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graycardinal) wrote2023-06-17 12:33 am
graycardinal) wrote2023-06-17 12:33 am
Entry tags:
Dear Crossworker 2023:
Long letter is long; let's see if all the cuts actually work this year.
Why I'm Here
• Three words: flexibility, challenge, and surprise.
As a writer, I come for the challenge. While I’m careful to offer for fandoms I know I can write, I tend to offer them in combinations that I also know will stretch my internal idea generator and my storytelling muscles. And I’ve offered – and will continue to offer – fandoms in clusters of four to six so that I absolutely won’t know ahead of time what my matches will look like. Much of the fun for me is in the range of what I might be asked to do. I want to be surprised by my recipient’s requests, and by the nature of the specific challenge facing me in any given year. Up to now, specific matching protocols notwithstanding, there’ve usually been several options open to me from among my recipients’ requests, and I hope that remains true this time around.
As a requester, I come bearing flexibility. As with offers, I tend to cluster my requests in groups of four to six, because – again, notwithstanding the specific match AO3’s Sorting Hat may generate – I want you to have choices too. In a way, I think of this as the thematic opposite of Yuletide, where we often do request specific heart-fandoms and hope for particular elements in the stories arising from them. Here, I am looking not for the story I’d write, or even the story I’d most like to read – rather, I’m looking for the story a given pair of crossed fandoms makes you write, because that’s most likely to be one I would never have thought of.
Thus, as both a writer and reader, I come to Crossworks for the surprise. I enjoy being surprised by the stories my muse draws from the match(es) I’m handed, and I very much enjoy being surprised by the stories your muse draws from the one(s) I’ve supplied for you. This is why I tend to give broad, general prompts rather than specific ones for this exchange. Having said that: if you would like more specific prompts than what I’ve supplied, please contact the mods, and I will cheerfully amplify on any of my individual request-clusters – which won’t spoil any surprises on either end, since only you will know the specific combo on which the original match was made. •
Likes & Dislikes
• My tastes in fic are wide and eclectic -- I read and enjoy gen, het, and slash (both flavors) at all ratings and have very few outright squicks aside from noncon, incest, and adult-child kink, but I am not typically attracted to stories for erotic content or angst quotient. Rather, I like good characterization, authentic-sounding dialogue, effectively sneaky plotting, and well-developed wit. I am equally intrigued by clever use of canon and thoughtfully developed AUs, and I am disturbingly fond of crossovers [obvious much?] and well-woven meta threads.
As to romance: where crossovers are concerned, I'm hardly ever drawn to write one for pairing-related purposes, and within individual fandoms I normally gravitate to canon-consistent pairings -- but in the crossovers I read, I've been wowed by a startling range of intriguing cross-fannish relationships (up to and including Buffy Summers and a Ninja Turtle. That said, I add the observation that in my book, well-sustained UST (heavy on the T) is often as good as or better than actual sex, in crossovers as well as canonical relationships.
