The Once and Future King, by TWhite01.
Seriously, though, I’ll be back with some classics this evening. I’ll try and include some recs that aren’t just (well written) bone dry technical thrillers.
One of these days I’m going to write a NCIS: LA slash about Hetty and Deeks.
I think an even bigger issue may be that fanfiction authors (reasonably) assume that the reader is already familiar with the source material. So particularly with short stories, which is what the OP is looking for, an author will typically take it as a given that the reader is already familiar with the setting, major characters and their relationships, and the plot/events of the source material. This seems likely to leave readers unfamiliar with the source material very confused.
Short and funny: The Isengard Swim Team by Grav.
A bit less short, also funny: The Lion, The Witch, and the Chevrolet Equinox by AdaptationDecay. It’s a “Top Gear” story so technically it’s an RPF.
Not short, not funny, and one of the best fanfics I have ever read (and re-read): Man-eaters of Kumaon by ignipes. “Harry Potter” universe, featuring Remus Lupin in India. I think I saw it recommended here on the Dope but I don’t remember the thread or the poster - thanks anyway, whoever you are.
That is so true with a lot of the fan fiction I read.
BTW, I once read a most excellent Batman/X-Files crossover fanfic that was being serialized on the old Captain Comic website that I was I could find and link to, but I can’t even find that site via The Wayback Machine any more.
Alright, time for those recommendations…
First, though, “well written” probably deserves some discussion. There are plenty of works of fanfiction that, if not remarkable, are still perfectly technically competent works. That is, the spelling and grammar are correct, the plots, dialogue, and characterization are reasonably executed, and are consistent with the parent work. Stuff that could easily serve as a licensed work, or even pass muster if they’d been filmed or published as an official work, even if it wasn’t anything Earth-shattering or award winning.
If you’re looking for stories that are noticeably good, interesting, or even great or exceptional? Sure, they’re out there. I might even have a few further down, if I indeed have any sense of good taste remaining.
Now, as Lamia notes, a lot of fanfic authors (reasonably) assume that the audience is familiar with the source material—and that’s hard to argue, as most fan fiction is, pretty much by definition, a continuation of another work. But it’s not exactly a shortcoming unique to the medium. Actual sequels or new chapters of existing works usually don’t painstakingly reestablish everything in the setting and backstory for the audience from the ground up every time they start a story.
And if some settings are “accessible” enough to the audience to begin with, there actually might not really be much of a difference between what a fanfic would look like, and what an original stand alone work of prose fiction would look like. Say…an episodic slice of life drama, for example, or a Conan story. Something where familiarity with the backstory and the characters isn’t actually that essential to the reader to be able to get into it, much less understand it.
But there are also works that do make a point of establishing the setting, because they’re purposely changing things. Characters might be different—perhaps for want of a nail, they’re in a different situation than they were in canon, or they interpret things in a different way. Or perhaps the story is from the perspective of a different character, or a new one, illustrating how they perceive the world in comparison to what the audience would have been familiar with. Or there’s been a radical change to the underlying setting, or a new situation that radically forks from where the story was headed in-canon. Or maybe there’s just a new monster of the week.
Or a work can be totally in line with the source material, but simply in more depth, with a more sumptuous exploration of the world of the source. Or it brings out something interesting by changing the medium. Or maybe it’s simply a good, fun yarn—an “hour of joy, to the boy who’s half a man, or the man who’s half a boy.”
Bah. But enough rambling…my suggestions?
•Food Scandal
“Governmental contracts usually go to the lowest bidder. Even in galaxies far, far away. And, here or there, you get what you pay for.”
A Star Wars story…about a science technician on Darth Vader’s flagship discovering, during the course of routine tests, that they’ve been provisioned with adulterated nutritional feedstock, and things spiral from there.
