Lost/Dead Fics -- a Wish List

[Bob Schroeck]

Bob Schroeck wrote:

---

One I just stumbled over again: A Time Apart by Ozzallos. Another "ah, man!" at the end fic.

And I just discovered recently that there's more of this in Ozzallo's section of the Fanfiction Federation.

-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Bob Schroeck]

Bob Schroeck wrote:

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Girl's School by Miko2, a Ranma 1/2 fic that had been going strong for 7 years -- 2006 to 2013 -- but which appears to be dead now.

And in glancing at it, I see that it was updated just over a year ago, so it's not quite dead.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[kestrel404]

I've really been wanting to re-read the 'Bibliography' webcomic which used to be hosted on GaijinManga.com - which is now gone. It had some good stuff/ideas relating to mythology-related powers.
"Not this again!" Minerva said. "Albus, it was You-Know-Who, not you, who marked Harry as his equal. There is no possible way that the prophecy could be talking about you!" - Harry Potter and the Method of Rationality, Chapter 84

[Bob Schroeck]

Here's another one I lost in that thumbdrive crash that I've mentioned several times. I was only reminded it of after stumbling across a reference to it on ATT: You've Got Ranma by Jennifer Morales.
It's a Ranma AU strongly patterned on the movie You've Got Mail: Ranma and Akane know each other from high school, but aren't on the best of terms with each other. Unbeknownst to either, though, they are each other's pseudonymous online "best friend", and they each end up coaching the other through the thawing of their real-world relationship and its growth into a romance. The story ends with an omiai held by their families, where they discover that not only have the families chosen to affiance them (unaware of their relationship), but that they are the online friends who were always there to help and listen.

I was going to note that it's disappeared from the Web and ask if anyone had it, but I just found a copy at The Wayback Machine. So this entry is now more a pointer at a good lost fic, rather than a plea for a copy.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[kestrel404]

Oh, I just found that webcomic on a new server.

http://tapastic.com/episode/81247

Hasn't updated since the last time I read it, so I guess it's well and truly dead. First two chapters are still good.
"Not this again!" Minerva said. "Albus, it was You-Know-Who, not you, who marked Harry as his equal. There is no possible way that the prophecy could be talking about you!" - Harry Potter and the Method of Rationality, Chapter 84

[Bob Schroeck]

Drakensis's Here's Your Accordion.

And in case no one saw it in a different thread, while Drakensis has abandoned this fic, he posted all his extant notes and scenes -- going all the way right up to just short of a complete ending -- here.

[LilFluff]

Drakensis's Here's Your Accordion.

And in case no one saw it in a different thread, while Drakensis has abandoned this fic, he posted all his extant notes and scenes -- going all the way right up to just short of a complete ending -- here.

I hadn't run into that one before. Halfway through the first page and I'm liking it. One of his I'm wishing for more of is No Such Thing As An Unarmed Huntress.

[ECSNorway]

A wish not likely to be fulfilled: Sequels to Chilord's "I'm only a Freshman", "NBH", and the completion of "Sekrit Projekt", as the author has passed on this morning.

[classicdrogn]

Anything at all by Crimson Square, who hasn't been on SB or SV for about a year from the "Last seen" dates on her profile pages. The fics there, the Magical Girl Genki Simurgh quest, anything. Her Girl Genius fic on AO3 was pretty nifty too.

[classicdrogn]

Quoting from the Updates thread:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6557238/78/...eft-Unsaid
Better Left Unsaid (Naruto).

Every time I see this, I think it's a different fic, except that one was complete years ago. I've tried searching for the name but only get this and a couple of sub-1000 word Naruto/Sasuke shorts... and I'm pretty shaky on the rest of the details of the one I keep thinking it should be, aside from that I think it somehow got Ino and Sakura into a tringle with Naruto instead of Sasuke, and they may have gotten body-swapped. Or someone did... All I can recall for sure is someone telling one of the two that they can't die yet, we're going to find a way to get you back in your proper body, but she does anyway and most of what's left is epilogue. That sounds horrible, but I'm convinced it was a great story with some real development and depth getting to that point... and it would be old, relatively speaking. Probably pre-2006, definitely from before 2008 because I know I read it before moving to where I'm at now.

[ECSNorway]

Quoting from the Updates thread:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6557238/78/...eft-Unsaid
Better Left Unsaid (Naruto).

