graycardinal | 2026: Dear Crosscrafter (Reply)

This is a Work In Progress. With luck, all the prompts will be up by the end of the weekend; if not, poke and I will catch myself up.

See my sticky master gift-exchange letter here for general notes, including DNWs.

Now, then, for the current round's requests and prompts:

#1 - Here in Manhattan

Castle, Elementary, Elsbeth, Gargoyles, MCU, Muppets, Young Wizards

• I'm not sure what it is that causes this, but for whatever reason, I have a lot of fandoms with NYC-based settings. Most of these are also strongly character-driven, which should tell you what I'm looking for in a prospective story - Castle shadowing Elsbeth (or Elisa Maza), Kit & Nita crossing paths with Joan & Sherlock on a case, the Marvel Muppets saving Manhattan from hmm - Gonzo/Loki? Gonzo/Doom? Dr. Strangepork?. A Gargoyles/Muppet fusion could also be epic, not to mention something Owen/Puck might find tremendously amusing. Might there be a Marvelverse where Iron Man was David Xanatos...and Miss Piggy was a Black Widow? Or is there a wizard's manual in Elsbeth's purse? (Why yes, I probably am off my meds. Why do you ask?) •

#2 - This Scept'red Isle

Agent Carter, Amelia Peabody, Enola Holmes - Springer Mary Poppins (movies), The Mummy ('99-'08), Professor Moriarty - Kurland, Robin Hood - traditional

• I am entirely on board with the application of creative chronology in order to facilitate a particular crossover or fusion (though in several cases, the time periods involved are not so far apart as to prevent legitimate meetups at timepoints pre- or post-canon), and Mary Poppins is arguably herself in any time or place, rather like the Doctor. I am perhaps especially partial to the idea of Enola getting involved with a Mummy-related episode - or to Mary Poppins taking Enola's friend Cecily under her wing. I can see all kinds of shenanigans arising from a situation in which Mary Poppins gets involved in a conflict between Peggy Carter and Dottie Underwood.

Some of the Egyptian-themed plots almost write themselves, particularly in spaces where Amelia, Evy Carnahan, and Michael Kurland's version of James Moriarty arguably co-exist - might there, for instance, be a connection (or even a curious family resemblance) between Sethos and Moriarty? It's not hard to imagine one or another generation of Emersons getting pulled into Peggy Carter's SSR...and Osiris only knows what Amelia's family would make of Imhotep.

The joker in this deck is, of course, classic Robin Hood, but there is room in some of these canons for time travel, and in others for extremely long-lived characters. That set of details I leave to your imagination to work out.... •

#3 - Hear Me Roar

Elsbeth, Enola Holmes, Gargoyles, Jacqueline Kirby Mary Poppins, Miraculous Ladybug

• Or, alternately, the "girl detectives" cluster; four of these six fandoms have career sleuths as protagonists, Marinette is certainly at least sleuthing-adjacent, and as for Mary Poppins...

Seriously, though; here, I think most of the stories turn on the character dynamic between the leads. Elsbeth and Mary Poppins, for instance, strike me as very nearly soulmates - not necessarily the romantic kind, mind you - and putting them together is likely to go very screwball very fast (but woe betide the villain who tries to one-up them). Unless of course Elsbeth is Mary Poppins.

Likewise, Enola and Elisa Maza could quickly become close friends if brought together by time-travel shenanigans - though one could as easily build a story around Enola running into the British gargoyle survivors in her own period (or crossing paths with Demona and/or Macbeth). There's precedent for Marinette visiting New York, any of the others could reasonably turn up in Paris, and Jacqueline and Mary Poppins are both travelers by nature (though putting those two together might generate a whole different set of pyrotechnics, not to say explosions). •

#4 - Finding Your Roots

Finding Your Roots, MCU, Mary Poppins, Pretender, Tomorrowland, Young Wizards

• I was fascinated when I saw that this canon had been nominated, and absolutely could not resist building a request cluster around it. Thus my picks here focus on fandoms which give the show's genealogical research team the most intriguing possible research challenges....

The challenge with most of these guests, mind, is likely getting them onto the show in the first place. I am minded to think that for several of these universes, we'd have to postulate someone underwriting a stealth-season of episodes specifically for a target audience of superheroes/wizards/etc. Alternately, maybe one of our leads (Jarod, say) gets themself onto the show so as to tap their resources for their own purposes, and then convince the producers not to actually air the results of the research. Or possibly in a couple of these universes, Henry Louis Gates is himself a wizard - or a member of Plus Ultra - and is using an episode which he knows won't ever air as cover to recruit someone who's needed for a particular mission.

Whatever the context, though, I'd think it would be absolutely nifty to be able to peek into some of these characters' backgrounds by way of TV genealogy - it's an intriguing perspective, and maybe a way to finally resolve plot threads that canon left hanging. •

#5 - "...I Have a Dragon!"

Enchanted, Gargoyles, Galavant, Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare), Muppets, Sheep Detectives

• This one is all about the critters - be they gargoyles, dragons, faeries, Muppets, or yes, even talking sheep. (If you have not gone and seen the talking sheep, get thou to the cinema! The movie is a wonder and a delight. But then, I consider pretty much all the canons in this cluster that way....)

On the one hand, putting any two of these together is going to look distinctly weird. But if you're considering this cluster in the first place, you probably have some idea of how to approach the matter, so you may not even need me to prompt the mix. That said - might the sheep be talking sheep owing to having been imported from Andalasia? Could Galavant's realm be next door to Andalasia, even if one is animated and the other isn't? Dare we even contemplate a Gargoyles musical episode, or Demona and Macbeth showing up in that other Shakespeare play? And if Richard has a dragon, might he bring it to the Muppets for an audition?

(Yes indeed, most of that is very, very silly. But I am equally at home with crack for its own sake and crack-taken-seriously for this one, and we do know that the sheep can indeed solve a murder if the situation requires it.) •