Fanfic Recs / Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers

Proof that the remaining 10% is worth dressing in drag and doing the Fat Cat Stomp for here.

These are recommendations made by Tropers for Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers fanfics, all of which have to be signed to stay on the page. Feel free to add a fanfic of your own to the list, but remember to use the template found here.

You can also add to the current recommendations if you want. Refrain from posting Conversation in the Main Page though; that goes in the discussion page.

---

Authors, and Websites

The Rescue Ranger Database, created by Matt Plotecher, upgraded and currently maintained by Winston

• Recommended by Midnight Man
• Comments: The most comprehensive collection of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers fan creations on the Web, featuring both fiction and art. The classics can all be found there as well as many newer creations. If you're looking for any famous CDRR Fan Fic, you'll most probably find it here.^note Caution with this website. Malwarebytes has called this an unsafe website.

Indy's Ranger Museum – Fanfic Page by Dr. Indy

• Recommended by Midnight Man
• Comments: On special pages of his Ranger Museum, Dr. Indy keeps his own fanfics, many of which his partner-in-crime Chris Silva co-wrote. Especially the Unknown Ranger Tales, ten stories with more than 700,000 words altogether, are recommended when you're an Anti, i.e. against the Chip + Gadget pairing.

The Acorn Cafe Story Board, part of the Acorn Cafe, the oldest and biggest Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers fan forum

• Recommended by Midnight Man
• Comments: Here is where the latest English stories from the core fandom are published. This section reaches back to July, 2005; older stories can be found in the archives going back to February, 2001. A good place to search for the classics; you'll find them at the Café or at the RRDatabase or both. Expect the occasional song parody to come your way, though.

General Fics

Stories focused on the family and the friendly relationships of the cast. Plot-focused stories or light day-in-the-life stories. Pretty much anything that isn't focused on romance. May contain varying amounts of shipping nevertheless.

Miami 'Munks by David Walker

• Recommended by Screwy Sqrl
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: While on Vacation in Miami, the Ranger wing is stolen by cheese smugglers. Gadget rebuilds the older Ranger Plane to get it back.
• Comments: Not especially remarkable, but probably the OLDEST Rescue Rangers fanfic, written when the show was still in first run. Submitted to Disney as a possible script.

Rhyme and Reason by Michael Demcio (first story listed here, can be read as a whole here)

• Recommended by Stevie Will Show You, Midnight Man, Hedgi
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: Chip's detective skills are put to the ultimate test as the rest of the Rangers are kidnapped by a mysterious, malevolent villain who puts Gadget, Monty, Zipper, and Dale — as well as Chip — through a series of deathtraps and tricky situations designed to push them to their mental and physical limits. (Not to be confused with the short-lived 70s ABC game show.)
• Comments: Written from 1993 to 1995 and published in April 1996 after a lot of proofreading, it was the first CDRR fanfic that was meant to be one from the start. It's considered by many in the Rescue Rangers fandom to be the best fanfic in the fandom. In fact, when the fandom handed out its first awards in 1999 (the tenth anniversary of the show's premiere) for the best fan works made and shared within that decade timeframe, it won Best Characterization, Best Drama, and Best Story (the below-listed Under The Bridge was a nominee in the first two categories). It was also nominated for Best Interaction for a specific scene between Chip and Gadget at the end of the story.
  • More info can be found at the Ranger Wiki.
  • Sinclair: The story is very reminiscent of classic Sherlock Holmes, with a complicated intrigue, seemingly unrelated clues and a minimum of information given to the reader, as well as the Saw movies, due to the villain's actions. The ending is a bit of an overkill though.
  • Hedgi: VERY intense and emotional. I honestly was in tears at more than one point. It's a wonderful story.
  • Midnight Man: Being the first of its kind, it became a kind of blueprint for the Dark Fic style typical for CDRR fanfic. It also set the quality standards for fanfic in this fandom very high — intimidatingly high at first until other writers discovered and demonstrated how else to pull this off.

