Crack Fic - Television Tropes & Idioms

Hitler continued laughing, then finally said 'Goku! You came here expecting to find a madman, but instead, you found a GOD!' Hitler had become a Super Saiyan.

Phoenix and friends go to Gourd Lake late one night to hunt for Gourdy. As it turns out, Gourdy exists. AND HE'S ACTUALLY A TENTACLE-MONSTER DEMON KING!
— Premise an ''AceAttorney'' crackfic

Suddenly, an eight-foot sub sandwich constrictor eng...sm...sploded out of nowhere!
— Strong Bad

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom is owned by Butch Hartman, who would probably vomit into a bucket if he knew this story existed...

—Tavalya Ra, Mind of a Hero, AKA The Crack

Fan Fic on crack. The easiest type of fanfic to write, and one of the hardest to write well.

The easiest description of its content is "Fics That Make You Go :-O". But if you want to go into detail...

Crack fic is not merely humorous. In fact in many cases it doesn't have to be humorous. While it is similar to Alternate Universe Fic, in that they both change some fundamental aspect of the source material, the "something's different about this" idea taken to the extreme. In its broadest sense, crack fic is any story whose premise and events would be completely implausible in Canon. These frequently include bizarre settings and explorations of improbable relationships between characters — not merely unlikely in canon, as in Foe Yay, but totally irrational and turned up a notch beyond that, as in Crack Pairing.

Crack fic is often considered the result of a challenge, either from someone outside the author or from the author him/herself: "This idea is completely unworkable, but I bet I can make it work." The name stems from the notion that the author must have been ingesting some illegal substance just to think up the idea, let alone write it.

Even more than the rest of the realm of Fan Fic, crack fic is proof of Sturgeons Law. Much of what is actually labeled as crack fic is pure nonsense, streams of out-of-character absurdity stereotypically written by young teen girls who were "soooooo high on sugar/caffeine/cold medicine/red cordial that I had this great idea lol" and don't understand that randomness and the in-jokes they share with their friends do not actual humor make.

The rare and shining well-written crack fic, however, interweaves an outlandish premise with solid characterization, internally consistent logic, and a clear understanding of the rules and feel of the source material (as every writing teacher in history has said, you have to know the rules before you can break them). It's a difficult tightrope to walk, and it's easy to fall off one side or the other into "not quite enough to make the premise work" or "so crazy that it no longer makes any sense." This difficulty frequently drives both authors (who baulk at the work involved) and readers (who are often skeptical that the author has really pulled the premise off) away from the genre, but crackfic fans agree that the discovery or creation of a successful story is well worth the search.

Compare Crack Pairing.

"Official" Examples

Super Smash Bros Brawl. If canon could be Crack Fic, then Brawl would be the veritable god of the world of crack fic. The entire plot of the story mode makes absolutely no sense and the premise the game works on is that the characters suddenly live in a mashup of all the game worlds in Nintendo.
- In the same vein this Penny-Arcade strip parodies the same pattern in the Kingdom Hearts series.
Our very own Pitch Generator is basically one giant Crack Fic crossover... generator, its most notable product being Azumanga Daioh meets Rambo.
Sometimes the Pitch Testing Zone isn't immune to this either...
Our Story Generator also can create crack fics.
"Can't Smeg Won't Smeg" was the first feature of Red Dwarf Night, the Red Dwarf Tenth Anniversary Celebration. It is Red Dwarf as a cooking show.
- Based on a real English cooking show. One full of the unintentional hilarity that comes of asking these characters to cook.
The bonus "External Gazer" short story on the Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance disc is a moving drama about Snake, Otacon and Mei Ling teaming up to battle a giant sea monster from another dimension. Mei Ling turns out to be secretly married to Solidus, and it gets weirder (and increasingly Genre Savvy) from there. It's all told from Snake's first-person point of view, and he's utterly deadpan about everything.
Breaking Dawn from the Twilight series is arguably a Crack Fic of itself.
- And Twilight is arguably a Crack Fic of Vampire Mythology.
Kingdom Hearts definitely qualifies. It starts as a Final Fantasy/Disney crossover and gets stranger from there. Somewhat migitated by the fact that by the end, the main conflicts all steam from the main cast, consisting almost entirely of characters made up exclusively for the series; the Final Fantasy characters are merely cameos and side stories.
The Duck Dodgers episode where he joined the Green Lantern Corps. Yes, they used the actual DC characters. He went to Oa and fought Sinestro and everything.
- On that basis, the Duck Dodgers episode where he ate poorly made Fugu, hallucinated he was Samurai Quack and fought Aku/Happy Cat, who was actually his father.
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe definitely counts. To clarifiy, Shao Kahn and Darkseid inadvertly get fused into a monster named Dark Kahn who begins fusing the two universes, and makes everyone fight everyone for no reason via his Hate Plague. Yes, it's non-sensical.
Dengeki Gakuen RPG: Cross of Venus is another crossover game that could have been designed only by people being high at the time. The premise is that an evil organization is causing canon defilement. And if the fact that Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan meets Kino's Journey in the game didn't tip you off already, it just gets downhill afterwards with such absurdities like a creepy-looking villainous clone of Minori Kushieda, and time travelling in Nogizaka Haruka No Himitsu courtesy of Reality Warper Aureolus Izzard.
Jack's third episode of Totally Non Canon Theater, Frigid McThunderbones. There are no words to describe it except "cracky". Well, and probably also "offensive" (at at least one point to any given reader).
Similar to Super Smash Brothers, we have The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. It includes unrelated characters such Godzilla, Indiana Jones, CareBears, Mister Rogers, and everyone else in between, and they are all battling each other to the death in Tokyo for no apparent reason.

