yes, but what are your thoughts on crossovers?

[holli]

So, it's probably not going to surprise anyone if I note that I like crossovers, the more unlikely the better. One sign that I've really gotten invested in a fandom is that I start coming up with crossovers to involve said fandom's chracters in.

Usually this involves a lot of matchmaking, because I like it when the characters I like are happy, and I really do think that Starfire and Xander Harris would make each other happy. For that matter, I recently realized that Dean Winchester and Cordelia Chase are the OTP of Where Have You Been All My Life. The matchmaking doesn't have to be the kind where sex is had, either-- thanks to arliss, I now know that Andy Gallagher and Jonathan Levinson would be BFF in any just afterlife. And I remain convinced that Mal Reynolds and Bruce Wayne would be *fantastic* foils for one another, whether or not they make out. Although they should.

And really, why not? Crossovers are fun! When done well, they can be quite though-provoking! They make it possible for characters who don't even inhabit the same universe to have sex!

They can be a very id-vortexy form of writing, too, but I think that's actually a good thing. In general, the fanfic I like the best has a healthy sense of humor about itself, and acknowleges the inherent crackiness of the enterprise. That's the kind of fic I enjoy writing the most, usually-- note my fondess for wacky resurrection. Good crossovers tap into a concept that's very dear to the fannish id: all the characters we love the best, playing in the same sandbox!

However, I've noticed something about the crossovers I like, versus the ones that make me tilt my head to one side and go "huh." I think the difference can be summed up thusly: if Giles went to Hogwarts, he probably would have mentioned it by now. Some universes can't comfortably occupy the same space. Sometimes it really is easier to just zap your characters into the next universe over via swirly vortex or magic spell, rather than trying to make the case that they've been sharing a universe all along and never noticed.

That's not the same thing as a fusion of universes, or an AU where one universes' set of characters take on appropriate roles in a new setting. In one of the hypothetical DCU/Firefly stories I've been wittering on about for a while, Inara has a rich idiot of a client named Bruce Wayne, who bugs the crap out of Mal because he keeps wandering about the ship when he's not supposed to, barging in on Mal's heist planning and flirting with Kaylee. Then, to make Mal's day perfect, he nearly gets busted by the gorram Batman, which just serves him right for taking a job on Gotham.

In that scenario, half the fun is finding the new roles DCU characters would occupy in the Firefly 'verse: Selina the ex-Companion, say, or the way Bruce's devotion to Gotham is extended to an entire planet. Of course, it would be pretty hard to write any sort of DCU/Firefly story that doesn't either zap characters from one 'verse to another or find a new, AU place for them; you couldn't pretend that Firefly occupies any place in the DCU's future due to the whole abandoned-Earth thing. Although... okay, great, now I'm envisioning Firefly-verse Booster, because that's around his time period, right?

...no, beside the point. Sorry. Anyway.

It seems like SPN/Buffyverse has gotten pretty popular, which I totally approve of, but I'm not sure if I like how many of those stories assume the 'verses are compatible. The SPN universe runs on very different rules than the Buffyverse, as far as I can tell, and you kind of have to do the writing equivalent of whacking them with a wrench to make them fit together. Buffy almost never dealt with ghosts, for one thing, and ghosts are an SPN mainstay. Magic works very differently in each universe. Demons, of course, operate by completely different rules. And the magical world of Buffy is much more organized, in general: not just the Council, but the supernatural underworld as a whole. Sam and Dean would never wander into the SPN equivalent of Caritas or Willy's; there's no indication such equivalents exist.

So the idea that SPN and BtVS could occupy the same universe-space requires Sam and Dean to be unaware of a lot of supernatural activity-- and a lot of *kinds* of supernatural activity-- that the Buffyverse encompasses. The same goes for HP and BtVS: the rules are too different. Giles would have mentioned that he went to Hogwarts.

There are some fandoms-- XF comes to mind-- where I can buy the crossover almost every time, no swirly vortex required. The universe rules are loosely-defined enough, and the premise of the show is that there's a hell of a lot of weird stuff going on that we don't know about. That weird stuff could totally be Slayers, or hunters, or Stargates; XF can occupy the same universe-space as a lot of other places, with a fair amount of ease.

DCU, on the other hand, can't at *all*. The borders are too well-defined. None of the other universes have superheroes. *Something* has to happen to move characters from one 'verse to the other, or the story doesn't work for me.

All of this is more about story mechanics than about characters, which is the thing I'm really reading crossovers for anyway, but the story mechanics do matter. If two characters have been sharing a universe all this time and never noticed, I can't help but feel like they haven't been paying *attention*, and that makes me wonder why. If the character is someone who *should* pay attention, who should have noticed by now, that makes the story tougher for me to enjoy, because I feel like they're *out* of character.

In conclusion: someone should definitely write a story where Dean car-geeks with Angel. One of them just has to drive out of his universe to do it.

