Crossover

Crossover

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About

Crossover is fan work trope in which two or more discrete franchises, characters or universes are put into the same work. One version of the Rules of the Internet states that "a crossover, even improbable ones, will eventually happen in fan art, fan fiction, or official content. No exceptions."

Origin

Crossovers have been present in fiction work for decades, with one of the earliest known examples published in the French magazine Je Sais Tout in June 1906. Penned by French author Maurice Leblanc "Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late,"[5] was an unofficial crossover, pitting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective against Leblanc's well-known character Arsène Lupin[6], the gentleman thief. When Doyle found out about the use of his character, he requested that the name in the story be changed to Herlock Sholmes in future publications to avoid a legal situation.


cover for the book Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late by Maurice Leblanc where the titular character's name is changed to Herlock Sholmes

Spread

Crossovers that are either artist-sanctioned or unofficial have continued to be found in mass media, including works of literature, movies, comics, television series and video games. Fandoms have used crossovers in their fiction since as early as 1979 when a story featuring characters from Star Trek and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was published in a zine.[7]The trope became incredibly popular in zines throughout the 1980s, with no constraints on the fandoms that would mix together. This zine work bled into Usenet groups, where crossover work was discussed as early as October 1994.[8]


alt.tv.forever-knight FK/Highlander crossover? post by 1 author1 Janet A Dornhoff 10/30/94 g k big...@netcom.com (Larry Burdick) writes: >Is there any truth to the rumor of a Forever Knight/Highlander crossover? >Just curious. There is indeed, at least in fan-fiction. The illustrious Tara O'Shea, aka Lady Johanna Constantine, has written two FKJHL crossover stories, and is reportedly working on a third. I think I recall seeing another such story on one or both of the fiction lists; Il have to go check my archives. And I, personally, have written two short scenes, each of which have grown into much longer, as yet unwritten, stories

By April 1995, a rec.arts.sf.fandom poster known by the handle Krikket began compiling an archive of crossover science fiction stories posted online[9], but it no longer exists. Another sci-fi crossover archive was established in 1997[10], but has also since been removed. Throughout the 1990s, works of crossover fiction were discussed on alt.startrek[11], alt.tv.dawsons-creek[12] and alt.tv.x-files[13] among many others. In September 2004, Fanfiction.net launched a group dedicated to Crossovers[23], which has archived more than 700 stories as of April 2013.


Crossovers Feed Follow Focus: General » All Categories, Since: 09-15-04 Founder: Jess S1 - Stories: 729 - Followers: 36- Staff: 5 - id: 1076 Fan Fiction Crossovers are the combination of two or more unrelated series with one story or series, Crossovers can be very difficult to write, but some come out exceptionally well and can be immensely entertaining. This C2 Community will focus only on Crossovers, in an attempt to make good reads easier to find. All are welcomelBye! Jess S athematics Magic

One of the earliest LiveJournal communities[26] dedicated to crossover work was created on September 22nd, 2003 and is still active as of April 2013. In approximately 10 years, the journal has made more than 5,800 posts and maintains more than 1,400 viewers. In 2006, an LJ recommendation community for crossover work[24] was established, but it ceased updating in 2008. As of April 2013, Fanfiction.net[27] has nearly 50,000 search results for "crossover" while Archive of Our Own[28] has an additional 21,000 search results. Fanlore[15] lists a number of well-known crossover fan works. TV Tropes[4] also lists a large number of crossover works, both in mass media as well as notable fan works.

Crossovers

TV Shows and Film
Video Games

YouTube

Unofficial Crossovers

In Fan Art

Crossovers are also commonly found in fan art. In May 2011, the deviantART community #Crossover-Kingdom[16] launched, gaining more than 67,000 views and 2,400 members in slightly less than two years. In 2011 and 2012 respectively, collections of crossover art were featured on IO09[21] and Buzzfeed.[22] This type of fan art can be found on Tumblr[17][18], Pinterest[29] and deviantART[20], which hosts more than 232,000 crossover works.


BORED

Criticism

The concept of crossovers often draws heavy criticism, with some viewing the practice as a cop-out or a way to cash in on the success of two different series. Critics also argue that crossovers do not allow the author to fully develop each of the characters, with writers wishing to achieve the novelty of putting the characters together instead of actually characterizing them, as suggested in a post on alt.drwho.creative[13] in 1998. However, others view it as a creative opportunity to not only see how different franchises work with one another, but to introduce readers to characters from franchises they normally wouldn't interact with.[25]

Search Interest

External References

[1] Wikipedia – Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

[2] Wikipedia – House of Frankenstein

[3] Wikipedia – House of Dracula

[4] TV Tropes – Cross Over

[5] Black Coat Press – Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late

[6] Wikipedia – Arsène Lupin

[7] Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet – A Brief History of Media Fandom: Late 1980s: Crossovers

[8] alt.tv-forever-knight – FK/Highlander crossover?

[9] rec.arts.sf.fandom – Crossover Fiction

[10] alt.startrek.tos.trekmuse – Another update@The sci-fi & fantasy crossover site! v1.00

[11] alt.startrek – Star Trek Crossover Fiction

[12] alt.tv.dawsons-creek – Dawson's Creek Crossover Fan-fiction Archive

[13] alt.tv.x-files – The mother of all sci-fi x file crossover stories!

[14] alt.drwho.creative – Worst FanFic Ever

[15] Fanlore – Crossover

[16] deviantART – #Crossover-Kingdom

[17] Tumblr – Posts tagged "crossover"

[18] Tumblr – Posts tagged "crossover art"

[19] Pinterest – Pins tagged "crossover art"

[20] deviantART – Search results for "crossover"

[21] IO9 – Fan Art for Crossover Stories We Wish We Could See

[22] Buzzfeed – The 53 Best, Worst, And Weirdest Examples Of Doctor Who/Sherlock Crossover Fan Art

[23] FanFiction.net – Crossovers

[24] LiveJournal – xover_fic_recs

[25] Fanfic Symposium – Crossovers

[26] LiveJournal – Crossover Fan Fiction

[27] Fanfiction.net – Search results for "crossover"

[28] Archive of Our Own – Search results for "crossover"

[29] TVTropes – Cross Over: Live-Action TV

[30] TVTropes – Fan Works

[31] FanFiction – Transformers Marvel

Recent Videos 405 total

Recent Images 9,300 total


Top Comments

Gengar
Gengar

@Paper
A simple "They're downvoting the pony images." would have sufficed but you had to scream "ATTENTIONWHORE" by posting that scandalous banner. You people dig your own grave in fueling the pony hate/downvoters by screaming for attention. It's only a matter of time before this site makes some sort of rule prohibiting anyone to downvote anything pony related just to avoid the butthurt drama the fans always cry about. There's always a pony army that comes around to upvote everything pony related anyway.

+18

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