I thought I might throw my hat in on some Naruto stories.

I'll second The Girl From Whirlpool, The Howling Wind, Life in Konoha's ANBU, The Leaf's Naruto, and One Small Kindness. All of these, while not without small flaws, were excellent, engaging reads. They're well worth the time I put into them.

Some others that haven't been mentioned yet are:

A Voice in the Wind.

While probably not the best of the best, it's got a great characterization of Sakura, Itachi, and Naruto. It's one of those, "Naruto goes by another name" fics, which are usually done pretty poorly, but I thought it worked in the context of this piece. Naruto still acts similarly to canon Naruto in this story (or rather, there's a believable progression and distinction between this Naruto and the one in canon), which makes it very easy to figure out who Naruto is supposed to be.

Signs


This one excels in the characterization of the Akatsuki, especially Madara. It's one of the better "Naruto raised by Akatsuki" stories, in my opinion.

In the Blood

Best "future" fanfic that I've come across. It's extremely long. We're talking in the ball park of 700-800k words. I admittedly haven't finished it yet (I've only finished the first 60-70 chapters. 169 total), but from what I've read, it's a very believable future for Naruto and the cast. Basically what sparks the mystery of the story is that Sasuke discovers Itachi, or what he thinks is Itachi's child, in a village, nearly 30 years after Itachi's death.

The resulting drama and mystery comes from discovering where Itachi's

Spoiler

clone came from. It hasn't exactly been revealed that they are clones, but it isn't hard to put the pieces together. Other clones of prominent characters, such as Kushina or possibly Mito, have sprung up as well.

I haven't read it in a couple years (probably 2012), but from what I remember it was pretty good.

There also seems to be some mixed reviews of People Lie. I haven't read it in four years, but from what I remember, it was really dark. None of the characters are really that likable, especially Naruto. I dropped and started it back up four to five times before I finished it. The writing's not bad later in the story, but it's a little hard to get through in the beginning.

But yeah, I thought I'd just throw in some recommendations, see what everyone else thought about them. In my opinion, the first two (Voice in the Wind and Signs) can't really be best of the best because Naruto doesn't go by his own name for most of the story.

 

I think the best Naruto fic is Team 7's Ascension by Eilyfe.

 

Don't think it is that far along yet - but the potential is there, assuming things keep escalating the way the spoilers implied they would. Especially since it feels like Eilyfe's writing has been improving as the fic goes on.

 

Really? The writing isn't bad or anything, but there's practically no plot advancement. This story is mostly just torture porn.

Somewhere around chapter 10 I was thinking "ok, more of this shit- where's the fucking plot already?

I figured I'd keep going. Surely there's a payoff.
I made it to chapter 20something before giving up. I decided to skip to the last chapter and see if things had progressed. What I saw wasn't encouraging- it seems like things had only very recently started to advance, and the author hasn't updated in 8 months.

I'm fine with grim and dark stories. I'm fine with fucked up shit. But this story just doesn't go anywhere in 250,000 words. How the fuck can the author write that much without a plot? I swear it's like he's beating off writing about people beating off thinking about the Joker raping Lois.

 

On my world the S stands for syphilis.

 

Eilyfe does seem to be spreading the grim/dark/grit around. iirc, it was one of the complaints early on that it only seemed to be Team 7 that was getting any of the world building/development.

When they returned to Konoha after that stint at the Capital(iirc), it really did seem like gritty!Team7 accidentally traveled dimensions to canon Naruto.

Course the Chunin Exam Arc is spreading all that grimdark. ALL OF IT.

I woudlnt say its the best its one of the better ones.

 

I, also, have to disagree about T7A being the best Naruto fic.

It's good, definitely, but it's far too grimdark, and it lacks a certain.. something, something that makes it stand out, a spark, required to even be in the running for The Best.

For me, the best of the Naruto fandom is almost without a doubt Life in Konoha's ANBU. If menace had continued Wind Chakras, It would have been a close contender, but as it is that ship has sailed.

 

I'm trying to decide if the author of Hammered Down is trying to be funny when he refers to the characters as brief, pithy descriptions of themselves (not an epigram...I can't think of what this is called at the moment). He writes things like, "the diminutive enchantress apprehensively approached the bespectacled bastion of the underworld" instead of "Rukia apprehensively approached Aizen." Seriously, that's only a slight exaggeration.

Still good stuff though. I certainly don't have anything better...it seems like a lot of popular Bleach fics on FFnet are stupidly boring AUs like, "successful district attorney Rukia Kuchiki is on the verge of a dream promotion when her firm hires upstart rival Ichigo Kurosaki..."

 

Life in Konoha's ANBU is fucking fantastic, and probably my favorite - but I think people had a point earlier about how it might be too divorced from canon to be a representative work. We see Naruto, and now we have some Sasuke, but we missed out on all the other rookies.

I think The Howling Wind beat it out in that regard - we saw some of everyone, and they really felt like themselves.


I don't think T7A is in the running for best yet either, but I think it has the potential as it hits its stride with the Invasion. Like, the scene with Shino after all the grimdark in the forest was perfect - it didn't lose sight of how shit had gotten real, but still felt like Naruto.

