Feb
22nd
2025
Let's talk reading fanfiction · 8:08pm February 22nd
Hello dear readers!
As I work on old and new projects, wading through the poisoned marshes that have become the stagnated impetus of so many of my works in an effort to not only bring them back to life, but to complete them, I have also turned to some old favorites, not exactly for inspiration, but for the sheer joy of reading them, and... well, okay, some do inspire me and reignite that itch to type away my imagination.
So I was wondering, overall what stories call you back for re-reads? Can you tell me what draws you to them? I'll be happy to respond in the comments with stories I like to go back to as well. (Doesn't have to be fimfic)
Report
Wanderer D · 549 views
·
Mine.
I don't say that to be egotistical. Although it admittedly is. I genuinely enjoy reading my own writing. Because unless I explicitly state otherwise, I primarily write to please myself. And in reading and re-reading my older works, I can see how my writing has evolved and changed and improved. I've never looked back at my older stories and cringed, like some people may do of their own work.
images2.imgbox.com/2b/a8/vFUbmyft_o.jpg
But this enjoyment I find in reading my own writing comes in part that some stories I've written so long ago that I've forgotten large sections of the stories. And I often find myself laughing out loud at my own jokes, cheering or weeping at some of my most powerful scenes, as though experiencing them for the first time again.
It's why I find it particularly distressing when people delete their own work, for whatever reason. I realize it's subjective, and maybe it's even a privileged position to take. Since I know that some people don't even read their past works once they finish writing them, let alone enjoy them as much as I do. But if even one person enjoyed a story, deleting it from the world just feels like a crime against the very art of writing, itself.
Though if pressed, I could also make a few outside recommendations:
- MLP: FiM
- Romance
- Slice of Life
Every year, on Hearthswarming, Berry Punch makes a drink for Fluttershy. One perfect drink.- MLP: FiM
- Slice of Life
Discord dares Rainbow Dash to go a day without her wings to show her what Scootaloo's life is like.- MLP: FiM
- Romance
- Sad
Twilight Sparkle deals with an unexpected pregnancy - and the complicated relations that led to it.Well, one of yours is the groundhog day segment of the sweetie belle chronicles. Lost to the Sands is another. Quantum Castaways. Take Two. Hard Reset. Sometimes you just have to go back and read an old story just to compare how things were to how things are. I will say that current writers get away with a lot more errors than what would have been tolerated in 2013.
Quite a lot, and usually its if I'm thinking about the source material, I happen to find it again, or just I enjoyed the writing, characterization, etc
Fanfics I reread, all in Dead Tree format, so no risk of them getting deleted: Fallout: Equestria, Background Pony and Fallout Equestria Pink Eyes. I generally do not read fanfics that aren't in dead tree format, it's easier on the eyes, the pages are easier to turn and they don't get deleted (but they can get revised! what then?!).
Well, if we aren't just talking fanfic, one series I end up revisiting is Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkasigan series. Great characters, wonderful writing, and interesting worldbuilding.
I've also found myself rereading PN Elrod's "The Vampire Files" recently. Fun hard boiled detective in Chicago in the 30's type stories... except that the main character is a vampire, and tropes are subverted like instead of having the main character narrowly scrape by repeatedly, he repeatedly *does* have things that should have killed him happen to him... but he's a vampire. It's just a fun, unique twist on things I felt like going back to.
Oh, and I reread CS Friedman's "This Alien Shore" a while back, which also had great writing and worldbuilding. I've heard it's part of a series, so I really need to track down the rest of it some day...
--Sweetie Belle
I like long fanfics. All my adult life, I've read fanfics when I'm stressed. Certain ones are just COMFORTING to go back to. Trigger Happy Equines, The Iron Horse, etc. Just stories I can really lose myself in, no matter how many times I've read them.
I can only think of two off the top of my head, but that there's even that many says something:
- Equestria Girls
- Romance
- Comedy
- Slice of Life
Adagio finds Fluttershy alone one morning, and many to follow.Also known as: 101 Descriptive Ways to Describe Blushing, or How Not to Take Candy from Strangers (And When to Totally Go For It!). An uncommon pairing that somehow manages to be sexy and vanilla at the same time. It stars two girls on the opposite spectrum of sweet and saucy causing one another oodles of pleasure (of many different varieties) while not hesitating to do a deep dive of their individual personalities and their relationship potential. It's not a perfect read by any means – the author's habit of going on long tangents involving video games being a prime issue – but it more than makes up for it with a seemingly constant stream of memorable moments.
