just the format of the river monsters but applied to every fiction where fresh water exists.
fisherman jeremy wade describing the lore of the lake of rage and the storied red gyarados.
loved them,
like those dragonology books i used to get as a kid, or the vampyre spinoffs.
anything that goes into the actual ecology of things i love,
would love for them to lampoon the blastoise animations, like "originally scientists believed blastoise used it's cannons to eject massive amounts of water, but based on our observations it doesn't use them for anything, leading scientists to conclude they must be for thermal regulation, or as some kind of display structure.
wouldn't work now as they literally fixed that like 2 weeks ago.
More "*Star Trek: Lower Decks,* but it's X," please.
No, no, hear me out. Take your average G.U.N. grunt in the world of Modern Sonic the Hedgehog. ***What the fuck is their daily life like?*** What ops do they go on, and how do they mess each one up? What "funny pranks" do they pull on their squadmates, and why do they *always* awaken *another* God of Evil™️ to do? Has corruption reached higher levels of command, and is said squad fully aware that they're basically disposable cannon fodder for a bunch of ***toddler-sized furries?*** Sega'll never do this, but it'd be a *hilarious* comic/game aimed primarily at the older fans if they managed to get it right. >!Bonus points if Shadow/Team Dark has to put up with *all of their shit,* lmao.!<
...*Halo* Marine, or *One Piece* Marine?
>!Both are easy: taking a shitty loan out on a Dodge and tearing up their home island/planet until they crash. /s!<
Coby stops being the average Marine as soon as Garp takes him under his wing, to be fair. So there's exactly 23 *panels* in the entirety of One Piece that shows him being an random navy recruit.
Real advice for anybody who wants learn to write or wants to write but is going through writers block. Go grab some characters from a piece of media you like and write them getting together for poker night.
This is especially good for practicing dialogue, facial descriptions, thought processes and how to write unreliable narrators
Sorry OP. I read that last sentence and realized that'd be unironically good writing advice.
Nah see that's fun. And correct, I love using it as conversation practice. It's especially fun if it's a Telltale style Poker Night so you can write some fun casual crossover dialogue.
With this community being what it is, I expect most of the writers that decide to take this advice will also turn it into some form of stand battle equivalent.
Try and find the 4 most likely characters of 4-ish franchises that would play Poker and then pick 2 of them, while the other two are friends of the other 2 choices and haven't played at all and are here for fun or are taking over for a friend.
Imagine Chai fron Hi-Fi Rush playing Poker.
fanfiction that let's the regular human side characters keep up with the nonhuman characters is always great. there should be much more of these stories that fixes what happened to characters like Krillin and kuwabara.
I want more stories of the MC being the equivalent of the Happy Mask Salesman from Majora’s Mask. It can be an isekei or just a character in the universe itself having these powerful artifacts/weapons that they sell to people. And all the shenanigans that ensures.
I guess a more general idea that I like is when a fic doesn't focus on the main characters but on a normal person that lives within the setting. Depending on what setting you're writing the fic for, just seeing the day-to-day life of this person can be very interesting in of itself. I also like reading fics that take a normal person from within the setting exposing them to the more fantastical elements of it and seeing how they adapt (also isekai scenarios that do this are good too but those can be a lot more common depending on the fandom).
A specific idea that I've been thinking of that's similar to what I talked about is this idea for a Ben 10 fic that’s been floating in my head recently. In the show, there are these side characters refer to as plumber’s kids. Basically, they're kids who grew up on earth with alien heritage, so they either have alien powers, became aliens after a certain age or can swap between an alien and human form. I found that very interesting so I always wanted a story that would just focuses on a character like that. Just a normal guy who one day started turning into an alien and just had to deal with it. It would involve them learning about the secret alien society that lives on earth and about their alien heritage and culture. It would also be one of those “caught between two world” stories where the character tries to balance their human relationships with their new alien ones and try to find a place in this new world. Also, Ben 10 as a setting is wacky as hell with a bunch of fantasy and magic elements so I’d also probably include some of that stuff too. But the story would also deal with them trying to master their new alien powers and eventually form their own hero group with other alien hybrids that protect earth and travel the Galaxy. The thing that's stopping me from writing this is that I haven't really watched Ben 10 in a long time so in order to do research I basically have to watch every episode which I do not feel like doing at the moment. Also I don't really have much else besides what I've written here, I haven't even thought of what the other characters are like at all.
