Crossovering Letter
Jun. 24th, 2015 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sprocketDear Crossovering writer,
Thank you! Crossovers are one of my favorite things about reading and writing fic. Please get peanut butter in my chocolate, garnish my orange jucie with mint, go wild with ridiculous ideas you've been looking for an excuse to set loose.
In general, I love genfic, and also enjoy more explict fic too. Background pairings, F/F, F/M, M/M are all excellent options. OT3 is usually my favorite solution to love triangles, and I'm flexible on pairings with one exception: if you're writing Sense8, please don't break up Nomi and Amanita. But adding people to their happiness adds to my happiness.
Do Not Wants: PWP, bloodplay, coffeeshop AU, high school/college AU, explicit descriptions of sexual assault
Pining For: people working together to overcome obstacles, snark, banter, flirtation, people finding common ground, darkfic, postapocalyptic, N Times Crossover Characters Did A Thing.
Fusion or crossover? It's a spectrum, yes to both options.
Above all, have fun. If you know the fandoms you wish to cross and have a story you're burning to write, stop reading and write it! If you're cruising for ideas, have an excessively long prompt list.
Very general starters by canon:
Community: Here's a chance to lampshade tropes in your fandom (thanks Abed!) and bring in some comedy.
Elementary: Sherlock's irregulars encompass many fields of expertise. Imagine Joan walking into the brownstone with a cross-fandom consult in action.
Fringe: altverse version of your favorite characters!
Leverage: the con goes to pieces because the other fandom gets involved, shouting happens, everyone joins forces because Moriarty / Massive Dynamic / this novel's representative of the Lone Power is a problem for both groups. Or, characters have history.
Orphan Black: Someone in your fandom is a clone, or knows someone in the clone club. FYI, I'm a season behind, but don't let that stop you from using the S3 material.
Pacific Rim: who can say "drift compatible" with me?
Sense8: asking for a cluster is a lot to ask. But if you're inspired to write about a psychic connection to seven other people, go for it! Sense8 is very optimistic about people immediately coming together in a cluster and that could be a thing to be affirmed or examined in a crossover.
SGA: Field trip to Atlantis!
The X-Files: ohhh, casefic. Or cases that get taken away (or taken on) by other agencies and organizations.
Young Wizards: character of your choice is a wizard. GO!
Elementary, Fringe, Leverage, Young Wizards
The almost New York pool! If you ever wanted to write a New York City love letter, this is probably a great place to start.
YW/Fringe: If you've read "Uptown Local", you'll recall it's about Nita and Kit and magic that lets you take the New York subway into other universes. Some of them with moon shuttles. Cough.
YW/Elementary: Sherlock and Joan are very observant people who are likely to notice little details like a wizard popping out of a worldgate. They may not be wizards, but Sherlock in particular might count one or more being(s) on errantry among his irregulars. Or Sherlock and Joan get involved with some bright young thing's Ordeal, or work on a project with various of our protagonists. (I will now pause to contemplate Sherlock and Dairine. Uh-oh.)
YW/Leverage: Wizards fight evil, leverage team con bad guys. A subtle distinction that will not stand in the way of our protagonists joining forces to take down this week's mark.
Leverage/Fringe: where do I even start. Leverage takes on Massive Dynamic (or, Nina Sharp v. Leverage, eeeee). Nate and Walter and their issues with being a father. Four times Peter worked with the Leverage team, pre-Leverage, and one time it didn't fall apart. (Peter and Sophie and a heist. Peter and Hardison and an electronic break-in. Peter and Parker worked together once. No one knows what happened, but Parker walked on air for the next three months and Peter next popped up on another continent.) The long slow looks as people's eyes ping-pong between Parker and Olivia! That one time Agent Lee asked Agent Hagen out for coffee, pre-S4. Or help us all, the time Parker took him up on it. With Sophie coaching, bless her.
Leverage/Elementary: like the leverage team, Sherlock works alone. Except when he doesn't (like the leverage team). Hardison is may or may not be not part of Everyone, but certainly is aware of their activities. Parker and Sherlock could probably swap lock-picking stories.