Broadly speaking, my interests run more toward crossovers than to fusions - although technically, quite a lot of my own work occupies the fuzzy middle of that diagram (that is, where both source canons exist "side by side" in the same background world, often with one source timeline shifted to some degree to allow the characters to encounter each other at a particular point in the merged timeline). That said, I’m absolutely not opposed to fusions, especially in some cases; there will be more about that in the request-cluster notes. And it's definitely true that my own writing also reflects the kinds of things I like to read; my AO3 archive is here, and you're welcome to prowl. •
Fandom-Specific Notes • There are two fandoms among all these that are more than usually obscure. The Master was a short-lived 1980s TV series starring Lee Van Cleef and Timothy Van Patten, the former as an American expatriate who took up ninja-craft while living in Japan, the latter as a young lone-wolf cruising the American highways in a highly customized van. When young Max crosses paths with McAllister (who's back in the US hunting for a daughter he didn't know existed), the two join forces, Max takes up martial arts himself, and they must also dodge pursuit by one of McAllister's ninja order who has a long-standing grudge. As for the Diana Winthrop series, this consisted of half a dozen slim teen-sleuth novels set chiefly in 1980s New York, written by Norma Johnston under the pen name "Kate Chambers". The books cross the Nancy Drew template with plots that skew closer to Golden Age puzzle mysteries and characters who are a bit more diverse and more complex, and there are continuing elements that link each book to its predecessors. •
Requests • I have more requests than usual this year. I've sometimes been difficult to match, and so I made a deliberate effort this year to balance each request-cluster between fandoms I nominated (often obscure) and fandoms I didn't nominate. Also, I actually did nominate a full dozen fandoms this year, and I wanted to get all of them into my requests somewhere, obscurity be darned. One further note: the first fandom listed in each cluster is the one around which I built that cluster. This is *not* intended to limit your choices in any way; I merely mention it to illustrate how my mind works as I'm building the clusters. •
Batman Beyond / Doctor Who ('63) / Gargoyles / Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century / Tomorrowland
• Let's call this the "secret history" cluster, with a definite slant toward futuristic settings. Most of the potential scenarios here strike me as crossovers rather than fusions, as one set of characters drops into the other's territory for one reason or another. In particular, several of the villains from this group (the Master, Xanatos, Moriarty), have excellent reasons to branch into one of the other settings here; on the flip side, either any Doctor or Tomorrowland's Athena could be easily dropped into someone else's universe. One other thought: I'm really curious about how Macbeth from Gargoyles might find his way into Tomorrowland's Plus Ultra. •
Batman:TAS / Gargoyles / Kim Possible / Miraculous Ladybug / Stargate SG-1 / Young Wizards
• I'm thinking this one is the "meddling kids" cluster, since three of these six (plus a half, if you count Robin and Batgirl) feature actual kid protagonists. The majority of the potential combinations strike me as more lighthearted than not (though the Bat/Ladybug vibe here would definitely NOT be the same as that in my own fusion from last year). That said, some of these could also go fairly dark, particularly if Demona or any of the nastier Batvillains managed to co-opt a stargate, or if the Manhattan clan found itself dealing with a Goa'uld. •
Castle / Ant-Man (movies) / Diana Winthrop (Chambers) / Leverage / Remington Steele
• With three detectives and three masters of the heist, this is clearly the "let's go pull a caper" cluster. (Obviously, Steele fits into both camps.) My suspicion is that all that's needed here is a suitable MacGuffin, and that once that's in place the stories should mostly write themselves. •
Elemental Masters / Devil Went Down to Georgia / My Little Pony Gen. 1 ('84)
• This one is here purely because I noticed the first two of these fandoms in the signup summary and went "of *course* that's an excuse for a fusion". Then I decided I had to add one more fandom in order to make the cluster viable, and my mind went back to the earliest MLP stories (the villain in "Escape from Midnight Castle" might as well *be* the Devil incarnate). As to what you'd do with Elemental Masters and MLP, I leave that to your imagination...and point out that there are, in fact, talking parrots in the EM universe. •
The Master (TV) / Avengers ('61) / Knight Rider / Murder She Wrote / Remington Steele
• This is obviously the straight-up "foil the villain of the week" cluster, with five unique sets of rescuers: ninjas, superspies, KITT and Michael, Jessica Fletcher, and the Steele agency. Presumably a crossover arises because two of these teams find themselves working the same case from different angles. A handful of specific ways in come to my mind: Might Steed & Peel have known any of (a) McAllister's old friends, (b) MSW's Michael Haggerty, or (c) Steele's Daniel Chalmers? Haggerty & Chalmers could also easily have crossed paths. It would be deeply amusing to see Steele react to KITT (and if the Descoines were somehow involved, there'd be serious fireworks). And I have to wonder what might happen if Max and McAllister showed up in Cabot Cove.... •