Spoiler

I need something to fill the void that Wind Chakras left in my heart man, stop trying to take this away from me

 

I think Naruto fandom is way too big - second only to HP - to get a clear "best of fandom" fic. People's tastes and opinions just differ too much. Much easier with smaller fandoms with only a handful of actually good fics.

 

No Eva fics yet? Or any of ZnT crossover or not? I'm asking cuz I'm looking. So far, I've read a Prototype/ZnT crossover which was really good imo if I can just remember the title.

As for Code Geass, hands down its Lelouch of Britannia. He's just a one conniving badass. He's not a Gary Stu by far but the MC really kicks ass. It's one of those Lelouch didn't leave Britannia fic.

As for Dreaming of Sunshine... I can't get pass the SI. I tried. I really tried reading it but I'm sorry. I'm looking for a Naruto MC, not an OC that's why I'm using up precious time reading fanfics.

 

I don't know what I would call the best Eva fic. It's a decently sized fandom, at least on FFN. There's a few that I would consider the best of the fandom, so I'll just list them and others can weigh in their thoughts.

Orchestrating the Silence: What happens when the last two people on Earth can't stand each other?
Rated: Fiction M - English - Drama/Romance - Shinji I., Asuka S. - Chapters: 16 - Words: 76,321 - Reviews: 270 - Favs: 478 - Follows: 115 - Updated: Oct 31, 2008 - Published: Mar 19, 2008 - Status: Complete - id: 4140913

Last Child of Krypton: Redux: You will believe Shinji can fly.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure/Sci-Fi - Shinji I., Asuka S. - Chapters: 19 - Words: 230,178 - Reviews: 242 - Favs: 315 - Follows: 208 - Updated: Aug 2, 2012 - Published: Jan 7, 2012 - Status: Complete - id: 7720528

The Lifespan of a Love Affair: A dark romance. MisatoXShinji. Rated R for strong language and open discussions of sex. Complete

Spoiler

Misato does not come off at all well in this story, and the last chapter makes me forgive some of it's bad points.

Rated: Fiction M - English - Drama/Angst - Misato K., Shinji I. - Chapters: 14 - Words: 37,690 - Reviews: 246 - Favs: 247 - Follows: 56 - Updated: Jun 4, 2003 - Published: Mar 5, 2003 - Status: Complete - id: 1259313

Don't Look: 'No no no no no no'. 'Can't run'. 'Always watches, no eyes'. 'Leave me alone'. 'Don't look... or it takes you'. 'Help me.' Shinji already knew all that. He knew it all too well. But there was never anyone there to help. Misato intends to change that. If she can.
Rated: Fiction M - English - Horror - Misato K., Shinji I. - Chapters: 6 - Words: 51,016 - Reviews: 429 - Favs: 580 - Follows: 217 - Updated: Oct 31, 2012 - Published: Oct 24, 2012 - Status: Complete - id: 8637502

There's also a section of the library for Eva fics. There's a few fics in it, and they're all pretty good (I haven't read the Cthulhu mythos stories yet).

 

Lifespan is brutal - a fantastic exploration of the human need for comfort, self-hatred and general fuckedupness.

I still think the best is Lavanya Six's Taking Sights. Unlike those innumerable Evangelion fics that have Shinji go back in time, this one has Gendo as the Peggy Sue - and having the scheming fuck Gendo as the protagonist is exactly as awesome as it sounds.

 

Unfamiliar is probably the ZnT/Prototype story. On the Wings of an Eagle is a ZnT/Assassins Creed story that is also excellent.

 

On The Wings Of An Eagle is badass. As it always is when you involve Ezio.

 

Where's the link for that?

 

Earthscorpion has the two "definitive" ZnT stories; Overlady and whatever his other long one is called. Overlady is definitely the best one though

 

I think I linked it earlier, but for Eva you only really have two choices:

Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the N2 Mine by Rorschach's Blot. Hilarious and brilliant in equal measure.

Alternately, Soul's Light by Chengar Qordath. A Dresden/Eva crossover where Harry Dresden is offered a job helping NERV develop its giant robots in preparation for the fight against the Angels. It's a full fusion of the two and, while unfinished, has enough words behind it to make for a decent read by itself.

Also, I haven't brought up the traditional story I pimp out every time one of these threads comes around.

A Colder War by Charles Stross. Unequivocally the scariest speculative fiction story I've ever read, where the Cold War gains a new edge when the Soviet Union starts testing Shoggoths against rebels. Not to mention the strange portal the Americans found under Antarctica. Escalation occurs. Things do not go well. That which is not dead may eternal lie, but now it's waking up.

Definitely my favourite Cthulhu Mythos story to date.

 

On The Wings Of An Eagle by FernandelDeLaFrance

Near the end of his life, Ezio Auditore, once Mentor of the Assassins, decides to serve his order with his dying breath by retrieving an ancient artefact. To his surprise, it whisks him away to a strange country of magic, where old eagles fly again...

Crossover - Familiar of Zero & Assassin's Creed - Rated: M - English - Adventure/Drama - Chapters: 10 - Words: 146,247 - Reviews: 653 - Favs: 1,715 - Follows: 1,825 - Updated: Feb 26 - Published: May 15, 2012 - Ezio A.