Under the Bridge by John Nowak (can be found here)

• Recommended by The Great Unknown, Midnight Man, Sinclair
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: The Rescue Rangers are attacked by an albino mouse on a quite sophisticated submarine she built. The mouse turns out to be Gadget's twin sister Widget who was believed to have died hours after her birth and who seeks revenge now. Unfortunately, her actions against the Rangers trigger Gadget's Berserk Button.
• Comments: Under the Bridge, by John Nowak, is simply brilliant. However, it is also soul-crushingly depressing.
  • Another thing that is remarkable about Under The Bridge: Instead of just going the easy way by relying on Hand Wave, John Nowak went into a lot of technical details when he described the many original contraptions from a mouse-sized .22 gun to a fully operational rodent-sized submarine. Besides, the main original character Widget Hackwrench is among the most popular original characters the Ranger fandom ever came up with, and she is famous for developing into a Byronic Hero instead of simply remaining a villain.
  • More info can be found at the Ranger Wiki.
  • Midnight Man: Nowak has a very unique style of writing. Under The Bridge can be very dark at times. Next, he goes Tom Clancy on the original contraptions, Albacore in particular. And then he throws in thoroughly funny scenes. Not to mention that he gave us the fandom's most popular original character and started the biggest Fan Verse of all.

The MSTed version of Under The Bridge by John Nowak (both author of the original and co-author of the MSTing) and Matt Plotecher

• Recommended by The Great Unknown, Midnight Man, Mark Lungo
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: Under the Bridge is MSTed.
• Comments: The MST leavens the mood of the original work. A rare good MST of a good work.
  • You won't find many MSTs out there that are as ripe with author Self-Deprecation as this one, seeing as John Nowak decided to MST his own fic.

The Rangerillion by Mr. Spumoni (part 1, part 2, part 3)

• Recommended by Midnight Man, thetropian, Sinclair
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: The Rangerillion tells the history of the show and the fandom...
• Comments: ...and it does so in a Tolkienesque way, so it is not really a documentary. Like The Lord of the Rings, it is written in three parts, each one of which bears an individual title. One probably needs to be a true and dedicated Rescue Rangers fan and familiar with the names of both Disney employees and well-known fans of all eras to fully understand The Rangerillion, especially the second and third part which are about the history of the fandom, starting in 1993 when the show is cancelled, and ending with the author's arrival in the fandom. All in all, The Rangerillion mostly covers a timespan of 18 years. The title is a play on The Silmarillion, of course.
  • More information can be found at the Ranger Wiki.
  • Thetropian: this is perhaps more of a work for hardcore fans than those that are on the fringes - but it's worth the effort to break into it. Excellently written.
  • Midnight Man: This story is the Rangerphiles' knack for their own fandom history and lore wrapped into an epic three-parter. Sure, you'll probably barely understand parts 2 and 3 unless you've hung around the fandom for long enough, also because everyone's names from the characters to show staff to Rangerphiles to other Disney characters had their names changed to something vaguely Tolkienesque. But maybe, just maybe, it'll spark your interest in Rescue Rangers fanlore and the history of a fandom that has been around since the early days of the World Wide Web and experienced a lot since then. (Also, that last person mentioned at the end of part 3 is yours truly.)

"Dummy" by The Illustrious Crackpot

• Recommended by Kady The Red Panda
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: He wasn't stupid. He KNEW he wasn't. But the fact that his best friend thought so depressed and infuriated him all at once.
• Comments: An excellent Chip and Dale friendship fic. The two bicker a lot but at the end of the day they'll always be friends, and The Illustrious Crackpot does an excellent job portraying that.

"Dreamless Nights" by JeffNindo

• Recommended by Kady The Red Panda
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: Another restless night means Chip's mind is free to wander...
• Comments: Even the most confident leaders have worries and concerns at the back of their heads, and this is a very interesting look in what could possibly be in Chip's mind late at night.

