Thinky Thoughts about Fic Brackets – Part 1
In todays episode we are playing the Fic Bracket Game, in which well loved fanfiction tropes battle it out against each other and we see who is left standing at the end of the day, as the ultimate fanfic we want to read!
This is part 1 of 2, due to a very long list of multi fandom fic recommendations! We wanted to give you time to actually read all of them, before we recommend even more fic! You can find the list here!
If you wish to play our version of Trope Brackets for yourself you can do so here!
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23rd December 2020 @ 3:44 am
You referenced a fic rec episode a few times, which I can’t seem to find! I’d love a link or directions so I can add even more to my AO3 reading list. 😀
23rd December 2020 @ 11:23 am
Hi Emily
We did a shadowhunters specific fic rec over on tDiE
http://www.fascinationandfrustration.com/extra-9-fanfic-rec/
Hope that’s what you were looking for 😀
29th October 2018 @ 9:40 am
I don’t know if it’s what you’re looking for, but there’s a Firefly/Shadowhunters AU called Ninth Dimension, Seventh Lane by ohfreckle.
Also, if you guys were interested in getting fic recs, I have a few that you might like! There’s an AMAZING X-Men/Ladyhawke crossover called As Dark Longs for Days by Yahtzee that follows the plot of the movie, while also expanding on the backstory of the main characters AND fixing some of the movies’ plot holes (I love Ladyhawke very much, but the female lead was a little bit of a doormat).
Rageprufrock also wrote an X-Men/White Collar crossover (although it’s barely a White Collar crossover – it’s closer to an FBI/modern AU) called Limited Release, where Erik Lensherr heads a mutant task force that’s responsible for arresting mutant separatist/terrorist Sebastian Shaw. If you’re interested in Charles/Erik at all, I would seriously recommend both (and even if you aren’t interested in them, I would still recommend Limited Release – rageprufrock is one of my ride-or-die authors, everything she writes is AMAZING).
4th November 2018 @ 11:23 pm
Hey! Sorry for slow response. Our website is eating notifications at the moment.
OMG the firefly fic! thanks so much! Firefly crossovers are always so much fun!
I think I may have read a couple of chapters of Limited Release (totally with you on Rageprufrock – I’ll give anything they write a fair go at least!) – but honestly it was so far outside my wheelhouse I gave up, I’m not into x-men and at the time hadn’t seen White Collar either. Maybe I’ll give it another go, now I’m at least down with the White Collar bit!
Thanks so much for the recs!
24th October 2018 @ 2:17 pm
I’ll have to read ‘all the other ghosts’ now.
It’s strange but often THE MOST popular fic in a fandom – that ONE fic – I try them and I just can’t get into it at all, or maybe I can read through it all but at the end I’m just: well that was a fic. Certainly the former was true in Supernatural.
Difficult call but I think assassins?
I’m one of the “Bazillion words? Fantasic; Sequel? Yay!” types. But I’m also a “they’re animals <3" type.
Not much in the way of afterlife here either… apocalypse I guess.
… sport I guess? Not a massive fan of either.
Soulmates. No contest.
… actor. Yes, actor.
Time Travel! (canon divergence type preferably) Want to read the HP one now.
Childhood best friends. "Enemies to friends to lovers" is more up my alley than just "Enemies to Lovers", but – unless they canonically were enemies – I tend to avoid them even starting out as enemies anyway? Maybe somewhat adversarial acquaintances, but not outright enemies.
DRAGONS!
Fusion (the second one). Oh god, I hate the find/replace type. I prefer the "same universe but different story" but sometimes the "starts as the same-ish story, let's see where the differences take us" can be really good. Just consider Beauty and the Beast fic for the full range from "search/replace" to "jumping off from this story with the characters from this other story and getting something awesome".
Ok, time to run the categories:
Police vs BDSM : BDSM
Office vs Historical : Historical
Rent Boy vs Porn Star : Rent Boy
Slavery vs Assassin : … Slavery I think
Apocalypse vs Sport : … Sport?
Soulmates vs Actor : Soulmates
Time Travel vs Childhood Best Friends : Time Travel
Dragons vs Fusion : Fusion
Next round :
BDSM vs Historical : Historical
Rent Boy vs Slavery : Slavery
Sport vs Soulmates : Soulmates
Time Travel vs Fusion : Time Travel
Next:
Historical vs Slavery : Historical
Soulmates vs Time Travel : Time Travel
And Time Travel beats Historical.
