Fanfiction General

[Really makes you thunk]

I guess while I'm here, I'll recommend something. I'm not big into Fanfiction in general, most of what I've read being due to a recommendation from someone who actually does care about the subject matter. In addition, any utterance of the term "Head-cannon" is usually something that would invoke an eye-roll from me at best, and a barely contained cringe at worst.
, There is but one fan-written sequel story that I actually prefer to imagine in my head as the real continuation of a story over the actual, "canon" sequel that we got years later. And that would be Vekin87's Albus Potter saga. The only Harry Potter fanfic good enough that I would recommend to pretty much any fan of the original books. This series ain't perfect, and I have a lot of my own gripes with it, but holy shit "The Cursed Child" was such a shitty sequel (and story in general) that I feel obligated to spread around a (in my opinion) superior alternative. It's seven "books" long (like HP), with a very similar wordcount- though the shortest "book" is shorter than Philosopher's Stone, and the longest one is longer than Order of the Phoenix.

Spoiler: But here's the real meat of why it's a better sequel than Cursed Child

• No fucking time travel shenanigans
• Voldemort is still fucking dead, people have moved on, and the villains have nothing to do with him, with their own motivations. No need to drag him back into the story.
• Albus's inevitable teen angst is better handled than Cursed, and perhaps even more so than Harry's was in OotP.
• Scorpius isn't a dribbling, un-"Malfoy like" pussy, nor is he an exact clone of Draco like (presumably) other Fanfics of the time.
• Ron, while no longer a main character, is not treated like a big joke
• The wizarding world has changed since Voldie's been gone, and a satisfactory amount of world building has gone into how much things have changed in the two decades since the HP books.

Spoiler: In addition

• The author captures the tone and writing style of Rowling's works almost pretty damn spot-on.
• In spite of the aforementioned "times change" business, it feels like a natural extension of the HP universe, rather than an entirely different one.
• Some nicely explored alternative themes and interpretations of things from the original books- something any HP fanfic should strive to do.

So yeah, if you're a Harry Potter fan, go ahead and treat yourself to it. Even if you don't enjoy it as much as I did, you could at least appreciate it as something to use in order to bleach Cursed Child from your mind. Just keep in mind that the first "book" is the least interesting one, but is the shortest, and worth reading through in order to get to the second, where the story really kicks off.

 

[BroccoliBrain]

I don't read a lot of fanfics so I don't put much stock into Sturgeon's law but it's hitting me in the face as I browse AO3. When I filter the appropriate things out, all that's left is 99.9% 'random musings', which I'm rapidly learning to mean: 'character A does fuck all while having a rambling train of thought about how they want to sex up character B and can't'.

 

[KraftEagle]

There’s also another bad Harry Potter fic about this guy named Soulja Spirit Boo Jackson. Keep in mind, this is probably a troll fic. Anyway, the main character Soulja discovers he has magic when he utters the words “fried chicken” and “dragon”. He soon loses his powers and has to go back in time to the time of Jesus to invent fried chicken. Plot is lost after that, with massive tangents about Hufflepuff house being gay. Sadly, I can’t remember the name of this fic.

I remember that one too. It's called "Imma Wiserd." Definitely a troll fic, but still funny.

 

[Feline Darkmage]

"Loud House incest fic" is an oxymoron. All Loud House fanfics are incest fics. All of them.

Wrong word, you were looking for "redundancy". You are correct though that all Loud House fics are indeed incest.

 

[madethistocomment]

Fanfiction can be quite interesting. Writing fanfiction is a generally tame hobby when it isn't horrifying (if so it'd be included in Fanfiction Horrors). It can be a good way to start learning how to write because there's already a set of established characters and setting, so the writer can focus more on how the actions and conversations flow. It can also be used as a commentary of the original media.

Fanfiction here can be either good or bad. Horrifying fanfiction can be discussed, but the reason this thread is made is so that "normal" fanfiction can be discussed as well, so give them the opportunity.

One example would be salty-sapphire's Connie and The Crystal Gems, a rewrite of Steven Universe. It has a website, and the archives are here and here. The basic premise is that Connie replaces Steven, other changes include but not limited to:



I don't want to bother reading the whole series, so I decided to read one of the episodes: Episode 15 - Jealousy. It intrigued me because of the removal of fighting. The original episode had Pearl fighting Sugalite because the latter went out of control and she wanted to show Steven that she was strong. This version just makes them talk everything out. The change did, by no surprise, make the episode less interesting.

There are other things to be criticized, like less showing and more telling. The only way we could tell that Pearl was jealous was description and dialogue. There's nothing in Pearl's actions that would indicate that she was jealous of Sugalite. If anything, it gave the impression of her being overprotective over Connie. The words also don't flow well either. This is more something that would be learned by reading actual books.

The positives? I'm not sure. Maybe involving Connie's parents were good because they give more dimension to Connie's life. That's all I have to say.

Funny enough, I've stumbled across what's essentially an actually good version of Connie and the Crystal Gems.

It's called Connie Swap, and it's an alternate universe where Connie is the half-gem main character. It's also combined with the Mom Swap AU, which is where Jasper, Lapis, and Peridot are the Crystal Gems and Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl are all from Homeworld. Steven is also there as Connie's human best friend and crush.

It's pretty good in the fact that it doesn't try to cram the swapped characters into the OG characters' roles, but lets them just act like how Crystal Gem versions of those characters would act. From what I've read so far, it seems to be following the same general plotline as the original show's episodes but deviates when needed, but I think later down the line it branches off and does its own unique thing with the "episodes" while staying on line with the general OG plot of "Oh fuck Homeworld's coming"

They have a collection of "episodes" on Ao3. Each episode is a story, and a collection of the stories is a season, so to speak. The writers are really nice and they do cute art for every other "episode" or so. I like how they write the character interactions. All of them feel genuine and believable, and seeing the villains act like mother/big sister figures to Connie is both funny in a meta way while also sweet.

My only gripe is that the "episodes" can get pretty fucking lengthy, so the whole series is definitely not something you can just knock out on a single sitting. It's fun to read over time tho, and it's a decent way to kill some time if you're bored.

Here's the link to it, if anyone wants it.

Connie Swap - BinaryGeek, br42, BurdenKing, citrusella, CoreyWW, Cyberwraith9, Darkspirit, Japkot, leo60228, MjStudioArts, MK_Foodshops, NeonJohn, SilverScribe, TheInvaderZim, Unwary, Wierdkid20 - Star vs. The Forces Of Evil, Steven Universe (Cartoon) [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

archiveofourown.org

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

Not sure if this counts but does anyone remember this old site?

CCAcomics.com - "A downhill charge... like, falling blossoms!"

They are basically bad ms paint made 'comics' similar to those Mr. T vs Everything comics back in late 90s-00s. Mostly they are like them as they make various video characters battle other anime and comic book characters or anything in American pop culture as well as some random shipping. Early day Western otaku stuff. Mostly filled with 90s style humor with American pop culture references and South Park/Simpsons jokes that are outdated.









In my opinion I don't think they have a perfect understanding of Japanese or Asian culture other than what they see in anime. I think one or two of them were affiliated with the Mr T vs Everything site. As a matter of fact, I recall one of the 'comics' pissed someone off because it featured Chun-Li defeating Mr. T by throwing him. I don't know, every Mr T Vs story had him throwing people like he was The Berzerker:



The vitriol was so bad that there was a flame war about it. He said it was worse than losing to David Nimmo. I dunno, some guy who claims to have 'beaten' Mr T on the internet:



These sites were strange. I wonder if they were still around would we have a field day with them?