Every time I see this, I think it's a different fic, except that one was complete years ago. I've tried searching for the name but only get this and a couple of sub-1000 word Naruto/Sasuke shorts... and I'm pretty shaky on the rest of the details of the one I keep thinking it should be, aside from that I think it somehow got Ino and Sakura into a tringle with Naruto instead of Sasuke, and they may have gotten body-swapped. Or someone did... All I can recall for sure is someone telling one of the two that they can't die yet, we're going to find a way to get you back in your proper body, but she does anyway and most of what's left is epilogue. That sounds horrible, but I'm convinced it was a great story with some real development and depth getting to that point... and it would be old, relatively speaking. Probably pre-2006, definitely from before 2008 because I know I read it before moving to where I'm at now.

You might be thinking of "Suiren"...

[classicdrogn]

Hmmm... Well, I don't recognize that one on reading it (and it's the third chapter of the FFn version rather than the beginning) but it does look like an interesting read at any rate. I'll put it in the queue. Thanks!

[Shepherd]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...wl.280604/
Overpowered: a HERO Games/B:tVS Dungeon crawl.

This story combined some of the most annoying fic tropes around (male SI gets turned into psychic Supergirl expy by magic computer game and enters a fictional world), but the author made it work well. He actually made the Watchers Council into occult badasses, and the various worldbuilding author's posts between the actual chapters were just as enjoyable as the fic itself. He even made Angel interesting, with a lot more depth than in the canon series.

[classicdrogn]

Wasn't that by one of our regulars here? At the time, at least? I don't rmemeber who to know if they're still around...

[Kilroy]

A recent re-read of dogbertcarroll's Copycat has reminded me of a old New Mutants fanfic, Jeremy Bottroff's Go West, along with his Brothers in Arms. Thankfully Fanlore has a Wayback Machine link to "Fonts of Wisdom", where they were posted (https://web.archive.org/web/201410311526...m#bottroff).
Too bad his "Late Show with Douglas Ramsey" (which was a prequel) was only on GEnie...

[Star Ranger4]

GEnie??? ZOMG, talk about Necro!

[Kilroy]

GEnie???  ZOMG, talk about Necro!

Well, I had a Apple //c starting in 1984 and started using a PC at work in 1988.  Didn't get a home PC-compatible until Christmas 1993 though. I admit I am a bit of a digital pack-rat.
I've also always disliked how Cypher was killed and left dead afterward in the New Mutants.


Kilroy

[Shepherd]

I've also always disliked how Cypher was killed and left dead afterward in the New Mutants.

He got better.

OTOH I totally understand why they killed him, even if I completely disagree with the decision, the abruptness of his death, and the near total lack of fallout after the fact.

Doug Ramsey was a boring looking character with boring powers, and the artists hated dealing with him. Sort of the same way many of them disliked Multiple Man.

But if you look at things from another perspective, he was actually the most potentially powerful and interesting member of the New Mutants, and that potential was wasted by bad writing.

First off, what was Doug's REAL power? It certainly wasn't learning languages really fast. That 'professional' diagnosis was made by a teenage Kitty Pride based on how fast he picked up computer programming languages when they were doing geek stuff together.

She then dragged him to the Danger Room so he could use his 'language' powers to communicate with the techno-organic alien Warlock. Not only did he almost instantly figure out how to understand Warlock, he also figured out how to operate the advanced alien controls of the Danger Room as well.

When Doug played poker during a non-hostile encounter with the Hellions, he won repeatedly based on perfectly reading the body language of his opponents, which is more than a linguistic ability.

He was around the genetically engineered Bird-Brain for several days without learning to understand him, but became fluent in Ani-mate language in seconds once Wolfsbane suggested the possibility, indicating his power only works when he turns it on, but then works even on remembered info he wasn't paying attention to at the time.

I believe Doug's 'real' power was superhuman pattern recognition rather than superhuman language acquisition. This is important since humans became the dominant species on Earth based entirely on our ability to recognize and apply patterns. Think about this:

Tony Stark is an amazing engineer and businessman. Engineering and finance are all about recognizing and applying patterns.

Reed Richards is an amazing multidisciplinary scientist. Science is all about recognizing and applying patterns.

Nick Fury is an amazing spy. Spying is all about recognizing and applying patterns.

Steve Rogers is an amazing strategist, tactician, and fighter. These all rely on understanding and applying patterns.