- MLP: FiM
- Drama
- Slice of Life
Once upon a time, Silver Spoon's life made sense. Now she lives in Ponyville.There are no words, but I'll pick a few anyway. It's got a delightfully aristocratic/snobby filly as the star (I love characters with standards). It deep dives into her life and situation in such ways that it is one of the most relatable tales out there. Its supporting cast is colorful and endearing in equal measure. It's got moments of humor, of tension, and of joy, all equally memorable. It utilizes events from the show to enhance and evolve its own story. There are so many ways that this story is amazing, I'm honestly surprised I haven't reread it even more than I already have.
I'm one of those people who almost never reread or rewatches anything unless I'm showing it to someone else, doing research, or need to catch myself up on what happened. I do reread my own work a fair bit, but that's often in response to comments I receive, review to see how I can improve, or simply going down nostalgia lane for the heck of it.
The story on this site I've probably reread the most would be The Sweetie Chronicles, actually.
-GM, master of books.
Been on the site for a couple of years so I'm still kind of catching up to your current works.
I usually just read a fic once, but there are two exceptions to that and I'm afraid I can't be helpful in saying WHY I decided to go back to them: Gunsmoke and Fallout: Equestria.
I've also been thinking of rereading Bulletproof Heart, and with three fics a pattern begins to appear...
I should probably drop links:
[Adult story embed hidden]
- Equestria Girls
- Romance
- Adventure
- Sci-Fi
Sunset Shimmer and Desert Mirage... what exactly is the connection?- MLP: FiM
- Adventure
In a hot desert Equestria, Rarity Belle makes her living as a clothier in the small town of Spurhoof. But when a posse of Bad Apples arrive in town, she finds her life turned upside down. Now she fights for only one thing: survival.(EDIT: I see they do not automatically become clean thumbnails like in posts below this one. Hm.)
(EDITx2: Thanks Juxtaponition for teaching me the embed code!)
Went through XCOM: Ranger and it's side story twice so far. Hoping for those to be completed/updated. :)
I got a weird brain.
I never re-read or rewatch anything, because I have no need to. After only one time I remember them vividly and clearly many years later. But... only the complete ones. If I read or watch something that has no clear start and end point, I forget most things about it within few months.
So THE ONLY things I re-read are long fanfics that update rarely or almost never.
Looking at you Austraeoh...
I've got a few across Fimfiction, Fanfiction.net, and Ao3 that I've reread in their entirety one or more times, and then several more where instead of the whole story I'll usually just focus on a few key scenes or chapters that I most enjoyed. To take an example someone else already shared, Winter's Child I usually skip the first half and focus on the second that has most of the drama, or in Ao3 there's a Star Wars fanfic called Of Queens, Knights, and Pawns (Leia time travels from the worst day of her life, the end of Episode 7, to the second worst day of her life, the start of Episode 4), where I usually don't want to wade through the whole unfinished 570k words of the story, but instead skip to a few chapters that have the big group discussions between all of the characters with all of the big personal revelations.
The stories that I do come back to reread fully, I'm not sure if there's any common factor besides just general and consistent quality and a good concept executed well. Though several of them are dead fics that have been left unfinished for years, but are good enough that I'm willing to reread them anyway despite knowing the frustration I'll feel once I reach the incomplete ending again and know that I'll probably never get closure. Hail to the King is one such story, it got cut off tragically early, but what is there is some of the funniest writing I've ever seen on any fanfiction site, so it's worth it. MIA is similar, though this story was more plot-driven than the previous one, so never getting to know what was going to happen next is much more frustrating.
