Fanfic that ISN'T about magical horses? · 2:13am Aug 18th, 2017
Sadly, no, this is not an announcement for that Leverage/Batman crossover I keep on telling myself to write, or the Captain America/Steven Universe crossover (I mean, they're both named Steve, they both have a star symbol, they both use shields ... ) or any number of other vague ideas I have percolating at the back of my brain.
Rather, in lieu of being actually productive, I thought I'd turn to my dozens upon dozens of loyal fans, and ask a question. Namely:
Do you read fanfic that ISN'T pony?
To be honest, I don't read much fanfic (with the exception of the occasional shameless tie-in novel for Star Wars or something), pony or otherwise. But, what about you guys?
The reason I ask is because I'm vaguely wondering what fandoms are equivalent to Pony-stuff-- particularly in the fanfiction realm. I mean, hell, I'm writing MlP/Harry Flashman mashups, so that's gotta be something unique, right? I'm not about to make the claim that 'bronies are better' or any nonsense like that-- rather, I'm genuinely curious as to what unique things that other fandoms are producing? Or, on the more cynical side, I wonder if other fandoms produce as much godawful rapey trollfic that seems to pop up so often. But, back to being optimistic again, the only thing that really comes to mind off the top of my head for 'influential' fanfic is Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality which apparently made something of a stir when it was released? Again, I'm not familiar with HP fandom (apart from somehow knowing that everyone ships Draco for some unfathomable reason), so feel free to educate me.
Unfortunately, poking around on fanfiction.net isn't very enlightening, as there's a literal shit-ton of stuff to sort through, not to mention a rather ... spartan interface that doesn't make searching by genre/character/etc very easy. Which has got me wondering if there are any FiMFiction-esque sites out there for other fandoms? Or, barring that, do other fandoms have their own 'cornerstone' fanfics and fan-canons?
Arguably, FiM could be unique in having a unique combination of a fleshed out world and set of characters-- that just happens to have enough wiggle room and a whole mess of blank-slate background ponies to run wild with. Plus, y'know, a really productive artist side of the fanbase as well. (And now I'm vaguely wishing someone would art up some Flash Sentry Papers fanart, but I digress).
So yeah. What do you guys think?
To be honest no. I'm an avid reader. If I don't have a book or something to read on me I go crazy with boredom. MLP:FIM has been the only thing to make me want to read fan fics of any kind. I blame Fallout Equestria for getting me into them.
well i have a few non mlp fics i read.
I actually read some other stuff besides pony. I really enjoy the Time Loop story collection that was started by a dude named Innortal on FF.net the main group of which can be found here I recommend the How To Train Your Dragon collection and the MLP one.
I also have access to Aquaman's verrry early Lion King fanfics which i look at on occasion.
Finally the exceptional Sunchaser has written several books about his FFXIV character and I'm going to start reading/editing those semi soon.
Hope that helps.
Sometimes. Before I got into pony, all the time.
No, I've tried to read a couple of Harry Potter fics, but it seems like the average one of those is lower quality than the average MLP fanfic.
Though I have been very curious lately about whether there're any good Dresden Files /Harry Potter crossovers.
There are quite a few good Naruto, Harry Potter, Rosario to Vampire and others on FF.net, but some of them do have quite a few grammar problems here and there but still great to read.
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sorry I haven't seen any DF/HP crossovers on the site, but who knows maybe there are some on another site.
I've read a dozen or so fics in other fandoms, including Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which is quite good for a "what if the main character wasn't a utter dolt" fic. But compared to the literally literally millions and millions of words of MLP fics I've read, that's a drop in the bucket.
I think it's not just my irrational love for the original property, but also that FiMFic is such a terrific site. It makes it easy to transfer fics to an e-reader (my main way of reading), and the blogging, featured page, bookshelves, and other easy-to-use features has turned it into a real community.
Fanfiction.net is appallingly cumbersome to use, and there doesn't seem to be any way of finding decent stories or reviewers.
If other fandoms had a fic site a good as this one, it might be a different story.
