A (Pointless) Fanfic Quiz

[Picklethewickle]

I made the stupid mistake of trying out fanfic quizzes, and what do you know, they were stupid and I hated them. I made my own stupid fanfic quiz out of rage. Try the quiz! There will be no results at the end. I refuse to explain myself.
 

The questions are multiple choice. Go ahead and contradict yourself.

[Picklethewickle]

Shout out to whoever it was who picked every option on questions 3 and 5 in particular, and just about every option on question 2. That was the most valid response. (I am using the term "most" not in the definition of "correct" but in the way Bill and Ted from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure use "most" for emphasis, like "Most triumphant!")

[u.amaya]

3 hours ago, Picklethewickle said:

I made the stupid mistake of trying out fanfic quizzes, and what do you know, they were stupid and I hated them. I made my own stupid fanfic quiz out of rage.

I've been into fandoms as a fanwriter for about 13 years and the only type of "fanfic" quiz I've stumbled upon is "is your character/OC a Mary Sue?" 😆 Which is actually a valid quiz idea. I don't know what other kind of fanfic quizzes can be found on the internet.

Anyways, I'm always interested to know what people actually want to read, so I'll be lurking here to see the results when more people have voted 🥸 

[everywhere and nowhere]

I'm not really into fanfics because I was always an "anti-trendy" person. The Harry Potter mania, "cult" status of Star Wars, Star Trek or Dr. Who... all of these immediately made me disinterested. I have watched just one Harry Potter film, and mostly because I was invited by a friend... Although, even with my very basic knowledge about the story, I enjoy Harry Potter dioramas such as this one:

As a non-native English speaker, I found the words shipping and ships confusing... I realised quickly what it refers to, but I couldn't grasp the logic behind calling it like this at first. It took me a little while to realise that it has nothing to do with long-distance mail or marine vessels , that it's just an abbreviation of relationship, made without any regard to proper word-formation. (Not that it isn't commonoplace in English, as can be seen in words such as cheeseburger or workaholic... the real structure of hamburger is Hamburg-er, and of alcoholic - alcohol-ic.) It's a bit confusing that in English ship the noun and -ship the suffix look and sound the same, in several Germanic languages it's not the case - German: Schiff vs. -schaft, Norwegian: skip (pronounced just like in English, "sk" before "i" or "j" is pronounced like English "sh" - this also made me understand why do Austrians spell another Nordic loanword as Schi instead of Ski and that in Germany German the pronounciation is the same anyway) vs. -skap.

(end of linguistic rant )

However, I'm not unfamiliar with games which could be considered the equivalent of fanfic literature in the area of adventure games. It typically happens when a loved series is abandoned, or when fans dislike the direction taken by a continued series... For example, I have a strong preference for oldschool pixel graphics and I'm disappointed when a series moves to 3D. Late Indiana Jones games became 3D, later the games were abandoned anyway... and this is where fans picked it up. For example the short game "Indiana Jones and the Relic of the Viking":

(Too bad the screenshot is so big, actually the game is made in good old 320x200 px resolution...)

Sierra On-Line's "King's Quest" series was first made in lower-resolution EGA (usually identified by the engine Adventure Game Interpreter, or AGI for short) and it looked really bad... the third game is better, but still quite poor in appearance, in the first two King Graham looks like a Lego man.  Then, with the fourth game, Sierra switched to Sierra Creative Interpreter (SCI for short), which allowed higher-resolution EGA graphics... and these games are beautiful, I love 320x200 px EGA. The fourth game had both an AGI and a SCI version, later also the first game was remade in SCI. (I never even bothered to play the original AGI "King's Quest 1".) By the fifth game they switched to a newer version of SCI with VGA graphics. The second and third game never had an original version other than AGI and so fan remakes of games 1-3 have been created. I consider higher-resolution EGA good enough, but I appreciate mouse control. Here's a comparison of the same scenery in "King's Quest" in original (EGA-AGI), company's 1990 remake (EGA-SCI) and 2001 fan remake (VGA):

 

(Edit: I just found an even better example, made precisely as a comparison. Including one of the worst sceneries of the original - right column - and the way it was improved in EGA-SCI and VGA. Top to bottom: VGA, EGA-SCI, EGA-AGI.)

