Ignore it, it's fanfic...
Yes, I've been procrastinating by reading fanfic - yeah, I'm weird, something's severely wrong with me. Some people like trashy bodice-rippers or Twilight; I occasionally read fanfiction. Even weirder, I like crossovers, if they're well written. And a good story tends to grab me and wants to hold me in its universe for while after I'm done with it. Since I have these thoughts rattling around my head, I need to get them out and maybe they won't keep distracting me so much.
True to form, while I was supposed to be doing something else, I happened to stumble across this excellent Cowboy Bebop/Fullmetal Alchemist crossover, a chapter or two of which I'd read a few years ago when the author posted the beginnings of it at fm_alchemist. I loved it then, but could never find more. Strangely enough, I happened to come across it again at a completely different site, and coincidentally the author has also made some rather witty AMVs I'd seen before too. Not only was the story finished, but also now had a sequel which was Cowboy Bebop/Fullmetal Alchemist AND Star Trek:Next Generation! And instead of putting it aside and rewarding myself with a chapter or two when I'd accomplished something, I mowed through both of them (all 27 chapters of the first and 37 of the second) in a couple of days. I don't know how she did it, but she managed to combine the three of them believably - well, some suspension of disbelief is required, but it's required for anything in these genres, so it's really not that much of a stretch. It. was. wonderful. Unfortunately, despite being longer, the second one is unfinished and has been so for about four years; the author's notes say once another project was finished, she was going to revise both of them with some drastic changes, mainly on the one original character who, of course, is the lynchpin for these three universes combining in the first place. Well, not completely; turns out the Q continuum and something majorly alchemic has something to do with it.
It may be a moot point, as I don't know if it will ever be finished now*, but I'm apprehensive one of the things I liked about it will be removed. One of the reasons we read/write fanfic in the first place is the what ifs, or maybe the things that never happened in the story that we really wanted to, or things the original left a lot to the imagination. I'm sure it must frustrate original authors no end, but people have been creating derivative works for centuries; what are plays and movies based on books anyway? And dammit, I like Jet and like to see him happy; he doesn't get a lot of attention on his own and he certainly doesn't get a lot of love because he's older and not the typical bishonen character the teenage girls go for, although in the anime, he does have a lovely ex. He reluctantly starts falling for the OC, a woman named McKenna, who happens to be a bounty head with an uncontrolled ability to move through time and/or parallel universes - yeah, maybe an overused trope in science fiction, but I happen to have a weakness for it. One of the reviewers pointed out Jet's attraction seemed a bit unbelievable, because he's a ex-cop, and should therefore be more suspicious. The reason I think my apprehension is borne out is that in the second story, she seems to have become the target of everyone's blame; Jet seems to actively dislike her, Spike positively hates her, and she's now the target of Scar's holy vendetta. Guess what recurring ST:NG character is controlling her, along with everyone else? 'Spose that could have been predicted.
The thing is, I'm not a fiction writer, so I guess I don't know a Mary Sue unless it actually bites me in the ass, as it didn't seem so to me (aside from maybe being gorgeous and green-eyed when cleaned up, and possibly immortal as well). Jet being attracted to McKenna does not seem out of the realm of possibility; love does not always work the way we expect or who we expect it to be. Despite his enforcement background, Jet is a carer and adopter of strays; all of his canon partners have less than reputable backgrounds, with the exception of Ein, but he's a dog, albeit a very intelligent one. Spike is a former organized crime member, Faye was pretty much a con artist to survive and a bounty to begin with, while Ed is an adolescent hacker. While these fields are all helpful in bounty-hunting, Jet's relationship with them does not seem to be purely business; he really acts more like a parent or older brother than a boss (which, I suppose, could be a strike against the premise here). Anyhow, one of the exchanges that made me laugh from the first story was the little exchange the morning following Spike's recovery from an injury and Jet's better judgment finally losing the battle:
"Oh, you're awake."
"You're noisy.".
Which once more leads me to think, damn, are there no doors on the Bebop? If that disappears, I'll be a little disappointed, but I guess it's minor. It'll still be a good story, and I have been enjoying the rapport developed between Spike and Ed (Elric), Al's crush on Radical Ed, and Mustang and his staff's interaction with the Enterprise crew. Now, I suppose I should get back what I should have been doing in the first place and then finishing Reading Lolita in Tehran, whose characters I'm sure would never read fanfic...
