How crossovers could be made awesome. · 3:04pm Mar 22nd, 2013
A thought occurred to me as I browsed the feature box today. What if crossovers tried changing their formats? Instead of "X character from this franchise is transported to Equestria" or "A pony is transported to X franchise", why not TRULY cross them over, and created a fused world. A world where everyone considers it perfectly normal. Essentially, craft one's own world from the elements of both. One little fic did that once, and I'd say it became somewhat popular. That fic was Fallout: Equestria. I know these fics exist, but they simply aren't common enough.
Let's take an example: Pokemon. We have two fics.
In one of them, a character is transported to another world. Because Pokemon is largely about it's setting, rather than it's characters, it would probably be a pony transported to the world of Pokemon rather than the other way around, possibly humanised. The pony applies their own unique approach and personality to capturing Pokemon and making their way in the world. Eventually, Twilight's intellect or Fluttershy's empathy or Pinkie's sheer energy brings them all the way to the Pokemon league.
In the other, the worlds are joined. Dangerous wild Pokemon roam the Everfree forest. Unicorn mages magic up Pokeballs, and pegasi traverse the sky with their fliers, having a natural affinity for the winged Pokemon. Gyms are featured in Manehattan, Fillydelphia, Los Pegasus, etc, and the Mane 6 are protagonists from Ponyville who travel Equestria, eventually heading to Canterlot for the Pokemon League.
Which of these sounds more exciting? I mean, can't you just SEE the potential of the second one? Doesn't it make you want to start brainstorming?
What is the point of a crossover? It's to combine two elements in such a way that they form something unique, something that neither franchise could accomplish on it's own. That's what Fallout: Equestria did, using Fallout's nuclear wasteland to provide a setting and Equestria to provide a rich backstory, combining the two. The reason this works is simple: An entire WORLD offers more opportunities for this kind of combination than changing a single character or group of characters. And in a lot of situations, fusing the worlds can give you the same opportunities as swapping characters around. Instead of bringing Mohammed to the mountain, bring the mountain to Mohammed, and then EVERYONE can interact with the mountain, not just Mohammed.
I don't normally read crossovers, but a fic where ponies roam across the land searching for Pokemon, a fic where each race has it's affinity to the different types, and a fic where the locations of Equestria serve as backdrops for gym battles? I'd read that.
Sorry for the abrupt change of pace in blogs, but hey, someone has to listen to my ramblings.
Relevant: this is what I imagined the hellhounds while reading Fallout: Equestria:
i.imgur.com/oLqbJuA.jpg
No, I never played Fallout. Nor watched/played/whatever Pokemon. But omygod, MLP x Fallout x Pokemon triple-crossover for the win
I tend to prefer re-imaginings over the usual just throw a character from A into B as well.
A couple of excellent examples of re-imagined crossovers are The Best Night Ever (Groundhogs Day) and The Detective and the Magician (Sherlock Holmes).