Fan remakes of second and third game could be considered even closer to fanfics because they expanded the respective games, added a fair bit of new content. Fan remakes of "King's Quest 4" were never finished (except "King's Quest 4 Retold", which changes very little in terms of graphics, but changes the interface from text parser to point and click) and an EGA-SCI remake of "King's Quest 2" seems to have been abandoned.  This guy is also making his original game "Fortune & Glory", an adventure-RPG in the "Quest for Glory" tradition, with slightly expanded EGA graphics (20 colours, I think):

That said... not even speaking about the complexities or writing vs. painting and coding, even from the point of view of publishing literary fanfiction is easier. I don't think that original authors are bothered much about fanfics published on some obscure websites, and games... even if they are non-commercial, there have been many cases when owners of original intellectual rights  (and don't get me started on it, for example Disney usurps the rights even to protagonists they didn't create, such as Winnie the Pooh - at some point all non-Disney stage versions of "Winnie the Pooh" had to be discontinued) forced a project to be abandoned. Add, as I mentioned, the time and effort it takes to paint graphics and write the code, and it becomes surprising that fangames do exist in the first place...

[Artemis42]

I don't read much fanfiction, but I think the point of it is all of the above. It's just to be creative and write whatever you want, canon compliant or not. I mean at the end of the day none of it is canon by its very nature so go wild as far as I'm concerned. 

[SleevedAce]

I'll add another more serious answer to a post mostly made in jest (I think?). As a reader, initially, I liked the same styles and emotions as canon but I've gotten more used to fanfics being there own thing and just roll with it. I think tend to like to read the same things as regular fiction. Just with an established characters and universe so we can skip some introductions.

 

I think I like it best when the work has a purpose and execute it well. So nothing is really q requirement. And maybe good communication? As in not too many leaps of logic. And nice payoffs for the reader here and there. A bit like setting up the punchline for a joke, but doesn't have to be comedy.

 

I dislike unfinished multi-chapter fics. I wish other readers could flag a good chapter to stop at that feels complete enough once a fic is abandoned for long enough.

 

Haven't really read anything new recently though since the source material ended.

 

On 10/12/2025 at 7:26 AM, everywhere and nowhere said:

As a non-native English speaker, I found the words shipping and ships confusing... I realised quickly what it refers to, but I couldn't grasp the logic behind calling it like this at first. It took me a little while to realise that it has nothing to do with long-distance mail or marine vessels , that it's just an abbreviation of relationship, made without any regard to proper word-formation.

I don't know if this counts as some kind of ace (aro?) moment but the first few times I saw shipping used, I thought it mean friendship instead of relationship! As in explore what happens if these characters become friends. It paired characters that had no indication of anything romantic between them or that either were homo- (or bi-) romantic.

[Old Maid Librarian]

1 hour ago, SleevedAce said:

I don't know if this counts as some kind of ace (aro?) moment but the first few times I saw shipping used, I thought it mean friendship instead of relationship! As in explore what happens if these characters become friends. It paired characters that had no indication of anything romantic between them or that either were homo- (or bi-) romantic.

Yep, I'd say the mind immediately going to friendship was an aroace thing. I do the same thing with real life and fiction. 

[Skittles87]

On the one hand, I feel like fanfic writers are missing a trick if they don't go absolutely feral in the sandbox. It annoys me that most AU (alternate universe) fanfics are in boring worlds like high school, college, or coffee shops, when the canon setting is usually more interesting. It also irritates me that literally anything could happen in fanfic but in some fandoms it's hard to find fic that's anything other than the characters "romancing" each other.

 

On the other hand, my favourite type of fanfic is the kind that reads like an extra episode of the show/chapter of the book/sequel to the movie. Everyone's perfectly in-character, the tone is just right, anyone who loves the show is probably going to love the fanfic.

 

So in answer to question 5, I think the point of fanfic is to 'continue where canon leaves off'. But if you can't do that or aren't interested in doing it, you should 'destroy canon entirely'.

[verily-forsooth-egads]

1. genderfuckery; plot optional

2. suffering

3. idc

4. sometimes

5. yes

[verily-forsooth-egads]

Also love the built-in litmus test for who actually knows the definition of "antidisestablishmentarianism" because I highly doubt 12% of you require fanfics to oppose the withdrawal of state support from an established church