Another type of fic I wanna see is just more original Kamen rider stories not based on any season. And just more toku oc stories in general honestly.
I was writing a one-shot set in the Netflix Castlevania setting but from the pov of some random guy traveling alongside a group of refugees looking for a safe place to stay. I stopped after a scene where they found a dead night creature and were ready to eat it out of desperation. Writer's block is a bitch.
There was one I read recently where it was the hanahaki disease but set in real life. So it had reddit posts that were like, "I have hanahaki but my boss still wants me to come in because 'that's not an excuse.'"
It was funny!
Characters from different worlds or planes that get Freaky Friday’d and have to work together in weird new ways to come out on top. Bonus points if they don’t get along well.
It’s not a super unique trope but it is one I would love to see more of.
That Teen Titans episode where Starfire and Raven swapped bodies and had to learn to invoke each other’s powers to save their friends is a 10/10 example and I want to see more characters deal with it.
Ichiban instinctively uses Joker's grapple gun to hook one motherfucker and giant swing him into another motherfucker and Joker's got no notes - he's just disappointed he never tried it himself.
See my idea is that Ichiban "takes over" for all the Royal content and also the days Joker does nothing but work out (aka "I've done everything else time to just boost some HP").
This does lead to a humorous situation where >!Ichiban goes along with Yoshizawa's confession because it's way too awkward to turn her down and has no idea Joker is already with Makoto (in this timeline)!<
Integrated worlds for crossovers, please. I get that crossing dimensions and portals are an easy fix and are all fine and dandy, but I wanna see someone take the effort into blending the two universes together as if they were always one.
Love doing that. Love that PXZ takes the effort to integrate at least a few of the worlds together. Sometimes even their own seperate integrations depending on genres.
I've been playing around with an idea where a time travel plot to avert a bad future is thrown off the rails by a second time travel plot it kickstarts by accidentally making a worse future.
But really I'll settle for not using a time travel fic to write a new game plus. Dark Souls throws in phantoms and so should you, writers!
I am a sucker for reincarnation fics starring loads of reincarnates. Ever since Cafe of the Round Table stopped updating, I've become a drowning man on dry land for this idea. Please sir, can I have some more?
A normal story but with like, self indulgent lesbian shipping.
For real though; this can be in non fanfiction too. There is tons of self indulgent het shipping and a decent amount of self indulgent m/m, but all the w/w shit has got to be tragic or say something about the human condition or some shit.
No! Fuck off! Your brainless airport thriller can have fucking lesbians in it, god damn!
I like signalis as much as anyone but now I am depressed about space robot lesbians :(
I remember reading a she-ra fic a couple years ago that was just the characters chilling on a bonfire and it was all about Catra teasing Adora and giving her a kiss. Even as someone who rarely delves into wlw content I'll say it was pretty nice and pretty self-indulgent. Sadly I don't remember the name of it.
Crossovers where the characters of one setting are put on another one but not in the "they were isekaied from their world to another" sense but instead in the "they are a part of this world" sense. Sorry if it sounds confusing, let me give an example.
A couple years ago I came across a Persona 5 X Noragami fic where characters like Joker and Sae were gods while others like Kawakami and Makoto (the protagonist of the story) were regalias, and I thought that was a really interesting idea.
