general media Hate For Crossovers

[AccountNoLongerUsed 741]

I never understood why some people seem to have such a huge hate for crossovers. I cant comprehend how they werent able to just think "Hey, this guy who made a Doctor Who-MLP crossover likes Doctor Who, we should become friends. I may not like MLP, but I love Doctor Who" or something like that. But instead we get the usual tirade about the crossover maker being called a "ruiner of fandoms" and other dumb crap. 

Edited May 18, 2015 by PathfinderCS

[Windseeker 546]

I never understood it either, but my best guess is some folks are militant and probably take so much pride in their fandoms that they see crossovers as a provocative gesture of one fandom 'tainting' the other.

 

This is often the case with Sonic x MLP crossovers on Derpibooru.

[simba86 1,541]

i love crossovers with MLP. they add another level to the fandom

[Wicked Funky 2,955]

I like crossovers, I draw alot of MLP crossovers with Pokémon

 

I have only seen one episode of "Steven universe" and it was the crossover episode with "Uncle grandpa... It was wierd, But funny

Edited May 6, 2015 by Lemon Stripe

[Trickilee 139]

Either way, thanks for letting us know.

[LittleMac 3,085]

I love the crossovers

As long as they're of good quality, I don't care much

[Sommar 1,289]

Crossovers are interesting, as long as they aren't silly. Trust me, I've seen strange ones.

[Mantis01 19]

Crossovers are good defending how they're done. Some might hate them because of characters shipping.  

[CC_Maud_Pie 6,431]

I like crossovers as long as it's both things I like that are crossing over. Like MLP and Disney for example. Some people don't like crossovers because that's their opinion.

[AccountNoLongerUsed 741]

I like crossovers as long as it's both things I like that are crossing over. Like MLP and Disney for example. Some people don't like crossovers because that's their opinion.

My problem isnt with people not liking crossovers, its with people thinking with negatives instead of positives.

[Megas 27,712]

A lot of hate for crossovers is usually because they either come off as really stupid(unless it isn't meant to be taken seriously) or sometimes dreadfully uncreative(Sonic + MLP has been done to death)

Edited May 7, 2015 by Megas75

[Love//Hack 819]

I don't mind crossovers personally, but I perfer it if the crossover actually makes sense.

 

A lot of hate usually comes from if someone takes passion and happy pride into a certain fandom but all of a sudden they see it crossovered with MLP:FIM and they're like: "OMG! NNNNNOOO!!!!" and they're angered over the fact it has something pony in it or is a crossover with MLP:FIM. Many of them think it ruins it for them and that they refuse to see it with anything MLP. Something MLP fans like us may hate seeing it with other fandoms as well and sometimes it's for similar or same reasons. (Example: MLP being crossovered with Sonic like many other people are saying). Some fandoms I think are silly to crossover with My Little Pony but I don't yell at people for crossovering something pony with something I don't think makes sense.

In fact, even if I may like or not, I might not like it if I don't think the fandoms don't work together.

 

But I don't care really and I'm fine with whatever fandoms are in involved in a crossover personally.

[Freewave 1,145]

I dunno man. My MLP / Gravity Falls Crossover is one of my most popular videos and very little drama in the comments box.

 

 

Can't say I got any bleed over L4D2 fan hate on my crossover for that.

 

 

Crossovers rock!

Edited May 7, 2015 by Freewave

[sweetolebob18 728]

I remember a line from an old James Thurber story.  A married couple are quarrelling about a diner & she says "Did you see that filthy rag he was wiping the counter with?" & he says "You don't like the rag? Fine, then don't eat the rag."

 

I feel the same way about crossovers.  You don't like them, don't read them.  I've read that there are 1 billion + words of fanfic on MLP.  You can't find anything else to read?

 

My Little Dashie is a Batman crossover & the video was great (never read the story).  There is also a Marvel Universe crossover The Technological Technocolor Technomare which is very good. 

 

I agree, some crossovers are poorly done, but I blame the writer & not the subgenre

[StoneCold 144]

I believe they have some form of stigma is because they are a break off from the norm. Fandoms can be quite resistant to change, and this can often end with conflict.

 

Personally, I love crossovers. They're just fun little romps that shouldn't be taken too seriously.

[SFyr 1,982]

Speaking as someone who's gone through over a hundred MLP fanfiction stories by now, crossovers included (but admittedly in the minority)...

 

I wanna share this one bit I heard (but paraphrased) before I go into my personal feelings and experiences with crossovers: a crossover author is someone who not only limits their audience to fans of a single series, but limits it again to fans of an entirely different series.

 

Anyways, my personal feelings is that it smacks a little bit of lacking creativity, and occasionally poor planning. From what I've seen, it's often people throwing two casts of characters that they personally like together using flimsy reasons, when often there doesn't even seem to be that much chemistry or strong reason for them to go together--it tends to feel like the author is just rehashing the things they're into, or think is 'cool', and working the rest of the details out as a second priority. While not the case every time, it still seems to lean too heavily on character's existing reputation. Like, a lot of the interest value of the story is that it has samus, or it has solid snake, or it has master chief.