Fringe/Elementary: Consider for a moment the beauty of Joan Watson and Olivia Dunham being mistaken for the sensible handlers to their local forces of chaos and inappropriate behavior. Right until they drink the flatworm smoothie or pick the suspect's pocket or otherwise prove they set the boundaries, thank you very much, and they're set way further out than social convention might expect. Consider also whether Sherlock would admire William Bell's eccentricities or condemn Massive Dynamic's massive reach. And go from there.
Fringe, Orphan Black, Pacific Rim, SGA, The X-Files
The mad scientist pool! Or at least improbable science.
TXF/SGA: Remember that time Atlantis splashed down in the middle of one of the busiest shipping lanes on America's Pacific coast? Yes, I think that would count as an X-File.
TXF/Pacific Rim: I will admit I lost track of the X-Files mythology, so smash it together with the kaiju attacks as you see fit. Or just go with a fusion: Mulder and Scully in the PPDC, the Consortium involved with Hannibal Chau... go wild.
TXF/Orphan Black: "Clones? Again?!"
TXF/Fringe: consider for a moment Olivia, Astrid and Scully investigating some classically gory crime scene while Peter, Walter and Mulder back them up from the lab. Nothing can go wrong with this plan. (It could be Dr. Bishop and Dr. Scully running the autopsies, but I would really love to see Astrid and Scully and Olivia interacting.)
SGA/Pacific Rim: If you didn't get your chance to do Atlantis embattled and isolated by Earth events yet, well, here's your chance.
SGA/Orphan Black: SGC staff turns out to be a clone? Or our protagonists run into the clone club while on Earth, for Reasons.
SGA/Fringe: There is very little either Walter Bishop or Rodney McKay could do that is worse than the things they've canonically done, but they're slightly different flavors of mad scientist. Cue an oscillating love-hate relationship with Rodney loudly disowning Walter for leading the botanists in their efforts to make the best ganja known to two galaxies, followed by the equally dramatic rapprochement when there's an excuse to blow things up on the south pier, possibly engineered by Peter and Zelenka. Astrid and Peter spend a lot of time and effort running interference between Walter and the rest of the science team. Does the chronology work out for a John/Olivia pre-series hookup? Imagine the hilarity as Olivia rolls with running into John on Atlantis, and John... doesn't. Oh, John.
Pacific Rim/Orphan Black: clones as drift compatible, or prone to chasing rabbits, or disappointingly not compatible at all, and what happens to them during the Kaiju years, and after. Leekie hanging out with Lightcap and the other PPDC researchers, or the Dyad Institute being too radical for the mainstream. Cosima and Newt and biology! Sarah as the one clone who is drift compatible with someone! Have at it.
Pacific Rim/Fringe: I've asked for Olivia and Etta and a Jaeger in the past with gratifying results, so now I'm going to ask for Peter and Astrid and building Jaegers with Walter and Herman (and Nina and William Bell?) to see what happens.
Orphan Black/Fringe: The Dyad Institute has connections or founders who were inspired by Walter Bishop and William Bell. Nina Sharp and Rachel Duncan, horse trading. Is there a clone in Boston, or New York?
Community, Fringe, Sense8 (TV), The X-Files
Casefic pool, with Community as your comedic ringer.
TXF/Sense8: did Mulder and Scully run into a cluster while investigating the X-Files? Afterward? Or, Mulder or Scully or Skinner or your other favorite character gets pulled into a cluster. Ooops.
TXF/Community: Mulder, Scully, Greendale. Go!
Sense8/Fringe: crossover slightly preferred for this one. Juggling the eight people in a cluster is an awful lot to ask for in an exchange, and besides, both canons have enough identity crises without borrowing from each other. (Unless you have been bitten hard by a fusion. In that case, bless you, my writer, and good luck.) I put good money on the possibility there's an old file from the Bishop-and-Bell days about sensates. Or rock and roll the cluster casefic, or a random scene from cluster casefic. My favorite parts of Sense8 are the bits where people are working together, so feel free to skip right to someone from the cluster doing something they shouldn't be able to... but someone halfway around the world is an expert at it.
Thank you in advance for the wonderful fic you're going to write, I can't wait to read it! Happy crossovering!