- MLP: FiM
- Comedy
A human soul is stuffed into King Sombra's body. Having no idea what's going on, and thinking he is in some kind of coma, he just casually strolls into the Crystal Empire.- MLP: FiM
- Dark
- Adventure
After activating the slipspace drive Jorge is teleported to a strange new world.Out of my true favs library I'd choose to suggest to you: Anchor Foal: A Romantic Cringe Comedy, Change Inc, Princess Celestia: The Changeling Queen, Kirin mating ritual, A Pony Named Nope, Agate's Vigil, Twilight's Cat-Astrophe, My Little GLaDOS, The Sun, But Not, Maternal Instinct, Past Sins, My Little Pony: The Western, and Background Pony (and it's fanmade alternate-ending the Crimson Sunrise).
I find these to be good reads on many occasions, some only just first-read recently and for good reasons, I'm not much for being detailed in commenting often so allow me to list the reasons by story:
(Anchor Foal: A Romantic Cringe Comedy): Fleur De Lis isn't one of my more favorite characters (heck to me she's one of those characters I'd acknowledge for a sec and move on) but how she was portrayed in this story intrigued me and got me hooked cause sometimes I like a good mystery angle and I will re-read this again when I have time cause why not.
(Change, Inc.): When it comes to official changeling characters, Ocellus and Chrysalis are my go to characters and how they did Chrysalis in the human world here was exciting and unofficially filled in some holes in Sunset's backstory like, 'how did she survive after entering the human world, she would've had to have a place to go to after school' for example. (I did not watch the Equestria Girls show cause I couldn't figure out how) Plus the inner-humor of it makes it re-readable for me so yeah.
(Princess Celestia: The Changeling Queen): The most notable liking for changelings in the fandom is the possibility for multiple different hives, and well, I like the plot for this story.
(Kirin mating ritual): Straightforward, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbXzpoH6m2c
(A Pony Named Nope): Was a coaster of humor in randomness, and still retains that level of humor in re-reading so a win-win all around.
(Agate's Vigil): When I started reading this one, it was out of curiosity, but then I couldn't stop cause the aspect of the snowponies reminded me of the human culture depicted in Brother Bear and I consider that movie to be a classic, and I just grew attached to Agate and how she 'ethereally' evolved throughout the story, so if asked, though I have only read it once, I WILL re-read it when I have time.
(Twilight's Cat-Astrophe): My favorite animals are cats, plus it's a good and funny story, and because its cats.
(My Little GLaDOS): This story was canceled due to writer being unable to will themself into putting the rest of the story into detailed words but despite that, reading a what-if of how GLaDOS would react if sent to Equestria is HILARIOUS and I WOULD and WILL re-read again when I have time.
(The Sun, but Not): A great story and is re-readable when one has time.
(Maternal Instinct): A great take on Chrysalis and the changelings as a whole, plus the emotions mixed with small bits of humor make it good to re-read when I can.
(Past Sins): Was the first Fan-fic that I learned about and practically grew pretty attached to it and as such, I practically consider it an absolute CLASSIC.
(My Little Pony: The Western): An all around the barn great western take on the pilot episodes, would darn-tooten re-read it when I have time.
(Background Pony and the fan-made alternate ending): ...
...It would be best if you'd just read for yourself to find out why.
Hope these suggestions help you with finding something to read!
5832546
You've got to use embed tags, like so:
[Embed]story link [/embed]"Home Is For The Weak" is something I will never tire of re-reading.
- MLP: FiM
- Comedy
- Random
- Slice of Life
The princess of the sun and a gimp orphan sit in a cardboard box.almost everything on my e-reader gets reread, I got... 218 fics on it.
Some are cute little series like Stormy Nights, others are abandoned epics like the Stranger and her friend
Fics with promised sequels I grudgingly accept will never happen from active authors like Her Royal Morning Coffee
At the risk of tooting my own horn one of my very favorite works on the site is one I had and have a significant part in writing.
- MLP: FiM
- Slice of Life
What if another dragon's egg had appeared to Twilight Sparkle BEFORE her entrance exam? One that glittered like a sapphire?Penn has done a wonderful job with the concept, as I knew he would, which is why I commissioned it from him in the first place.
One I always come back to is The Song of Syhlex. The Descendant's entire world is great, but there's something about this not-quite-literal-but-humorously-accurate "coughing baby vs nuclear bomb" event that keeps me coming back.
