At a certain point, you get into a situation where the distinction between one literary form and the other is a matter of Supreme Court-style "I know it when I see it" ukases, but I kind of think that a certain core obligation of stories to qualify as pastiche is that they don't have the actual characters from different story-worlds displacing into each others' realities. That's simple crossover. Which isn't a terrible thing - I just started work on a Game of Thrones/MLP crossover yesterday. But it isn't pastiche, when I eventually get enough to start posting, it'll go in the crossovers groups and whatever others seem appropriate.

In short, I'm serving notice that I'm going to be a little more proactive in culling simple crossovers from here out.

I confess, I was curious about some of the stuff added, so glad this group will still be cared for n_n Maybe specify if folks wish to debate the removal they can?

Sure, I'm open to counter-arguments. But stories with the canonical Doctor or Q are... well, yeah. I love the hell out of SFaccountant's Iron Hearts stories, but they are definitely crossover stories, not pastiche. On the other hand, those stories with a pony version of Caiaphas Cain in a pony Imperium? Pastiche. Even if I can't really get into them as a matter of taste.

6135856 I don't understand why you think crossovers aren't pastiche.

To me, a crossover is a story with ingredients from at least 2 pre-existing worlds. A pastiche is a story written in the style of another author, book, or series. A crossover may or not be a pastiche; a pastiche may or may not be a crossover.

Merriam-Webster (online): pastiche: a literary, artistic, musical, or architectural work that imitates the style of previous work. "His building designs are pastiches based on classical forms." also: such stylistic imitation.

Wikipedia: A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, or music that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists.^[1] Unlike  parody, pastiche celebrates, rather than mocks, the work it imitates.

My story "The Mailmare" (which is in Main) is not quite a crossover, as it uses just an idea from another work rather than any specific characters, events, or settings. It is not a pastiche; I did not try to write like David Brin.

My story "The Magician and the Detective" (also in Main) is definitely a crossover, as it contains Holmes and Trixie, and definitely a pastiche, as I copied the mood, style, and sentence structure from Doyle as closely as EqD would let me.

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Dictionary definitions are 'necessary but not sufficient' in drawing useful distinctions, is the line of thought, I suppose? The point of this exercise is to draw a distinction between simple crossover, in which actual characters go world-travelling between metafictionally distinct story-universe, and 'pastiche', in which the only thing that travels is the patterns and the character/idea/story itself.

*The Magician and the Detective* is the model I think of when you say 'pastiche' - it is not an encounter with Sherlock Holmes, Victorian gentleman-detective, and a small blue unicorn, but rather, a sort of variant on the general theme and attitude of "A Scandal in Bohemia" with pony actors. The classic 'crossover which is in no way a pastiche' is those old joke fan-videos where the Enterprise destroys the Death Star or vice versa.

Or, more fruitfully, SFaccountant's Iron Hearts series. The classic or pure crossover is a clash of styles, a war of attitudes - the direct interaction of fictional world A with fictional world B. Warhammer 40K descends from the war-torn heavens, and smashes into the My Little Pony world-view. SFaccountant's stories are one of the rare instances where the pony side of the exchange makes a good accounting of itself while still maintaining that flavor of action and adventure, and displaying a love for both worlds, their approaches and attitudes, with only humorous disparagement of either. SFaccountant writes the encounter more as a 'corruption' than a 'clash'. The two worlds corrupt each other equally, pony turns piratical, Chaos finds friendship, etc.

There are different levels of 'pastiche', of course. On the far side, as you say, is a simple idea exchange, with very little style or character templating going on. These are sometimes difficult to identify as pastiche at all, and there you start getting into 'I know it when I see it' territory. I can't tell what, if anything, "The Price of Happily Ever After" is a pastiche of, for instance. Maybe the submitter can explain how that one fits?