Thank you! Crossovers are one of my favorite things about reading and writing fic. Please get peanut butter in my chocolate, garnish my orange jucie with mint, go wild with ridiculous ideas you've been looking for an excuse to set loose.
In general, I love genfic, and also enjoy more explict fic too. Background pairings, F/F, F/M, M/M are all excellent options. OT3 is usually my favorite solution to love triangles, and I'm flexible on pairings with one exception: if you're writing Sense8, please don't break up Nomi and Amanita. But adding people to their happiness adds to my happiness.
Do Not Wants: PWP, bloodplay, coffeeshop AU, high school/college AU, explicit descriptions of sexual assault
Pining For: people working together to overcome obstacles, snark, banter, flirtation, people finding common ground, darkfic, postapocalyptic, N Times Crossover Characters Did A Thing.
Fusion or crossover? It's a spectrum, yes to both options.
Above all, have fun. If you know the fandoms you wish to cross and have a story you're burning to write, stop reading and write it! If you're cruising for ideas, have an excessively long prompt list.
Very general starters by canon:
Community: Here's a chance to lampshade tropes in your fandom (thanks Abed!) and bring in some comedy.
Elementary: Sherlock's irregulars encompass many fields of expertise. Imagine Joan walking into the brownstone with a cross-fandom consult in action.
Fringe: altverse version of your favorite characters!
Leverage: the con goes to pieces because the other fandom gets involved, shouting happens, everyone joins forces because Moriarty / Massive Dynamic / this novel's representative of the Lone Power is a problem for both groups. Or, characters have history.
Orphan Black: Someone in your fandom is a clone, or knows someone in the clone club. FYI, I'm a season behind, but don't let that stop you from using the S3 material.
Pacific Rim: who can say "drift compatible" with me?
Sense8: asking for a cluster is a lot to ask. But if you're inspired to write about a psychic connection to seven other people, go for it! Sense8 is very optimistic about people immediately coming together in a cluster and that could be a thing to be affirmed or examined in a crossover.
SGA: Field trip to Atlantis!
The X-Files: ohhh, casefic. Or cases that get taken away (or taken on) by other agencies and organizations.
Young Wizards: character of your choice is a wizard. GO!
Elementary, Fringe, Leverage, Young Wizards
The almost New York pool! If you ever wanted to write a New York City love letter, this is probably a great place to start.
YW/Fringe: If you've read "Uptown Local", you'll recall it's about Nita and Kit and magic that lets you take the New York subway into other universes. Some of them with moon shuttles. Cough.
YW/Elementary: Sherlock and Joan are very observant people who are likely to notice little details like a wizard popping out of a worldgate. They may not be wizards, but Sherlock in particular might count one or more being(s) on errantry among his irregulars. Or Sherlock and Joan get involved with some bright young thing's Ordeal, or work on a project with various of our protagonists. (I will now pause to contemplate Sherlock and Dairine. Uh-oh.)
YW/Leverage: Wizards fight evil, leverage team con bad guys. A subtle distinction that will not stand in the way of our protagonists joining forces to take down this week's mark.
Leverage/Fringe: where do I even start. Leverage takes on Massive Dynamic (or, Nina Sharp v. Leverage, eeeee). Nate and Walter and their issues with being a father. Four times Peter worked with the Leverage team, pre-Leverage, and one time it didn't fall apart. (Peter and Sophie and a heist. Peter and Hardison and an electronic break-in. Peter and Parker worked together once. No one knows what happened, but Parker walked on air for the next three months and Peter next popped up on another continent.) The long slow looks as people's eyes ping-pong between Parker and Olivia! That one time Agent Lee asked Agent Hagen out for coffee, pre-S4. Or help us all, the time Parker took him up on it. With Sophie coaching, bless her.
Leverage/Elementary: like the leverage team, Sherlock works alone. Except when he doesn't (like the leverage team). Hardison is may or may not be not part of Everyone, but certainly is aware of their activities. Parker and Sherlock could probably swap lock-picking stories.