Oz (Baum) / Lois & Clark / Mary Poppins / Mairelon the Magician / Miraculous Ladybug
• Here we have the "magical hijinks" cluster (with a side of Superman thrown in for color). As the list order indicates, I was mostly thinking that dropping any of these characters into Oz would be highly entertaining (most likely post-Emerald City, following Dorothy's permanent relocation). That said, much the same could be said of dropping Mary Poppins into any of the others (Mary in the L&C-verse strikes me as especially hilarious). The odd case is almost certainly Mairelon; I'm thinking that either Mairelon or Ladybug might offer more by way of fusion than of straight crossover. •
Stargirl / Agent Carter / Doctor Who ('63) / The Master (TV) / Stargate SG-1
• This one is my "period piece" cluster; specifically, this group is strongly influenced by the historical continuity in several of the relevant series - Stargirl's JSA-era material, SG-1's ventures into early modern Egyptology, the Master's roots (McAllister's, that is) in southeast Asian culture, etc. For example: show us Peggy Carter vs. the Shade or send her to Egypt where the Gate is being studied. See what happens when a ninja Master encounters a Gallifreyan one. How might a 1950s UNIT have dealt with a Stargate or worked with Stargirl's JSA? (And none of this precludes having the Doctor drop in on the present-day Stargirl's adventures.) •
Young Wizards / Amelia Peabody / Enola Holmes (films) / Oz (Baum) / Mary Poppins / Relic Hunter
• This is partly another "period piece" cluster, and partly an excuse to spread the Young Wizards love as widely as possible (that is, if any of the other fandoms have errantry-sworn wizards, who among the principals therein are in fact on errantry?). Meanwhile, Amelia, Enola, and Dorothy Gale are all within shouting distance of each other period-wise, Sydney Fox might easily go looking for one of the Emerson family's discoveries, and Mary Poppins needs no excuse to drop on anyone she likes (and you have to wonder how she would have handled Ramses Emerson - or he her - had she been his governess). •
Zeta Project / Miraculous Ladybug / Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century / Tomorrowland / Young Wizards
• And finally we circle back to a futuristic cluster. The easiest match is probably Zeta/22CEN (Zeta and robot!Watson would clearly have much to discuss), but any of these could easily also mesh with Tomorrowland and Plus Ultra (see especially Athena and either Zeta or Watson). I'm also thinking that at least one of Holmes' new Irregulars might well be a wizard (I like Tennyson for this). And what clone-Moriarty would do with a collection of Miraculous (Miraculi?).... •
Why I'm Here
• Three words: flexibility, challenge, and surprise.
As a writer, I come for the challenge. While I’m careful to offer for fandoms I know I can write, I tend to offer them in combinations that I also know will stretch my internal idea generator and my storytelling muscles. And I’ve offered – and will continue to offer – fandoms in clusters of four to six so that I absolutely won’t know ahead of time what my matches will look like. Much of the fun for me is in the range of what I might be asked to do. I want to be surprised by my recipient’s requests, and by the nature of the specific challenge facing me in any given year. Up to now, specific matching protocols notwithstanding, there’ve usually been several options open to me from among my recipients’ requests, and I hope that remains true this time around.
As a requester, I come bearing flexibility. As with offers, I tend to cluster my requests in groups of four to six, because – again, notwithstanding the specific match AO3’s Sorting Hat may generate – I want you to have choices too. In a way, I think of this as the thematic opposite of Yuletide, where we often do request specific heart-fandoms and hope for particular elements in the stories arising from them. Here, I am looking not for the story I’d write, or even the story I’d most like to read – rather, I’m looking for the story a given pair of crossed fandoms makes you write, because that’s most likely to be one I would never have thought of.
Thus, as both a writer and reader, I come to Crossworks for the surprise. I enjoy being surprised by the stories my muse draws from the match(es) I’m handed, and I very much enjoy being surprised by the stories your muse draws from the one(s) I’ve supplied for you. This is why I tend to give broad, general prompts rather than specific ones for this exchange. Having said that: if you would like more specific prompts than what I’ve supplied, please contact the mods, and I will cheerfully amplify on any of my individual request-clusters – which won’t spoil any surprises on either end, since only you will know the specific combo on which the original match was made. •
Likes & Dislikes
• My tastes in fic are wide and eclectic -- I read and enjoy gen, het, and slash (both flavors) at all ratings and have very few outright squicks aside from noncon, incest, and adult-child kink, but I am not typically attracted to stories for erotic content or angst quotient. Rather, I like good characterization, authentic-sounding dialogue, effectively sneaky plotting, and well-developed wit. I am equally intrigued by clever use of canon and thoughtfully developed AUs, and I am disturbingly fond of crossovers [obvious much?] and well-woven meta threads.