I'll admit to having read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and loved it.
I was with HPATMOR for a while, but I fell off in one of the update waits, and I heard disappointment in the ending.
I have to admit to having gone on a Zootopia kick for a while after that film aired. There was a pretty active community on Archive of our Own for a while.
In principle? Yes.
In practice? Not in a while.
Nope. MLP is the only fandom to tempt me into their fanfictions.
MLP has an unusually enthusiastic fandom in terms of fanfic writing; the only ones which probably exceed MLP are Naruto and Harry Potter, and even there, we're probably going to pass Naruto in the next year or so, if we haven't already. Most other things are orders of magnitude below us, though Helatia: Axis Powers, Inuyasha, Star Trek, Supernatural, and Glee have fairly substantial numbers (Star Trek's stuff is so old it predates things like fanfiction.net, though).
I have read a very tiny amount of non-MLP fanfiction - I read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, I've read a handful of short Naruto and Harry Potter fanfics, I've read the New Testament of the Bible - but it isn't really my thing.
I do read a fair bit of original fiction, which I generally find more satisfying.
MLP fanfiction is unusually good by comparison to other fanfiction communities from what I've seen, in large part because we have such a community of writers.
Anime, Harry Potter, various others, but I'm not very active in those fandoms anymore. Since it has been mentioned, I read Methods of Rationality too until I realized it wasn't for me. I've written a fair bit of hp fiction.
I'll be honest, I didn't care for HPatMoR. I can see how a casual fan or someone who wasn't too familiar with the books could enjoy it, but I was a huge Potter nerd, and the characters were too OOC for me to go along with it. All that was supposed to change was that Harry's aunt and uncle were nice and smart instead of ignorant and abusive, so the other characters besides Potter and the Dursleys shouldn't have acted different . . . Yet somehow Ron is dumber, most of the professors seem dumber, and Draco is crueler yet strangely more empathetic. It was obvious that the author's preferences didn't align with mine at all.
Eh, anyway, I used to read fanfic for other fandoms all the time before I came to FiMfiction. I still read fanfics for Avatar: The Last Airbender and recently got into Star Wars (original trilogy only), but that's about it. I'm sure there have been awesome new Potter fics written since I lost interest, but it's not worth spending time wading through all the mediocre ship fics to find a good one.
I used to, but I've found I've specialized since getting into ponies. I do still occasionally read some non-horse-based fanwork—I particularly recommend Civilization V: Peace Walker, which is every bit as ludicrous and amazing as it looks—but these days it's mostly pony, professionally published work, and official Magic: the Gathering vignettes.
I think the last non-pony fic I read (that I didn't write) was for Steven Universe. It was silly. But I don't read a lot outside of pony, unless you count SCP tales as in-fandom fiction. >.>
There used to be a great HP site called ... Fiction Alley (I think?) that I recall browsing through, back around the time book 5 was still being written. It had loads of great fics and an interface that was better than fanfic.net.
Though with that said, I still do read fics on fanfic.net - I couldn't tell you really which fandoms are the most prolific or anything, though I used to read (and write) a crapload of Mass Effect fics. I'm also a big fan of mega-crossovers, and this year went back to re-read Hybrid Theory and am starting with Undocumented Features.
Yup. I started reading g about the Turn of the Millennium. Friendship is Magic wasn't out, yet. ;)
I used to read HP fanfic, but that's kind of tapered off.
Oh my gosh, MLP/Leverage would be the coolest thing ever. There's all kind of fan art out there, but as far as I know, nobody has ever actually done a fanfic before. That would be so beautiful...
I haven't been reading much pony fix of late, I've gotten pulled back in to reading Worm fanfiction instead. (If you do not know what that is and like superheroes I recommend searching "Worm by wildbow" and setting aside a weekend. It's not perfect, but not is it a fun ride.)
As far as I know most fanfiction sites have worse or about as good as interfaces as fanfiction.net does, so this site has one of the best interfaces around. It's be nice if other places got with the times but they started really early when you didn't really need that robust of a search and have not aged well.