Wanderer D 5,502 followers · 65 stories

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News Archive

  • 20 weeks
    The Day of the Dead Anthology

    The Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) is a now-famous tradition from ancient times that has been a huge part of Mexican Culture through the centuries. Like so many things in Mexico, it's influenced strongly by certain aspects of the Aztec people.

    It has shaped the way those of us with that heritage look at life and death in many ways, and most importantly on the remembrance of, and honoring the deceased. We traditionally decorate little altars dedicated to the memories of those that passed away… but it's not a somber occasion.

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    22 comments · 4,494 views
  • 21 weeks
    Jinglemas 2023!

    Jinglemas is the annual tradition on Fimfiction to exchange stories around the holidays with users on the site. This single event allows all Fimfiction users to come together and celebrate the reason for the season. Ponies!

    Enroll in this Secret-Santa-style gift exchange to request a holiday themed story, to be written secretly by another participant during the month of December. And in turn, you will be tasked with writing someone else's request. Then all the stories will be exchanged at Christmas! Simplicity itself! Thanks to the hard work of the Breezies, everyone will be ensured to get their gift!

    You only have until November 24th to Sign up!

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    30 comments · 5,695 views
  • 44 weeks
    PSA: Using AIs to Write and Publish Stories in Fimfiction

    Hello everyone, this is a PSA (Public Service Announcement, for those of ESL) to put to rest consistent questions about using AI to 'write' stories and publish them here. This is not intended as a poll or a request for feedback. It is exclusively a clarification on an already-existing rule.

    People ask: "Can I, oh great and powerful D, post a story or chapter that I got ChatGPT to write for me?!"

    And the answer, my friend, is... No.

    Absolutely not. Not in a thousand years!

    Because you didn't write it.

    It is not your creation. You are NOT the author. In fact, you are the opposite.

    There seems to be some confusion when interpreting the following rule:

    Don’t Post (Content)

    [...]

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    698 comments · 23,702 views
  • 73 weeks
    Jinglemas 2022!

    Jinglemas is the annual tradition on Fimfiction to exchange stories around the holidays with users on the site. This single event allows all Fimfiction users to come together and celebrate the reason for the season. Ponies!

    Enroll in this Secret-Santa-style gift exchange to request a holiday themed story, to be written secretly by another participant during the month of December. And in turn, you will be tasked with writing someone else's request. Then all the stories will be exchanged at Christmas! Simplicity itself! Thanks to the hard work of the Breezies, everyone will be ensured to get their gift!

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    62 comments · 12,406 views
  • 100 weeks
    Phishing Awareness

    Have you ever found yourself in a situation like this?



    And then you magically find yourself in a suspiciously familiar site, except that you're not logged in, and it requires you to do so?

    Well. Don't log in. This is a scam, and a cheap one at that. 

    There've been recent attempts to obtain Fimfiction users’ personal data, like passwords and/or emails through links like the one I'm making fun of above. And a distressing amount of people don't seem to know what phishing attempts are.

    If you HAVE entered a site like this and put in your data, make sure to follow these basic steps at least.

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    167 comments · 15,382 views
  • 112 weeks
    All Our Best [Royal Canterlot Library]

    As should be obvious from 15 months without a feature, life has taken the Royal Canterlot Library curators in different directions. While there’s still plenty of awesome stories being written in the My Little Pony fandom, we’re no longer actively working to spotlight them, and it’s time to officially draw the project to a close.

    Thank you for all of your support, suggestions, and comments over the years. We’re grateful to have been able to share seven years of exemplary stories with you, and give more insight into the minds behind them. In the spirit of the project, please keep reading and recommending fantastic fics to friends—the community is enriched when we all share what we love.

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    115 comments · 18,163 views
  • 116 weeks
    Jinglemas 2021 has come to a close!

    Jinglemas had 114 stories written and exchanged this year!
    You can read them all here, in the Jinglemas 2021 folder!

    Jhoira wrote The Hearths Warming Eve Guest for EngageBook
    GaPJaxie wrote Twilight and Spike Hide a Body for Telly Vision
    SnowOriole wrote The Armor Hypothesis for BaeroRemedy
    snappleu wrote Words Said So Often That They Lack Any Meaning for Trick Question
    NeirdaE wrote Starlight and Trixie Direct a Play for Moosetasm
    Ninjadeadbeard wrote Garland Graveyard Shift for NeirdaE
    Roundabout Recluse wrote Apples to Apples for Ninjadeadbeard
    MistyShadowz wrote The Times We Shared for NaiadSagaIotaOar
    Petrichord wrote A Gentle Nudge for Angel Midnight
    Jade Ring wrote Past, Future, and Present for Frazzle2Dazzle
    Jake The Army Guy wrote The Big Talk for Dreadnought
    The Red Parade wrote Heart Strings for Franso
    Greatazuredragon wrote A Hearth’s Warming Question for GaPJaxie

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    20 comments · 9,856 views
  • 147 weeks
    Reunions: A Swapped Roles Contest!

    Okay guys here's something fun presented by Nitro Indigo.

    Presented by me, I guess, but I digress.

    Last year, I (Nitro Indigo) noticed that there was a surprising lack of roleswap fanfics on this site. To fix that, I decided to run a roleswap contest over the summer themed around secrets. While it didn’t get many entries, it nevertheless attracted the attention of some big authors and was the origin of two of my favourite fics. Overall, I think it was a success, so I’ve decided to run another one!

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    57 comments · 16,322 views
  • 220 weeks
    Minor Rules and Reporting Update

    Hope everyone is enjoying the new year.

    Some small changes have been made to our rules as well as to the reporting process.

    Rules

    "No attacks directed at individuals or groups due to race, gender, gender identity, religion or sexual identity."

    This better clarifies our previously ill-defined hate speech rule and includes groups as well as individual attacks.

    "No celebration, glorification or encouragement of real life criminal activity."

    This includes past, present and potential future crimes.

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    747 comments · 15,866 views
  • 222 weeks
    Jinglemas 2019

    There's truly no time like the holidays. What's better than copious amounts of food, quality time with family and friends, hearing the sweet sound of Trans-Siberian Orchestra on repeat, and unmanagble financial stress from our capitalist overlords?