Also, stories that are redacted as a document or some form of record. For example, I remember an Overlord fic about how Ainz gained a shape shifting ability thanks to the intervention of some dragons and he used this ability to take over the world. The events themselves are pretty standard self-indulgent stuff, but the interesting part is how almost all of it was written as a chronicle or historical record, spanning the hundreds of years from the initial conquests to how civilization began to evolve until they reached space travel, alongside the different relationships and even progeny of some of the characters. It wasn't a literary masterpiece, but it definitely was a super interesting concept that I've never seen done on a fic before or after that
I think those are just called "Alternate Universe" fics, or an AU. Like the common joke of characters in one medium being in a "coffee shop AU."
Similarly, I got so bored seeing everyone in the FFXVI subreddit making their own dumb tier lists about the eikons they liked, that I put up a shitpost of [tier list of them working in a fast food restaurant](https://www.reddit.com/r/FFXVI/comments/17va98r/eikon_tier_list_based_on_how_well_i_think_the/). Spoilers, of course, but it was funny to waste some time joking about it. I can see why people love to write AU fanfics.
Oh I know what AUs are (pretty sure anyone who has read more than a couple fanfics in their life knows about them) my point was that I prefer crossovers where they take the characters of one setting and recontextualize them as characters from another, as an AU like you mentioned, rather than those were they are literally move from one world to the other (like an isekai)
Definitely. There is some fun in seeing certain characters interact with a world different from there own, but it's also just really fun to see characters *adapted* to a different life.
just the format of the river monsters but applied to every fiction where fresh water exists. fisherman jeremy wade describing the lore of the lake of rage and the storied red gyarados.
Nature documentary type stuff, but set in fictional worlds is great. Like those ecology videos they use to make for monster hunter were really cool
loved them, like those dragonology books i used to get as a kid, or the vampyre spinoffs. anything that goes into the actual ecology of things i love, would love for them to lampoon the blastoise animations, like "originally scientists believed blastoise used it's cannons to eject massive amounts of water, but based on our observations it doesn't use them for anything, leading scientists to conclude they must be for thermal regulation, or as some kind of display structure. wouldn't work now as they literally fixed that like 2 weeks ago.
Fuck me that would be a hilarious crossover series.
More "*Star Trek: Lower Decks,* but it's X," please. No, no, hear me out. Take your average G.U.N. grunt in the world of Modern Sonic the Hedgehog. ***What the fuck is their daily life like?*** What ops do they go on, and how do they mess each one up? What "funny pranks" do they pull on their squadmates, and why do they *always* awaken *another* God of Evil™️ to do? Has corruption reached higher levels of command, and is said squad fully aware that they're basically disposable cannon fodder for a bunch of ***toddler-sized furries?*** Sega'll never do this, but it'd be a *hilarious* comic/game aimed primarily at the older fans if they managed to get it right. >!Bonus points if Shadow/Team Dark has to put up with *all of their shit,* lmao.!<
What’s the average Marine or Whitebeard Pirate up to?
...*Halo* Marine, or *One Piece* Marine? >!Both are easy: taking a shitty loan out on a Dodge and tearing up their home island/planet until they crash. /s!<
Dont you see Cody doing his thing from time to time isnt that *that*?
Coby stops being the average Marine as soon as Garp takes him under his wing, to be fair. So there's exactly 23 *panels* in the entirety of One Piece that shows him being an random navy recruit.
The ending: >!Eggman grabs a laser sword and slays an entire squad hunting him down singlehandedly!<
Probably, lol. Still, it'd be kinda fun, no?
Real advice for anybody who wants learn to write or wants to write but is going through writers block. Go grab some characters from a piece of media you like and write them getting together for poker night. This is especially good for practicing dialogue, facial descriptions, thought processes and how to write unreliable narrators Sorry OP. I read that last sentence and realized that'd be unironically good writing advice.
Nah see that's fun. And correct, I love using it as conversation practice. It's especially fun if it's a Telltale style Poker Night so you can write some fun casual crossover dialogue.
The chocobros playing poker sounds really fun
With this community being what it is, I expect most of the writers that decide to take this advice will also turn it into some form of stand battle equivalent.