Based on all this, if Doug Ramsey had ever tried using his power for anything beyond learning languages (and he almost never did that, either), he'd have been freaking awesome. As it was, he spent all his time whining about how unfair it was that he couldn't shoot fire out of his ass, and instead only got the most amazing power on Earth.

Of course this wasn't entirely his fault. The New Mutants were being taught by Magneto at the time, and he was a power supremacist. Once Kitty Pride told him Doug had a 'translation' power, he probably lost interest and didn't double check her claim. You've also got to wonder how a mutant kid could live in the town right next to the X-Mansion and not get immediately recruited by Xavier. Did his power not manifest until Xavier was gone to space, or did he just not see Doug's power as useful to his cause?

[Bob Schroeck]

We're starting to get off-topic for this thread, but before I shut the digression down, let me add my own bit to it. First, I loved the May-December romance thing between him and Betsy Braddock/Psylocke they were starting to set up just before they nuked him, and I still mourn that the plotline was utterly abandoned. Second, the first time he got a custom outfit instead of student X-togs... well, that was the inspiration for the earliest versions of Doug Sangnoir's uniform. (Sadly, I can't find an image of the panel I remember clearly, otherwise I'd embed it here.)

[nemonowan]

We're starting to get off-topic for this thread, but before I shut the digression down, let me add my own bit to it.  First, I loved the May-December romance thing between him and Betsy Braddock/Psylocke they were starting to set up just before they nuked him, and I still mourn that the plotline was utterly abandoned.  Second, the first time he got a custom outfit instead of student X-togs... well, that was the inspiration for the earliest versions of Doug Sangnoir's uniform.  (Sadly, I can't find an image of the panel I remember clearly, otherwise I'd embed it here.)

That should be New Mutants #54
Let me link to the panel, although I think that the Loon's inspiration was more Cannonball (in the middle) rather than Cypher (far right)


Edit: although there was an earlier appearance of this costumes in New Mutants Annual #3 it might be that one you were thinking of:

[Bob Schroeck]

I guess maybe it was both. I specifically remembered the helmet with the antenna from Cypher because I remember thinking of it when designing Doug's headgear (and no, Doug's not named for him, it comes from a pen name that I and two high-school buddies were going to write under, "Christopher Michael Douglas", built out of our middle names). Seeing Cannonball's outfit, though, is a shock. I didn't remember it at all.

Thanks for digging those up!

[Bob Schroeck]

An old favorite of mine has suddenly come back from the dead:

Realizations by Wishweaver, which had appeared thoroughly dead for the last... jeeze, near decade? (Just checked, yes, November 2010) has reappeared on Archive of our Own. Better yet, Wishweaver is rewriting/updating it. The AO3 copy is only up to 7 chapters as I type this (but when I first came across it last night it was only 4 chapters); if you want to see all 36 chapters of the original, it's here.

For those unfamiliar with it, it's a post-Goblet of Fire AU Harry Potter fic, in which Harry comes home after the end of the school year to find that the Dursleys have picked up and moved to Australia without telling him. He ends up staying at the Leaky Cauldron -- working for old Tom to pay it off, with a bare-minimum disguise and the name "Jim" to hide his identity on the Alley (and he soon picks up the nickname "Sparky"). But it's when a pair of American Muggle children wander into Cauldron, though, that his life gets thoroughly turned upside down...

[classicdrogn]

Ah yes, those golden days before Harry Potter and the Super-Sized Order of Wangst came out. I remember them fondly; I was still a fan of the series in its own right and could enjoy the fanfic without having to overcome the poisoned well that was fifth year canon, when for the first time in my life I put a novel down having only read it half way and decided it wasn't worth ever picking up again. Realizations may have been part of the fandom backlash against OotP than predating it -- as usual my memory isn't so clear that I can speak with certainty -- but it was one of the things I specifically remember being good enough to punch through that shroud as one of the first HP fics I resumed reading later on. Its return is certainly something to celebrate!

edit: originally published in March 2003, while Kentucky Fried Potter came out in June, so yes, my memory was right this time. Go brain!

[Bob Schroeck]

And the AO3 copy is now up to 10 chapters this morning. This doesn't look like it's going to be one of those slow rewrites that eventually stall out well short of catching up with the original.

[Matrix Dragon]

You know, call me crazy, or maybe just reading too much into things, but I get the impression might not be fond of Order of the Phoenix... Eh, probably my imagination.