    Gift exchanges of course!


    Our Own Little Way of bringing Hearth's Warming to Fimfiction

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    28 comments · 8,371 views
Jan
25th
2014

Site Post » How-to: Crossovers · 5:42am Jan 25th, 2014

HOW-TO: CROSSOVERS

So, Clueless, how did you like my story?

It was good! It was, very good! So good in fact, I was left speechless after I favorited and upvoted it, so I didn’t comment.

You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?

Yes! Yes I do, I-it was the one… with the thing and… uh, you know that pony that does the thing. And… stuff.

I’m talking about my new story about how Violet falls in love with Octavia and together, with the help of Perry destroy the Plant-into-Zombie-inator.

I see. Nope. Doesn’t ring a bell. Who’s Violet? Is she a background pony like Octavia? And Perry… that doesn’t sound like a pony name. *Gasp* Don’t tell me you’re the type of author that’s too lazy to think pony names and you give your characters human names, like Steve or Carl?

No! I’ve never been that lazy! And come on, I meant Violet from ‘The Incredibles’ and Perry the Platypus from ‘Phineas and Ferb’!

Oh. Ooooh. Well, why didn’t you say so?

Because it should be obvious!

What should be obvious?

That my triple crossover/romance was about MLP and other series!

But he only mentioned the names and didn’t give any more information about it. I might not be a writer, but as a user of this site that puts me off.

Site users that don’t write are here for the ride anyway, what do I care if they can’t appreciate my genius.

So… your ‘genius’ compelled you to just throw in everything without explanation as to who is what and where they come from?

They’re very well known characters! I mean, Violet? And Perry? You’d have to have been some sort of hermit living in the desert in exile from an ancient order not to have heard about them!

So you’re referencing Star Wars because…

See? You don’t need to know everything to catch on!

Well, your problem here is that just because readers will know of one thing, it doesn’t mean they’ll know the other.

You’re going to lecture me again, aren’t you?

Yes. Yes I am.

Wait, is it going to be you, or is it going to be one of those things where you grab an author and force them to write an essay about their genres of preference?

Well, I could do it myself, after all, I’m Wanderer D.

What does that even mean? Really. It’s like your excuse to get away with everything.

If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather have someone else do it. I can only put up with your condescending attitude for a limited amount of time.

Look, Obnoxious, you may be the amalgamation, exaggeration and anthropomorphization of obnoxious and/or clueless authors here but—

I’m still better than you are?

No, you still need help. And even if most of this will go over your head, or you and others will later claim that I’m forcing you to write a certain way just because you’re getting some friendly advice, I’ll still give you a chance to maybe learn something new, or at least brush up on what you should already know when writing crossovers. Capice?

What’s with the ‘capice’ thing? You’re not even Italian.

My great-grandmother was Italian.

Well, you’re not your great-grandmother.

And I think we’re all grateful for that. Now. I asked one of my favorite crossover authors to give us a hand this time around. He wrote an awesome X-Com/FIM crossover called: Stardust. So, open up your ears, and take notes, OW, because here’s some quality thoughts from our first guest:

So! You want to write a crossover? That's great! Crossovers are amazingly fun to write as an author and the best ones are fun to read too. It's the ones that are done poorly that sadly give crossovers such a bad reputation. In order to hopefully curtail that possibility I'll share some of my experiences as a reader and a writer to hopefully avoid some mistakes in your own story!

Step 1: Know and Love Your Source Material

This is a good rule of thumb for any form of fan fiction but I can't emphasize this enough for crossovers. When you're mixing different plots, different realities or even different time lines, it pays off to know the material you're basing your fiction off of. No, it's not a prerequisite to memorize every episode of FiM and your other source material but it helps for three reasons.

One, if you're using established characters from the source material then your depictions of them will likely be more accurate. There's hundreds of little character nuances that are picked up when reading books and watching shows again after the first time. Often there's foreshadowing that you might have missed as well that provides new information on characters that your first pass might have missed. Even if you think you know everything there is to know, it's best to give it just one more look to refresh your memory on a particular character.

Two, the particulars of the setting your fiction is set in will likely be more accurate. This includes history, technology, magic as well as other relevant factors. This might not seem as important a thing to refresh yourself on as the characters, but I've had a few of my own missteps that were caused by inadequate or incomplete research. In this regard you could consider the settings as characters in and of themselves in your fiction, that need to resemble their sources as much as possible. If you are going to make changes to the setting, it's best to be up front with those changes as Rokas does with his BattleTech crossover Falling Stars just so you have your bases covered.

Three, it makes writing so much faster. If you don't have to double-check your source material every time you switch to a new scene you'll dramatically reduce the time it takes to write your chapters. Faster chapters means happy readers!

Step 2: Avoid the Instant Friends Syndrome

I'm quite certain everyone knows what I'm referring to with that title. It -always- makes me cringe when a potentially interesting conflict as first contact between FiM characters and your other universe isn't explored beyond the first chapter (or even the first three paragraphs). A story that jumps from total strangers from outer space to best friends forever in such a short amount of time is something that makes me disappointed at best.

Now, there are exceptions to this rule if the characters are just naturally friendly and unruffled by the possibility of meeting pretty pastel ponies that talk. The most obvious example is The Doctor from the Doctor Who franchise which was especially well done in Squeak-anon's Number 12. I found his description of the Doctor spot on and perfectly believable because that's just how the Doctor is.

Of course reactions are a two-way street. In the previously mentioned Number 12, Twilight was anything but hugs and friendship at the start of their little partnership, though I won't quite go into why here. For anyone who's interested I -strongly- recommend reading it, then following up with Loyal2Luna's Doctor Who series.

Back on task, as much as we'd love to have our two universes be friends right off the bat, it often gives a chance for the characters to develop if both sides have to work for that friendship. Karazor's A Foul Light Shines does a good job of this by illustrating the degree of distrust that both sides have for the other due to their nature. (Shameless self plug) Stardust achieves this by putting Twilight in an environment that is not conductive to the friendships she is familiar with. Loyal2Luna's Mass Effect 2: The Equestrian Equation puts Shepard in a situation that's a bit outside his comfort zone while the reactions to him are quite memorable.