Now, I’m the type to find the subject of logistics and scientific procedurals fascinating by themselves—and in fact, according to the author, this story was based specifically on the 2008 Chinese milk scandal, complete with details on the biochemistry, and industrial processes involved—but what one might find more interesting is the choice of protagonists. This is an Imperial story, with not a single Rebel to be seen. And while most of the character are just regular people, the poor bloody infantry, it doesn’t shy away from the fact that these are, well, space fascists, not just heroes in different uniforms. They don’t go around eating kittens, but there’s also pointedly an undercurrent to remind the reader that these are people in system with an unrepentantly vicious, oppressive streak in it. A fundamentally unhealthy society.
The same author also wrote another Vader-centered Star Wars story collection, that has such notable parts as Imperial War poetry, to the innumerable gallant dead…the fallen crew of the Death Star, which had but one survivor.
“There is a wall on Coruscant, black marble, smooth and cold.
There is a wall on Coruscant, two thousand steps all told.
There is a wall on Coruscant, framed by eternal flames.
There is a wall on Coruscant that bears a million names.”
•Instruments of Destruction
Another Star Wars story, a short work about the construction of the second Death Star. As the author puts it, “This is largely a story about project management.” I like it.
•The Way Is Shut
A “World War Z” (the novel) story, with the same format, interviewing the leader of a team investigating what happened to North Korea after a zombie apocalypse.
I forget exactly where I first saw this one recommended—it might have been here, actually—but it was an instant hit for me. Creepy and atmospheric as hell.
•Black and Blue Lagoon
Based on the manga and anime series “Black Lagoon,” about a group of mercenaries/pirates (including their newest member, a younger Japanese former businessman who ended up joining them mostly by sheer chance) operating out of a seedy fictional southeast asian city. Alternately comedic, adventurous, or outright grisly…
This story is about two of the characters getting in an accident at sea, and washing up on a deserted island. Basically just a castaway/survival story—it could have been almost ANY characters, or even original ones. But in any case, certainly well written, and “something someone would actually want to read as a story in it’s own right.”
There is a bit of sex in it, so fair warning.
•Enslaved
An “Avatar: The Last Airbender” story (a cartoon series taking place in an Asian-inspired fantasy setting), but an “alternate universe” that ditches the plot, using alternate versions of the established characters in a completely different situation.
Now I bring this one up in particular because it veers off so wildly in terms of story, especially in terms of world building, adding or changing cultural elements, linguistic angles, setting history. It could almost stand alone as-is as a unique work in it’s own right, and almost certainly could if you made a few changes…but at the same time, it’s not just an essentially original work that happens to borrow a few characters’ names. You can still see where the bones of the original source material lay under the new elements, directing how they did or didn’t develop, and characters still feel like versions of the ones from the show, not just in-name-only dopplegangers.
There’s plenty of those to be found in other works, to be sure—a sort of counterpart to works that are merely derivative would be ones that divert from the original so far that they’re seemingly merely riding the coattails of the source as a pretext to exist.
This story, however, I think illustrates the impressive lengths a story can progress creatively while still recognizably linking to it’s roots.
•Two Gorram Days
As you might infer, this is a “Firefly” story. It’s actually the first entry in a what would become a series (IIRC, unexpectedly). Jayne and River—very different characters, and who don’t spend a lot of time interacting in the series. And really, are both the types of characters who normally wouldn’t, I believe—are unexpectedly stuck together for a couple of days while the rest of the crew is preoccupied in other adventures, and manage to weirdly bond.
Short enough for a quick read, and the dialogue is just perfect—an exquisite job of capturing the spirit and the voices of the characters.
•Mice and Mayhem
You might remember the old Disney animated series, “Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers.” This is, technically speaking, not a fanfic of it, but a graphic novel. A 200+ page, professional quality one.
It might not be “Watchmen,” but it’s damned impressive nonetheless, even just on a technical level.
•Saruman of Many Devices
“Alone of every power in Middle-Earth, Saruman innovates, notably gunpowder. But he lost. What if he had a little help? Actually a cross-over between LOTR and the General series by David Drake. Uses both book and movie elements.”