Comments

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

I agree that XF and Supernatural are rubbing elbows, universe-wise, but the big problem is that Dean and Sam watched that show on television. Like, enough to have debates about who is which character, the way I used to with my little brother when we both watched G. I. Joe.

Which, I guess you could just close your eyes and handwave those instances in canon, or you could posit Mulder and Scully as existing in the Supernatural universe, at some point in the XF canon where they're famous enough for two people who don't give a shit about law enforcement to know who they are (while still early enough in XF canon that they're still both, like, FBI agents -- I get fuzzy about what happened to them after season 7).

[holli.livejournal.com]

Oh, I should have mentioned: the one thing that *doesn't* bug me is hand-waving canonical mentions of other universes. Which I realize makes no sense. But, you know, it's like how the DCU canonically has a show called Wendy the Werewolf Stalker: I can either ignore it, or pretend that it has nothing to do with the Buffyverse, at least for the duration of a story. I have no idea why this is.

random m_f drop in.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

It's XF canon that by the middle of s1, Mulder at least was well known enough among the paranoid-conspiracy-freaks demographic that random ghost hunters recognize him on sight. There are continual references to that as the series continues - and *anyone* who was trying to track paranormal stuff would've been reading The Lone Gunman and known of Mulder and Scully that way. Also in S7 there was a movie based on their work that didn't even bother to change their names, if that's not good enough. Basically, canon refs are almost never enough to KO xf crossovers - the real stickler would be why the current XF agents weren't involved in Dean's case.

Also in the last few seasons Mulder was, basically, a hunter. And after the series finale Scully joined him and they were hunters together, while Mulder was wanted for murder and, also, officially dead. Plus his angst about Sam finally got resolved. Kinda. :D

(..not that I really want more spn/xf crossovers. or anything.)

[sophiap.livejournal.com]

Excellent essay. I think you've put your finger on why most HP crossovers fail for me - the rules of its universe cover so much territory (even if they do fall apart a bit if you poke at them too much), it's hard to mesh it with any other supernatural or science fiction based show. A show like "Avatar" is almost impossible to cross over with anything, given that its setting is self-contained to the nth degree.

As for BtVS/SPN crossovers, those became infinitely trickier the instant SPN introduced its version of vampires. There would have to be massive handwaving and retconning by the BtVS folk to explain the existence of another kind of vampire. Plus, the Winchesters would have undoubtedly heard of vampires before DMB if they're as common as the Jossverse makes them out to be.

I do find that shows with one, single premise behind their 'verse (Highlander, Wonderfalls) can fit into other shows' 'verses without too much trouble. Also, shows that are set solidly in RL settings can also be intriguing when crossed over with fantasy, horror, or sci-fi shows. Me, I'd love to see something with Dean or Sam discussing the nature of evil with Frank Pembleton.

[holli.livejournal.com]

Yup, yup, and yup. The more genre-y a show, and the more its universe diverges from baseline (for the purposes of this meta, we're the baseline), the harder it is to mesh it with another universe.

I'm not sure why there isn't more fic where one half of the crossover isn't a genre show. There totally should be! (I also kind of think Gilmore Girls qualifies as a genre show, because the existence of Stars Hollow means a pretty big divergence from baseline. I'm just sayin'.)

Maybe it's because the universe-rules of genre shows allow for things like swirly portals and magic spell, and therefore make crossovers easier?

Avatar as a Self-contained Universe

[druidspell.livejournal.com]

I very much agree--I've beta'ed for the Avatar-verse before, and the universe is so self-contained that to imagine the people from any other universe stumbling into it through almost any means pushes the story's boundaries from "crack--wacky but enjoyable" to "absurd--suspend all disbelief immediately upon entrance".
However, one thing that I have found that works remarkably well is the fusion of Avatar and other characters: LTC Sheppard from SGA as an Airbender in the Avatar-verse, for example, or Princess Azula being an agent for The Alliance in the Firefly/Serenity-verse.
Thoughts?

Re: Avatar as a Self-contained Universe

[sophiap.livejournal.com]

Fusions are good fun, because you then don't have the same worries as in a more traditional crossover. I actually saw a BSG/FNL fusion that worked wonderfully well because the story managed to capture the feel of both shows and highlight the similarities of tone. Which is why I could see your Azula idea working very well. (I'm not as grounded in SGA, so I can't comment on your other idea.) Fusions between series with dramatically different tones (say, "Seinfeld" and "BSG") would probably not work very well, IMO. I'd be willing to be proven wrong, though.

(I did managed to write a one paragraph crossover fic for Avatar and Homicide: Life on the Streets--on a dare, btw--but that was as far as I could take the idea, even as a joke. Things would go from cracky to absurd way too easily.)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

X-Files and Millennium canonically shared the same universe.
I've written a crossover with Brimstone and Millennium.

Sometimes things cross easily. Sometimes you have to tilt your head and squint a lot.