Step 3: Avoid Curb-Stomp Conflicts

Let’s face it, stories are driven by conflict, and conflict most often is expressed by opposing forces reacting violently to one another. Sometimes the fights are evenly matched. Sometimes they're laughably not. Sometimes it's simply a moral or ethical debate. When done well this can illustrate several things for your story. Your hero or heroes may have become overconfident and the enemy took advantage of this. Valued allies may arrive for a big damn heroes moment to chase away the enemy.

The flip side is a battle that serves little to no purpose beyond illustrating how one half of the crossover is superior to the over. The reasons for such one-sided conflicts are often unique to the author but the most common reason for it is fiction favoritism.

Again, to clarify: Having a one-sided battle does not make a bad crossover. So long as the how and the why are fleshed out to explain why the conflict happened and how it turned out so well (or poorly) makes a world of difference. Having a one-sided battle without the requisite explanation or foundation for such a conflict which almost invariably favors one side of the fiction will most likely cheapen the story to the point where many readers will simply quit reading.

Step 4: Common Knowledge Isn’t

While writing crossovers you also have to realize that while readers may be familiar with one side of the crossover (in these instances it’s most certainly going to be the FiM side of things), they might not be familiar with the other side of the fiction. Unless you keep this in mind, you might end up writing an amazing story that’s totally unassailable by a reader who isn’t familiar with the source material or they may be confused by references and terms that defy understanding without proper explanation.

And that’s the solution: Proper explanation. When writing a crossover you have to write it under the assumption that your readers might not know your source material. If you’ve taken Step One to heart then it might feel a bit repetitious to explain what you already know but in the end it’s better to overeducate than not. It’s also a good recommendation to include in your story description just what your crossover contains.

------

I could go on and on but these are my best steps to help write crossovers! If you're looking for some examples of well done crossovers (in my opinion), I recommend the following:

Everything by Loyal2Luna
Number 12 and Traveler Squeak-anon
A Foul Light Shines by Karazor
Falling Stars by Rokas
Rorscach in Equestria by Ex-Nihilos
The Thessalonica Legacy by Dashukta
Stardust by Arad (again, shameless self promotion but feel free to stop by and give it a read!)

See that, Obnoxious? That’s why I read his stories and not yours.

You know damn well you read my stories!

Being tied to a chair and forced to scan a page doesn’t count!

Yes, it does! Besides, I do all of that!

Kids, kids! Calm down! I know it might seem like there’s stuff that you’re trying to do already and somehow it seems like it just doesn’t work for you. The truth is, you have to be patient and put yourself in the place of the readers as well—

Okay, now I know you’ve been drinking. Since when do you actually care about the readers?

I’m an author, Obnoxious, if I don’t have readers, I’m not an author, I’m just typing words for myself.

Whatever. Okay, so crossing from world to world like that sounds cool… but what if I want to have things be a single universe, where they all exist together?

Perhaps you’re thinking of an amalgamation, why don’t we let Aquaman talk about it a little?

If you came up to me out of the blue and asked me for my honest and heartfelt opinion about how best to write an adaptive crossover, my advice to you would be this: don’t. To me, a crossover is unique among all other forms of fan fiction, in that there is no true middle ground of quality. You’re either acceptably elaborate in your story construction and narrative design, or derivative on the grandest scale possible. You either put in the work and effort necessary to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts, or you crash and burn in the process of reaching for stars you convinced yourself were closer than they appeared.

If I sound pretentious and discouraging right now, it’s because that’s exactly my intention. The funny thing about crossovers is that, much as Wanderer apparently respects my knowledge of how to write them, in most cases I absolutely despise them. They’re considered easy to pull off by people who profess to be writers, people who should surely know better in light of all the armchair philosophers in the world who think writing is as simple as stringing words together and tossing in a few allusions to the Bible. Contrary to that, my assertion is that when done correctly, crossovers are the most complex and challenging genre of fan fiction in existence, and adaptive crossovers doubly so.

Arad has already discussed heterogeneous crossovers, those being--in the context of this fandom and my own vocabulary--stories that combine the world and/or characters of another disparate canon with the world and/or characters of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, in such a way that no changes in the pre-existing elements of either canon are required for the story to believably exist. In other words, he has covered what most of you probably consider the “Crossover” tag to represent: stories about the Mane 6 stumbling across a Stargate, or meeting the Master Chief after the Forward Unto Dawn crash-lands in Canterlot, or some other such twist in what would otherwise be a normal day in either included canon.

In the spirit of avoiding both repetition and passing judgement on categories of writing with which I have no personal experience, I’ll focus on the aforementioned subgenre of adaptive crossovers: stories that combine settings, story elements, and narrative themes from both FiM canon and another disparate canon in order to create a demonstrably unique third canon in which the story is set. I don’t now, and at no point will I ever, claim that anything I say about how adaptive crossovers should be written is objectively correct. However, given that I’ve been entrusted with the right to do so anyway in front of everyone who bothers to read this post, I’ll do my level best to explain how I would have these types of stories done, were I responsible for creating them all myself.

1. Find your way in.

If a story is considered a failure by its prospective audience or a publisher, one of the most common reasons for it is that its author didn’t think things through. They had a plot all drawn out, certainly, as well as some characters and a setting or two. What they didn’t consider, though, was how all of those elements could have come together in the first place. An author may have the greatest story ever conceived buzzing around between their ears, but unless they know and can efficiently convey what has happened before that story begins in order to make it possible, they’ll have lost their readers before they even get through the first chapter.

An adaptive crossover is only as good as its raison d’être, and neglecting it is a critical flaw to which many crossovers of both varieties fall victim. If, for example, you wanted to write an adaptation of the Mass Effect video game series for the world of Equestria, it would be essential before you started writing--perhaps even before you started planning in earnest--to know two things: 1) how the canon world of FiM has transitioned into the type of place where an expansive space opera like Mass Effect could conceivably take place, and 2) how you will be able to explain that transition in the context of your narrative without resorting to infodumps or implausible changes from what we know MLP to be like. A story that lacks either of these places the burden of suspending disbelief entirely on its readers, who will be all too happy to move right along and go read something else that isn’t so terribly difficult for them to imagine actually happening within the world of FiM.