Fan Works Examples

This bad boy, in which Stephen Colbert leaves a fork in the microwave, goes back in time, and makes Adolf Hitler fall in love with him.
Shinji And Warhammer40k. Shinji Ikari (Butt Monkey) gets a Warhammer 40K set at age 6 or so, and it makes him akin to the God-Emperor of Man; that is, inhumanly, INHUMANLY Bad Ass. He fucking turns Eva 01 into a Titan. Kamina would be proud. When it comes to Shinji becoming the Emperor, all signs point to "yes." Later, Shinji leads an army of Terminators, super tanks, and psychics against a horde of zombies. Well, there's something in every chapter.
- Also, Rei gets fucking orky.
  - The author, on a forum where he has the story proof-read, made a comment that he believed that he has been writing Ritsuko too flat, and that he might have her break through as a Spark.
- The actual page for this sums it up:
This fic is not on crack. Crack is on this fic.
That is nothing compared to this. The very sight of the title made me want brain bleach.
Thousand Shinji and its even more crack-tastic sequel The Open Door, To pick one plot line out off The Open Door: A daemon (who eats souls, and kills people with tentacles) named Lars and Skuld cause an industrial revolution, change the nature of magic and raise a child. Oh, and Skuld is technically the father.
This is a collection of Avatar crack fics; some work, some don't.
There is a crossover fanfic that was, I shit you not, a crossover between Dragonball Z and The Diary of Anne Frank. Anne lives, falls in love with Goku, and Hitler turns Super Saiyan shortly before Goku vaporizes him. One gets the feeling that this was inspired by an O.D. on a combination of Psychadelics, Ritalin, and bad ingenuity.
- The fic in question can be found here. I always believed that its genesis lay not in drugs but in a misguided middle schooler coming home from school after learning about the holocaust, thinking, "Man, Hitler sucks! Goku should kick his ass!" And then he set his eyes on the computer, and one of the great legends of fanfiction was born.
- This kind of already happened. It's called the 12th movie. No, seriously. Hitler got revived in the 12th movie, and Goten and Trunks kicked his ass in Saiyajin form.
- Read by Bennet the Sage here: [1]
On the same page as Nazi fan fictions, there is a rare historical Crack Fic on the internet about a paring between a Mary Sue type character and Josef Mengele. Let that sink in for a while. A story full of Ikea Erotica, featuring a mutant Mary Sue, and Josef. Mengele.
Harry Potter and the Eagle of Truthiness, by Christine Morgan, in which Stephen Colbert becomes the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts.
A Star Wars crossover with the the Land Before Time. It works.
This fic, featuring Wario and Waluigi going everywhere.
Or how about The World's First Harry Potter/TETRIS crossover?
Essentially anything David Gonterman writes is unintentionally a Crack Fic... of the worst possible kind.
Curious George Goes To Paris, much like My Immortal, deserves a page of its own.
There is a fanfic about what allegedly happened during Itachi's story. Where to start...? Well, he accidentally killed his friend during a spar, accidentally killed the entire clan (after he used the wrong side of his sword to threaten them with... oops)... the list goes on. And his super torture move? He distracts the target then screams in their face. *first person to guess what goes here gets a cookie!*
Kaiju Moon. Exactly What It Says On The Tin. Sailor Moon/Godzilla crossover. Reincarnation went a little... misdirected.
- Most of Shritstrang's work is rather cracky. Including a Ranma/Mario crossover, where Ryoga and Kodachi turn out to be koopas. And a Harry Potter and Sailor Moon crossover fic where Severus Snape ends up becoming Sailor Mars..
In another bizarre crossover involving Ryoga, Ryouga vs. The Road Runner. Exactly What It Says On The Tin, and yes, its that Road Runner.
I dare you to beat this one: The Adventures of Mighty Mulder and Super Scully. I repeat, The Adventures of Mighty Mulder and Super Scully. Sorry I could only find the MSTed version.
In these stories everyone from Warhammer 40000 converts to Christianity and lives happily ever after.
- Heresy! *BLAM!*
This mixes Fullmetal Alchemist and Pokemon together in a very, very weird way. The title, Pokémists: Pocket Alchemists should speak for itself.
