general media Hate For Crossovers

[repsol rave 2,963]

i once read a tomas the tank engine/MLP FiM crossover fanfic. yeah that was some strange stuff.

anyway, some of my favorite fanfics are crossovers! mainly fallout/MLP and halo/MLP, tough.

[10InTheTardis 509]

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

 

Wait, you mean the Rainbow Dash presents my little dashie? The fanmade parody with Harry wayne (Harry potter batman) and The Jokermort (Joker voldemort) who are both monkeys? Well, if you are, then I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the original is way different and involves batman in no way, shape or form. I mean, when people said that my little dashie was sad, you thought that they were crying about that? I'm sorry but I just really find that hilarious.

 

 

Anyways, if it weren't for mlp crossovers, I probably wouldn't even watch the show, because the thing that made me decide to watch it was a doctor who crossover, "Doctor Whooves and Assistant".

[Trine 665]

Shouldn't be a crime for being straight. Its normal if people dislike something though.

[A Black Circle 1,586]

Any crossover can be done with enough talent. Fallout Equestria, for example. You wouldn't think that would ever work but NOPE, it's arguably the best thing to come out of the fandom. Turnabout Storm is also amazing.

[Tom Snyder 4,113]

I've seen a few where anime is involved, very few stand out from the crowd; I've made a few with DB characters, but in way that doesn't seem like they just pop into their world for no reason. I used whats called a gateway to their world, one that hadn't been used in centuries. The only way to activate it was through using the right runes on the stones; my two created ones got in that way. and for a couple chapter was considered enjoyable. 

 

But i had to cancel due to my lack of ideas, but i hope to bring it back to life someday now that i have better experience. If you're curious, my two were Hiro(generosity) and Aiko(love child); they fit those roles pretty well. But i never got it right with how they would interact with the ponies of that world; but with each other it was fine.

 

Hiro was the prankster of the two and the generous one, and Aiko was the one who loved her brother and helped anypony with their errands. But when it came to disagreements, it often lead to them not speaking for a period of time; which one of the mane six tries to help them settle their differences. Though that part was the reason i cancelled too.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Candy Star

[Mantis01 19]

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.

That depend on how the crossover is written. 

 

 

Archie meet the Punisher, a odd yet interesting cross over considering that Archie is suppose to be a light hearted comic and the Punisher is a dark comic. How that did they do it, have the Punisher mistaken Archie for someone else because he closely resemble the person. The comic when Archie will meet with the Predator.

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,165]

@

 

Just letting you know I moved your thread to Media Discussion as this topic is suited on entertainment and the like. I also added the General Media prefix.

 

Thanks.

[MountainDrew 1,877]

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.

Would designing a character that looks like a character from another fanbase be considered okay with you?

 

For example, I have a character in one of my stories that I'm writing, and I designed him to look like Dark Gaia from Sonic Unleashed.  Except he can transform into a "normal" draconequus through the use of a complex spell he created (can't really converse effectively with ponies if you're larger than an Ursa Major ).  I also gave him a personality, unlike the original Dark Gaia that never said anything.  So the only thing in common with the one from Sonic and the one from my story are their appearances.

 

I just absolutely LOVE the look of Dark Gaia, so I tried to design his smaller draconequus form to be similar to both Discord and Dark Gaia.

 

Every character in the story will have their own unique personalities and quirks that set them apart from all the others as well (Dark Gaia absolutely loves to annoy Luna, tries to make everypony laugh in order to deal with his depression, is overflowing with sarcasm, is a total drama queen, has a very short attention span, argues with Discord all the time, and to top it all off, he lies...a lot).  A quote from him: "Oh puh-lease, my dear Sunshine.  Why would I, 'the almighty purveyor of madness and bedlam', lie to such an adorable, and obviously innocent, little mare?" 

 

No other references to Sonic can be found other than another character that slightly resembles Solaris' second phase (because I love the look of him as well).

 

If anyone read this then thanks for taking the time 

[[NULL] 907]

I thought people liked crossovers. People really seemed to like the Archer and Bob's Burger's (sort of) crossover, Alien vs. Predator (before those godawful movies) was pretty popular, and people still pit superheroes against each other and debate who would win to this day.

