Crossover
From Fan History Wiki
A crossover, also know sometimes as an x-over, is a fanwork that combines two or more separate fandoms--or characters from those fandoms. Though most frequent in fan-fiction, crossovers can occur in any type of fanwork, be it fiction, art, vidding or filk.
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[edit] History
Crossovers have long been popular in fandom, as writers imagined all kinds of scenarios where their favorite characters from different canons could come together and interact. Sometimes crossovers blend universes which could easily mix together, if set in the same timeline and/or location. For instance, crossovers between various 1980s action heroes based such as The A-Team, Riptide, Airwolf and Remington Steele often could be found. Other times, more far-fetched crossovers such as The Sentinel and Star Trek might happen, either by creating an AU scenario transporting the characters from one canon into the other, or through a strange anomaly, time travel event, or rift in space.
Certain canons also suits themselves well to crossing over, because of the nature of the universe and chararcters. Highlander has long been a popular crossover fandom, sometimes involving characters from another canon discovering they are immortals. Vampire fandoms such as Forever Knight are also popular in crossovers because of the characters' extended lifespans. In bandom, one can frequently find crossovers involving members of different bands in the same storyline.
Crossovers can range in tone from lighthearted parody to fully serious, involved darker fiction. They are often considered good pimping or recruiting fics, as a way of introducing readers in popular fandom A to smaller fandom B by writing an A+B crossover story. Some readers are particularly fans of crossovers in general, enjoying writers who can successfully tackle bringing together disparate universes into a single story.
Although many have debated what makes for a "good" crossover, some frequently cited components include:
- The author's familiarity with all canon universes and character involved
- The author's ability to create a plausible reason for these characters to cross paths and become involved in some form or fashion
- Treating both canon's favorably--that is, not putting characters from canon B into canon A just to bash or prove how incompetent, awful or stupid the characters in canon A are
- Integrating the canons and characters without excessive infodumping
These matters generally apply both to gen as well as adult and slash crossovers, although PWP crossovers can be popular also and enjoyed by some who simply find the visual aesthetic of particular characters getting together pleasing.
[edit] Historical Definitions
The following term dates to 1997 and was written by JPayne:
- Crossover Stories: Stories that involve characters from (sometimes wildly) different universes meeting up to fight, adventure or fall in love. Another much maligned (sometimes rightly so) subgenre of fanfiction. Also popular, professionally speaking, in the comics industry. When done right, these stories incorporate characters who could, concievabley, run into each other some how, such as The X-Files and Millenium or, when using wildly different universes, the writer at least works hard to make the two fit together (one of the best crossover fanfics I have ever read was a cross of Highlander: The Series (a show I'm not fond of) and The Andy Griffith Show (one of my favorite guilty pleasures.) In poorly done examples of crossovers, characters are lumped together for no other reason than the author wants them to meet up.[1]
The following definition dates to January 2001 and the site Bad Fanfic! No Biscuit!:
- fanfic involving characters from more than one fandom. Example: Mulder and Scully go to Sunnydale to investigate vampire activities, and meet up with Buffy.[2]
The following definition dates to the Roswell fandom on June 27, 2001:
- crossover: two shows, movies, or other fictional works mixed (e.g. Roswell/Buffy or Roswell/X-Men) [3]
The following term dates to June 11, 2001 in video game fandom:
- Crossover:
- Type of fanfiction. The elements consisting a crossover story come from more than one official artwork pieces, eg: A story where fighters from Mortal Kombat face Street Fighters. [4]
The following definition dates to March 2002 in the Gundam Wing fandom:
- Basically Gundam Wing being fused with another plot line from a different series. It may range from small aspects of the plot line, or minor characters, to the complete cross between planets/storylines, etc. Sorry for those of you who like them, but i don't think i will have many on my page [5]
The following term dates to May 2003 in the Dragon Ball Z fandom:
- CROSS-OVER
- This is the type of fanfic when you put two or more things together. If you have a fic with Dragonball and Digimon characters together, then that's a cross-over.[6]
The following definition dates to May 2003 in the Combat! and Nash Bridges fandoms:
- crossover: A story which straddles two different fandoms. Can be as close mixing characters from different universes within a genre (ie. Batman/Wolverine) or as wildly disparate as you can imagine (ie. Buffy/Teletubbies). These stories can either be great fun or infamously horrible, depending on the skill of the writer. Sometimes spelled "cross-over" or abbreviated to "C/O" but not with comic fandom. [7]