Canon divergence – particularly combined with time travel – win 1st place for me whatever else anyway.
26th October 2018 @ 12:10 pm
okay, first off, I assume you have read/are watching Outlander, right? Because if historical with time travel is your ultimate jam, you need to be!! 😀 😀
There’s certain super popular authors in every fandom, that I’ve just never quite got on board with, yeah. You see them come up on recs list over and over, so I kept reading yet another story by XYZ and get to the end and have to go ‘yeah, I remember why I don’t get what everyone is shouting about’.
I think it’s different if it’s one hyped story, but often super hyped authors split into two groups. authors that create stuff I think is 110% awesome all the time and I totally get why everyone is salivating at the mouth the second there’s an update on something. And authors that write a lot of stories, and are popular by sheer quantity, rather than quality. It’s obviously not always the case, but creating a lot of content is a good way to get onto recs lists and get talked about, simply because it’s hard not to have read some of their stuff, whether you mean to or not, and there’s generally a gem or two in between everything else.
— But I’m also a “they’re animals <3" type.--
YAY!!!!
--DRAGONS!--
Needless to say 😉
24th October 2018 @ 12:13 pm
Quick comment while I’m listening at work: wow we have different tastes in fic XD. My choices so far would be: Police, BDSM, Office, Historical (but not military XD), Rent Boy, Porn Star, Slavery… this sounds like I lean a lot more towards Explicit fic than I do.
But what prompted my comment now was the way I 100% agree that ‘sensitive’ and ‘well handled’ discussions in some of these tropes are rare, but actually I tend to AVOID the ones that seem to try to focus on being sensitive and complex and possibly being ‘difficult reads’?
It’s a kind of ‘this is fiction, fictional fiction, wherein people are soulmates and everyone gets a happy ending and nothing hurts (except when it does because angst can be fun) and I will dive into the problematic with glee’. I think a major thing is I go into these being ‘I am not looking for serious discussions of complicated issues, I’m here to have a good time, not to take what’s being said too seriously’.
An excellent example is I always go searching for the serial killer AUs in every fandom. In the Hannibal fandom, I want murder husbands where they treat each other as equals and go around murdering and don’t get caught and none of this would be in any way ok in reality but it’s fiction, so it’s fine. For me a happy ending is they get away with everything but they’re happy and together and respect each other.
That ‘respect’ qualification is where ‘this is problematic’ starts to be an issue for me. They can be complete monsters to the rest of the world but they best not mistreat one another; misunderstandings and mistakes are fine, as are unhealthy levels of co-dependency (another good example of diving into problematic with glee), but, at the end of the day, they should genuinely love the other more than they want whatever for themselves?
So, yeah, not much of anything but an observation of how differently tastes can run I guess?
26th October 2018 @ 11:25 am
I completely get avoiding the ‘well handled’ discussions of difficult topics, because we read fanfiction for fun! and I really hope we didn’t come across as thinking that it wasn’t okay to do this, or that we didn’t do this. it’s kind of what I meant when I said I had read the Pretty Woman trope hundreds of times. and am very likely to read it a hundred more. Am I aware that most sex workers’ life isn’t going to work out that way? yeah, of course I am. But this one, that I am reading about, is. because that’s what the story is about. and that’s what I want to read about right now.
It’s just sometimes, for me, this can tip very quickly from ‘happy fluffy story about a prostitute being saved from the life they are currently leading’ into ‘really problematic, stepping on all sorts of toes story about a prostitute being saved from themselves and their incorrect life choices and isn’t it great that a saviour swept in just in time’ and sometimes that’s ok, and sometimes I really struggle with it. It just depends on how you’re feeling I think.
I actually struggle most with stories that seem to set out to have serious discussions about seriousness, and then fall off a cliff into the worst prejudice and political incorrectness. I think it’s fine to write a story about serious issues. I think it’s fine to write a story in which you ignore serious issues. I just like to know from the start what I’m getting into, as it means I can prepare. it’s when it’s one that becomes the other, I struggle with it sometimes.
that was a ramble and a half and I’m not sure I concluded anything but… yeah. haha sorry. my brain is fuzzy this morning.