The Transformers Crackfic "You Never ARGH WHAT AM I WEARING?" by Harley Quinn hyenaholic featured Starscream having sex with Blitzwing, a character with multiple personalities. Blitzwing was wearing high heels, fishnet tights, and a thong all through the fanfic. What made the fanfic even more crack was finding out which personality was really in charge when it started.
Nightwing Nin. A Darkwing Duck/Naruto crossover, where Darkwing Duck's ghost takes a young Sasuke Uchiha under his wing.
I was ~~awestruck~~ ~~shocked~~ unsurprised to find this. It is the greatest thing ever written. About Tetris
Carrot Juice, Earl Grey, Hot — Bugs Bunny vs the Borg. A legendary Warner Bros/Star Trek: The Next Generation crossover.
How about Ah My Goddess experiencing a Zombie Apocalypse? It's actually quite good. Scordatura
Sailor Hellblazer. Surprisingly, it too is actually good.
Not really a proper fic, but still implied, worth a mention and an example of a Crack Fic premise that doesn't have to be zany or wacky (despite one of the shows involved being Lucky Star): [2] and [3]. The former's the original, the latter has a better mood (Notice how Miyuki's mostly absent from the latter...).
- And now we have an ending theme, to make it more obvious.
There is a crossover between Seinfeld and Higurashi no naku koro ni in which the entire village of Hinamizawa is somehow moved right next to Jerry's apartment. It featured the main characters of both shows interacting in various ways, the most notable being Kramer and Rika falling in love. The fic ended with Newman becoming possessed by Hinamizawa syndrome and murdering Rika by torturing her. Upon finding the dead body, the fic ended with Kramer shedding a single tear. Unfortunately, it was posted on someone's private website that has since been taken down.
CSI: Las Vegas + Charlie And The Chocolate Factory = CSI: Death By Chocolate. The most common comment was along the lines of "This shouldn't work!" But it does, wonderfully.
Cid Wars has the Cids from Final Fantasys 2-7 teaming up to stop the first Cid, cut from the first game, whose evil plot involves hypnotizing people with Pokemon and Hanson, and something about Kudzu.
A Bleach fanfic version of this: Love and the Art of war. Nanao X Zaraki. In the words of the author, "Nanao X ...Zaraki? I have no excuse, explanation, or defense of this pairing whatsoever. So very, very sorry. The crack! It burns!". And it's actually good.
Larry-Boy and the Little Man of Purpleness: a Star Wars/Veggie Tales crossover.
Somewhere on Fanfiction.net is a Death Note crackfic titled "Slope". This fic is only particularly funny due to it's radically understated final line.
Osama's Last Stand by Fireand'chutes777 is one of those rare examples of a Crack Fic done right. The basic premise is simple: Action Girl heroine Kim Possible is called in by President Bush after Al-Qaeda attacks America on April 23^rd, 2007 to kick aforementioned terrorist organization to the curb (hence the title). It should be an exaggerated stream of Girl Power and Eagleland patriotism, it should have terrible grammar and be wrapped up in one chapter, it should spit in the face of basic physics, but what happened instead was a 128,000 word novel that would not look out of place at all in a book store with the name Tom Clancy printed in big bold letters on the front. (Ironic in that the author hadn't even touched a Tom Clancy book until he was done with the third story in his series.) Even though the author himself admits the reader needs to apply a healthy dose of Willing Suspension Of Disbelief to get past some of the set-up, once one does it's a very enjoyable story for any technothriller fan.
A LOLcat comes to Torchwood. Trying to Communicate
The Terrible Crossover Fanfiction Idea Generator is basically a Crack Fic premise generator.
- "Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Silent Hill and Calvin & Hobbes. The story should use a character dying two days before they were going to retire as a plot device!". You fucking rock.
- This one is amazing. "Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Mythbusters and John Mc Cain. The story should use becoming the President as a plot device!"
- More?
- More. "Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Gilligan's Island and Quake. The story should use Christmas as a plot device!"
- Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Gargoyles and The Powerpuff Girls. The story should use Anal Sex as a plot device!