Fly to the Light by Matt Plotecher (can be found here together with the rest of the series, just scroll down some)

• Recommended by Midnight Man, Sinclair
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: While in Japan, Monterey Jack's father Cheddarhead Charlie is given a letter which he shall hand on to Gadget. When she receives the mysterious mail which concerns her quite personally, she decides she has to leave as soon as possible. The other Rangers accompany her and manage to follow a Yakuza mouse gang's trails on their mission.
• Comments: Released in 1997, Fly to the Light was the first story in Matt Plotecher's Chip Noir Dales Rescue Rangers series. A lot of drama meets a good portion of Eastern action and Japanese tradition, and it also still provides with the occasional good laugh.
  • More info can be found at the Ranger Wiki.

Of Mice and Mayhem by Chris Fischer (can be found here)

• Recommended by Ranchoth, Nate the Great, Stevie Will Show You, Midnight Man, Evondral, thetropian, Sinclair, Surenity, Sandy87
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: A routine job at Nimnul's lab goes wrong, and the Rescue Rangers, reinforced by Sparky, Tammy, and Foxglove, lose their long-time member Gadget. She is rediscovered at a secret laboratory, but when the Rangers save her, they slip right into a Government Conspiracy.
• Comments: Many people write cartoon fanfic; not as many write and draw 231-page graphic novels that dive headfirst into high drama. Must be seen to be believed (in a good way).
  • Nate the Great: I echo the previous statement.
  • Evondral: It's one thing to be good, it's entirely another to be considered better than the original show. Masterful.
    • Sordid: The reason for that, in my opinion at least, is that it has that more mature, dramatic element seamlessly integrated into the wacky adventures that we know and love. People who watched the show are adults now. They still enjoy the old episodes because of the nostalgia that's attached to them, but that wouldn't be enough to keep them interested in entirely new material. This graphic novel keeps all the slapstick humor but adds a hefty dose of mature themes on top of that - dealing with loss, regret over past mistakes, etc. In terms of tailoring the work to its target audience, this one here's a bullseye.
  • Thetropian: This might actually be the greatest fanfic of all time. Seriously.
    • Sandy87: Seconded.
  • Surenity: Even if you aren't into the shipping aspect, there's still something here that every fan will enjoy, and everyone is mainly kept in character too. Also, its masterfully drawn.
  • More info can be found at the Ranger Wiki.
  • A Sequel IS planned, but the author currently doesn't have the time for it.

Closer Than a Brother by BOC42

• Recommended by Midnight Man, Sinclair
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: A bodyguard job for a Russian mouse actress turns out to be more dangerous than expected.
• Comments: One of the more recent stories, completed and published in 2006. It is told entirely from Gadget's point of view and written in first person.
  • More info can be found at the Ranger Wiki.

Gadget in Chains by Loneheart

• Recommended by fruitstripegum, Surenity
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: Gadget's evil twin, Lawhiney, returns to cause havoc. Before Gadget can confront her, they must both travel through some dark places and learn what it means to walk in someone else's shoes.
  • More information can be found at The Ranger Wiki.

The Rod Squad--In Color! by D.B. Cooper (pseudonym of The Enduring Man-Child)

• Recommended by Midnight Man
• Status: Complete
• Synopsis: It's The '70s, and the Rescue Rangers, now called the Rod Squad, are investigating in what's about to become the Disco Backlash.
• Comments: The title is a play on The Mod Squad. It all started out in a thread at the Acorn Café about what would be if CDRR took place in The '70s. Kat drew a picture of Gadget in bell-bottoms which in turn inspired The Enduring Man-Child to write a fic on this theme that's blistering with 1970s references and lingo down to a brief Crossover with Kojak.
  • More information can be found at The Ranger Wiki.

Shipping Fics

Stories focused on the romantic relationships between the cast.

---