 

If you're talking exclusively about MLP crossovers, then I can't say I blame people for being annoyed. I wouldn't call most of them "crossovers" as much as much as call them "Shoehorning MLP into every single franchise in existance in the most simple-minded way possible, usually involving really bad pony-related puns that don't make sense on their own."

Edited May 18, 2015 by SpaceOnion

[Moved to Elsewhere 11,331]

I'm okay if the crossover is written well. That's a given.

 

If the crossover makes sense. For MLP, it would make sense if it was crossed with a cartoon or Nintendo like game.

 

And if the crossover does not use fanfic cliches.

 

I will say, I am getting sick of all the MLP x Sonic crossovers.

[Troubleshoes Clyde 107]

Crossovers for me is something that goes right or wrong with no middle ground. I read lots of MLP fanfiction and ones I do read that are crossovers, I usually can only really enjoy them if I know what the two crossovering franchises are. The only exception to this rule is Fortressshy: the nine Fathers, a tf2 and mlp crossover and some Lohav stories (one can argue if they are proper crossovers in the first place. And then some crossovers are just weird and hard to read, even if you are big fan of the franchise. I remember finding a Guardians of the Galaxy lohav story and it just didn't work.

 

I

 

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 would consister The Technological Technocolor Technomare one of the best crossovers I have read in ages. I read it lately and I dont think Ill get some of those hilarious images out of my head for years to come.

 

 

The hulk, Ultron and Captain America arguing who brings Rainbow on her morning walk in a Mary Poppins, Ms. Doubtfire and a Nanny McFee outfits being the main one.

 

[SFyr 1,982]

@@MountainDrew, I think that depends on how much the design is recognizable/likable, and/or deviates from what would be acceptable anyways? Either way, I think the largest rule that applies to this is that almost anything works in a story so long as it is done right--fair warning though, I personally have developed a slight grudge about main characters being highly powerful or 'cool.' If I came into things not knowing Dark Gaia (which is true), he may more easily smack of one of those types of characters, which is something you may have to put extra effort into selling to bitter readers like myself who've already read a lot of what may be reflected on as power fantasies.   As a general rule, a key to making crossover characters work (in my opinion), is ensuring they work on their own merit and logical involvement in the story you feel needs to be told. --And are refreshing/enjoyable whether or not the audience is familiar with them.

 

Also, was the trickster/sarcastic/depressed mix part of the original character (or at least hinted at), or completely your own touch? If the former, I would find multiple ways to build his character in a deeper, more unexplored way than the canon representation had (which is awesome if possible anyways, in my own opinion). If the latter, be warned that depressed yet non-serious, sarcastic, and joking main chars come up a good bit, which may jeopardize 'em if you're not careful handling them; I've usually seen said character types come as humans or humans-turned-pony who felt hated/victimized or something but dealt with it by being a "funny jerk", making a lot of (human) pop cultural references, sarcastic remarks, and (occasionally) getting into pranking or music until someone tripped their fragile sore spots and pulled on the audience's sympathy for their woes.   So, if you can see that being a concern (I don't know much about your character), I would focus on finding what makes him unique or refreshing to read about, and building that up to a nice shine.

_{^{I also get the slight feeling he's much akin to discord, both in behavior and form if he came into a new world and created a unique spell to take the form of a draq? If so he'd definitely have to have his own defining 'feel' that contrasts well with Discord I would think, if that makes sense.}}

[MountainDrew 1,877]

@@MountainDrew, I think that depends on how much the design is recognizable/likable, and/or deviates from what would be acceptable anyways? Either way, I think the largest rule that applies to this is that almost anything works in a story so long as it is done right--fair warning though, I personally have developed a slight grudge about main characters being highly powerful or 'cool.' If I came into things not knowing Dark Gaia (which is true), he may more easily smack of one of those types of characters, which is something you may have to put extra effort into selling to bitter readers like myself who've already read a lot of what may be reflected on as power fantasies.   As a general rule, a key to making crossover characters work (in my opinion), is ensuring they work on their own merit and logical involvement in the story you feel needs to be told. --And are refreshing/enjoyable whether or not the audience is familiar with them.