I know exactly what line it is, but we'll leave that for any new readers to discover on their own.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/8316/1/the-song-of-syhlex/the-song-of-syhlex
In the short list of fandoms I participate in(only two and MLP is one of them), I nearly always go back to rereading stories that are really lovingly sweet, really insightful, imaginative and/or filled with angst, or some where in between.
I don’t really have time to revisit long fics, so for things like Background Pony, Fallout Equestria and its fearsome four spin-offs, and some more Elsewhere, I will often flip open a page (figuratively because we’re online) and see some cool scenes that refreshes my memory of such a good fic.
For short ones, I can’t point out any specific ones because I tend to just point out entire authors as I usually like their entire batch if I find one of them really catering to my taste.
Like: Bicyclette, KingdaKa, Lets Do This, Aquaman, and this person elsewhere.
They are all incredible authors that I like a lot and will indeed revisit when I feel bored.
The list of fics I've re-read is very heavily biased towards short(er) fics
, but here are six that come to the top of my head:
- MLP: FiM
- Sad
- Slice of Life
Scootaloo's never really cared much for Pinkie, but that's not going to stop Pinkie from "helping."For my money easily among the very best Pinkie Pie characterizations, full-stop
- MLP: FiM
- Adventure
An unsuspecting girl finds herself in Equestria, thrust into a world she has no concept of. Unable to communicate with the inhabitants, how will she cope?One of the very few completed longfics I've re-read, and one of my favourite fics on the site/fandom
- MLP: FiM
- Romance
- Slice of Life
Applejack has a stroke of luck on the farm. As she celebrates her success, a pony friend is missing.One of the first shipping stories I've read, and one of the first times I have properly emphasized with Rainbow Dash
- MLP: FiM
- Romance
Bon Bon and Lyra's life together in Ponyville was perfect - and then Bon Bon showed up.One of my go-to "feel good" reads; the ending is a bit too perfect/saccharine, but this is one of the few times it's actually a feature
The next two are a bit more controversial (let's just say they touch extremely in-vogue topics
), but they make for great AUs:
- MLP: FiM
- Adventure
- Comedy
- Random
This tale's Bridle Gossip, but slightly redone. Now AJ's alone in her Poison Joke Fun!An Applejack-focused re-imaging of Bridle Gossip. Yes, it portrays AJ as a racist with very clear parallels to real life. AFAIC(are), it's well written, it does a good job characterizing Applejack, she grows out of it (or at least, gets in the path to), and it doesn't glorify/accept such a behaviour.
- MLP: FiM
- Adventure
Some say Earth ponies have no magic... but that isn't true. They are the secret custodians of natureThis fic has some great ambiance/setting and a great Twilight characterization to boot. The fic does have a whiff of some very big no-nos (not helped by its sequel), but not on a level that makes me suspect of intentionality by the author
Two honorable mentions:
- MLP: FiM
- Romance
- Slice of Life
Rarity has accomplished everything she’s dreamt of accomplishing. Except for finding love.Haven't really re-read this fic, but there's a line/conversation that lives rent-free in my head which can be applied to my approach in reading fanfiction and I can't just not mention it
.
- MLP: FiM
- Romance
- Dark
- Comedy
- Slice of Life
Two ambiguously gay Mormon ponies.Fic is incomplete and I have no expectations it will be, but it's a great take on the FiM universe and an interesting AU in its own right.
As far as Fanfictions go, the ones I keep going back to and rereading over the years are Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. A truly spectacular work that reimagines the Harry Potter series if it existed in a rational and logical universe. Considering that the gentleman who wrote it, Eliezer Yudkowsky, is also a Silicon Valley programmer and Ai engineer, and it kind of makes sense. As far as Pony fiction goes, the one I keep coming back to is the Austraeoh series, by Imploding Colon (aka Short Skirts and Explotions). Although incomplete and dormant for years now, I nevertheless hold hope that our mad marsupial will come back and finish the series in grandiose fashion.
As for non fanfiction works, I mostly indulge in listening to the audiobooks of some of my favorite works while doing other things. Think The Wheel of Time, Earth's Children, Life of Pi, and a hundred other books.
I mean, I've read Past Sins three times in less than two years...do with that what you will.
