So I'm working on a crossover that will eventually crossover into Equestria. I gave the story a test run and had some one read it who had no clue about the fandom that it was about. He complained that I did not describe enough about everything. Now to be fair in my stories I tend to withhold information until the time is needed to spring it loose. I like to foreshadow a lot of details and dish it out overtime. But he argued that fanfiction and the stuff we do are only for us fans.

While that is true, I can argue hat some of the best crossovers on this site tend to describe everything. For example Grossly Incandescent

I have played the game but the author wrote all the details and I appreciated that. Now my question is, if I write a long, complex crossover that crosses more than just one franchise, should I treat my audience like they have never seen it or do you think it wont matter? Do you think fanfiction sites are so niche that we don't need to describe established characters as much? If I crossed over the movie Tron or Star Wars for example ( am not doing this don't worry ) should I treat my established and future audience like kids who have never seen those or adults who are fans only?

you should describe the complex things. not everything.
you should keep doing what your doing considering the person who read it had no idea about the story.
it seems this person expects too much of us.
we can't write every detail so don't stress yourself out about it.
I tend to rush with my stories so I'd say your pacing isn't the problem nor is the information

I hope that helped.

Well this would be my first crossover on the site. Also the first story on this series of stories I planned has nothing to do with ponies I'm afraid. That kind of makes it trickier even if I eventually want them in Equestria. 773065

773070 good point.
but even if it's your first on this site you still have something to build up on.
If you've done other stories and taken the advice from the commenters and critics then you'll have nothing to worry about considering people want to read about things they know and to see how much you know.
it's a complicated theory I have about fans,
they go to extremes sometimes but in the end we all read about the crossovers at least once and most of the time it's about shows or books or whatever we all know well.

773053

It very much depends...

Quantum Castaways borrows monsters from stuff ranging from Jurassic Park to Star Wars (extended universe) to Tremors, but since the protagonists don't recognize the monsters figuring out what they are is entirely a bonus for the readers.

I think the best approach I could recommend is to stop thinking in terms of what the readers do and don't know. It ultimately shouldn't matter whether the reader knows what a Rancor is; if it shows up you better damn describe it well, because just saying "A rancor suddenly attacked them" is exactly as lame to a Star Wars fan as it is to someone who has no clue. If you're doing things right then you can fit in references to the source material for fans that people who miss them can do just fine without; for instance having Twilight kill that Rancor by crushing it with a portcullis (just having her smash it over the head with one a ton, not necessarily doing it exactly the way Luke won) will make all the people who remember that scene smile without doing any harm to people who don't.

Rust's fic features Boba Fett (I'm not that big a Star Wars fan, but it's a great example!) prominently, and throws Celestia and Luna straight into the Star Wars expanded universe. It would be certainly reasonable to assume everyone has a vague idea of what Boba Fett looks like... but that's no excuse to not give detailed descriptions of him. On the other hand, Kashyyk (or however you spell the planet of the wookies) is something plenty of readers won't recognize. That didn't mean that Rust had to give some detailed infodump to the readers to make sure they know everything relevant. It's an interesting world whether you read the wookiepedia or not and details about it are given to the reader as they become relevant to the story: The first look at it describes absurdly deep, dark forest Luna ends up in, and later readers learn from Vader's perspective that the Empire gets Wookie slaves from there, which is something any decent writer would mention even if the audience is hardcore fans of Star Wars.

Hmm well it's not Star Wars lol but good points. I do have a literal Fish out of Water OC early on, hopefully that will help. But it's for Wreck-It Ralph. In case you don't know what that is, it means digital gaming world where the characters are basically alive. A new character comes ( my OC ) but because they are game characters they still get some basic knowledge of their world when showing up. So it kind of makes things more complicated for ME to write this out. My OC won't know much about anything but she will still know some things, otherwise for the sake of convince she would forget things in one scene and know it instantly the next. Being born with knowledge kind of changes things but I assume that's how it works if video game characters had sentience.

I mean I do have an idea on how to make my OC almost entirely Fish out of Water but still, tough to please everyone.

I tend to describe things, but not necessarily all at once since it depends a lot on who/what the thing in question is. For example this is the first half scene or so of a rebuild of the Dragon Tales kids show:

The sun beat down on a pair of dark-haired children standing by a rented truck as they looked up a large house. Their new house was actually a lot older than the girl had thought it would be, not that it was going to stop her from at least trying to settle down after their latest move. At least it looked like it might be a nice place to stay, with two floors and a red tile roof, even another room right under the roof given the window area sticking out from the main part of the roof. With any luck, they would be staying there for at least a few years this time.

The ten year old girl shifted slightly, looking up at the house for a moment more before turning to her brother. "Come on, Max, let's go see where we're sleeping." She said, brushing brown hair back behind one of her ears. With any luck there would be something to do with dragons, dinosaurs or lizards in her room, preferably the first one.

"Don't wanna," Her brother grumbled, digging his hands deeper into his pockets and kicking at the pavement. "It's stupid, every time we get settled somewhere, Mum an' Dad tear us away from our friends and go somewhere else."

The girl sighed, her brother had a point unfortunately they never really stayed in one place all that long. "Come on, Max, maybe we'll find something interesting in there. Besides, do you really want to stay out here watched our parents moving furniture all day?"

Max sighed, "I guess." He muttered, following his sister into their new home. Most of the rooms downstairs were empty of anything that might make them interesting, not surprisingly given the removal men and his parents were still bringing furniture into the house, so he followed her upstairs to where the bedrooms were.

Looking into each of the rooms, they found what looked to be a bathroom -- currently with the pipes just standing on display, a small library and three rooms that looked like bedrooms. One was obviously going to be their parents given the double bed already in it, the second, with football related wallpaper was probably going to be Max's, once they had the furniture in and the third, which had dragons in different poses on the walls along with her dragon pictures was obviously his sister's.