As to romance: where crossovers are concerned, I'm hardly ever drawn to write one for pairing-related purposes, and within individual fandoms I normally gravitate to canon-consistent pairings -- but in the crossovers I read, I've been wowed by a startling range of intriguing cross-fannish relationships (up to and including Buffy Summers and a Ninja Turtle. That said, I add the observation that in my book, well-sustained UST (heavy on the T) is often as good as or better than actual sex, in crossovers as well as canonical relationships.
Broadly speaking, my interests run more toward crossovers than to fusions - although technically, quite a lot of my own work occupies the fuzzy middle of that diagram (that is, where both source canons exist "side by side" in the same background world, often with one source timeline shifted to some degree to allow the characters to encounter each other at a particular point in the merged timeline). That said, I’m absolutely not opposed to fusions, especially in some cases; there will be more about that in the request-cluster notes. And it's definitely true that my own writing also reflects the kinds of things I like to read; my AO3 archive is here, and you're welcome to prowl. •
Fandom-Specific Notes • There are two fandoms among all these that are more than usually obscure. The Master was a short-lived 1980s TV series starring Lee Van Cleef and Timothy Van Patten, the former as an American expatriate who took up ninja-craft while living in Japan, the latter as a young lone-wolf cruising the American highways in a highly customized van. When young Max crosses paths with McAllister (who's back in the US hunting for a daughter he didn't know existed), the two join forces, Max takes up martial arts himself, and they must also dodge pursuit by one of McAllister's ninja order who has a long-standing grudge. As for the Diana Winthrop series, this consisted of half a dozen slim teen-sleuth novels set chiefly in 1980s New York, written by Norma Johnston under the pen name "Kate Chambers". The books cross the Nancy Drew template with plots that skew closer to Golden Age puzzle mysteries and characters who are a bit more diverse and more complex, and there are continuing elements that link each book to its predecessors. •
Requests • I have more requests than usual this year. I've sometimes been difficult to match, and so I made a deliberate effort this year to balance each request-cluster between fandoms I nominated (often obscure) and fandoms I didn't nominate. Also, I actually did nominate a full dozen fandoms this year, and I wanted to get all of them into my requests somewhere, obscurity be darned. One further note: the first fandom listed in each cluster is the one around which I built that cluster. This is *not* intended to limit your choices in any way; I merely mention it to illustrate how my mind works as I'm building the clusters. •
Batman Beyond / Doctor Who ('63) / Gargoyles / Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century / Tomorrowland
• Let's call this the "secret history" cluster, with a definite slant toward futuristic settings. Most of the potential scenarios here strike me as crossovers rather than fusions, as one set of characters drops into the other's territory for one reason or another. In particular, several of the villains from this group (the Master, Xanatos, Moriarty), have excellent reasons to branch into one of the other settings here; on the flip side, either any Doctor or Tomorrowland's Athena could be easily dropped into someone else's universe. One other thought: I'm really curious about how Macbeth from Gargoyles might find his way into Tomorrowland's Plus Ultra. •
Batman:TAS / Gargoyles / Kim Possible / Miraculous Ladybug / Stargate SG-1 / Young Wizards
• I'm thinking this one is the "meddling kids" cluster, since three of these six (plus a half, if you count Robin and Batgirl) feature actual kid protagonists. The majority of the potential combinations strike me as more lighthearted than not (though the Bat/Ladybug vibe here would definitely NOT be the same as that in my own fusion from last year). That said, some of these could also go fairly dark, particularly if Demona or any of the nastier Batvillains managed to co-opt a stargate, or if the Manhattan clan found itself dealing with a Goa'uld. •
Castle / Ant-Man (movies) / Diana Winthrop (Chambers) / Leverage / Remington Steele
