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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}