Crossovers
Nov. 17th, 2007 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lyoreI've been thinking a bit about crossovers recently - writing them and reading them. Lucky you, I feel like sharing :)
I've seen crossovers get a bit of a bad rap, but I have to say I really like them* - I think it really gives the characters (and the author!) a chance to stretch their wings.
Consider when you have the observation of canon characters by characters of a difference canon. It gives the 'new eyes, new appreciation, new perspective' of an 'outsider POV' fic, but in this case it comes with an added bonus - because the observer isn't a cypher, their observations can shed just as much light on their characterisation as the characters they are observing.
And the same goes for character interactions - the way they respond to one another can through light on both characters, especially when you have a pair/group with strong similarities as well as distinct differences. Such interactions can make the differences and similarities in very apparent to the reader, without the author having to draw direct attention to it in the fic.
Plus, there's the fact that I love seeing the characters tossed out of their comfort zone, and I love seeing one set of characters I love meeting another set. Not to mention the technical challenges of getting the canon together in the first place - while it's easy(ish) in some cases (SG-1 get an alert about possible Goa'uld activity in a small town in California), it can be a lot harder to sell when one canon is set in, say, 21st Century earth and the other is in a galaxy far, far away (of course, sometimes this doesn't matter, depending on the fic).
*Done well - all of this applies to well done crossovers, of course. Done badly? I hate watching people mangle two sets of canon even more than I hate watching it done to one.
But that's just what I think - What about you?
[Poll #1090050]
I've seen crossovers get a bit of a bad rap, but I have to say I really like them* - I think it really gives the characters (and the author!) a chance to stretch their wings.
Consider when you have the observation of canon characters by characters of a difference canon. It gives the 'new eyes, new appreciation, new perspective' of an 'outsider POV' fic, but in this case it comes with an added bonus - because the observer isn't a cypher, their observations can shed just as much light on their characterisation as the characters they are observing.
And the same goes for character interactions - the way they respond to one another can through light on both characters, especially when you have a pair/group with strong similarities as well as distinct differences. Such interactions can make the differences and similarities in very apparent to the reader, without the author having to draw direct attention to it in the fic.
Plus, there's the fact that I love seeing the characters tossed out of their comfort zone, and I love seeing one set of characters I love meeting another set. Not to mention the technical challenges of getting the canon together in the first place - while it's easy(ish) in some cases (SG-1 get an alert about possible Goa'uld activity in a small town in California), it can be a lot harder to sell when one canon is set in, say, 21st Century earth and the other is in a galaxy far, far away (of course, sometimes this doesn't matter, depending on the fic).
*Done well - all of this applies to well done crossovers, of course. Done badly? I hate watching people mangle two sets of canon even more than I hate watching it done to one.
But that's just what I think - What about you?
[Poll #1090050]
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 12:17 am (UTC)Commenter
The only crossovers that are ok for me, are shows that are spin-offs to each other like SGA/SG1, Buffy/Angel, any of the Law & Order shows, things like that.
But I wonder: does that really count as a crossover, especially in the case of SGA/SG1 and Buffy/Angel, where some characters started out on the parent show?
There's a spectrum of crossover types to be considered. First, the one that immediately pops to mind, is the kind of crossover that involves shows that have no connection whatsoever: say, Star Trek + CSI.
Second, crossovers that use characters who inhabit the same universe but never seem to interact, save for the rare crossover episode, like CSI and Without a Trace's or Cold Case and CSI:NY recent pairs of episodes. Until such episodes, there is no sure connection between them, but it is likely they exist in the same universe.
Finally, crossovers between shows that share a parent/spin-off relation: Buffy and Angel or Stargate: SG1 and Stargate: Atlantis where the characters clearly live in the same universe and some characters originated on the parent show. These, to me, count as crossovers in fanfiction only because some readers are only fans of one of the shows and need to know that characters or events from the other show are to show up or be referred to. While episodes that "crossover" the shows are referred to as "crossover events", I personally would not consider fic with similar circumstances to be crossovers; the two shows are, to me, part of the same larger text, especially in the two pairs of shows above that had frequent interaction.
Comments welcome :)
no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 06:43 am (UTC)That's an interesting point - while I can understand why people label them as crossovers, since technically they are, and there will be viewers who've watched one show and not the other, I'll admit I don't really consider them 'true' crossovers, for want of a better term. Or, in other terms, while they have a crossover of shows, they don't have a crossover of universes, and that to me is often the catalyst for some of my favourite crossovers.