On Crossover fic and the spawn thereof.
I'm not sure where this really began to be perfectly honest. I have two friends who are big on crossovers- part of the reason that I haven't read any Ranma 1/2 fics in a while- don't get me wrong, I like Ranma 1/2, it has a really talented fanbase for the most part, except the fandom is flooded with crossovers.
Perhaps this all started with me reading the term 'what if Blah wasn't cannon but Blah was what happened, now introducing my Mary Sue and screwing two fandoms for the price of one!' in not so exact words for the fifth or sixth time on a page.
When I read a summary that says 'what if cannon hadn't happened' I've found that as of late I've developed a weird twitching, sinking, horrified feeling as base reaction to this term. Once upon a time, when I was younger and the world was still sparkly and pretty, I would have responded with something like 'ohh, that's a different, interesting premise, wherever could they be going with it?' but now, it seems, knowing the horror and pain that will inevitably follow if I trust these lying summaries full of hate and malicious evils lying just below the surface, I shudder out a 'Oh god, not more like this,' and scuttle onward for something more normal or decent like completely pointless, OOC PWP fic between two characters who never even meet in cannon.
Why the shudder, why the new reaction? Because after reading those fics my general thought is 'And this pureed crap is exactly why it wasn't like that in cannon you idiot!' or more closely related to 'it burns, oh God, make it stop please!' as the author unzips their pants and takes a dump of burning acidic shit all over characters I liked, ideas that had merit, or just the mother language in general, in some cases.
My mute fear of crossovers is so bad that I deliberately filter them out of searches (and the bastards still make it through- LABEL YOUR WORK PROPERLY YOU BASTARDS, NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO READ YOUR CRAP!)and shudder involuntarily every time they are mentioned. Sometimes I feel like a rape victim when others bring the topic up, I wince and try as hard as is humanly possible to switch to a different topic that causes me less trauma- like pedophilia.
Not to say there aren't good crossovers out there. I count the ratio of good crossovers to bad to be about 1 in 1,000; that is, one semi-decent piece to 1,000 pieces of vile darkness that by all rights should rot out your computer's harddrive just for opening them. Some ideas have merit in them- some explore series that are highly compatible. But I'm sorry, I really am, DBZ and Sailor Moon have never been and never will be A GOOD IDEA FOR A CROSSOVER. There I've said it- it's fucking true and you know it, stop trying it, you only make baby Jesus kill more kittens.
In my entire writing and reading lifetime I've thus far, to date, read two good crossovers. The first was a Final Fantasy villains crossover titled Sympathy for the Damned and covered the interesting idea of what happens to the FF villains when they are finally defeated. It was well written, had good smut, and came to a satisfactory ending and run through. The second was when I was 12 and read one of those 'yaoi fangirl gets sucked through various anime and gets to glomp various guys' which I do believe involved an author who referred to her fic-self as Kitty. It was funny, not serious and well delivered.
So when I say I hate crossovers in general, I'm not talking about the people who can write, who put thought or effort into their works, I'm talking about the people who say 'what if sailor moon wasn't really the moon princess and Mary Sue #030202028478261010 was, also what if the Super Sayains were all sucked into the Senshi universe and had to snog all the senshi because they're so beefy (the sayains not the senshi) and the senshi are wearing mini-skirts, omg, I speak Japanese; -desu?'. It is these people who populate the very much vast majority of crossoverdom that make me wince and die a little inside every time I see their ugly heads rearing in the direction of a fandom I enjoy.
To violence against fandoms Sweetdeily says no!
Perhaps this all started with me reading the term 'what if Blah wasn't cannon but Blah was what happened, now introducing my Mary Sue and screwing two fandoms for the price of one!' in not so exact words for the fifth or sixth time on a page.
When I read a summary that says 'what if cannon hadn't happened' I've found that as of late I've developed a weird twitching, sinking, horrified feeling as base reaction to this term. Once upon a time, when I was younger and the world was still sparkly and pretty, I would have responded with something like 'ohh, that's a different, interesting premise, wherever could they be going with it?' but now, it seems, knowing the horror and pain that will inevitably follow if I trust these lying summaries full of hate and malicious evils lying just below the surface, I shudder out a 'Oh god, not more like this,' and scuttle onward for something more normal or decent like completely pointless, OOC PWP fic between two characters who never even meet in cannon.
Why the shudder, why the new reaction? Because after reading those fics my general thought is 'And this pureed crap is exactly why it wasn't like that in cannon you idiot!' or more closely related to 'it burns, oh God, make it stop please!' as the author unzips their pants and takes a dump of burning acidic shit all over characters I liked, ideas that had merit, or just the mother language in general, in some cases.
My mute fear of crossovers is so bad that I deliberately filter them out of searches (and the bastards still make it through- LABEL YOUR WORK PROPERLY YOU BASTARDS, NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO READ YOUR CRAP!)and shudder involuntarily every time they are mentioned. Sometimes I feel like a rape victim when others bring the topic up, I wince and try as hard as is humanly possible to switch to a different topic that causes me less trauma- like pedophilia.
Not to say there aren't good crossovers out there. I count the ratio of good crossovers to bad to be about 1 in 1,000; that is, one semi-decent piece to 1,000 pieces of vile darkness that by all rights should rot out your computer's harddrive just for opening them. Some ideas have merit in them- some explore series that are highly compatible. But I'm sorry, I really am, DBZ and Sailor Moon have never been and never will be A GOOD IDEA FOR A CROSSOVER. There I've said it- it's fucking true and you know it, stop trying it, you only make baby Jesus kill more kittens.
In my entire writing and reading lifetime I've thus far, to date, read two good crossovers. The first was a Final Fantasy villains crossover titled Sympathy for the Damned and covered the interesting idea of what happens to the FF villains when they are finally defeated. It was well written, had good smut, and came to a satisfactory ending and run through. The second was when I was 12 and read one of those 'yaoi fangirl gets sucked through various anime and gets to glomp various guys' which I do believe involved an author who referred to her fic-self as Kitty. It was funny, not serious and well delivered.
So when I say I hate crossovers in general, I'm not talking about the people who can write, who put thought or effort into their works, I'm talking about the people who say 'what if sailor moon wasn't really the moon princess and Mary Sue #030202028478261010 was, also what if the Super Sayains were all sucked into the Senshi universe and had to snog all the senshi because they're so beefy (the sayains not the senshi) and the senshi are wearing mini-skirts, omg, I speak Japanese; -desu?'. It is these people who populate the very much vast majority of crossoverdom that make me wince and die a little inside every time I see their ugly heads rearing in the direction of a fandom I enjoy.
To violence against fandoms Sweetdeily says no!