Index A Miscellany of Characters: The Crossover Database/New Challenge (6/21); Now Disc. Star Trek X-overs

1. Who are you? Introduce yourself!

The name's lazykbys_left. Call me "lazy", please.

2. Why did you click on this thread?

Er . . . because it's there? I liked the discussions in the previous thread and am looking forward to thought-provoking ones in this new incarnation, too.

3. Do you like crossovers, do you hate them, or do you find them "bleh" and have no real opinion about them?

I feel the same way about crossovers as I do AUs, 'ships, missing scenes, songfics, slash, and so on and so forth. I like the ones I like and don't like the ones I don't.

4. If you could write a crossover, what would it be? What fandom(s) would you choose and what Star Wars era would it be set in?

It probably wouldn't be what you'd expect. For example, I have the following ideas for Star Trek crossovers:

- An Imperial Star Destroyer with an all-OC crew is trapped in the Deep Core. A Starfleet vessel (also with all OCs) finds itself transported back in time to the GFFA. Both just want to go back home.

- The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701A) finds itself in the middle of the Clone Wars. McCoy discovers he is Force-sensitive after a bota experience and must resist the Dark Side when it urges him to personally put an end to the fighting.

- When a derelict Super Star Destroyer is found at the edge of the Alpha quadrant, it's up to [insert name and/or starship] to figure out what happened to the crew.

And, just for kicks, what would you title it?

Beats me. I suck at titles.

5. What's your favourite crossover you've read?

To be honest, I haven't read that many. But of those, I liked VaderLVR64's Tatooine Messiah best.



What makes a good crossover? What elements need to be present?

I doubt I've read enough to have a valid opinion, but I would say the criteria for good crossovers are pretty much the same as any other sort of fiction. Drama, action, characterization, humor . . . and maybe a cowbell or two.

How do you deal with characterizations and character interactions?

The way I do with my other fics: write them the way I see them in my mind and hope like heck my readers agree.

- lazy

 

I would actually like to see that. I could see it being in line with McCoy's nature.

 

Agreed. This is a great bunny, lazy.

 

A great bunny indeed!

another cross over for this thread Unleashed! - it's a ST/SW cross.

 

Is there a new challenge in the offing for this thread? The last one made my head hhurt from its complexities.

 

Ok, I've started a new crossover. It's a House, M.D./SW fic. Everybody Lies

 

Neither Diamond nor I will be around much for a bit (I'll probably be back full-time in June -- I've got way too much stuff going on right now with school and everything to spend time on the boards), but brodie, if you or anyone else has a crossover related challenge you want to try, feel free to announce it here. I'll pop in on occasion, I just don't have as much time to do proper discussion-running and challenge-throwing as I wanted to.

 

Well, it's been a while. Since Idrelle and Diamond are out at the moment, I thought I might take them up on their offer and offer a discussion question.

What, for you, is the hardest part of writing a crossover? What is the easiest?

 

That's an easy question for me. The easiest is coming up with the idea in the first place. The Hardest? Trying to make it work without it seeming preposterous.

Sometimes it's hard. Star Wars crossovers especially since it's in a "Galaxy far, far, away." Unless it's another Sci - Fi fandom like Star Trek or a show that relies heavily on the magical side of the supernatural, like Buffy, or Charmed (or to a certain extent Sailor Moon), then crossovers are extremely hard to make a believable, remotely plausible crossover with Star Wars work. The best crosses in my opinion are the ones that are able to do that, like Striker's Sailor Moon crossover epic, his Decepticous Rex (Transformers), Star Wars crossover and Darth Marr's Ori Duology.

 

Thanks for starting another thread up LadyLunas I can't actually comment on this one as I am not a very good writer, I am more of a reader only

Like Idrelle said I find it difficult to get the time to drop in and contribute as much as I'd like but it's great to see people adding new stories all the time and getting involved in the challenges and discussions. I am off to read some of the new stories now!!