And sometimes, it's pure crack. (Says the lady who wrote Star Wars/Persian Boy: Han/Bagoas=OTP!)

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

It seems like SPN/Buffyverse has gotten pretty popular, which I totally approve of, but I'm not sure if I like how many of those stories assume the 'verses are compatible. The SPN universe runs on very different rules than the Buffyverse, as far as I can tell, and you kind of have to do the writing equivalent of whacking them with a wrench to make them fit together. Buffy almost never dealt with ghosts, for one thing, and ghosts are an SPN mainstay. Magic works very differently in each universe. Demons, of course, operate by completely different rules. And the magical world of Buffy is much more organized, in general: not just the Council, but the supernatural underworld as a whole. Sam and Dean would never wander into the SPN equivalent of Caritas or Willy's; there's no indication such equivalents exist.

So the idea that SPN and BtVS could occupy the same universe-space requires Sam and Dean to be unaware of a lot of supernatural activity-- and a lot of *kinds* of supernatural activity-- that the Buffyverse encompasses.

Absolutely. The mythos of the Buffyverse and the mythos of SPN are very, very different, most notably concerning vampires. I think most of the other differences could be explained in plausible ways, but that difference is huge and kinda insurmountable given how important vampires are the Buffyverse. I just recently read a Jo/Faith crossover by hesychasm, I think, that handled this issue very well. The author mentioned the incompatability, but didn't try to fix it. She acknowledged it, had Jo wonder about it, and then moved on. I think it's the attempt to "fix" those areas of canon that don't mesh well that often falls really flat in a crossover.

[angiepen.livejournal.com]

[Here from metafandom. [wave]]

All right, now I have this image in my head of Mal meeting Bruce and my eyes are crossing. LOL! I mean, Mal's a pretty intense guy, right? But Bruce could teach graduate seminars on "Intense" so I have this vision of Mal running into someone who makes him actually feel/look flaky and doing the "Merf?" thing. :D

I've never written a real crossover (does the cracky Viggo/Orlando in Dark Crystal land by way of Warner cartoonverse count?) and am up to my eyebrows in a WIP right now, but this is going to hover in the back of my head for a while, I think. [snicker]

BTW, I agree with you about making the universes mesh. Unless you're writing something pretty cracky [cough] you need to hammer out the the conflicts and make things fit somehow, or I'm going to have a hard time enjoying the story. [nod] I have no problem with AUing one or both universes just enough to make them fit nicely, but that needs to be acknowledged.

Angie

[hellenebright.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom but based in torch_wood. Torchwood is a good one for crossovers (although the most popular one seems to be Torchwood/House for some strange reason) because the basic premise is this small, leftover piece of the British Empire that hunts down alien "stuff", and sits in Cardiff because there's a rift in time and space that runs through Cardiff bay.

So anything could drop in and bring its own history with it, or Torchwood could suddenly appear anywhere, looking at anything that might be alien - Torchwood/Primeval (two secret UK govt agencies that don't know anything about each other, that's easy to buy), Torchwood/SPN (of course Sam 'n' Dean have never heard of Torchwood, it's in freaking England, isn't it).

Jurisdiction issues make for really good fics - the series premise has jurisdiction issues built in, so having other Time travellers (Sapphire and Steel, Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap) turn up and argue who's in charge can result in some fascinating outcomes.

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

Torchwood/Primeval (two secret UK govt agencies that don't know anything about each other, that's easy to buy)

Oh, please tell me there are Torchwood/Primeval crossovers out there. That is something I would very much like to read. :D

[hellenebright.livejournal.com]

So far we've only got her to write one (http://entangled-now.livejournal.com/39426.html#cutid1), but Jack Harkness and Stephen Hart fit so well together (and with the added bonus of an enraged Nick Cutter, sounding off in his wonderful Scots accent) she really ought to write more.

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link! :D

Jack/Stephen makes so much sense!! I couldn't believe that no one had written the pairing because the Jack/Stephen/(Nick) triangle is just perfect. *sigh*

[hellenebright.livejournal.com]

Enjoy :)

here via metafandom

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that's my problem with crossovers in general. So many of the universes just don't fit together. I'm more open to fusion sort of things, though.

Back when I was in Vampire Chronicles fandom, there were a lot of crossovers with Buffy and I just...I didn't get it at all. Still don't. It's impossible for Anne Rice's vamps and Joss's vamps to coexist in the same universe.

[amaresu]

I am a crossover whore, but I can't read SPN/Buffyverse crossovers. They do not exist in the same universe and don't try to tell me they do. Whereas with either universe I wouldn't have a problem with magical mystical universe transporting portal thing. Hell, they're canon in Angel.

I like a crossover where the author clearly put some thought into it. There are ways to make a good crossover, an okay crossover, a bad crossover and the my eyes! my eyes! crossover. SPN/Buffy just tend to be bad. They bother me.