 

While, yes, sometimes throwing established characters into new situations is interesting, the charm wears off when there's not a lot of charm to be found in the story itself. True, I've seen it work out well and make for a great story, but too often it seems like the crossover itself is the major, defining 'new idea', and the story's interest curve spikes too early and just... drops off after that. You wind up looking for when something even more awesome happens, but it more than often doesn't. You can't just throw your most interesting ideas forward first--ideas that admittedly are fairly new--then peter forward on a cliche "save the world" or "learn from each other's differences" and hold interest too well, otherwise it feels like a familiar story with different but still familiar actors.

 

In the Samus example, I love Metroid, and I love MLP, and while I could feel a good bit of effort and planning going into one of the stories I read including both (which was great at the time), it started running the typical metroid stick of "lose everything, gather power ups" and played off of a lot of familiar events or themes I saw elsewhere: powerful and 'cool' weaponry at the hero's disposal, Rarity redesigning the hero's clothes, the hero being a social outcast of sorts that finds refuge in the idyllic pony world, the princesses taking a personal interest in (and even befriending) the hero, said hero being set up to save the world as the only person that can, etc.

Awesome story, great writing, but I still lost interest after feeling like I knew where it was going.

 

But, maybe I just like newness, and learning about non-cannon characters, and the thought of rehashing a lot of old ones through familiar methods just bothers me on some level. I admit I might just be a little spoiled and bitter as a reader.

 

All that said, any story that is well-written, well-planned, and takes some solid effort in being lively and refreshing, I generally love, crossover or not. I think crossovers just too easily hit a feeling of repetitiveness and low immersion. There's just something jarring about Samus and Luna battling both alicorn and chozo spirits side by side that reminds me two fictional works are competing for screen time.

 

Sorry to all who had to read through all that.   ...That wound up being way more text than I intended.

Edited May 7, 2015 by SFyr

[Taialin 217]

a crossover author is someone who not only limits their audience to fans of a single series, but limits it again to fans of an entirely different series.

 

While, yes, sometimes throwing established characters into new situations is interesting, the charm wears off when there's not a lot of charm to be found in the story itself. True, I've seen it work out well and make for a great story, but too often it seems like the crossover itself is the major, defining 'new idea', and the story's interest curve spikes too early and just... drops off after that.

 

 

I think that SFyr pretty much hit the nail on the head with this one. I'm an avid reader on fanfiction, and even I don't read crossovers frequently, given that the only fandom of which I'm an active part of is MLP. I'm not particularly interested in studying up on other fandoms so I could enjoy some fanfiction about two of them.

 

And to quote a piece of advice given by our veritable Eloquence,

 

[w]hen combining different stories, it is very important to consider how elements of that story might clash with each other.

 

I'm actually conducting a study on MLP fanfiction at the moment, and while the Crossover tag is actually used fairly often, you would not believe how many of those stories break this rule. Far too many crossover stories seem to exist in order to put two environments together and see what happens, rather than for the sake of actually weaving a story with a plot.

 

In fact, I've finished gathering the data for this study. With the permission of the original poster, I could figure out whether stories marked with a "crossover" tag in MLP fanfiction actually are less viewed or lower rated.

[Zyfer 21]

Speaking as someone who's gone through over a hundred MLP fanfiction stories by now, crossovers included (but admittedly in the minority)...

 

I wanna share this one bit I heard (but paraphrased) before I go into my personal feelings and experiences with crossovers: a crossover author is someone who not only limits their audience to fans of a single series, but limits it again to fans of an entirely different series.

 

........... lots of text here............

Sorry to all who had to read through all that.   ...That wound up being way more text than I intended.

 

Read it all and I don't mind since you described what you feel pretty good and accurate... and that usually takes a couple lines...

 

Have tried a couple cross overs and not just MLP based ones and I kinda get the same feelings. You end up having same characters doing their own things really and it's kind of like water and oil, same glass but no mix.

 

I think if you can add in or completely replace the main cast with OC's (which can be similar but not clones) that helps more then anything else. I also do not like seeing basically a history or plotline completely replaced with similiar history. Example would be a seeing a pokemon-sonic or pokemon-MLP cross over where they basically repace Ash, Misty, Broke with cross over characters and then procedes with normal pokemon story. This is highly annoying!

 

I've seen a little bit MLP-Doctor Who. Like the ponies but nvr did like Doctor Who.

 

Also are cross overs really hard to do? It seems i've nvr seen a multi cross over (Example MLP-Sonic-Pokemon).

In fact, I've finished gathering the data for this study. With the permission of the original poster, I could figure out whether stories marked with a "crossover" tag in MLP fanfiction actually are less viewed or lower rated.

