995 replies to this topic

[Bad Numbers]

Recommend and discuss Fringe fan art, fiction, videos and other assorted fanworks.

You may find the Fringe Page at Fanlore.org a useful resource.

To start us off, three fan videos that I love:

Fringe - Olivia Dunham - Rockstar

Fringe - Oblivion

Fringe - How Far We've Come

[Money Magnet]

Some great videos from past months:

Fringeception

Boom Boom Pow (I don't care for this song, but the editing is top notch)

Weird Science

[zwhippersnapper]

My favorite fan video: Fringe goes Firefly (Opening Theme Style) This was presumably inspired by the title of 3.10, "The Firefly".
Another crossover video: Fringe/BSG Credit Sequence Mashup

Edited by zwhippersnapper, Mar 6, 2011 @ 1:40 PM.

[stef3]

Hey-have always watched Fringe but have recently become obsessed with it;)Am on livejournal and have always been a fan of small tv shows and large fandoms online. Never had a problem getting (relatively) well written fanfic that may be epicly long or short and sweet. Until now. Maybe I am overlooking some great fanfic but there is not a lot of fanfic on livejournal, and most of the stuff on them is fanart or icons or videos,more but a lot of incomplete not especially good fanfics on fanfiction.net, a christmas competition with a few good fics, a not active archive called fringefiction with a couple of good fics and some very good fics on Archive of our own (which you have to hunt for).
Maybe I am just spoilt when coming to fully fledged fandoms,as I am largely a reader and not a good writer (and I feel like a whiny 10 year old) but the show delivers every time for me and the number of ideas that could come from the series and where you could take it in fic is incredible. I have seen shows that failed in logic or scope be blown away by the great fics produced by its fandom (stargate atlantis, I am looking at you!) and I don't know why the fic is not there. It's the kind of show that deserves great fanfic. For example, I read the spoiler/speculation posts (and I hope this is allowed as there are no spoilers but on the safe side...)but a few threads back, we were imagining what might happen in the season finale and the grief if Walter saw peter be hurt or die. This is all speculation but people were joking about the amount of fanfic that must be going on as we were so avidly imagining it. But there isn't .

I feel silly as the show is delivering on all cylinders and there is amazing fanlove out there for Fringe.There are a few small stories and writers that I do like in this fandom. I don't have to look further than here for intelligence and creativity of the fans and maybe when the show is this good you really don't need fanfic. I mean I know people look down on fanfic (and I read books as well,guys) but I love the fringe universe and my way of processing about tv shows I love is looking up the forums and then checking on the fanfic.

Sorry for the selfish stupid rant rant-been thinking like this for a while(!) so if anyone has any thoughts or even can tell me if they want to rec something that rocked their world that I overlooked that would be great.

Edited by stef3, Mar 8, 2011 @ 9:18 PM.

[Money Magnet]

I don't know why there isn't good fanfic for this either, stef.

Good fanfic does take a lot of time and thought.

The quality of Fringe fanfic tends to be subpar, focuses almost exclusively on Peter and Olivia and is pretty stock romantic stuff with no elements of sci-fi at all. There have been a couple stories with more than competent prose, but the storytelling is weak or meandering.

It's hard to invest time in writing fanfic when a writer knows their ideas about what may happen could be blown out of the water with the next episode. I'd like to think that (God forbid) if Fringe was cancelled, we'd start seeing serious quality fanfic as writers might feel more free to take on the task of finishing the story.

But most people, I think, prefer that fanfic be an elaboration on stuff that the show's writers wouldn't be interested in. (ie, Olivia and Astrid having an affair) However, I'm personally of the opinion that fanfic needs to make you feel like you're watching an actual episode of the show - keeping fanciful elaborations to a minimum and sticking to the established style of the show. Not only do you need to have the characterizations right (and I cringe at the usual way Walter is treated like a funny old man in the background of Peter and Olivia's romantic angst), but you need to have tone and pacing right.

There is a certain segment of the fanfic reading public that really needs to know all about how Astrid, Peter and Olivia would have fought paranormal crime while in kindergarten together, but not me. :-)

[stef3]