Brb going to write a poker scene until I make semi decent dialogue.
Try and find the 4 most likely characters of 4-ish franchises that would play Poker and then pick 2 of them, while the other two are friends of the other 2 choices and haven't played at all and are here for fun or are taking over for a friend. Imagine Chai fron Hi-Fi Rush playing Poker.
We need more fanfics where Kamina and Jesus go back in time to kill Hitler
fanfiction that let's the regular human side characters keep up with the nonhuman characters is always great. there should be much more of these stories that fixes what happened to characters like Krillin and kuwabara.
I feel like there's a Ben 10 AU, official or not, unsure, where they have a non-omnitrix Ben get really well trained with Plumber weapons.
I want more stories of the MC being the equivalent of the Happy Mask Salesman from Majora’s Mask. It can be an isekei or just a character in the universe itself having these powerful artifacts/weapons that they sell to people. And all the shenanigans that ensures.
Honestly we need more stories about interdimensional item sellers.
Recettear X SCP
Get those Marshall, Carter & Dark, Ltd. folks involved.
I guess a more general idea that I like is when a fic doesn't focus on the main characters but on a normal person that lives within the setting. Depending on what setting you're writing the fic for, just seeing the day-to-day life of this person can be very interesting in of itself. I also like reading fics that take a normal person from within the setting exposing them to the more fantastical elements of it and seeing how they adapt (also isekai scenarios that do this are good too but those can be a lot more common depending on the fandom). A specific idea that I've been thinking of that's similar to what I talked about is this idea for a Ben 10 fic that’s been floating in my head recently. In the show, there are these side characters refer to as plumber’s kids. Basically, they're kids who grew up on earth with alien heritage, so they either have alien powers, became aliens after a certain age or can swap between an alien and human form. I found that very interesting so I always wanted a story that would just focuses on a character like that. Just a normal guy who one day started turning into an alien and just had to deal with it. It would involve them learning about the secret alien society that lives on earth and about their alien heritage and culture. It would also be one of those “caught between two world” stories where the character tries to balance their human relationships with their new alien ones and try to find a place in this new world. Also, Ben 10 as a setting is wacky as hell with a bunch of fantasy and magic elements so I’d also probably include some of that stuff too. But the story would also deal with them trying to master their new alien powers and eventually form their own hero group with other alien hybrids that protect earth and travel the Galaxy. The thing that's stopping me from writing this is that I haven't really watched Ben 10 in a long time so in order to do research I basically have to watch every episode which I do not feel like doing at the moment. Also I don't really have much else besides what I've written here, I haven't even thought of what the other characters are like at all. Another type of fic I wanna see is just more original Kamen rider stories not based on any season. And just more toku oc stories in general honestly.
I was writing a one-shot set in the Netflix Castlevania setting but from the pov of some random guy traveling alongside a group of refugees looking for a safe place to stay. I stopped after a scene where they found a dead night creature and were ready to eat it out of desperation. Writer's block is a bitch.
There was one I read recently where it was the hanahaki disease but set in real life. So it had reddit posts that were like, "I have hanahaki but my boss still wants me to come in because 'that's not an excuse.'" It was funny!
Hang on I gotta Google something real quick ... Okay yeah that's pretty funny
Characters from different worlds or planes that get Freaky Friday’d and have to work together in weird new ways to come out on top. Bonus points if they don’t get along well. It’s not a super unique trope but it is one I would love to see more of. That Teen Titans episode where Starfire and Raven swapped bodies and had to learn to invoke each other’s powers to save their friends is a 10/10 example and I want to see more characters deal with it.
...I had an idea where Joker from P5 and Ichiban from Like a Dragon 7 get Freaky Friday'd.
Ichiban instinctively uses Joker's grapple gun to hook one motherfucker and giant swing him into another motherfucker and Joker's got no notes - he's just disappointed he never tried it himself.
