Number Two by Reaper Nanashi
9. : Mizukage by Dragon6
10. : Neo Yondaime Hokage by Psycho G
11. : A twist of fate by LD 1449
12. : The Uchiha Couple by asashouryuu
13. : Neji and Tenten: 100 Moments by Serenity Silence

I was actually kinda surprised that New Blood wasn't on there, given how much praise I've heard for it. In any case, the list is outdated; looking at the C2, Chunin Exam Day has over six thousand. I repeat, FF.Net fails for not having a sort-by-review-number option.

EDIT: The latest top ten list:

X#1 Most Reviewed Naruto Fic: Team 8 by S'TarKan
^#2 : A Mother's Love by lord of the land of fire
^#3 : Chunin Exam Day by Perfect Lionheart
X#4 : Lost soul by LD 1449
v#5 : The Mating Frenzy by MSkyDragons
v#6 : For the Love of my Friends by Foxie-sama
v#7 : The Window by SilverShine
^#8 : Neo Yondaime Hokage by Psycho G
X#9 : Mizukage by Dragon6
v#10 : Naruto of the Shikon by LD 1449

All over 4,000, top five over 5,000. And keep in mind that, at least in theory, there could be one the editor missed.

FURTHER EDIT: Huh. Chunin Exam Day has passed A Mother's Love in the past month or so, making it #2 - and it was only started seven months ago! Read ten chapters so far out of fiftyish, and definitely enjoying it. (Yes, I'm reading another Naruto fic while there's a fresh T8 chapter out. What can I say, I'm bad at prioritizing. Look at how long it's taking me to get to this B5 episode on the disc in my computer.) 239,000 words so far, and it does have some good NaruHina moments - it's not really focused on pairings, but so far, it's been closest to NaruHina.

YET ANOTHER EDIT: Added the up/down/same markers. Noted that AML and CED are about the same age. AML's description doesn't grab my interest as much, though, so I haven't looked.

[tjchaos]

How 'bout a super fem Sasuke?

Case13 has this one:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4203131/1/Reload

I get the feeling I'm missing something with that one, it may be a sequel to an earlier story I haven't read yet. It's basically a 'Groundhog Day' type of story. It starts out with many repetitions implied but that is never really gone into in the story. So both Naruto and Sasuke have a relationship that they've spent many years together developing some incredible skills to the point that the repetitions are getting boring. Sasuke has developed a female transformation jutsu and during the story he is often a better girl than a guy. The interplay between the two when Sasuke is a girl is hilarious. Often along the lines of fem Sasuke teasing Naruto and Naruto telling him how sick he is.

[biomonkey]

I gotta say I'm fond of pretty much everything written by Case13, the guy does good work. Stray Cat Strut was the first fic of his I read, and aside from his other Bleach drabble, it's one of the very very few good Yoru/ichi pairings I've seen (or in Stray's case, forshadowed). I also like how their abilities are handled in Reload. Where Sasuke is the near definition of a shinobi, Naruto is a charlatan with an almost endless bag of tricks. Though I am with you on wanting the story to pick up the pace a little.

Also, Case13, if you are reading this (which I doubt), I have one simple request:

Pleasepleasepleaseplease update Livewire. Please!

[tjchaos]

and why Firefly got taken off. :(

No, no, no.

Firefly was murdered.

Morons didn't run the episodes in the proper sequence (granted with firefly that doesn't really matter for most of them) and they jumped the show around to different days and timeslots. I vaguely remember seeing commercials for it when it first aired but I never saw a broadcast episode because they screwed the scheduling up so badly.

Whedon needs to run a fund raiser to hire a corporate assassin team to professionally destroy all the people who screwed up Firefly.

[MrRigger2]

I agree, everything from Case13 is excellent. I was first drawn into his stories by Operator, the most believable ANBU!Naruto I've ever seen. Though I really want Livewire to be updated as well. But I'll take anything from him right now.

