Obligatory (but happy!) Yuletide post

[rivkat]

My story, Sympathy for the Devil (Dead Zone), is a great look at Johnny from Bruce's point of view, and as a bonus incorporates the coming apocalypse. You could wonder, at the end, whether Stillson or Johnny is the devil; very few bad guys think of themselves as bad, and this story suggests a reason Stillson isn't one of the few.

I haven't read LJ all day, nor have I read too many stories yet, but I have noticed in the ones I did read a number of crossovers with more popular fandoms -- Calvin & Hobbes, Nip/Tuck, Real Genius (blink and you'll miss it), and another. (ETA: also a witty Brimstone story with a Wolfram & Hart name-check.) (ETA2: and a Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell crossover with Patrick O'Brien.) Plainly, Yuletide is an endeavor that can only be sustained by a multifannish community, but I don't remember so many crossovers from years past. I wonder if this has anything to do with LJ and the way we're all multifannish now. My reactions were different for each one: I thought the Calvin & Hobbes story was fantastic up until the crossover, which to me detracted from the wonderful story of how Calvin grew up without losing Hobbes. The Nip/Tuck story worked because it was a crossover; the author did a bit of borrowing from one show's canon to create a scenario for N/T that was hilarious on the surface but extremely creepy underneath. (Extra crossover points for taking the title from a third show.) The Real Genius story works either way because the crossover is barely there and just works as a wink and a nod.

Thoughts on crossovers as the new ground state of fandom?

Comments

slightly OT...

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

i think you're right that LJ makes all these fandoms simultaneously appealing, but I also feel that more people are truly multifannish (as opposed to serial monogamists).

I'm a huge crossover fan and one of the things I think they do (for better or worse) is requiring some form of fannish shorthand, some way to remind people quickly of who these people are, to sketch them when it's not your primary fandom...I don't know if that's better or worse, it's something thst happens in AUs as well, and both seem to be a matter of taste (i for one love both!), but it creates a different story, I think...

ihave some thoughts about fannish archetypes and the way meta and vidding have made all of fandom their source text but i'm not sure yet where these thoughts are going...except i think you have a point :-)

[chase820.livejournal.com]

I think once you become used to the idea of writing fanfic, crossovers become inevitable. If you can play with one universe's characters, why not two or more at once? Even if the fit's a little uneasy, it's well worth it, if only for the goofy pleasure of juxtaposition.

It reminds me of when I was little and would throw my Strawberry Shortcake and Hollie Hobbie dolls in with my Barbies. In the steamy universe of the playroom, anything went. Just because Strawberry and Hollie were 2/3 Barbie's size and technically minors was no reason to keep them from trying to stealing Ken away, if they could. (This being my innocent pre-slashy days, before I realized Ken was really lusting after my lone, inherited GI Joe.)

[corinna-5.livejournal.com]

I think LJ does change the way people inhabit fandoms, but I also think that when you're writing a new/small fandom, it's almost like having a safety net to have a crossover to lean on.

(And I *did* miss the Real Genius one, even after going back and LOOKING for it, so now I need you to explain the reference to me, please!)

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

I hate to say it, but I think at least some of it can actually be attributed to *mono*fannishness--to the extreme fixation on the current pretty that apparently renders people incapable of imagining that anyone might *not* be interested in it, too. Like the people who couldn't restrain themselves from asking for Harry Potter in the challenge last year, or Firefly this year.

There was also a throwaway reference to Angel in a Brimstone story this year.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

When we read a standalone novel, we don't have any canon for it! And all the characters are OCs! So I like to think of a crossover with a universe I don't know as simply a story with a lot of OCs.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

I thought the Calvin & Hobbes story was fantastic up until the crossover, which to me detracted from the wonderful story of how Calvin grew up without losing Hobbes

Yeah, I was disappointed in that. I'm not an SGA fan, which could be why that rang false for me, but I really enjoyed that story, and to have it suddenly turn into a crossover at the end ...it didn't work for me the way perhaps the author had hoped. Again, probably because I'm *not* a fan of SGA.

I love crossovers, but with something like Yuletide, I wonder if they're not cheating a bit - a safety net for people to fall back on when they're a little unsure of the crazy new fandom they've agreed to write in. Or perhaps a way of ensuring people who only read in one fandom will read a story in another...

I've been writing Dracula-Phantom crossover fanfic......

[dracschick.livejournal.com]

for over 10 years. I loved both universes for a long time (Dracula over 20 years and Phantom since 89). After reading Leroux where he described the Phantom's home as having a coffin, I just thought that the two universes naturally belonged together:)

[franzeska]

Yuletide makes me want to combine the requests since I'm already using the others to get a picture of what my recipient likes. I once inserted references to the joking request the person had made in her livejournal long before she actually signed up for yuletide.

Something about the context of the challenge makes me more interested in crossovers (and vague references) than usual.