A post that is not epic! For once!

[melannen]

con_txt has posted their annual pre-con "what fandoms are you in?" poll, and I wish to share with you what I put in the "If you clicked 'other', elaborate here" box, because it amuses me as summary of my fannishness at this exact moment. (It's true! But it still amuses me.)

Usually, "other" means "a variety of small book fandoms, indy comics, and/or obsolete video games. But mostly small book fandoms".

In the RPS category, it specifically means "British comedians that are on panel shows a lot". (But also Discovery Channel, NPR, and various other media personalities and presenters that aren't exactly either actors, pundits, or reality-show people, and have shows and fandoms that blur the border between real and fictional; I don't even know how to describe the genre, but I know it when I see it. Mythbusters. A Prairie Home Companion. OMG SOMEBODY HAS ACTUALLY WRITTEN 3-2-1 CONTACT FIC. Anything John Hodgman-related. Top Gear. You know. That.)

Also, Muppets/Sesame Street is an RPS fandom, because muppets are real people. :P

And by "other actors" - Doctor Who/Torchwood RPS. even if nobody has written me any Pertwee/Delgado yet, sadface.

And the "Sports figures" tickymark means "90% of the time I could care less about pro sports but figure skating hits my kinks every time, why god why."

In other random fandom news, brownbetty made a post about crossovers involving professional figure-outers and professional secret-keepers, and how she likes them best when the figure-outers never quite figure it out, and it never works when they find out the secret too easily.

I agree halfway: if the secret is discovered too easily, or the people trying to figure out the secret don't have to do the work, it ruins the crossover. But my problem with many of the example crossovers people listed is that the figure-outers ought to *know the secret already*, because the figure-outers in our fandoms are usually pretty well connected and very good at what they do. And if they don't know, it's probably because the secret-keepers have been actively interfering with them well before your crossover started. These are people whose avocations mesh: they shouldn't always be walking into the crossover with a clean slate.

Example: House/Stargate crossovers. I can't read most House/Stargate crossovers, because if you accept Stargate canon, House almost certainly *already knows* about the Stargate project, at least its existence. He's universally acknowledged as one of the world's best diagnosticians, a specialist in epidemiology and infectious disease, and a certified genius. He's regularly called (and sometimes conscripted) to solve medical problems for government agencies, including sometimes security-sensitive ones. If he wasn't on Dr. Frasier's go-to list for consults from about S1 of SG1, then something is wrong with your universe.

Plus, at least once Stargate Command actually invoked their "evacuate your list of selected scientific geniuses to the Alpha Site" protocol, so chances are House has not only been pulled into consults for Cheyenne Mountain, he's actually *been off-planet*.

...in fact, that applies to any Stargate crossover with a fandom where one of your main characters is a certified genius or the best in their field. (Bones and Numb3rs, I'm looking at you.)

The inverse applies, too. For example: any Highlander crossover in which any FBI agents are involved. In Highlander canon, there are Immortals (and Watchers) who have infiltrated the FBI (and, by implication, other law enforcement) specifically to prevent the secret from getting out. So your Mulder And Scully Investigate Beheadings story had better explain why Matthew McCormick isn't getting involved.

There is no universe in which I believe that Torchwood/UNIT and the Ministry of Magic are mutually ignorant of each other; if nothing else, the poor PM has probably called the Minister of Magic in panic over something that was Torchwood's fault, and vice versa (Okay, a story where every time that happens, they wipe each others' memories and the PM is the *only* one who knows would be amusing. Admittedly. But even then the PM should know about both.) And anyone who's top of their craft in forgery, fraud, or criminal capers probably knows Dr. Brennan's family, by reputation if nothing else (H'lo Leverage! White Collar! SPN!) (A story where Burke and Booth are put on the same case and it turns out Neal spent a summer 'prenticed with Tempe's parents and was her first crush: awesome, or *deeply* awesome?)

There are some universes in which the noncomprehension does work. NCIS/Stargate, fr'ex: it's believable both that Stargate Command is too disorganized to quash the investigation immediately, and that NCIS would be obedient enough to actually stay quashed. Or any excuse that requires Torchwood to be incompetent is fine with me. It's when, by in-universe logic of one or both universes, they *should* already know, and they *don't*, that I lose faith.

This isn't to say I don't like that kind of story; "ships passing in the night" or someone who almost-but-not-quite solves it are a ton of fun. But these canons (even the technically non-SF ones) are full of over-the-topness and coincidences and people who are way too good at too many things: run with it. (One or more) of your figure-outers already knows the secret, and has to hide both that they know and how they know: this makes your story even *better*.

...all of the above of course assumes that you're writing a crossover where the two canons take place in the same universe. When you get people moving between universes, other issues crop up. (Although related ones, really. Most shows, SF or not, have had an AU episode of some kind by the fourth or fifth season: your characters really shouldn't be going in to that blind, either.)

Comments

[staranise]

I really like this. I love "the SGC realistically leaks into the rest of the world" fic, because it frustrates me when both fanfic and canon keep the Stargate program as this tiny hermetically-sealed world all by itself, when it is 1997 and we are going to other planets OMG. How I pine for a story in which the SGC goes public, the world does not end, and it is all political and interesting.

[melannen]

There's a reason that, in places, the Stargate Project is considered the worst-kept secret in the universe, and that's because if you add up the people who have a canonical reason for knowing (at least rumors) about it, you have close to the total population of the Earth. :D So, yeah, I generally find it hard to believe when crossovers work on the assumption that nobody's ever even *heard* of it. (And somebody along the lines of Mulder or Hodgins who actually pays attention and makes connections? Probably knows almost as much as Landry does.)

I'm waiting for the story where somebody breaks the SGC's cover in the media, and the world's reaction is "Okay, so where's the part that's actually news?"

(It's almost as silly as writing something set in New Who universe where people don't know about aliens and alien contact. Not quite, but almost.)

[staranise]

I'm waiting for the story where somebody breaks the SGC's cover in the media, and the world's reaction is "Okay, so where's the part that's actually news?"

I want a story about the people who try to cash in on all their coupons for a square mile on the moon from 1950s cereal boxes. And the time everybody sued everybody else for militarizing space. And the roaring trade in Real Genuine Alien Artifacts which used to be souvenirs of Egypt, made in China.