The following definition dates to August 2003 in the Gundam Wing fandom:
- Crossover: A fic with characters/locations from two (or more) anime series.[8]
The following definition dates to September 2003 in the Kingdom Hearts fandom:
- Crossover: Combining characters from different universes. (Ex: Drizzt and Legolas go to Hogwarts, where they meet Rin-chan, who is a student there....) [9]
The following definition dates to October 2003 and was written by Chantal Gouveia:
- Crossover: Method of getting Snape and Obi-Wan into bed together, with no consideration for plot, but lots of consideration for smut. [10]
The following definition dates to May 2004 in the Harry Potter, Horatio Hornblower and Pirates of the Caribbean fandoms:
- Crossover:
- a fic incorporating canon characters (and sometimes even OCs from AUs) from two or more fandoms.[11]
The following definition is from the Star Trek fandom. It dates from August 2004:
- crossover = A story straddling two different fandoms. [12]
The following term dates to 2005 in the Lord of the Rings fandom:
- Crossover - A fic containing characters and/or settings from more than one fandom universe. Drizzt (Dark Elf series) and Legolas (Lord of the Rings) would be an example. [13]
The following definition dates to May 2005 in the slash, Westlife, and Lord of the Rings fandoms:
- Crossover, XO, X/O, C/O - A crossover story involves characters of more than one fandom. E.g If one of the members of Westlife dated a member of Boyzone, the Backstreet Boys, *NSync etc, the story would be a crossover. [14]
The following definition is from the MST community and dates to June 2005:
- Crossover - a story that combines two or more established story universes into one [15]
The following definition dates to September 2005 in the Stargate fandom:
- A story that contains the characters from Stargate SG-1, but also another TV show (crossovers between Stargate SG-1 and The Sentinel seem quite popular). [16]
The following definition dates to October 2005 on MediaMiner.Org by fanilia:
- Crossover: Involving two or more separate and distinct anime series into one story. [17]
The following definition dates to November 2005 in the A-Team fandom:
- Crossover - A mixture of A-Team FanFiction and another fandom. [18]
The following definition is was written by Jane Leavell and updated in June 2006:
- CROSSOVER: Sometimes this appears as X/O or Xover. A story which involves two or more different shows. For instance, Jane Leavell's "Quantum Island" crosses QUANTUM LEAP with GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. A good crossover is difficult to produce, as first you must have a good combination and secondly a reasonable excuse for the two of them getting involved--they can't just happen to stumble across each other. There's no reason why Horatio Hornblower would meet Starsky & Hutch, for instance, and "Because I wanna!" is no excuse, but if one of the shows you're crossing involved time travel, it might work.[19]
The following definition dates to September 2006 in anime fandom:
- Cross-over - when characters from different series meet; I.E. Duo (Gundam Wing) meets Yoh (Shaman King). Usually this happens for the sole purpose of boinking. [20]
The following definition dates to November 2006 in the Harry Potter fandom:
- Crossovers
- Combining elements of two or more universes (e.g. a House M.D./Harry Potter crossover would likely have Dr. Cameron and Remus bonding over a cup of hot tea, or Dr. House himself exchanging barbs with Severus Snape). [21]
The following definition dates to November 2007 in anime fandom:
- Crossover: Fic genre. Pokemon crossed over with another series, i.e. Sailor Moon. This can involve characters from either show meeting characters from the other show, or characters from one show being transported into the plot and/or location of characters from another show. [22]
The following definition dates to 2008 in the Superman fandom:
- Crossover - A fan fiction which incorporates characters, events, places, ideas, etc from another fandom. If Lois Lane and Buffy were to run into each other, this would be a crossover, since they are two separate fandoms merged into one. Crossovers are also denoted sometimes with the word: "xover", the X standing for cross. [23]
The following definition dates to May 2008 in media fandom:
- Crossover -- refers to stories which include the characters, premises, or settings of more than one fandom coincide. Crossovers may consist of a complete blending of universes or only a slight connection. See also: 'AU' and 'Fusion' [24]
[edit] Examples
[edit] Archives
The Twisting the Hellmouth archive hosts approximately 9,000 crossover stories between Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel and other fandoms.
[edit] Fanzines
- A-Team Through Time and The A-Files were both A-Team fanzines consisting exclusively of crossover stories.
[edit] Fan fiction
- 26 Views of Mount Meggido by mikeneko, a Brimstone/Supernatural crossover.
- nietzsche and the postmodern dilemma of inertia vs. static cling by cm, a King Diamond/Pete Wentz crossover.
- Who Wants to Take Over the World? by Rhonda Eudaly, a Farscape, Brimstone, Xena: Warrior Princess, Pinky and the Brain, Win Ben Stein's Money crossover.