The transition process doesn’t necessarily have to be complicated, or even particularly creative beyond a simple application of the “AU” tag. Your explanation of its existence also doesn’t have to occur right at the beginning of the story. Expanding upon and justifying your narrative through context clues and worldbuilding is a valid strategy, though it certainly is a fair bit trickier than working it all into the first couple chapters. While its ultimate literary merit is deservedly contentious, Kkat’s Fallout: Equestria does an excellent job of gradually revealing the history of the Equestrian Wasteland as Littlepip explores it herself. Particularly in stories written in the first-person perspective, this is a very effective way of establishing the growth of your characters over time and fleshing out the details of your adaptation in a way that doesn’t intrude upon the story you’re trying to tell inside it.

2. Dig your way out.

Of course, knowing how you’re going to end your story is of equal importance in the planning process as knowing how you’re going to start it off, and once again adaptive crossovers present a somewhat unique challenge in this area. Some adaptive crossovers essentially function like heterogeneous crossovers, except that instead of borrowing plot elements from existing non-FiM canons, they instead slot the characters and lore of FiM into settings and environments from that other canon. In these situations, concerns about predictability and lack of originality in the story’s narrative are largely unwarranted. Elements of another non-FiM canon are required for the narrative to function, but the progression of the overall plot is only loosely inspired by events that occur within that canon. Capn_Chryssalid’s The Best Night Ever and PatchworkPoltergeist’s The Last Human: A Tale of the Pre-Classical Era both fit this description nicely.

In most cases, though, an adaptive crossover borrows plot elements from its non-FiM source canon just as much as it does scenery. Fallout: Equestria does this to a certain extent, and in fact my own claim to crossover fame--Harmony, an adaptation of the game BioShock--is a textbook example of such a story. In case anyone is unfamiliar with the specifics of either story, though, I’ll return to our theoretical Mass Effect crossover for a moment.

Although I suppose this technically counts as a spoiler, I presume the game has been out long enough that it’s safe to reveal the central narrative hook of the series, that being the desperate struggle of Commander Shepard and his crew aboard the SSV Normandy against the Reapers, an ancient race of synthetic, sentient starships bent on systematically destroying all organic life in the galaxy. Certainly, you could attempt to write an MLP adaptation of Mass Effect that does not involve the Reapers in any way, but doing so would negate one of the most essential core components of Mass Effect’s canon. You’d still have all the various races and worlds of the Mass Effect universe to work with, of course, but what would link them all together and make their collective struggle intriguing? Any story that focused only on the diplomatic implications of Equestria discovering the mass relays would either be a heterogeneous crossover, or simply more dependent on Mass Effect canon than FiM canon. And since we’re presumably trying to create an adaptive crossover that’s appropriate for publication on FIMFiction, the latter option isn’t really on the table.

In light of these factors, our Mass Effect adaptation would probably garner a more favorable reception if it was based directly on the core components of Mass Effect’s plot, not to mention it’d be much easier to construct on our end. That being said, there’s a corollary to this rule that I want to make inordinately clear: just because you’re basing your storyline on that of your non-FiM source canon doesn’t mean you should just copy that non-FiM storyline and shove a few marshmallow ponies into it.

Aside from the intrinsic disparities between video game plot structures and novel plot structures, a crossover that basic is just plain redundant. If a reader wanted to experience the narrative of Mass Effect exactly as it occurred in Mass Effect, they could just play the games themselves. In the process of determining how an adaptation’s backstory will allow it to fit into the world of FiM, certain adjustments often must be made to the finer details of both source canons. These adjustments should not only be taken into account while developing backstory, but should also be used to determine how the non-FiM narrative upon which the adaptation is based must be altered in order to make sense within FiM canon.

Let’s say that in our Mass Effect adaptation, the ponies of Equestria are substituted in for the human Alliance. In Mass Effect, the intricacies of the Alliance’s role in Citadel politics and their relationships with other races are byproducts of the natural warlike tendencies and strong political aspirations inherent in human culture. If it were peaceful, tolerant, friendship-loving ponies in this position instead, these roles and relationships would be radically different, and as such the core narrative of the war against the Reapers would, by logical necessity, play out very differently on both an interpersonal and macropolitical scale. The proverbial points A, B, and C of Mass Effect’s plot may still be present, but the events, characters, and considerations unique to FiM that connect them are what differentiate high-quality adaptation from shoddy imitation.

3. Analogue sticks.

In the same vein as narrative events, characters and settings can also be core components of a non-FiM source canon. After all, what would the Dark Knight film series be without Batman, the show Archer without the hapless spy agency ISIS, the game Bioshock Infinite without the city of Columbia? In an adaptive crossover centered around these works or any others like them, something critical would be lost if the crossover took place without these central elements of canon. And just as the case was with narrative events, the necessity of their inclusion doesn’t mean you can just copy and paste them into your story. The same practical and logical considerations must be made to ensure that they fit into your crossover just as well as they did into their source canon.

However, maintaining a balance between originality and homage is much harder with non-FiM characters and settings that it is with just key points in non-FiM narratives, primarily because of the immutable link between how characters interact with settings and each other in order to progress logically through a series of plot events. For myriad reasons, Columbia could not exist in Bioshock Infinite without the character of Father Comstock and his specific thought processes, motives, and actions. The game’s central thematic concerns are inextricably linked with Comstock’s world view and the floating city he has created in its image. Without some form of Comstock there can be no Columbia, and without some form of Columbia there can be no true adaptive crossover with Bioshock Infinite.

The question, then, is how an author can write someone like Comstock or someplace like Columbia into their crossover without simply copying what’s already been done, and the answer to that question is analogue. You can’t just toss Father Comstock, a zealous and ruthless evangelist whose tenets for righteousness are based on a religion that doesn’t exist in Equestria, into FiM canon and hope no one notices the inconsistencies and impossibilities of his existence there. What you can do, though, is design a character that occupies the exact same narrative role as Comstock and has many of the same core morals, but also has motives and qualities that are unique to your story and to the suitably adjusted version of Equestria in which your narrative is set. In Air, Chromosome’s “pseudo-crossover” with the game Mirror’s Edge, Pound Cake occupies the same space in the narrative as the character of Faith from the game, but his personality and backstory can be easily differentiated from Faith’s by anyone who’s actually read the story.