Max frowned, looking at the wallpaper, "Hey, Emmy?" He asked his sister. "Have you ever seen dragons like these before?" He pointed at one group of dragons that looked like they could stand in a manner similar to humans, one of which was holding what looked like a spear in its hand while large feathered wings rested against its back.

Moving over to look, Emily frowned at the picture. "No... but they seem familiar somehow." She admitted, not entirely sure how the bipedal dragons could seem familiar when most of the pictures of dragons she had found were of quadrupedal ones, bat-like wyverns or snake-like ones from Asia. Even so, she felt her back twitch slightly as she looked at one dragon that seemed to be a female with a red-to-white body and a pair of large feathered wings. Why did she feel like she knew that particular dragon more than the others in the pattern?

Key point to note, I don't really bother describing the rooms that nothing happens in, but I add more detail on the one they stay around. I also didn't bother really describing much about them at this point, so the readers don't know what they're wearing or how tall they are really. The next scene introduces a few other things, including the version of Dragon Land I'm going with and the versions of some of the other key characters in the series:

Shaking off her shock from what she had seen and the flash of light, Emily grabbed Max, pulling him into the trees at the side of the road where they wouldn't be seen immediately if anyone... any-dragon decided to look in their direction. Once they were out of sight of the building and the young dragons, Emily put her back against a tree, leaning on it for a moment before wincing. Pulling away, she shifted and leaned against it again, closing her eyes and taking a couple of shuddering breaths. Where were they that there were dragons in school or something that seemed like one? She wondered, opening her eyes to look at herself. Raising her hands up in front of her, she held her breath for a moment as she saw the blue and purple scales covering them.

She had expected to see something different about herself after the flash of light, particularly given she had seen scales on Max. Even then, looking at her hands and arms, it was more than a little freaky to be standing there, with her back against a tree and looking at herself to find that she had scales, and probably wings too. She shifted slightly as a breeze blew through the trees, rustling the branches and the wings she had guessed she had, causing something to twitch against her leg. Looking down, she blinked reaching behind herself to find a tail growing out of her rear.

"What's happening Emmy?" Max asked, sounding more nervous than before as he drew her out of her self-examination.

Flicking her new tail, Emily shifted slightly. "I don't know, Max, but I can guess a few things." She replied, turning to look past the trees towards the school-house. "The scales are either drugged or magic, I'm thinking the latter... yes, definitely the latter, otherwise we wouldn't have the same things happening to us." Her tail twitched slowly. "Most likely the big one brought us here and the little ones made us into dragons once we got within sight of others."

"Yeah, but why us?" Max asked, looking at his older sister, her dark hair replaced by a blue mane.

"We found the scales, put them on and read that inscription from under the big one." Emily pointed out, frowning as she spotted one of the dragons coming their way. "Down," She hissed, ducking back behind the tree as the other dragon continued approaching, only to trip and stumble over a branch, staggering into a tree. Her tail twitching, Emily watched the girl for a moment, frowning as she heard catcalls from the direction of the school. With her now sharper vision, she could see tears on the dragon's cheeks, causing her to growl. She hated bullying and bullies with a passion, having been on the receiving end of them herself more than once.

She wasn't the one that approached the new dragon though; Max beat her to it, ducking out of the cover of their tree and going over to put a hand on the white-to-green dragon's shoulder. "Hey, what's wrong?" He asked gently, crouching slightly to get a better look at her.

"Th-those... b-bullies," The dragon sniffed as Emily spotted a couple of older dragons coming forwards from the laughing group and moved herself between her brother and them. "Th-they w-w-won't le-leave me al-alone...." The dragon continued.

"Hey, Tanie, why don't you come out and play?" One of the pair said a malicious grin on his lips.

"Yeah, we won't do nothin'," His cohort added with a snigger, "We jus' wanna play."

Emily flicked her tail and narrowed her eyes. She didn't really want to fight the pair, especially given they probably knew all their tricks while she didn't know what she could do, but she hated bullies and that was what the two dragons were. She watched them hunting around for a few minutes before another female dragon came out of the school, this one red, fading to white, with blue eyes, looking rather frantic. It didn't take her long to spot the two male bullies and try to get past them into the forest where Emily, Max and the other female were hiding, only to be shoved around.

"Aw, whot's the matter? Is little Cassie goin' to cry like 'er baby sister?" The larger of the two boys asked as the new dragon landed hard, tears running down her cheeks.

Feeling a hand on her back, Emily glanced back to see Max standing there. "We can't just let this continue, can we, Em?" He asked softly, looking at 'Cassie' as she tried to pick herself up, only to be kicked in the stomach.

Emily shook her head. "No, this ends now." She growled, stepping forwards, out of the trees, her brother by her side. "Why don't you two stupid snakes try picking on someone willing to fight back for a change?" She asked as Max joined her, her eyes narrowing as both of the bullies turned to look at them.

Both of the above are from the same fic and despite it being a complete rewrite, I'm taking it that most people know a bit about the universe if they're going to read it, so I'm focusing on what the focus characters are dealing with more than anything, meaning I'm skipping some details and adding them later when appropriate or letting the reader decide how things look to some degree.

Most of the time though, you need enough description to know what's going on and to build up a picture of the characters and their surroundings, but you don't want to go overboard with big info/description dumps. Heck, two major turn offs for me are either script style fics (no descriptions at all, just some thing speaking) and character info-dumps right at the beginning of a fic (describing someone in extreme detail right out the gate) both irritate the heck out of me, the former because it's damn near impossible to tell what's going on, the latter because it leaves no room for imagination or anything of the like.