Fandom-Specific Plot/Video Games

Examples of Fandom-Specific Plots based on Video Games include:

• Gears of War fandom has a few very predictable plots that closely resemble the following: Girl (almost always a Mary Sue or a Jerk Sue, but always a Tsundere) joins Delta Squad. It turns out she's usually like either an awesome stranded badass or the greatest sniper ever in 70% in cases (the other 30%, she's just a random woman who turns badass the moment she starts tagging along with Baird). Then, she falls in love with Baird, have a brief Slap Slap Kiss relationship buildup (sometimes literally), and then ultimately Baird falls in love with her and they have sex.
• Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones fandom is in love with the "Seth and Eirika angst over their social positions and how it affects their love for each other, but end up together anyway because they're soul mates" plot.
  • From the seventh game, we have lots of people writing novelizations that include the tactician, and fans of the Tellius games have written lots of "What if Soren was raised by his parents?" fics.
• It's a running joke in Metal Gear fandom that everyone has to write at least one "Tankerfic"—a fic about the alluded-to-but-never-elaborated-upon scene in Metal Gear Solid 2 where Otacon pulls Snake out of a shipwreck in the middle of a raging storm.
• ARF (Aeris/Aerith Resurrection Fic) for Final Fantasy VII.
• The Mega Man X fandom contains a ton of stories about Dr. Cain completing one final case before either retiring or dying.
• Mass Effect fandom has quite a few variations of Samara's loyalty mission since the second game came out, but the chief plot of such stories is either 'the love interest voices disapproval with Shepard being the bait' or another character entirely -usually one of the other squaddies- takes Shepard's place instead. Both styles of this plot are commonly seen with the Female Shepard/Male Love Interest combo.
  • A fairly common plot is Shepard having a brother or sister that either joins the group or takes over when the in-game Shepard dies in a battle somehow, despite one background explicitly saying Shepard is an only child and the other two saying that Shepard's entire immediate family is dead.
• One type of story that has gained some traction in Dragon Age fandom is having one or more of the other origins meet up with the Warden character and in some instances, have them join the group. (example: a Dwarven Commoner meets a Human Noble and the dwarf joins The Warden, Alistair, Morrigan and the gang) They may or may not be Grey Wardens.
  • For most of the Origins, there is the annoying issue that Duncan saved the potential Grey Warden from certain or nearly certain death, rendering their mutual presence problematic from a canon point of view.
  • Unsurprisingly, Dragon Age also has lots of Dark Ritual fics and fanart, usually with Alistair as the, uh, second participant and Female!Warden and/or him agonizing over the decision. These range from pure angst to smutty hatesex to conflicted tender lovin' to humiliating performance problems to big happy threesomes. One Big Name Fan fancomic artist, Aimo, even collaborated with the game's head writer on a comic based on a deleted scene where Morrigan herself agonizes about it beforehand.
• Tales of Symphonia has quite a few fanfics in which Lloyd has a twin sibling—usually a female who, at least initially, serves Cruxis. Cruxis!Lloyd fics are also popular, most starting with Kratos finding Lloyd and returning to Cruxis with him.
• A common theme for Dimentio/Mimi from Super Paper Mario is him stealing her diary and using the contents to tease her. However, it should be noted that this does stem from a canon incident.
  • Similarly, a fairly large amount of Bowser/Peach fanworks center around the popular question of just what the heck do they get up to while Mario's busy adventuring to rescue her from Bowser's clutches. Or, many also portray Peach as taking a motherly role towards Bowser's eight unruly children. However, this once again is based off of a canon incident (that of Bowser Junior being convinced that she's his mom and even calling her "Mama Peach"). It's actually unknown just how the seven older Koopalings feel about Peach, but the image of them looking up to her as their mom is cute nonetheless.
• Touhou has innumerable doujins/fanfics detailing the Backstory of the characters, since not many characters have one to begin with, and even if they do it's still pretty vague. By far the two most common recipients are Rumia (so popular that any fan refering to "EX-Rumia" is immediately understood) and Sakuya (serial killer, former monster hunter, or Lunarian being the three main theories).
  • Explaining what happened to the PC-98 characters, especially Mima, is similarly widespread.
  • Detailing the future of characters is also common, as amongst the incredibly long-lived youkai there are a few humans that will die relatively soon. Reimu, Marisa and especially Sakuya (again) are the targets, though Sanae became increasingly popular after her arrival.
  • There is a sub-genre in Touhou fandom that can be called "Outsider fic", with someone (either a character from another fandom, an original character or a self-insert) falling into Gensoukyou and meeting various characters, either amicably or otherwise. Notably, this is entirely plausible, as the barrier that seals Gensoukyou in its own reality is nowhere near as impermeable as it should be (and some of the "accidents" might actually be deliberate abductions).
  • The (mis)adventures of Team 9, an entirely fan-made Cast Herd consisting of child-like "low level" youkai, seems to be required for every significant story, even if only as a background detail. Indeed, the Non Indicative First Chapter of Imperfect Metamorphosis, and ultimately the entire story, is based around them.
• A large amount of non-shipping Pokémon fics follow this basic formula: Original Character gets a starter Pokémon from the regional professor, which is usually not one of the normal starters since they've all been taken. Original character encounters whatever villain team appears in the region, or either Team Rocket or Cipher if it's a non-game region. Original character defeats 8 gyms. Original character participates in the Pokémon League, usually winning.
  • As a subtrope of both this and After Action Report, the Nuzlocke Comics based stories are a genre unto themselves. It is basically the same as the situation outlined above, except you are actually recording your playthrough of the game, you are restricted in the pokemon you can catch, and Anyone Can Die is in full effect.
• In The Sims fandom, it's incredibly common for a "Backstory" type fic to be about Pleasantview and how Bella Goth disappeared. It will involve aliens, because the memory that Bella's husband Mortimer and daughter Cassandra have is that she was abducted by aliens. It also is common for it to involve Dina and Nina Caliente, because they arrived the day before Bella disappeared, and because Dina's late husband is Bella's brother. Another common plotline will be to tie Strangetown in somehow, because of the townie in Strangetown that is named Bella Goth. The one neighborhood that consistently is ignored is Veronaville.
• A lot of Portal fanfic written after Portal 2 involved Wheatley returning from space or Chell returning to Aperture, even though both are a no-go in the canon.
  • GLaDOS or Wheatley being transferred to android or human bodies for whatever reason—or just making them human and not even bothering with the transfer. This in turn created its own sub-set, with one or both of them being originally human to better facilitate the transfer (note that this is at least partially true for GLaDOS).
• If one is to write a Super Robot Wars Fanfic, the usual standard story will do the following: Write a prologue in the style used by the games (with a list of "Series Represented" almost always included), then the plot will basically proceed with the novelized version of the same type of mecha anime crossover story writing style endemic to the games.
• Undertale fanworks tend to be Alternate Universe Fics, usually being some sort of High Concept retelling of the plot, or switching characters' roles. Another extremely popular plots are exploring the backstory of the most mysterious characters, like Sans, W. D.Gaster, and the original Fallen Child; and ones tying to rescue certain Walking Spoiler characters fron their Bittersweet Endings. Continuation Fics are also rather common.
  • Another extremely common plot (mostly in fanart and fancomics) is the AU crossover. To wit: Undertale has so many AUs that are so well codified within the community, many enterprising fans do crossovers between AUs, usually by placing a character with their AU counterparts and letting them interact.