Crossover - Fanlore

Crossover

Synonyms: xover
See also: Alternate Universe, Alternate Reality, crack, fusion
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A crossover is a fanfiction story in which two or more fandoms are combined in some way. Crossovers are an old story trope of fanfiction; as soon as fans started writing stories in more fandoms than just Star Trek, they started crossing those sources together. In story notes, a crossover is frequently notated with an 'x', so a Star Trek story crossed over with Star Wars is sometimes written as ST/SW and sometimes written ST x SW.

Crossovers may take place in many ways. In the most common form, characters from Fandom A may meet characters from Fandom B (i.e., a Stargate Atlantis story in which The Doctor visits Atlantis, perhaps with a Companion or two in tow). Crossovers can involve as many fandoms as the author(s) can juggle; there's no limit to the potential madness and creativity of the exercise.

Contents

Fusions

Fusions are a kind of crossover where characters from one fandom (Fandom A) may be imported into the setting of another fandom (Fandom B). Fandom A characters may take on the roles of Fandom B characters (i.e., a Stargate Atlantis story in which John Sheppard is a Sith lord and Rodney McKay is a Jedi) (perhaps in a story strangely like this one: The Dark Side, by Astolat) and not interact with Fandom B characters at all, or only very peripherally.

Crossover fusions with romance movies (An Affair to Remember, American Dreamer, You've Got Mail, etc.) have been written in slash forever, but for some reason, they're rarely considered crossovers; they're just considered AUs.

Actor crossovers

A special case are crossovers between sources that share the same actor, e.g. between SGA and Traders which both star David Hewlett. These crossovers sometimes draw criticism for requiring more suspension of disbelief, and in the case of same actor pairings also for blurring the line between character and actor slash, especially in the past when RPS was less widely accepted.[1] In some cases these crossovers even rate their own pairing names, communities and challenges.[2] For instance, in SGA fandom, a common crossover technique is to write a character of David Hewlett's (from a show other than SGA) in a romance with a character of Joe Flanigan's (also from a show other than SGA) - this crossover pairing is known as Hewligan, and can refer to a variety of pairings (i.e., Grant Jansky (Traders)/Pete Sherman (Sherman's March), or Michael (Century Hotel)/Nick (Farewell to Harry).[3]

Another variant of actor crossovers would be that actors meet the characters they play, for example Jensen Ackles meeting Dean Winchester. In other cases, the character that is played by the same actor turns out to be the same person, for example Claude Rains from Heroes turns out to be the Doctor in disguise.

Using official crossovers

In some fandoms, it's not unusual for two or more fannish sources to have crossover episodes or events in canon. Typical examples are comic company crossovers between DC and Marvel, like the JLA vs. Avengers mini-series. TV shows (especially ones made by the same production company) also do crossovers. The latter can be double episodes like between CSI: Las Vegas and Without A Trace (or back in the day, between Magnum PI and Simon & Simon) or implied crossovers through character appearances, like of Homicide's John Munch showing up, in character, on the X-Files. In some TV series the official crossover implications are almost byzantine through a series of such overlaps, and tracked on fansites devoted to this phenomenon.[4] Doctor Who and Torchwood are so intertwined that some people don't even consider stories that draw on both sources to be crossovers.

Crackfic crossovers

Some crossovers are motivated by simply trying to find universes that couldn't possibly by crossed over, and then pulling it off. Or not. Purists only cross universes that could possibly exist in each other's reality, and have more or less the same tone. Non-purists admit to no limits.

Crossovers and meta

Sometimes the point of a crossover is a contrast and compare of the fannish sources. A meeting in a bar between Duncan (of Highlander) and Buffy, talking about the pain of being a Champion, or between Methos and Krycek, talking about the fun of being morally ambiguous killing machines. Sometimes the point is even broader, such as commenting on the pain of being a black sidekick, as in Them Mean Ol', Low-Down, Lando Calrissian Blues, by Yahztee.[5]

Het and Slash-focused crossovers

Ofttimes crossovers are an answer to the problem of a much-loved character who lacks a shippable partner in his or her source fandom, or else an answer for a writer who only likes one character of a popular pairing -- like Methos, but not Duncan? Write Methos into another universe altogether! Certain characters seem to lend themselves to showing up in other universes; they are sometimes referred to as Little Black Dresses of fandom.

Examples of crossover fiction

  • And All the World Beneath by Seperis was a famous SGAxSPN story
  • Dust in the Wind by Lyrawing was a SPNxAmerican Gods story.
  • The Kingdom of the Blaggers by Hackthis is a crackfic fusion: "The problem with being the son of Uther Pendragon, legend of stage and screen, winner of Emmys (twice), Tonys (once), Oliviers (multiple), BAFTAs (twice), Oscars (once) and People's Sexiest Man (twice) was that nobody was ever going to take Arthur seriously as an actor in his own right."

More information

There is a fannish newsletter for crossovers, crossover_news, and an archive, Crossoverfic.com. The Buffy fandom has its own archive for crossover fanfiction, Twisting the Hellmouth.

References

  1. ↑ Lucy Gillam. Joxer?! And Other Things I Don't Get. Posted 24 November 1999. Accessed 3 October 2008.
  2. ↑ For example Dean Winchester (Supernatural)/Chloe Sullivan (Smallville): Winsullivan and Winchullivan, with Chlean being a common pairing name.
  3. ↑ The Hewligan Fiction Archive; The Hewligan Fest community.
  4. ↑ Poobala.com's Crossover Spin-Offs Master Page
  5. ↑ Them Mean Ol', Low-Down, Lando Calrissian Blues - Yahztee
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