 

I apologize, again, for being absent. I am checking the sock now for any new stories sent to it and will be updating the Index when that happens. I'm back on the boards now, but am still rather busy. Thanks a lot, LadyLunas, for the discussion topic! I'll get around to answering it when I'm not quite as exhausted as I am right now.

 

What, for you, is the hardest part of writing a crossover? What is the easiest?

I find that the easiest part of a crossover is the basic concept. Thinking about how it would appeal to the masses and yourself. The really hard part is definitely writing the story in a way that sounds concievable and believable to your potential readers. I've found that I definitely have to do a great deal of plotting, more than on normal stories to make a crossover work. After that I'm usually set to go.

 

You're welcome!

And I just realized I haven't even answered my own question.

What, for you, is the hardest part of writing a crossover? What is the easiest?

The easiest part is coming up with the crossover. The characters, the scenario of how the cross occurs. The hardest part is actually the plot. I have a SW/PotC that'll be starting its third rewrite, mainly because I just now realized why the plot wasn't working. I have a SW/Firefly idea that's in the plot bunny adoption thread because I can't come up with a workable plot for it. I don't know why this happens. I think it's because I'm so focused on remaining true to the characters that it's hard for me to come up with a scenario in which both 'verses stay "true", or even work together well.

 

Like others have mentioned, the easiest thing for me, too, is the concept. I get plot bunnies for crossovers more frequently than any other kind of plot bunny. However, I'd say that something like 98% of them are completely non-functional and should stay as ideas. There hardest thing about writing crossovers is making the plot believable and staying true to ALL the characters (unless you're writing a parody, of course -- then some liberties can be taken for humour value ). Problems occur from a number of things, one of them being that it's sometimes difficult to have plausible interactions between characters from different fandoms that stay true to their personalities. The idea is the easy bit -- writing it in a believable fashion is the problematic part. Once you suspend reality for a little too long and stretch the believability a little too much, your crossover starts to look silly and can quickly self-destruct.

It's like that saying we always hear -- "[crossovers are] easier said than done."

---

**A note from me as an Indexer -- if you guys see ANY crossovers at all, please notify us! I've seen a lot of new ones crop up lately, but I don't have as much time as I would like to chase them all down and gather the required info. So, if you guys could lend a hand, that would be great. :) Just PM the required info to the sock and I'll get it added.

 

Will these help?

Before

Saga

Beyond

Lazy's link machine is a wonderful thing


Edit: and if you organize them by "first post" the most recent ones are at the bottom - I use this all the time when indexing for the H/L and J/Z threads... it's a huge help.

 

Haha, yes, that will help, thank you, Jade_Max. I can never find the link to lazy's link machine when I want it and it causes a lot of unnecessary hair pulling on my part as an Indexer.

 

*grin* You're most welcome... I keep it book marked - it's such a wonderful tool!

 

A little announcement:

The Index is in the process of being updated as completely as possible. So far, the Before the Saga entry has been completed.

Here are some new fics recently added to the Before the Saga entry (new and old, but more old than new ):

Conspiracy Theory ? BrentusofGath
And That?s the Truth ? Persephone_Kore
Just One Night ? Kestrel_Kenobi
A Ruff Day ? micky-nikki

Also, I?ve been re-organizing the Index a little bit. In the past, fics were listed alphabetically and those that began with ?A? or ?The? were listed under the ?A? and ?T? sections, respectively. I am now in the process of changing that; the ?A? or ?The? is to be ignored and the fic will be sectioned according to the first letter of the next word in the title.

--Idrelle

 

Jade_Max: if you organize them by "first post" the most recent ones are at the bottom

Er . . . if you keep the default ("sort by"), the most recent ones are at the top. Much simpler, IMO.

- lazy

 

I don't know if anyone has ever read THESE, but these are quite possibly, HANDS DOWN, THE BEST SW/BTVS Crossovers that I have EVER READ.