MrRigger

[Bontrey]

@Shay Guy

After seeing your post, I also read a couple chapters of Chunin Exam Day. I agree that it was good all the way through the first 10 chapters, and then some. Not sure about your tastes, but it went downhill real fast for me...

Spoiler: show

After Naruto releases Kyuubi's seal to let it rampage on Orochimaru then in the next time iteration gains fox ears and a tail

I lost all hope of the fic being a serious story. It's too bad... It had so much potential.

[MrRigger2]

It's a decent fic as long as you go in with the expectation of it not being a serious story. Though I will agree that it goes overboard at times. It definitely gets a bit ridiculous. If you're looking for a more serious repeat fic, try Case13's Reload. It's not set up the same way, and at the same time, it's not completely serious (it features a gender-confused Sasuke who often makes a better girl than boy, something he uses to mess with Naruto to no end), but it's very good.

MrRigger

[Shay Guy]

I'm on chapter 29 now, and I'm seriously reconsidering my recommendation. I don't like character-bashing in general, and there's LOTS of Sasuke-bashing, Kakashi-bashing, Sakura-bashing, a fair amount of Sandaime-bashing, plenty of Konoha-in-general-bashing (sure, associating Naruto with the Kyuubi has led them to do some very silly things, but c'mon - specially ordering kunai to be as shabby as they can possibly be?), and of course the author's notes with their Kishimoto-bashing. I mean, really - "Bakamoto?" It's one thing to not like how part 2's been going, it's another to take the "NONE OF IT IS CANON KISHIMOTO RUINED THE MANGA" stance.

Then there's the point where the author apparently threw a tantrum based on some bad reviews and said he was ending it, and the beginning note to the next chapter which seems to criticize the very concept of constructive criticism. And the fact that Naruto keeps getting more and more overpowered, even considering the "Groundhog Day" premise and the shadow-clone advantage:

Spoiler: show

He has the fox ears and tail, with the extra buttload of chakra those bring and the enhanced senses and such. The author SAID it wasn't a powerup, but then came the limiters, and now he's mostly restored his chakra control, so yes it is. And apparently it's all a bloodline now, too. He's a complete ladies' man, to the point of marrying Hinata, Temari, and Tenten all at once, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PRELIMINARIES. He's also gained ownership of the Uchiha estate, can keep dozens of shadow clones going all night long, has mastered dozens of skills including reading, drawing, painting, flower arrangement, shapeshifting into animals, sculpting, metalworking, tailoring, massage (skilled enough to have any woman alive, including bitter enemies, begging to have his babies inside of ten minutes), regeneration, medicine, and more and more. And now he seems to have circumvented the muscle-memory problem by the expedient of cutting out Kakashi's Sharingan eye.

All that said, it can be fun just in how over-the-top it gets. Like chapter 22, or whenever the preliminary "incident" I mentioned above is. (And the narration says that that gets even MORE over-the-top in future resets.)

EDIT: Ten chapters later, the author's ego is getting out of control, as is Naruto's harem. And I can't stop wondering why Sakura's not a part of it yet, aside from "the author hates Team 7." Literally every other female character is. Okay, deep breath, I can stop reading a bad fanfic in the middle, I've done it before...

[Bontrey]

LOL @ Marrying in middle of exam and cutting out Kakashi's eye

Nice...

[Darksnider05]

Does everyone just ignore the fact that it's an Adventure/Humor so if you were expecting a serious story... well yeah hope you never see a Jay and Silent Bob movie.

[Bontrey]

I saw Jay and Silent Bob strikes back and I thought it was pretty funny.

Also, I did not miss that it's Adventure/Humor, but when it's categorized like that, it usually means that the humors takes a backseat to the adventure, which is evidently not the case here.

On an unrelated note, is anyone else bothered by the fact that 'hurt' and 'comfort' are genres? O_o

[ashez2ashes]

There's a difference between humor and outright spoof/crack fic as well.