Drake’s “The General” series, is about an AI supercomputer assisting a military leader on a far future human space colony, over a thousand years after the collapse of galactic civilization that had reduced that and many worlds into a pre-industrial state. Not to be confused with Drake’s “Belisarius” series, which has a somewhat similar premise, although the character being assisted by an AI is the actual Byzantine general Belisarius, not just a character patterned after him.
Kind of like “Sharpe’s Urukhai.” Hey, I never promised I wouldn’t recommend WEIRD stories—but I think at least it’s illustrative of how a weird or silly concept can be “done straight,” and executed well. 'Might be a bit lengthy (it’s multi-chapter), but sampling different sections might still be of interest.
•Black Lace Stockings
A “Young Justice” (a DC comics cartoon from a couple of years back) story, but with an interesting premise: apparently, it was written for a writing prompt that “Robin is actually a girl, but dresses and acts like a boy” because of various factors that kind of snowballed (from a mistake by the press when Bruce adopted a tomboyish orphan who’d gotten an odd name from free-spirited circus folk parents), but mostly maintained for reasons of safety when she became “Robin.”
An intriguing idea, and well executed. Plus, I would like to be able to again note that not ALL the stories I like are dry procedurals about engineering problems. 
Two of my favourites:
One Round is a good, short piece of Dungeons and Dragons fanfiction.
Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The life and times of a rounding error is another good one, about corruption in Star Wars’ Old Republic.
Perhaps browse the Fanfic Recommendation page at TV Tropes for your favorite property and see what they suggest?
The Elephant in the Room a fan comic starring the Joker, and it’s my favorite fanfiction by far. It just came out a few days ago and is only a few pages long.
The elephant in the room is how hard he has to work to pull off all his crazy schemes. About elephants.
Does video fan fiction count? Because I can recommend a lot of Harry Potter, Hunger Games, and Lord of the Rings fan videos on YouTube.
You won’t find it online, but my niece, who is now 15, was a big “Cars” fan, and she would write “Cars” fanfiction when she was 10 or 11, and translated Guido and Luigi’s dialogue into Italian using Babelfish.
I haven’t seen a lot of that series, but couldn’t you pretty much write slash about Hetty and, well anybody?
Well, I was thinking Blye and Nell would be discussing a hypothetical undercover operation where they’d have to seduce a mark. Deeks overhears and and is more than happy to volunteer as their guinea pig. The girls want nothing to do with him, but he keeps insisting he’ll keep everything “above the belt,” and of course he lies. Hetty then steps in and says “I can demonstrate on you Mr. Deeks. I was trained in the art of seduction. It’s how we captured Manual Noriega.” Deeks is skeptical, says he doesn’t find Hetty’s mothball scent sexually alluring, and makes the situation even more awkward with his horrible jokes. Hetty finally grabs him in a sensitive spot and demonstrates her craft and… :dubious::dubious::dubious:
Huh
Many thanks for the recommendation, reading the first book now. Little0Bird is a better writer than Rowling was in the first two books. This is not just good for fanfiction, this is good.
And like others, i read Methods of Rationality, and found it annoying. His Harry was a Harry Sue.
Enjoy!
This is going back many years and is seriously old-school (the link goes to a UNIX directory containing the chapters, so this is pre-Web), but if you’re an old X-Men fan I highly recommend “Kid Dynamo” by Connie Hirsch. It was one of the first fanfic stories I ever read on the net, and it’s stuck with me all these years.
**Ranchoth **, Many many thanks for your recommendation of the Firefly story! The sequels are equally good!
We;ve decided not to do the fanfic, mainly because it seems you won’t like amateur fanfic unless your already a fan of the original thing, and not all of us are fans of the smae thing. But I really appreciate all the links, especially Ranchoth and Grumman. Will visit them for my own pleasure. Thanks!
It depends. Of the two I suggested, One Round does work a lot better if you’re already familiar with the rule mentioned in the introduction and will recognise the punchline. Surely You Can’t Be Serious is more about the kind of comedy one could imagine seeing in Blackadder and merely is set in the same universe as the Star Wars movies.