Title: Phantoms and Slayers
Author: WinterD
Crossover With:
Timeframe: SW:TPM, BTVS:S2
Characters: Buffy/Obi-wan, Qui-Gon, Anakin
Summary: During ?Anne?, Buffy is unsuccessful in escaping from the ?hell? dimension and instead finds herself passed off to another owner on the world she now lives on.
Status: COMPLETE
http://www.tthfanfic.com/Story-7024/winterd+Phantoms+and+Slayers.htm

Title: Force Be With Us
Author: WinterD
Timeframe: SW:TPM, BTVS:S2
Characters: Buffy/Obi-wan
Summary: Written for tth100. One hundred drabbles and ficlets staring Buffy and Obi-Wan. See each chapter for summary details.
Status: COMPLETE
http://www.tthfanfic.com/Story-7754/winterd+Force+Be+With+Us.htm

Title: The Alternate
Author: WinterD
Timeframe: SW:TPM, BTVS:S2
Characters: Buffy/Obi-wan
Summary: Alternate ending to P&S where Obi-Wan was the one to follow Buffy. He's adjusting to his new life here in Sunnydale and Buffy finds a reason to celebrate.
Status: WIP
http://www.tthfanfic.com/Story-13969/winterd+The+Alternate.htm

 

Hi, winchestersgirl. I can't index those fics because they're off-site. We generally don't allow advertisement of other sites, if I'm remembering the Fan Fic FAQ correctly. As long as the site is family-friendly, the links are fine, I just won't be indexing them, even though they're crossovers.

 

The easiest is like Idrelle said, the concept. "What if Star Wars met..."

The heardest is multi-fold. Like making sure it's not some 'My kung fu is stronger than your kung fu' power trip. Or trying for believable interactions bewteen the universes. What do you bring from universe A into universe B?

 

'My kung fu is stronger than your kung fu' power trip.

That's an excellent point, Jon. I remember getting a rather nasty comment on another site when I was posting my HP/SW fic -- the user was adamant that the Force was stronger than magic and was upset with the way that I was portraying it.

If you're crossing SW with another fandom that has magic or some form of that (Shenshi powers, anyone? ), you need to be very careful about the way you portray both of them. You can take the easy way out by making the Force just another name for "magic", or you do it the harder way and have both powers separate. That's when things get really crazy, I think -- when you have two different powers in one fic and you respect both of them, so you don't want one to be ultimately more powerful than the other.

If I'm making ANY sense...

 

NOTE: The comments in this post are from me-as-a-writer. Me-as-a-reader has a very different view of things.


RK_Striker_JK_5: Or trying for believable interactions bewteen the universes. What do you bring from universe A into universe B?

A related question is: which parts do you leave out and how do you make that believable?

It depends on your 'verse-mixing method, but so far I've found there's usually something that just doesn't fit. Unfortunately, these are the things that define the 'verse - otherwise you could just handwave them away.


Idrelle_Miocovani: That's when things get really crazy, I think -- when you have two different powers in one fic and you respect both of them, so you don't want one to be ultimately more powerful than the other.

I dunno . . .

I would argue that you can have one power be stronger than the other if the stronger power belongs to the antagonist. A hero has to triumph against impossible odds and all that.

Actually, I think it's possible to have one power be ultimately stronger so long as you introduce situations where it doesn't really matter. Or maybe it's just a case of making sure each character has a chance to shine.


You can take the easy way out by making the Force just another name for "magic", or you do it the harder way and have both powers separate.

Interesting. Myself, I find it a lot harder to have the Force be magic or vice versa.

For example: in DragonBall, the main character goes uber because of anger. In SW, that's an automatic Dark Side point so you have to do some narrative tap-dancing if you want to keep him Light.

Come to think of it, SW is the only 'verse I know of where anger comes with that strong a penalty. In most 'verses, it's just a passing point on the way to eventual enlightenment.

- lazy

 

I assumed not, since they weren't on the site. However, they are SO GOOD that I felt that I should post a link.

Blending to completely different realms can be very tricky, but she really did a GREAT job.