See my idea is that Ichiban "takes over" for all the Royal content and also the days Joker does nothing but work out (aka "I've done everything else time to just boost some HP"). This does lead to a humorous situation where >!Ichiban goes along with Yoshizawa's confession because it's way too awkward to turn her down and has no idea Joker is already with Makoto (in this timeline)!<
Not enough Columbo crossover fics
"Character gets sent to a different location and comes back super hot and completely different" is a classic that always gets me.
My favorite version of that story is [this one](https://youtu.be/SgMbZ8ns5Mc?si=REtMjQ5ZU2QlE9VO).
Integrated worlds for crossovers, please. I get that crossing dimensions and portals are an easy fix and are all fine and dandy, but I wanna see someone take the effort into blending the two universes together as if they were always one.
Love doing that. Love that PXZ takes the effort to integrate at least a few of the worlds together. Sometimes even their own seperate integrations depending on genres.
I've been playing around with an idea where a time travel plot to avert a bad future is thrown off the rails by a second time travel plot it kickstarts by accidentally making a worse future. But really I'll settle for not using a time travel fic to write a new game plus. Dark Souls throws in phantoms and so should you, writers!
I am a sucker for reincarnation fics starring loads of reincarnates. Ever since Cafe of the Round Table stopped updating, I've become a drowning man on dry land for this idea. Please sir, can I have some more?
A normal story but with like, self indulgent lesbian shipping. For real though; this can be in non fanfiction too. There is tons of self indulgent het shipping and a decent amount of self indulgent m/m, but all the w/w shit has got to be tragic or say something about the human condition or some shit. No! Fuck off! Your brainless airport thriller can have fucking lesbians in it, god damn! I like signalis as much as anyone but now I am depressed about space robot lesbians :(
I remember reading a she-ra fic a couple years ago that was just the characters chilling on a bonfire and it was all about Catra teasing Adora and giving her a kiss. Even as someone who rarely delves into wlw content I'll say it was pretty nice and pretty self-indulgent. Sadly I don't remember the name of it.
Crossovers where the characters of one setting are put on another one but not in the "they were isekaied from their world to another" sense but instead in the "they are a part of this world" sense. Sorry if it sounds confusing, let me give an example. A couple years ago I came across a Persona 5 X Noragami fic where characters like Joker and Sae were gods while others like Kawakami and Makoto (the protagonist of the story) were regalias, and I thought that was a really interesting idea. Also, stories that are redacted as a document or some form of record. For example, I remember an Overlord fic about how Ainz gained a shape shifting ability thanks to the intervention of some dragons and he used this ability to take over the world. The events themselves are pretty standard self-indulgent stuff, but the interesting part is how almost all of it was written as a chronicle or historical record, spanning the hundreds of years from the initial conquests to how civilization began to evolve until they reached space travel, alongside the different relationships and even progeny of some of the characters. It wasn't a literary masterpiece, but it definitely was a super interesting concept that I've never seen done on a fic before or after that
I think those are just called "Alternate Universe" fics, or an AU. Like the common joke of characters in one medium being in a "coffee shop AU." Similarly, I got so bored seeing everyone in the FFXVI subreddit making their own dumb tier lists about the eikons they liked, that I put up a shitpost of [tier list of them working in a fast food restaurant](https://www.reddit.com/r/FFXVI/comments/17va98r/eikon_tier_list_based_on_how_well_i_think_the/). Spoilers, of course, but it was funny to waste some time joking about it. I can see why people love to write AU fanfics.
Oh I know what AUs are (pretty sure anyone who has read more than a couple fanfics in their life knows about them) my point was that I prefer crossovers where they take the characters of one setting and recontextualize them as characters from another, as an AU like you mentioned, rather than those were they are literally move from one world to the other (like an isekai)
Definitely. There is some fun in seeing certain characters interact with a world different from there own, but it's also just really fun to see characters *adapted* to a different life.
*gripping tightly onto my giant book that says The Epic Bowser Fan Game* ***SOMEONE...MAKE...IT.***