Yeah- I get what you are saying about how fanfic written after one episode such as Marionette and before another such as Firefly seems to think Olivia would nearly kill Peter herself rather than ever save him (as she does in Firefly) which is clearly the case for several stories over on fanfiction.net.But I think that is the challenge for good authors to maybe have a case of the week if they feel not confident with the mythological aspects of the show yet somehow tie it into a myth aspect (as they do in the show) but mainly concentrate on good characterisation of the trio which is the thing that makes Fringe so great. I mean look at the nazi episode (which I loved but cannot remember the title for the life of me) yes it had nazis but that was only there (for me anyway)to highlight the relationship of father and son and how it has changed and then what walter would do to protect his son. I mean there are so many fic bunnies just stemming from the idea of Peter conning his way across the world and walternate through shapeshifters watching him or Peter being sick or Olivia being watched by bell or nina or how walter went to st.claire's etc etc.
I mean supernatural has had their past revised quite a bit as well with angels time travelling back to the past with the sons to hang out with young mom and dad(twice) and yet nobody stops making fics (maybe a different mindset).
Oh, and I would love fics concerning Astrid and her personal life. The writers have barely touched on how she lives outside the lab and that would be brilliant. I mean,you could have her go in for assessments with higher ups(I mean, can you imagine what would be going through her head if they asked her what she did that day and cleaning it up so that it wouldn't be just "trying to keep my stoned boss working and not brushing his pet cow")LMAO! She could have a dark hidden past or end up dating a shapeshifter or anything.
I totally agree with you, fanfics should stick to the established styles of the show which are in turn dark,quirky, procedural,intriguing or romantic(often all within one scene!) which I think marks Fringe out from the crowd.

[bella1013]

I read a fic on LJ the other day which kept referring to Astride rather then Astrid.

My favourite fic, ever, is called a multi part fic which I think is called Standby. It's about Peter and Olivia serving as guinea pigs to Walter, to test how telepathic they are and how strongly they're mentally connected. Not that I see either of them ever agreeing to such a thing, but it was a very intriguing read.

Standby

And the companion fic

It just grips you, and I found myself reading it over and over again. Warning: Standby features smut in later chapters, the companion pieces less so.

[Money Magnet]

The prose in Standby is great, but damned if I can figure out what the storyline is supposed to be, even after putting the pieces together.

[Ulkis]

I don't know why there isn't good fanfic for this either, stef.

The thing is, Fringe fic has the usual badfic-to-goodfic ratio, that is, much more of the bad stuff than the good stuff, so yeah, there's little good fic, but it's not like it has more badfic in general - it just has less fic in general. So the bad seems much more overwhelming.

(and I cringe at the usual way Walter is treated like a funny old man in the background of Peter and Olivia's romantic angst

My peeve is when a story conveniently has Walter get better and move out. Even authors I've liked have done that.

Here's a website that recs a variety of quality stories.

I also like this author a lot.

Edited by Ulkis, Mar 11, 2011 @ 5:31 PM.

[Money Magnet]

But still I wonder... why do fanfic authors fixate on certain things that aren't even part of the show at all?

For example, why so many stories about Peter getting beat up by Big Eddie's thugs? None of that has anything to do with anything that's on the show these days. (Yeah, I understand the hurt-comfort concept - although with Peter it just seems to be "hurt" with no comfort - but why Big Eddie's thugs? It's like these writers stopped actually watching the show back in Season 1, or something.)

Also, I think it's the general standard of writing that has dropped, but it seems like people writing fanfics don't have a basic grasp of how to put sentences together. Everything is in the present tense for no good reason, as well.

[Ulkis]

But still I wonder... why do fanfic authors fixate on certain things that aren't even part of the show at all?

Well I guess it depends what you want fic for. You said that you like fic to be like episodes of a show, and I like that too, but I also like to read fic that explores things that will never happen on the show for whatever reason. Not silly stuff like middle school AUs, but I dunno, characters being killed off or things like that.

[anatolealice]

I read a fic on LJ the other day which kept referring to Astride rather then Astrid.

I stumbled upon that one the other day, it was driving me nuts. Changes the whole pronounciation.

I'm working my way through this list: http://sugangel7.liv...com/412861.html

and the poster themself has also written some that I really enjoyed.

But yeah, in general I was surprised how little there was in this fandom. Personally, I'm bemoaning the lack of drunken banter-y fic. Olivia is open about enjoying a drink, and Peter's up for anything. I want to see them smashed :-)


And I am re-reading Standby right now. I love the way it unfolds slowly, piece by piece, with the timeline jumping back and forth. Since I totally suck at remembering plots anyway, I'm fine with it not being clear what's going to happen.

[Money Magnet]

We were complaining about the quality of fanfic, so I thought I'd pass this along (which I just discovered) -

http://www.quantumle.../main/main.html

"The Quantum Leap Virtual Seasons." Basically, a bunch of fans got together and decided to write their own "imaginary seasons" of the show (which only aired for five years). Apparently participating fanfic writers would be assigned episode numbers (stories) to write, and then they would pitch ideas to the editors; then their drafts would be reviewed by an editorial board to make sure they fit in with the show's canon, and then readers could comment on whether they thought the stories "fit" with the show's tone and spirit or not. They managed to put together stories up to a "Season 14." Looks like quality writing, too.

Now that's the way you do it!