 

Also, was the trickster/sarcastic/depressed mix part of the original character (or at least hinted at), or completely your own touch? If the former, I would find multiple ways to build his character in a deeper, more unexplored way than the canon representation had (which is awesome if possible anyways, in my own opinion). If the latter, be warned that depressed yet non-serious, sarcastic, and joking main chars come up a good bit, which may jeopardize 'em if you're not careful handling them; I've usually seen said character types come as humans or humans-turned-pony who felt hated/victimized or something but dealt with it by being a "funny jerk", making a lot of (human) pop cultural references, sarcastic remarks, and (occasionally) getting into pranking or music until someone tripped their fragile sore spots and pulled on the audience's sympathy for their woes.   So, if you can see that being a concern (I don't know much about your character), I would focus on finding what makes him unique or refreshing to read about, and building that up to a nice shine.

_{^{I also get the slight feeling he's much akin to discord, both in behavior and form if he came into a new world and created a unique spell to take the form of a draq? If so he'd definitely have to have his own defining 'feel' that contrasts well with Discord I would think, if that makes sense.}}

Thanks for the reply 

 

Yeah, he's actually weaker than Discord (he used to be the God of Chaos but passed that title down to Discord after the destruction of their race).  And he was Discord's adoptive father but lost contact with him sometime ago (a lie told to Celestia since he actually abandoned Discord when he was young due to his severe depression).

 

Why is he depressed?  Well, he failed in his role as the central protector of his people and wasn't strong enough to destroy the main villain before his entire race was eradicated (save for baby Discord and himself).  After a short time of mentoring Discord the depression from his failure had eaten away at his will so much that he just...left.  Discord, feeling lost and abandoned, turned towards troublemaking in order to alleviate his sadness.

 

Dark Gaia (Lord Bedlam) left to hibernate on the sun (much like Nightmare Moon but he essentially banished himself) and was found by Celestia a century before the events of MLP:FiM in a state of severe depression and self-loathing.  Celestia confused Bedlam with her calm demeanor and understanding nature, even when confronted by a being as large and intimidating as himself.  He begins to break out of his shell and tells Celestia a few stories about his life (not all lies mind you, but most of it is).  He then tells her about how he lived to make others laugh before he entered his self-imposed imprisonment.  Celestia then gives him a test, to make her laugh as hard as possible.  He accepts, and thus begins a century of failed attempts and the two of them becoming closer and closer.

 

Though he eventually succeeds when Celestia brings her sister, completely unaware of Bedlam's existence, to see him.  They need his help to defeat the main villain since he knows the secrets of a certain ancient red scroll (created by him).  Suffice it say, in order to make Celestia laugh Luna needs to get trolled...hard 

 

But Bedlam is not as weak-minded as some others, he knows that Discord probably hates him, and Celestia is his only friend at this time.  The mere mention of the villains name drives him to anger and rage, and the only thing that would make him cry currently is if Celestia were to "unfriend" him 

 

One of my favorite things about him is that he carries around a journal in which he posts a picture of the pony he made laugh and then writes the date/time, what they were laughing at, and the name of that pony.  His wings also taste like rock candy 

 

Anyway, enough rambling    Thank you for reading 

[JonasDarkmane 19,791]

I find cross-overs to be fine. They don't really affect the main stories/shows/movies/etc . 

[sweetolebob18 728]

IMO, you don't have to be familiar w the other story line to be able to enjoy a crossover.  In fact, it sometimes helps if you are not because you don't have any preconceptions

Edited May 22, 2015 by sweetolebob18

[CookieK 74]

I don't like the mlp x DC crossover because they put more love into mlp it seems than dc and they focus too much on rainbow dash batman.   I like crossovers but most of the ones I've seen are super boring or filled with too much cheesecake/fanservice.  

Edited August 12, 2015 by CookieK