You should probably be at least a little bit familiar with it? There are many minor plot elements that derive from some of the more obscure comics or from recent events in the comics. I think the story was fun even not having seen all of the particular things that are being referenced, but there’s certainly a great deal of DC-specific characters, and you’ll probably enjoy it more being familiar with them.
OtherPeoplesShoes
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Thanks! My mental concept of them did not match their actual length. I updated the post.
I have a lot of great stories to recommend, and I tried to get a wide sampling of genres and authors. In no particular order:
Inviolate—A fiction of the DC Universe. Novel length. Complete. The base conceit is basically, “what would happen if Lex Luthor went sane?” It’s a little bit like watching MoR Quirrell fight the entire DCU… with SCIENCE. The same author also writes Variant Strain, which is a Spiderman/Prototype story, novel length, ongoing. It’s a very clever mix of the two source materials, and has a great deal of inside references to the Marvel universe while being mainly a retelling of a game with clever concepts and a pretty lousy plotline.
Fair Vote—A fiction of the Dresden Files, novel length. It’s very interesting in that it’s almost completely unrelated to any of the main characters in any of Jim Butcher’s novels; everything in the book is almost entirely Original Content—which means that it’s a great read both for fans of the series and for people who have never read a bit of it. The lack of connection to existing characters means that most people don’t happen to stumble across this one—I think it has sixteen reviews in total, last time I checked. Definitely a fic which could use more recognition.
In Flight—A fiction of Fate Stay Night and Sekirei, novel length. Ongoing. I saw that Fate/Stay Night was mentioned in last month’s thread; this is probably one of the best known fics including elements from it. Because it’s a crossover fic, it does a lot of explaining setting elements, which makes it a pretty okay entry point into the series if you don’t mind a few spoilers. It’s action packed, and very, very funny. If you prefer a story without all the crossover and with a little less humor, you might want to try From Fake Dreams, which is a fairly well written variant of the ‘time travel makes a character awesome’ trope.
The Road To Cydonia A Ranma / X-COM fic. Trilogy length. Ongoing, but slow to update. Further crossovers with DCU through another author. This fic very successfully takes a very silly, heroic universe and throws it into the middle of one of the darkest tactical videogames ever written. There’s a strong ‘peanut butter and jelly’ effect—watching the Ranma characters mature, and the X-COM universe become more epic, is very interesting. The story is also long, and crosses over with Lathis’ The Titans and the Lost Boy, which is a Ranma / DCU fic. Altogether, it’s probably several million words, all pretty enjoyable.
He Who Fights Monsters—a Rosario X Vampire fic. Novella length. Complete. A slightly gory deconstructionist fic of a story where the main character is a human sent to a school full of monsters. Instead of befriending them, he defends against them, with … interesting results.
The Newest Challenger - A Street Fighter / Naruto crossover, novel length, nearly complete. The author, Kenchi, is (or claims to be) an amateur MMA fighter, which means that his hand-to-hand combat scenes are some of the most entertaining I’ve read anywhere. Also, the author is prolific, with about 3 to 3 and a half million words published so far. The stories are consistently funny, and action-packed; the one caveat that I would recommend is skipping any sex scenes, as they’re not written to nearly the same level.
Thanks for the recommendation. I wound up powering through Worm over the course of about a week, and really enjoyed it.