- Oh dear... "Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Star Wars and Cosby Show. The story should use alcoholism as a plot device!"
- This fanfic is about Lon Suder (Star Trek Voyager) fighting JD (Scrubs) with giant robots. Important to the plot: The Black Telescope.
- ...Transformers meets Serial Experiments Lain??
- Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Walker, Texas Ranger and Scientology. The story should use martial arts as a plot device!
- Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Azumanga Daioh and Parappa the Rapper. The story should use a tournament of some sort as a plot device! Oh, come off it. That's totally doable.
- Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Teen Titans and Totally Spies. The story should use losing one's virginity as a plot device! Yeah, that's the kind of thing that probably exists.
- Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and Rocky Horror Picture Show. The story should use Halloween as a plot device! Fuck yeah!
- Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Indiana Jones and . The story should use aliens as a plot device! Holy crap George Lucas uses that generator!
- "Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Duck Tales and Phoenix Wright. The story should use rape as a plot device!" My mind...
The strangest but most hilarious Silent Hill Crack Fic is Pyramid Head becoming a fanfiction writer. No, really. Valtiel also becomes an effeminate gay man with a Nazi fetish, Heather decides to become a hardcore gangsta' while "Auntie Maria" becomes a zealous church go-er. Think you've had enough? Just wait until you meet the rest.
The Not so Villainous Duo, a Zelda crack fic where Ganondorf blackmails Vaati into stopping Link. They spend 17 chapters on increasingly random and failed attempts and eventually get defeated by Dark Link, who was hired to do so by the author
Lexaeus Loves Hot Topic, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic with appearances by Harry Potter characters. The already strange premise appears to be characters from the two franchises meeting in a normal, 21st-century American shopping mall. The execution, though, is what really sells it as Crack Fic, being a (to be very charitable) disjointed stream-of-consciousness narrative, eschewing typical structure in favor of imagery through disjointed phrases and occasional syntactic contradictions, such as a narrative sentence becoming dialogue halfway through. A descriptor might almost be My Immortal meets Finnegans Wake.
Stray is relatively down to earth, apart from the homemade time machine, a rather trippy sequence in the afterlife, and the fact that it's all done in the service of an epic love affair between a character from the 1960s and a character from the 2000s who have no on-screen interactions in the source material.
Reynaldo The Assassin is based upon The Elder Scrolls Three Morrowind in the loosest possible way. Just read the page.
There's a Titanic/Star Wars crossover on Fan Fiction.net. Oddly enough, it actually works.
Winnie the Pooh porn story (yes, really) Teddybear's Picnic is remarkably true to voice, not to mention very funny.
There's also Slave Bear of Care-A-Lot, which is Care Bears BDSM/noncon porn. And I suppose it's as well-written as one could expect it to be, as is all the best Crack Fic.
Stargate: Atlantis fandom has a thing about penguins, or more specifically, about turning its characters into penguins. John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, and Carson Beckett have all turned into penguins (the former two in multiple works).
- What about when Mckay is a dinosaur? Or when Sheppard is a rainbow and Mckay is a unicorn? Or the one where they are girl scout cookies? Socks? Ice cubes?
Nearly everything written by Dannichu.
This generator tends to come up with these. For instance:
This fanfic is about the casts of Sesame Street and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Important to the plot: The Chrono Trigger.
- How about this one: This fanfic is about the cast of Hackers vacationing with the cast of The Boondock Saints. Professor Utonium gets angry.
- As one user put it:
"This fanfic is about the cast of Sesame Street fighting Death Eaters with super-seductive powers." My childhood just curled up into a whimpering ball in the corner.