Fringe/Elementary: Consider for a moment the beauty of Joan Watson and Olivia Dunham being mistaken for the sensible handlers to their local forces of chaos and inappropriate behavior. Right until they drink the flatworm smoothie or pick the suspect's pocket or otherwise prove they set the boundaries, thank you very much, and they're set way further out than social convention might expect. Consider also whether Sherlock would admire William Bell's eccentricities or condemn Massive Dynamic's massive reach. And go from there.
Fringe, Orphan Black, Pacific Rim, SGA, The X-Files
The mad scientist pool! Or at least improbable science.
TXF/SGA: Remember that time Atlantis splashed down in the middle of one of the busiest shipping lanes on America's Pacific coast? Yes, I think that would count as an X-File.
TXF/Pacific Rim: I will admit I lost track of the X-Files mythology, so smash it together with the kaiju attacks as you see fit. Or just go with a fusion: Mulder and Scully in the PPDC, the Consortium involved with Hannibal Chau... go wild.
TXF/Orphan Black: "Clones? Again?!"
TXF/Fringe: consider for a moment Olivia, Astrid and Scully investigating some classically gory crime scene while Peter, Walter and Mulder back them up from the lab. Nothing can go wrong with this plan. (It could be Dr. Bishop and Dr. Scully running the autopsies, but I would really love to see Astrid and Scully and Olivia interacting.)
SGA/Pacific Rim: If you didn't get your chance to do Atlantis embattled and isolated by Earth events yet, well, here's your chance.
SGA/Orphan Black: SGC staff turns out to be a clone? Or our protagonists run into the clone club while on Earth, for Reasons.
SGA/Fringe: There is very little either Walter Bishop or Rodney McKay could do that is worse than the things they've canonically done, but they're slightly different flavors of mad scientist. Cue an oscillating love-hate relationship with Rodney loudly disowning Walter for leading the botanists in their efforts to make the best ganja known to two galaxies, followed by the equally dramatic rapprochement when there's an excuse to blow things up on the south pier, possibly engineered by Peter and Zelenka. Astrid and Peter spend a lot of time and effort running interference between Walter and the rest of the science team. Does the chronology work out for a John/Olivia pre-series hookup? Imagine the hilarity as Olivia rolls with running into John on Atlantis, and John... doesn't. Oh, John.
Pacific Rim/Orphan Black: clones as drift compatible, or prone to chasing rabbits, or disappointingly not compatible at all, and what happens to them during the Kaiju years, and after. Leekie hanging out with Lightcap and the other PPDC researchers, or the Dyad Institute being too radical for the mainstream. Cosima and Newt and biology! Sarah as the one clone who is drift compatible with someone! Have at it.
Pacific Rim/Fringe: I've asked for Olivia and Etta and a Jaeger in the past with gratifying results, so now I'm going to ask for Peter and Astrid and building Jaegers with Walter and Herman (and Nina and William Bell?) to see what happens.
Orphan Black/Fringe: The Dyad Institute has connections or founders who were inspired by Walter Bishop and William Bell. Nina Sharp and Rachel Duncan, horse trading. Is there a clone in Boston, or New York?
Community, Fringe, Sense8 (TV), The X-Files
Casefic pool, with Community as your comedic ringer.
TXF/Sense8: did Mulder and Scully run into a cluster while investigating the X-Files? Afterward? Or, Mulder or Scully or Skinner or your other favorite character gets pulled into a cluster. Ooops.
TXF/Community: Mulder, Scully, Greendale. Go!
Sense8/Fringe: crossover slightly preferred for this one. Juggling the eight people in a cluster is an awful lot to ask for in an exchange, and besides, both canons have enough identity crises without borrowing from each other. (Unless you have been bitten hard by a fusion. In that case, bless you, my writer, and good luck.) I put good money on the possibility there's an old file from the Bishop-and-Bell days about sensates. Or rock and roll the cluster casefic, or a random scene from cluster casefic. My favorite parts of Sense8 are the bits where people are working together, so feel free to skip right to someone from the cluster doing something they shouldn't be able to... but someone halfway around the world is an expert at it.
Thank you in advance for the wonderful fic you're going to write, I can't wait to read it! Happy crossovering!