Essentially, this is the same process I’ve discussed twice before, only now applied specifically to characters and settings. With some creative thinking and these considerations and adjustments in mind, you can create a story which takes obvious inspiration from two completely disparate canons, yet still combines them in a way that makes logical sense and illuminates the potential for a new canon that can blaze a trail between the routes already taken by your source canons.

4. 1 plus 2 should always equal 3.

And that, honestly, is all I’ve been trying to say this whole time. When writing an adaptive crossover, your goal should not be to insert your favorite book, film, or video game into Equestria, nor vice versa. Your goal should be to merge them, to smash them together until a dramatic reaction occurs and spawns a brand-new product that takes the best parts of both worlds and does something extraordinary with them. It’s just the principles of basic addition put into literary form; if you add the numbers 1 and 2 together, they don’t equal 12. They equal 3, a new number that contains both the previous numbers and yet exists as its only distinct entity at the same time.

Partially because I think it’s very important that you understand this but mostly because I suck at concluding things, I’ll repeat my initial disclaimer here: treat everything I’ve said as any advice from and for writers deserves to be treated, and view it as nothing more than a very passionate opinion. The only three unbreakable rules of writing are “know how the language works”, “know your audience”, and “know how to have fun”, and anyone who says otherwise is trying to convince you either that you’re ignorant or that they themselves are not. With that being said, I wholeheartedly believe that following the procedures I’ve outlined here will be an immense help to anyone looking to write a high-quality crossover. Whether you trust my judgement and experience in that regard is entirely up to you.

Some of you better trust me, though. This thing took forever to type up.

Adaptive Crossovers That Aquaman Personally Endorses And/Or Has Been Generously Bribed To Plug Here

• Fallout: Equestria by Kkat, an adaptation of… c’mon, I really don’t need to explain this one.
• Our Equestria by Nonagon, an adaptation of the manga/anime Bokurano
• Air by Chromosome (now listed under the account name “The Maverick”, a fact that is both awesome and hilarious but also may confuse some people), an adaptation of the video game Mirror’s Edge
• The Best Night Ever by Capn_Chryssalid and Hard Reset by Eakin, two very different and exceptionally entertaining takes on adapting the film Groundhog Day
• Banishment Decree by Chuckfinley, an adaptation of the TV show Burn Notice
• The Last Human: A Tale of the Pre-Classical Era by PatchworkPoltergeist, an adaptation of the book The Last Unicorn
• Harmony by me, an adaptation of the video game BioShock which I’m adding to this because a) no one ever stopped me, and b) I swear to God I’m still working on it.

You know, I think I learned something today.

You did? I mean, of course you did!

I learned that coming for advice to you is like shaking a can of coke and opening it.

It tastes better when cold?

No, you dimwit, it explodes!

...Okay, I will take that as a compliment.

It isn’t.

I’ll take it as a compliment anyway. Because your opinion matters to me. A lot.

Whatever. This has given me some stuff to think about… I think I know what changes to make.

Hey, if it helped, it helped if not… well, you can write your story as you see fit. It’s your story.

Yeah… yeah, it is! But I think I will change it, if only so that my readers are not confused from the beginning.

I think they'll appreciate it.

Report Wanderer D · 5,173 views ·
Comments ( 107 )

I like crossovers and so I find this blog highly relevant! Bookmarked! :pinkiehappy:

brb making popcorn before read
edit: was goddam wonderful

#3 · Jan 25th, 2014 · · ·

Any good story should be able to stand on its own with a new reader regardless of past stories.

The only thing here I take issue with is step 4.
People almost never read a crossover if they don't know what the source of the crossover is, so explaining it over again will just be annoying your actual target audience with info they already know.
If it is a popular franchise most people will already know it, if it is an obscure franchise most people will not read it even if you explain everything.

Everything else is spot on.

Very nice. I appreciate that both types of crossovers—heterogeneous and adaptive as they were called here—were represented. The former gets a bad rap as being "RD and Sonic become instant best friends" and the latter is always derided as "lazy copy/paste". I definitely like that the pitfalls of both types were discussed, but also highlighting that both kinds can be enjoyed if done well. This line in particular:

It’s just the principles of basic addition put into literary form; if you add the numbers 1 and 2 together, they don’t equal 12. They equal 3, a new number that contains both the previous numbers and yet exists as its only distinct entity at the same time.

sums up a concept I've tried describing for a long time, but had trouble articulating. Definitely going to remember this one.

Excellent, this addresses the most annoying kind of fanfic that's so common only because people just don't understand these concepts.

1755818 I'm going to agree with you. :pinkiecrazy:

It's a major turn off when authors "introduce" canon characters or places. I'm reading fanfiction for a reason, I know and love these personalities and places. Fanfiction is a rare place where you can have personalities walk on screen with no introduction. If you walk me around the library like I've never heard of the place, or introduce me to Rarity like you just created her; I'm not reading any further.

If you're taking a background character, or OC, and giving them you own spin, then by all means introduce me to them.

YES! I always hate the instant friendship way a lot of stories go, especially when they do it with the villains if the crossovers.

That's why I don't do that with most of my crossovers.... Or I'm just a sick guy who likes ponies getting stomped :pinkycrazy:

If I ever feel the need to soil MLPFIM by crossing it over with something or soil something by crossing it over with MLPFIM, I'll be sure to check this out. ^_^

One thing I didn't see mentioned by your essayists, though is the advice to make sure the things your crossing over can be crossed over before you do them. I can pretty much guarantee, for example, that trying to cross over the TV series Merlin with Fallout would turn out poorly because these two things just do not fit together. There aren't enough points of commonality to connect them.

One thing I think bears emphasizing is Aquaman's point about analogue. Specifically, to make an adaptive crossover work, you need to include basic core elements and get them right. I think a good extension to this is to point out that you also need to thoroughly understand your source material(s). One criticism that's been advanced to me personally by someone with a very good understanding of the Fallout universe, for example, is that Kkat's adaption of Fallout implied that she didn't understand her material very well and this led to her getting certain analogues outright wrong. Granted, not many people would notice this because even people who like Fallout don't typically invest the time required to completely understand what's going on in the background, but the fact remains that understanding your material is crucial.