 

that seems interesting and I'd be interested in knowing! (I like to know stuff and find interest in boring things.)

[SFyr 1,982]

@@Zyfer, thanks for that, haha. 

 

Umm, multi-crossovers are admittedly fairly rare. The ones that stick out most in memory though are the Summoner (human transported to equestria with the power to summon minions, starts throwing in Starcraft's Zerg, Tonberries from Final Fantasy, etc), and some story with four humans from the real world playing video games and being transported to Equestria somehow with the powers of the game they were playing (Minecraft, TF2, etc). Though, I'm sure I've found several others, and there exists many many more I don't even know about. 

To be honest, I think crossovers are easy-ish to start with, given they naturally have an interest boon if you happen to find readers who like both series and the character's you're using, but harder than average to get right as you now have even more cliches to avoid, and very different elements to blend together in a believable and interesting way. Multi-crossovers get even worse with this, and it just becomes too hard to follow in my own opinion--even the appeal of each additional story line seems blunted by them now having to share the spotlight and draw on multiple worlds/settings/histories at once.

Like you said, there seems to be an issue with replacing/melding two stories together then basically just doing the same thing too.   Even if they mix it up and get away from that a good deal, I feel like too often they don't get far enough away from what each series originally was like? 

Edited May 7, 2015 by SFyr

[Zyfer 21]

@@Zyfer, thanks for that, haha. 

 

Umm, multi-crossovers are admittedly fairly rare. The ones that stick out most in memory though are the Summoner (human transported to equestria with the power to summon minions, starts throwing in Starcraft's Zerg, Tonberries from Final Fantasy, etc), and some story with four humans from the real world playing video games and being transported to Equestria somehow with the powers of the game they were playing (Minecraft, TF2, etc). Though, I'm sure I've found several others, and there exists many many more I don't even know about. 

To be honest, I think crossovers are easy-ish to start with, given they naturally have an interest boon if you happen to find readers who like both series and the character's you're using, but harder than average to get right as you now have even more cliches to avoid, and very different elements to blend together in a believable and interesting way. Multi-crossovers get even worse with this, and it just becomes too hard to follow in my own opinion--even the appeal of each additional story line seems blunted by them now having to share the spotlight and draw on multiple worlds/settings/histories at once.

Like you said, there seems to be an issue with replacing/melding two stories together then basically just doing the same thing too.   Even if they mix it up and get away from that a good deal, I feel like too often they don't get far enough away from what each series originally was like? 

 

Multi-Crossovers: Basically 3 steps forward 2 steps back

 

In a lot of movies when they mention something like EMP or even Zombies they usually explain or simplify it. I find this quite annoying since I already understand the basics and some of the advances but wouldn't that help merge them better then saying something that 1 or both fandoms already understand so you could get non-fans into it?

 

Like instead of ||| Ash throwing Ponyball and screaming, "Pika Pie! I choose you!" ||| maybe something along the lines of ||| Ash throws a red and white spherical object and demands that Pika Pie comes out by incanting the not so magical words, "Pika Pie! I choose you!" ||| ?

 

Or would that still be pretty bad?

 

[SFyr 1,982]

@@Zyfer, eh, I think that would still be pretty bad. I think in the case of dealing with subjects or whole worlds that the reader may or may not know about, it's best to use inference and soft, indirect guiding towards understanding. There's a point where re-explaining everything (or practically censoring most fan-known vocabulary) for readers unfamiliar with things just becomes unappealing to those who know nothing about the crossover world, yet burdensome to those who do. I bet we all learned what a pokeball is without someone holding our hand or offering an explanation.

 

I dunno, I think there was a case or two where I didn't notice the crossover tag, read something I was completely unfamiliar with involved--and felt the character was a little out of place admittedly--but overall I felt I knew all I needed to in order to enjoy the story at the time. Only later did I find out that there was an already established work they were drawing from, rather than just throwing in some new stuff of their own. I was a little disappointed, sure, but it went to show they weren't relying on prior knowledge of the other world.

Edited May 7, 2015 by SFyr

[InactiveHooves 256]

I don't like Crossovers. I want my pony to be pony.

But I do admit it is a popular thing for many people so it's cool.

[Kylo Ren 58]

I personally - TAKE NOTES HERE PEOPLE; I'M EXPRESSING A SUBJECTIVE OPINION - view crossovers as a lazy and half-assed attempt to avoid coming up with original stories of your own. Very little creativity and brainstorming goes into crossover stories. The worlds and characters are already fully fleshed out.

[TheJLeeTeam 914]

I like crossovers as long as they're done right like when two characters from two properties are related. My favorite crossover is Keldeo from Pokémon who looks very much like a g4 pony and MLP characters. I feel that's one of the more creative crossovers

[Invincible 2,091]

Maybe it would appear to them as if the foreign element(s) in the cross-over diminish from their intended fan materials.