- Here's a similar one: "This fanfic is about Brian (The Day After Tomorrow) fighting the cast of The Usual Suspects with super-seductive powers. Important to the plot: The Dragon Balls."
- This one made me laugh: This fanfic is about Meowth (Pokemon) fighting Bao Dur (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II) with super weapons.
- Damnit, Roast Beef, stop messing around with that giant purple robot!
"This fanfic is about the cast of Achewood as traitors at a Geofront.
- This fanfic swaps the casts of Shooting Fish and Illuminati University. Important to the plot: The Zohar.
- This fanfic is about Quinn Morgendorfer (Daria) fighting the Injustice League with giant robots.
- This fanfic is about Jet Black (Cowboy Bebop) fighting Garth (Wayne's World) with hidden magical powers. Important to the plot: Mozart's last syphony.
- This fanfic is about Phil Martin (Neighbours) wrestling with The Beatnik Girl (An Extremely Goofy Movie) onboard Babylon 5.
- This fanfic is about Jake Sisko (ST:DS 9) at Hogwarts.
- This fanfic is about Tyler Durden (Fight Club) comparing notes with Winifred Banks (Mary Poppins). The Count of Monte Cristo makes jokes about it.
- This fanfic is about Granny Weatherwax (Discworld) fighting the cast of Absolutely Fabulous with super science.
- And so much more. This thing could fill an entire page.
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Stage of History, a Soul Series fanfic, is one of those rare well-written crackfics. It begins with Yoshimitsu being mistaken for Jesus, and ends with Setsuka trying to destroy the world with the Infinite Impobability Drive, and a climactic battle with CATS for no good reson. Much, MUCH Better Than It Sounds.
Anything by Peter Chimaera:
- Quarter-Life: Halfway to Destruction.
- Peter Chimaera book of hsitorical faFfiction is 44 pages of gold. One story, Einstein's Theory of Justice, starts with Einstein "discovering" that he "invented" his Theory of Relativity and ends with a battle with Thomas Edison who used the theory to time travel to that moment to steal it for himself and take the credit. It really picks up once Edison recruits the mummy of Julius Caesar to fight Einstein.
- Batman: Nemesis Fight. We won't spoil anything in the short story.
Make A Metal Gear, which is a Metal Gear Solid/Katamari Damacy crossover. And makes sense.
Once upon a time a fan challenged fanfic writers to write the craziest story that they could come up with so that he could post it on his site. The site is long gone, taking the stories with it. One of the stories was a little gem called Empire Evil, a cross between Resident Evil and Final Fantasy 6.
William Country, it's not a crossover, but it was made on crack. Loads and loads of strange moments and Ho Yay between Cody and Hijotee's (the creator) O.C., a Palette Swap of Cody name Joshua. Unfortunatly, all of Hijotee's accounts are closed, and the only surviving peice can be found in it's page.
This series of Danny Phantom fics have their own titles, but are generally known as The Crack. That's right, it's a Crack Fic actually called The Crack. It takes one of the show's least reasonable pairings, brutally "forces them together", and throws in mpreg to boot. Surprisingly, this is considered one of the best fics in the fandom—all 102 chapters of it.
I, Technicolor Pachyderm, will confess that I once wrote a large amount of (non-shipping) ABBA fan fiction that was ~~mostly~~ entirely made of this trope. (Ah, the things depression can do to an adolescent mind.) It can't be found on the 'net anymore, but premises/situations/elements included: caffeine highs, time travel, shapeshifting powers, lake monsters, a crippling fear of polar bears, an SUV that ran on Mountain Dew, the ghost of Che Guevara, the fountain of youth, an extremely pointy guitar, canned herring, pop culture parodies, and excessive amounts of crossdressing and violence. As one of my friends remarked once, "...What unholy thing are you trying to create?"
Beserker Hell, Warhammer 40K meets Winnie the Pooh. the link is here:http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3315463/1/Berserker_Hell
It's an unwritten rule that Penny And Aggie fanfic should be Crack Fic; at the very least, very few serious fics exist among ideas like Camp Gay Fred being the sole survivor of a Zombie Apocalypse and Put On A Bus Jerk Jock Rich falling in love with him.
"Black and White-"You didn't know that [[101Dalmations Pongo]] was a were-hound, did you? Did you?!"
Bart The General.