1755818

Honestly, I have to both agree and disagree with that statement.

Yes, if something is popular enough, say, like a AAA-title game or the newest summer blockbuster hit, then chances are when you go into descriptions for your story, you'll want to tone it down a bit because chances are everyone on the internet will know exactly what you're talking about and what characters you're talking about.

Now, let's say that something not as popular, whether it just doesn't fandom because its not all that great, or its fandom had dissipated over the years, chances are you'll want to expand on the characters some. Tell us where they come from, what they do, why they're relevant, etc. I mean, don't "My Immortal" it and tell us everything in a single paragraph or so, but rather tell us over the course of the entire story, that way it at least leaves some mystery to the character to which you can use to your advantage.

Example for popular: Grand Theft Auto 5. Chances are no one here needs to be told anything about it since they pretty much know everything about it and its characters whether they wanted to or not.

Example for unpopular: Urusei Yatsura. Now, who here besides myself and probably Wanderer go on tell me what this series is about without having to look it up? Sure, it may have been a huge hit when it first debuted, but its popularity has definitely died over the years (A 30 year span can do that to you). Chances are you'd have to expand on the characters from this series and tell the readers who they are.

1755900
My point is if you are doing something that isn't popular the vast majority of people won't bother reading it even if you do explain everything because most people skip over crossovers that they don't know.

The source material part is a massive stickler for me. I'd love to write a bunch of crossovers, but I just don't have the time or effort to research the source. Also why I won't read some crossovers, because source research would take too long/much money.

Wanderer D
Moderator

1755900 And suddenly the urge for Lum to meet Luna rises. Because Lum would have totally stopped on the moon to see this creature.

1755924

In that sexy tiger-skinned bikini of hers. :>

Oh, along with that Ice Princess and Barbarian friends of hers (Haven't seen the series in years and terrible with names)

Wanderer D
Moderator

1755929 Ataru was reincarnated as Shining Armor! But he's married to Cadance! Suddenly Takahashi-plot.

1755932

But he's not enough of a womanizer! (Shining Armor that is)

...

Fake Love spell from Cadence? Would explain the non-womanizing

Wanderer D
Moderator

1755942 I can see Shining hitting on Celestia, later Luna and Cadance and no doubt Chrysi... but yeah, Cadance could be using love spells, Lum arrives, breaks the spell, get's into a fight with Cadance... and suddenly Shining is hitting on somepony.

Gah. I need to rewatch the anime or finally read the whole manga.

1755900 Most readers... Some of us may or may not have a tiger striped jumpsuit and green wig from a Rei cosplay...

1755929 You are thinking of Oyuki (ice-princess) and Benten (Luck-god/barbarian)

1755864
A lack of obvious connecting points between canons just makes a good crossover that much more intriguing, and of course also much more difficult to pull off at the same time. Anything can be conceivably worked into a crossover with anything else; it's just a matter of whether the author writing it is capable of pulling it off.

I like reading these, as it teaches me how to do different genre's. Are you planning to do anthro? or is that one explanatory?

Wanderer D
Moderator

1756003 If I ever find a couple of authors that can make the 'anthro' tag actually relevant to storytelling, I will... in the meantime, it works more as an indicator that it's not just 'human'.

This has been very helpful! :pinkiehappy:

Quite possibly my favorite genre on the site and my favorite one to right... As such, I'm always glad to see none of my stories have wound up as examples of what not to do just yet :twilightblush:

As always, great advice and vey entertaining! Keep me coming!

hey d thanks for this it helps with one i'm wirting ...although i do have one nit pick that'ssort of ther esort of not...when u mention Archer without ISIS....well season 5 just start6ed and....well if you haven't seen it then this won't make sense

When writing an adaptive crossover, your goal should not be to insert your favorite book, film, or video game into Equestria, nor vice versa. Your goal should be to merge them, to smash them together until a dramatic reaction occurs and spawns a brand-new product that takes the best parts of both worlds and does something extraordinary with them.

As a crossover writer, I wholeheartedly agree with this. Too many times I've seen crossovers where the only reason why the writer made it was because it was completely a whimsical effort spurred by the thought of "it would be so awesome if [insert series or character here] was in a crossover with MLP!"

These stories become completely evident in this case when the story, beyond the starting chapters, begin to falter, because the writer simply has no clue what to do next. Most times, it'll either end up completely bland as they futilely attempt to finish a story that never had one to begin with, or stop being updated entirely.

1756039
I thought it best to refrain from any S5 spoilers at the time I was writing this.

That being said, holy shit this season's gonna be great.

I'm an amalgamation crossover writer myself, and I agree wholeheartedly with Aquaman's proclaiming it among the hardest genres of fan fiction to write properly. Takes a whole lot of finesse, research, and thinking to pull off, but it's also a whole lot of fun. Great read for sure! Mostly reinforced rules I already followed in my writing, but it's good to see someone else reiterating them; must be doing something right if I've been going about my writing as such. Thanks very much for posting this Wanderer D, and thank you Arad and Aquaman for your contributions. :twilightsmile:

1755999 Not obvious connecting points, connecting points. It's not a matter of discovering something that's there and hard to see, but there being nothing there to work with. I think an author ought to be able to discern what he can and cannot do before he starts a project, instead of wasting his time on a project that cannot ever be completed or will tax him to the point where the writing is nothing but drudgery. An author too stubborn to recognize their limits is an author who will suffer quite a measure of misery, and this is especially true with crossovers.

1756068 I KNOW!!!! i was wondering how they could do something different to keep us engaged and well...i got my dam answer:pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy::pinkiehappy:

I recently had the limited pleasure of reading and reviewing a crossover fic. After a brief discussion with the author, he thanked me for my brutal honesty, but his relevant response was that he'd been advised that only people who were fans of both source materials would read his story, so he should write it with that in mind. This someone backs Metaknight's post here: 1755818 .

The problem with that thinking is that Fimfiction.net is a site dedicated pretty heavily to ponies and fans of ponies. If you're intentionally planning on cutting out a significant portion (possibly even the majority of) this already limited fanbase, you're setting yourself up for failure.