----------------------
*Ooh, she posted something new in April, maybe there's hope!
True to form, while I was supposed to be doing something else, I happened to stumble across this excellent Cowboy Bebop/Fullmetal Alchemist crossover, a chapter or two of which I'd read a few years ago when the author posted the beginnings of it at fm_alchemist. I loved it then, but could never find more. Strangely enough, I happened to come across it again at a completely different site, and coincidentally the author has also made some rather witty AMVs I'd seen before too. Not only was the story finished, but also now had a sequel which was Cowboy Bebop/Fullmetal Alchemist AND Star Trek:Next Generation! And instead of putting it aside and rewarding myself with a chapter or two when I'd accomplished something, I mowed through both of them (all 27 chapters of the first and 37 of the second) in a couple of days. I don't know how she did it, but she managed to combine the three of them believably - well, some suspension of disbelief is required, but it's required for anything in these genres, so it's really not that much of a stretch. It. was. wonderful. Unfortunately, despite being longer, the second one is unfinished and has been so for about four years; the author's notes say once another project was finished, she was going to revise both of them with some drastic changes, mainly on the one original character who, of course, is the lynchpin for these three universes combining in the first place. Well, not completely; turns out the Q continuum and something majorly alchemic has something to do with it.
It may be a moot point, as I don't know if it will ever be finished now*, but I'm apprehensive one of the things I liked about it will be removed. One of the reasons we read/write fanfic in the first place is the what ifs, or maybe the things that never happened in the story that we really wanted to, or things the original left a lot to the imagination. I'm sure it must frustrate original authors no end, but people have been creating derivative works for centuries; what are plays and movies based on books anyway? And dammit, I like Jet and like to see him happy; he doesn't get a lot of attention on his own and he certainly doesn't get a lot of love because he's older and not the typical bishonen character the teenage girls go for, although in the anime, he does have a lovely ex. He reluctantly starts falling for the OC, a woman named McKenna, who happens to be a bounty head with an uncontrolled ability to move through time and/or parallel universes - yeah, maybe an overused trope in science fiction, but I happen to have a weakness for it. One of the reviewers pointed out Jet's attraction seemed a bit unbelievable, because he's a ex-cop, and should therefore be more suspicious. The reason I think my apprehension is borne out is that in the second story, she seems to have become the target of everyone's blame; Jet seems to actively dislike her, Spike positively hates her, and she's now the target of Scar's holy vendetta. Guess what recurring ST:NG character is controlling her, along with everyone else? 'Spose that could have been predicted.
The thing is, I'm not a fiction writer, so I guess I don't know a Mary Sue unless it actually bites me in the ass, as it didn't seem so to me (aside from maybe being gorgeous and green-eyed when cleaned up, and possibly immortal as well). Jet being attracted to McKenna does not seem out of the realm of possibility; love does not always work the way we expect or who we expect it to be. Despite his enforcement background, Jet is a carer and adopter of strays; all of his canon partners have less than reputable backgrounds, with the exception of Ein, but he's a dog, albeit a very intelligent one. Spike is a former organized crime member, Faye was pretty much a con artist to survive and a bounty to begin with, while Ed is an adolescent hacker. While these fields are all helpful in bounty-hunting, Jet's relationship with them does not seem to be purely business; he really acts more like a parent or older brother than a boss (which, I suppose, could be a strike against the premise here). Anyhow, one of the exchanges that made me laugh from the first story was the little exchange the morning following Spike's recovery from an injury and Jet's better judgment finally losing the battle:
"Oh, you're awake."
"You're noisy.".
Which once more leads me to think, damn, are there no doors on the Bebop? If that disappears, I'll be a little disappointed, but I guess it's minor. It'll still be a good story, and I have been enjoying the rapport developed between Spike and Ed (Elric), Al's crush on Radical Ed, and Mustang and his staff's interaction with the Enterprise crew. Now, I suppose I should get back what I should have been doing in the first place and then finishing Reading Lolita in Tehran, whose characters I'm sure would never read fanfic...
----------------------
*Ooh, she posted something new in April, maybe there's hope!