• With three detectives and three masters of the heist, this is clearly the "let's go pull a caper" cluster. (Obviously, Steele fits into both camps.) My suspicion is that all that's needed here is a suitable MacGuffin, and that once that's in place the stories should mostly write themselves. •
Elemental Masters / Devil Went Down to Georgia / My Little Pony Gen. 1 ('84)
• This one is here purely because I noticed the first two of these fandoms in the signup summary and went "of *course* that's an excuse for a fusion". Then I decided I had to add one more fandom in order to make the cluster viable, and my mind went back to the earliest MLP stories (the villain in "Escape from Midnight Castle" might as well *be* the Devil incarnate). As to what you'd do with Elemental Masters and MLP, I leave that to your imagination...and point out that there are, in fact, talking parrots in the EM universe. •
The Master (TV) / Avengers ('61) / Knight Rider / Murder She Wrote / Remington Steele
• This is obviously the straight-up "foil the villain of the week" cluster, with five unique sets of rescuers: ninjas, superspies, KITT and Michael, Jessica Fletcher, and the Steele agency. Presumably a crossover arises because two of these teams find themselves working the same case from different angles. A handful of specific ways in come to my mind: Might Steed & Peel have known any of (a) McAllister's old friends, (b) MSW's Michael Haggerty, or (c) Steele's Daniel Chalmers? Haggerty & Chalmers could also easily have crossed paths. It would be deeply amusing to see Steele react to KITT (and if the Descoines were somehow involved, there'd be serious fireworks). And I have to wonder what might happen if Max and McAllister showed up in Cabot Cove.... •
Oz (Baum) / Lois & Clark / Mary Poppins / Mairelon the Magician / Miraculous Ladybug
• Here we have the "magical hijinks" cluster (with a side of Superman thrown in for color). As the list order indicates, I was mostly thinking that dropping any of these characters into Oz would be highly entertaining (most likely post-Emerald City, following Dorothy's permanent relocation). That said, much the same could be said of dropping Mary Poppins into any of the others (Mary in the L&C-verse strikes me as especially hilarious). The odd case is almost certainly Mairelon; I'm thinking that either Mairelon or Ladybug might offer more by way of fusion than of straight crossover. •
Stargirl / Agent Carter / Doctor Who ('63) / The Master (TV) / Stargate SG-1
• This one is my "period piece" cluster; specifically, this group is strongly influenced by the historical continuity in several of the relevant series - Stargirl's JSA-era material, SG-1's ventures into early modern Egyptology, the Master's roots (McAllister's, that is) in southeast Asian culture, etc. For example: show us Peggy Carter vs. the Shade or send her to Egypt where the Gate is being studied. See what happens when a ninja Master encounters a Gallifreyan one. How might a 1950s UNIT have dealt with a Stargate or worked with Stargirl's JSA? (And none of this precludes having the Doctor drop in on the present-day Stargirl's adventures.) •
Young Wizards / Amelia Peabody / Enola Holmes (films) / Oz (Baum) / Mary Poppins / Relic Hunter
• This is partly another "period piece" cluster, and partly an excuse to spread the Young Wizards love as widely as possible (that is, if any of the other fandoms have errantry-sworn wizards, who among the principals therein are in fact on errantry?). Meanwhile, Amelia, Enola, and Dorothy Gale are all within shouting distance of each other period-wise, Sydney Fox might easily go looking for one of the Emerson family's discoveries, and Mary Poppins needs no excuse to drop on anyone she likes (and you have to wonder how she would have handled Ramses Emerson - or he her - had she been his governess). •
Zeta Project / Miraculous Ladybug / Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century / Tomorrowland / Young Wizards
• And finally we circle back to a futuristic cluster. The easiest match is probably Zeta/22CEN (Zeta and robot!Watson would clearly have much to discuss), but any of these could easily also mesh with Tomorrowland and Plus Ultra (see especially Athena and either Zeta or Watson). I'm also thinking that at least one of Holmes' new Irregulars might well be a wizard (I like Tennyson for this). And what clone-Moriarty would do with a collection of Miraculous (Miraculi?).... •