5832590
Thanks! Original post updated
5832651
No problem; I'm happy I was able to help.
I think SAPR is the only one I've tried to reread, and that's because the author went back to rewrite most of the early story and added a lot of new chapters in.
Aside from that, I'm usually just trying to catch up with the current stories in my list, or dwelling on ideas I'll never put to pen.
Rune Soldier Dan's work aka the Celestia Hunts Undead series is one i often read back.
5832509 But honestly like Shakespearicles I often re-read my own writing because I kinda wrote it for me XD I do enjoy re reading isekai chapters as well
Mostly for fimfic I end up re-reading comedy stuff or stuff with whom i'm satisfied at the ending of.
5832563 ooh thanks :D. I still get a lot of rereads on that and for the love of god I don't know why
Cohesive, believable narrative. Not contradicting itself. I can stretch my definitions of believable if author has a decent explanation on why X is Y.
I prefer more mature/serious topics rather than lighthearted/cartoony for rereads.
Story should be completed. There are exceptions, but in general, I don't want to read into an abrupt end, all over again
Word count >50k. Preferably >150k. I read a lot, fast, and those puny <50k stories, while nice, just aren't the same as proper sized pony epic.
I don't reread stuff with anthro, broken causality (character X knowing about cartoon pones), lots of abuse, be it psychological or physical. I very rarely read those stories in the first place, and sometimes the story is really good otherwise, but I just dont reread it.
Actually, my fav folder was initially only getting stuff I wouldn't mind reading again, without reservations. There are some exceptions, accumulated over years, but generally speaking, every story in the least has been read at least 2-3 times over years https://www.fimfiction.net/bookshelf/822395/the-worlds-beyond
PS
Currently rereading: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/247622/twilight-good-night, likely for 5th+ time over years. I didn't count. Half a year ago, the whole Savage Skies series from the beginning https://www.fimfiction.net/story/116344/foal-of-the-forest
The Sweetie Chronicles: Fragments is one I like to read from time to time, and is actually one of the main things that inspired me to/on how to actually write! When I first started reading fanfiction, I was just looking for crossovers, the idea of “what if we take X character, and put them in Y, what would Z be?” always appealed to me, but I could never find a long fanfic that would scratch that itch. Most fanfics would end, or sadly die off, before the 50k word mark (and while not a show of quality, it does show commitment to actually WRITE that much) and would leave me wanting more, to see what the characters would do, what situations they could get into to just give me something to read even if the quality wasn’t that great. (it’s fanfiction, quality can go from near nothing to world class writer)
But then I found your story, Sweetie Bell, being sent to other worlds (I didn’t even know at the time it was other fanfics until halfway through the story and realized one of the titles was the story I had read before) and having the both survive, evolve, learn, and escape from the world is what kept me interested. The way that you would not just have Sweetie there, but have her LIVE and BREATHE, letting her become a part of the world, explore the in’s and out’s of it, to see how she would react in comparison to the rest of the characters. Letting her grow and evolve is what set the seed for me to eventually make my own fanfic, a crappy little thing, but something I felt I needed to put out to just at least say “i uploaded a fanfic!” to myself after all these years.
I do hope one day that you’ll eventually finish TSC:F, and lead it towards the sequel story that you uploaded all those years ago, but I know how hard it is to write, at least on some level with how hard I struggle to complete a chapter sometimes.
For me, it's Twilight Snarkle's Order from Chaos series. Legit one of my favorite crossover fics and a major inspiration for some of my writing. The fact it's the only Sonic crossover to ever make it onto Equestria Daily to this very day is insane to me. But I think it's just that these fics exceeded expectations and set the bar so fucking high.
it's one of those rare HiEs that also deals with a lot of the logical problems that come up in the genre--langauage and cultural barriers, the struggle of diet, the bizarreness of body transformation, and how to translate one's skillset to a different profession.
I just think it's neat.
Just off the top of my head, iisaw's The Celestia Code is a piece that I keep finding my way back to. Simply put, the introduction up to the first break (basically 1~2 pages) is such good writing that, even holding it up to authors like Terry Pratchett, I don't find it wanting. It's an absolute joy to read every damn time.