(This method probably wouldn't work for Fringe fanfic as well, because QL was an exceedingly "stand-alone" show, all episodes self-contained. Still an awesome project though.)

Edited by Money Magnet, Mar 23, 2011 @ 7:41 PM.

[Pigtails 03]

Thanks for sharing Money Magnet. I credit Quantum Leap with starting my scifi obsession. So good.. and gone too soon. Aren't they all.

If anyone is up for a P/O vid here's a good one. What I like is that they don't just use shippy clips. I remember getting annoyed with old XF vids where I'd keep seeing the same scenes over and over.

Here's a couple more:
Undisclosed Desires - P/O
When Worlds Collide P/O/Faux

Edited by Pigtails 03, Mar 24, 2011 @ 4:15 PM.

[Money Magnet]

Yes, back when dinosaurs walked the earth, there was Quantum Leap which was one of the earliest online fandoms I can remember, complete with spoiler set reports, rumors about producers' personal lives and fannish bickering. I was amazed but not surprised to see what a lively online fan group still exists.

I like this Polivia one, though I'm not a shipper...

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=sA_6XVzBR_A

[Money Magnet]

Spotted this fanart on Tumblr...

http://fuckyeahwalte...he-first-people

(Sorry about the URL with the cussword in it...)

[oconnellaboo]

Thanks, MM, I'd forgotten about that website! Despite the unfortunate URL, it's adorable. Love those Bishop Boys.

Here's a rather nice tribute video featuring behind-the-scenes stuff, interviews, convention panels, etc. It shows everybody's terrific chemistry, on and off the set.

[Pigtails 03]

HA oconnellaboo. I posted the same vid in the ratings thread to celebrate the 4th season renewal 2 days ago. They all do have great chemistry. Love: "Bishop boys go home now" and how Josh opens the door for John. Also nice to hear John say: "I could do this all my life, we hope so yes?"

[oconnellaboo]

HA oconnellaboo. I posted the same vid in the ratings thread to celebrate the 4th season renewal 2 days ago.

Hee!! Love it! There were so many posts flying fast and furious that night, I must've missed it! Great minds, and all that... ;)

"Bishop boys go home now..." My absolute favorite line in the clip, especially when it follows John's adorable, "C'mon, son!".

[a la fringed]

I love blooper reels! Especially the ones from this show!

S1
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=EZ1FyEfy4MY

John and Josh's interaction is priceless!
John: The batteries are flat!
Josh: Nope, "dead" this is America,
John: ok.
Josh: do it again!

S2
http://www.youtube.c...38v-L5z0KM&NR=1
Josh: I'm not nervous, it's Chinatown, I'm fine. Whatever!

[bolivia]

Technically, this belongs in the media section but as it's from season one, I'll put it here;

Official fox music video for fringe with the actors taking part.

http://shirtlessfran...-music-video-to

[Money Magnet]

Wow... where did they dig that up? Never saw that one before.

[Bad Numbers]

That's been on youtube for over two years, pretty crazy, no? You have to give Fox credit, between that video and creating the glyphs, etc, they promoted the hell out of the show from the very beginning.

[oconnellaboo]

How cool is that? I wonder where they used it - probably online, but I recall they were promoting it very heavily during the baseball post-season. Maybe it aired during the World Series - which featured Observer sightings in the stands! I remember saying, "What the hell is this? Might be worth a look."

Thanks for posting that, bolivia.

[calguy2009]

Speaking of the Season 2 blooper reel, I noticed scenes of Olivia wearing a headscarf drinking with Peter in a bar. I recalled seeing those scenes in promos but I don't recall seeing them in the show. Was there any explanation of why those scenes were filmed?

[Money Magnet]

I thought that scene was from "Fracture"? Season 2 episode, where they (rather ludicrously) went to Iraq?

[calguy2009]

It seems your right MM, it seems like I forgotten quite a bit of season 2. Thanks MM.

[Lurkey]

I've seen the "music video" promo a few times, but I keep getting blown away anew by different details. The glyphs, and the little nods to them, are awesome...but this time around I noticed the sheep. Videos of creepy(?) sheep doing sheep things! What's up with that? But...didn't we just learn, in this season, that sheep had died out in the Red Universe? Nearly three years after this promo was made? LIKE WHOA.

I love the shots of the spooky-dazzling warehouse o'butterflies, too. Hallucinatory razor-sharp butterflies came into play later in S1--quite a bit later, no? I want Peter and Olivia to watch out, in there...but their sunstruck awe in a sea of butterflies is frigging gorgeous regardless.

[Money Magnet]

Speaking of old promos, anyone remember Walter's Lab Notes? I miss those.

[Mack the Spoon]

Wow, that is a super-cool and trippy music video. And all the actors look particularly awesome in it.