If fanfiction.net wasn't such a shitty site, you could expect fans of (I'll use repeatedly referenced Mass Effect example above) ME to stumble across your fic and be curious. You could expect fans of MLP to stumble across it and be curious. You may be lucky and find a fan of both who will love it. A crossover basicaly gets to cast it's nets further in that environment. Fimfiction.net the opposite occurs. Anyone who is a fan of ME and not MLP wouldn't even likely be on this site to begin with, and fans of MLP who aren't fans of ME have so many other options to choose from.

You're in essence failing to understand your audience.

The other avenue is that if Obsolesence were to write a MLP/ME crossover, I'd probably read it despite not having a clue about any of the details of ME (never played it, don't plan to ever play it. Doesn't interest me in the slightest). I've enjoyed everything I've ever read that Obs has written though, so I'd give it a look. It would behoove Obs to follow a lot of the advice in this blog, and actually introduce this Shepard person to me.

Author-name brand recognition is another source of readership.

Less recently than the above mentioned story, I had the pleasure of reading this crossover by Bad Horse. Once again, gasp, I'm a reader who isn't a fan of both source materials. Try to set your astonishment aside how anyone could possibly not be a fan of Sherlock Holmes, and accept it on face value. In this particular story, it isn't terribly important to actually know anything about Sherlock Holmes, because Bad Horse does such an amazingly smooth job of introducing him to the reader.

I came to this story because it had Trixie in it and no other reason than that. Yet another source of readership.

The story I mentioned at the start of this post I came across because I have a group with a folder who's sole purpose is for people to join and add stories they want me to read and possibly review. Yet another source of readership.

What makes a good crossover good is not that it says "hey, I'm using Captain Picard and Twilight Sparkle to create this funny situational comedy skit." It is that even if you don't know who the source characters are, the story is still enjoyable to read. Treat it like original fiction where you can't assume anyone knows any of the characters. A good original fiction doesn't spend a few paragraphs firing off the vital statistics of the main character(s). You are shown (not told) the basic necessities early on, and the details are revealed throughout.

If you want to write a good MLP/ME crossover story, I shouldn't have to know the source materials. I should be able to read your story and enjoy it thinking you're this amazingly clever writer for having these engaging OC's. I should be startled to notice when I go to thumbsup your story that it has the crossover tag on it, and I should be checking author notes/blog/whatever supplementary information to see what this other source material is to possibly enjoy it too.

It is already a crutch for most stories in this site that you can somewhat get away with all the steps of introducing your main cast, since as fanfiction we can assume everyone knows who Twilight Sparkle (etc.) is. A good story could be shown to someone who isn't a fan of even MLP and they'll still enjoy reading it. A crossover is no different.

While its ultimate literary merit is deservedly contentious, Kkat’s Fallout: Equestria does an excellent job of...

Huh? I'm not so sure about that. I've read a hell of a lot of comments and reviews for FO:E, and my estimate is that 95% of people love it, and the remaining 5% are loud people with valid points.

Actually, hold on for a moment...

Okay, the actual like/dislike ratio of FO:E is 95.15% "like", and 4.85% "dislike". Wow. I seriously was not expecting my estimate to be that close.

Anyway, my point was that your wording needlessly implies that there's significant controversy about FO:E's quality, when there really isn't (tens of thousands of posts praising it and thousands of pieces of fanart and hundreds of side stories make a strong argument). You're showing your editorial bias—you shouldn't be saying in a guide like this whether FO:E is good or bad or controversial, you should just be using it as an example. After all, you don't comment on the quality of any of the other fics you use as examples either (and that's a good thing).

1756107

Anyway, my point was that your wording needlessly implies that there's significant controversy about FO:E's quality, when there really isn't

Yes, there really is. If you stretch your search a little bit beyond just FO:E's story page here or ask around a few users who don't have it listed on their favorites page, there's plenty of contention about how much it deserved its vast popularity and acclaim.

(tens of thousands of posts praising it and thousands of pieces of fanart and hundreds of side stories make a strong argument)

You could make the exact same argument about Justin Bieber's musical talent by pointing to his fanbase and all the fan fiction and fanart composed about him. It's completely illogical to judge the quality of a story based only on what its FIMFic comments and like/dislike ratio appear to be, especially in the case of FO:E, which built its fanbase and garnered its reputation on EqD years ago and was only posted here to placate the legions of fans begging for Kkat to give them a chance to like and favorite it.

You're showing your editorial bias—you shouldn't be saying in a guide like this whether FO:E is good or bad or controversial, you should just be using it as an example.

The short answer to this is "Why on Earth not?", but a longer and slightly less acerbic response would be that, by virtue of this essentially being an editorial, I possess (and exercised) the right to say anything about any story that I please, so long as none of the moderators have a problem with it. My opinion of Fallout: Equestria is, on the whole, positive; I think its worldbuilding and central characters are superb, and that it's worth being remembered as the first and largest epic adventure story of its time in the fandom. That being said, I also believe there are critical flaws in its pacing, unnecessarily graphic content, thematic considerations, and sheer originality as well and that I'd be remiss to overlook them when turning a critical eye to it.

I fell asleep reading this...:ajbemused:

1756146

Yes, there really is. If you stretch your search a little bit beyond just FO:E's story page here or ask around a few users who don't have it listed on their favorites page, there's plenty of contention about how much it deserved its vast popularity and acclaim.

Oh, I know very well that controversy exists. I'm a happy and active participant in FO:E's TV Tropes topic, which has so many arguments and is so negative it's been locked multiple times (like right now, for instance). I've hung around in the 4chan thread for the topic...and that's all that needs to be said. I've read multiple live blogs by people who hate the story, and give very valid reasons as to why they do. I have a very good picture as to FO:E's general perception by those who have read it, including the people who disliked it enough that they couldn't get to Chapter 10 before quitting.

And my conclusions are: Seriously, there aren't actually that many people who dislike FO:E. My 95:5 ratio wasn't based on the likes/dislike ratio, that was based on what I've observed. And, well, I've observed a lot over the past couple years, because for whatever reason I'm fascinated with FO:E, and how people perceive it, and how it's managed to gain a mini-fandom of its own, and...whatever, I'm sounding stupid...

You could make the exact same argument about Justin Bieber's musical talent...

You're right. That was a bad thing to bring up. I wasn't actually basing FO:E's quality on the number of fanworks, I just couldn't think of anything else to say because my "proof" is my own personal observations, and I can't exactly share those with others without just saying "take my word for it".

The short answer to this is "Why on Earth not?"

Mainly because I was annoyed and got defensive because no other example got a comment on its quality—good or bad—while FO:E got a comment that I think is inaccurate. Of course, I can't prove that it's inaccurate (especially since it seems accurate because of all the arguments surrounding the story) so this is all kind of pointless.

All I can do is be pretentious and say "I know better than you do". Oh, joy. What a crappy discussion I initiated.

1756204

Mainly because I was annoyed and got defensive because no other example got a comment on its quality—good or bad—while FO:E got a comment that I think is inaccurate. Of course, I can't prove that it's inaccurate (especially since it seems accurate because of all the arguments surrounding the story) so this is all kind of pointless.

All I can do is be pretentious and say "I know better than you do". Oh, joy. What a crappy discussion I initiated.

Contentious

I see nothing about this adjective that implies any quality--good or bad.

There exists contention. That contention was caused by the story. Ergo the adjective fits. You support that definition with your own research.

What is the conflict?

Hey, is it alright if I include this blog in the Good Crossovers List? :pinkiesmile:

As a writer for 10+ years I can say without a shadow of a doubt that:

Crossover= Writer out of original ideas so he/she borrows from another universe to use it as a crutch to chug their story along or simply wants to see <random character> from <random anime or movie universe> shipped together.

The advice these crossover authors give feels like an overly-glorified excuse as to why they can't think up original ideas.

Writing fanfiction for MLP as it stands BARELY qualifies as original to begin with and only because it's fanfiction.

Seriously, don't do crossovers. You'll end up dependent on that crutch before you know it and you won't be able to think up a decent original idea until you chuck that crutch away, which is harder than it sounds.

What would you say are the easiest crossovers to do improperly or screw up? And what are some crossovers that are good for beginners? Are there any specific ones you would recommend people don't try or do try?

The Best Night Ever by Capn_Chryssalid and Hard Reset by Eakin, two very different and exceptionally entertaining takes on adapting the film Groundhog Day

I wouldn't count that as a crossover considering the whole "repeat a day of your life over and over again" plot has been used plenty of times. It's like saying TNG's "Cause and Effect" episode is a crossover with Groundhog Day.

I, too, share the opinion that, unless I know the media being crossovered with, I'm not going to read the story. You can scream "you don't need any prior knowledge" of x all you want, but that kind of defeats the whole point of a crossover--to see what another plot/characters would do in Equestria. If I don't need to know about the crossovered media, than what's the point of the crossover in the first place?

1756264
So you're kind of a dick, huh?

1756107
I'd just like to point out that there are people that are neither of the two you mentioned. I, for one, care not for Fallout so I have never read FO:E, and never will. Though I haven't voted on it.

Pointless comment, I know, but I just wanted to point it out.


I don't particularly care for Crossovers, but I can see the appeal it has on some if it is written in the way that the essay-guys say they should.

1756264
While I don't like Crossovers either, I can appreciate the work put into it.

Don't act like having two different universes become one is easy and something lazy people do. Think about it for a second and you'll realise how difficult it is.

1756099
Most people don't read crossovers if they don't know the source material.
Writing to appease people who won't even read it in the first is a pointless endeavor if you don't have 1000 followers who will read anything you write. Which the vast majority of the people reading this don't, in fact if you have 1000 followers you won't bother reading this because you don't need help.
Just because you read crossovers that you don't know doesn't mean most people will.

There is no point in annoying your target audience with shit they already know for the seven or eight people who will read it without knowing it.

Is that a definite compromise between WandererD and Obnoxious at the end?
...And neither one of them is drunk?

GET THE SHELTER READY BOYS, THE END TIMES ARE A'COMIN'.

This is incredibly insightful, especially since I'm mentally holding up my stories against these lists and finding the points of divergence. I then have to ask myself, can I justify such divergences? These are the kinds of questions authors should ask themselves on occasion, and I'm glad you're making me do so.

1755818
I respectfully disagree, but only because my favored crossover fodder, Magic: the Gathering, is something of an odd duck. It's not a single video game or novel or other neatly compartmentalized experience. It is a card game with thousands of unique moving pieces, and behind that game is a literal Multiverse, a panoply of countless cosmos floating through an interstitial chaotic void that makes Discord look like Ben Stein. There is a lot of lore at work, and that information has been building on itself for more than twenty years, all of which is completely optional for the actual shuffling about of cardstock.

As such, I find myself in a similar situation to, say, someone writing a Doctor Who crossover. There is a wide gradation of potential fluency levels in my readership. Just as people are more likely to know of the Daleks and the Cybermen than the Autons or the Adipose, so to are there various levels of obscurity I have to work with.

As such, I find it best to introduce concepts when possible in the narrative. Sometimes through narration, sometimes through expository dialogue, in which case I can use how the character's perceptions color his or her explanation as a way not only to explain the new plot element, but also establish, build, or reinforce the nature of the character.

Oh, and the primary story focuses on Derpy Hooves trying to save the world, so I snare a fair number of intrigued readers on that. So yeah. :derpytongue2:

Wanderer D
Moderator

1756264 I've been at it for just as long and I completely disagree.

1756466

[...] in fact if you have 1000 followers you won't bother reading this because you don't need help.

If your objective is gathering followers maybe not, but the truth is that there's plenty of people here with 1000 followers who can't actually write well; they just write popular ideas and get lucky.

As for you other points... I would agree that people are less likely to read a crossover with something they have no idea about. But, I would argue that a good description can draw you in regardless (after that it's up to the story).

Personally, I've gone in to read crossover stories with series that I had no idea about. Maybe it's because back in the day you'd read a Ranma 1/2 crosses over with anything type of story. I don't know, but I've ended up playing some awesome games and reading some cool books out of crossovers.

1756254 If you want to, it should be fine unless Arad and Aqua had a problem with it, but I doubt that would be an issue.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Aquaman: The hero Fimfiction deserves! :D

Knowing how to end your story, or knowing all the plot points along the way, is overrated. I write by the seat of my pants all the time.

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