Greetings and salutations once more you blazing morons! It appears I'm an insomniac! In all seriousness however, today I'll keep it brief.

So, let's say you're so enamored with a series that you think "golly! I wonder what'll happen if I crossover Doctor Who with MLP! It'll be so original an UNLIKE THE THOUSANDS THAT ARE ALREADY ON THIS SITE.

Ladies and gentlemen I am NOT in a good mood, and therefore this will be brutal.

I for one, hate crossovers. I hate the with a burning passion. AND that hate is not unfounded either. What crossovers, is a story already told. It's a coloring book with the backgrounds of your characters already written and the script (partially) ready. You as an author are just filling in the blanks. Which characters will react in what way to their predicament. A.E: Mr. Who coming to Equestria Via Re-tardis. (Screw it, if I'm doing something I hate I might as well have fun). And the doctor and his lovable bunch of pony side-kicks stopping evil with the power of imagination, hope, and FUCK ALL ELSE. And while that might be endearing the first two to three times around, it gets mind-numbling boring and horrendously bad the FIVE-HUNDRETH TIME AROUND. The same goes for Gurren Laggen (or however the fuck you spell it. I really couldn't care) I've never been a fan of anime and as quoted by my role model "It's just a bunch of androgynous twelve year olds running around being improbably awesome." (That's Yahtzee by the way, search up zero punctuation. It's F**King hilarious).

My second and major grievance is with the lost potential in crossovers. Take for example, Mr. Ragemoar's stories. Crossovers? Yes? Do I love them? Yes. WHY? Because he sheds a different light on a character that I know and love. He manages to make them EVEN MORE LOVABLE. While keeping them in character! IT'S NOT THAT HARD PEOPLE.

Anyway, since I pride myself on being a rage-a-holic professional (pft HAH!). I will be instructing you in the way of catching the readers who have no idea what in the hell you're crossing ponies with.

Let's start it this way. Crossovers are a perfect opportunity to bring in large amounts of people into your cystic fandom like a self-aware cancer cell that seeks survival by EATING ITS COMRADES. But when used wrong, it repulses people from your fandom. So it's a double-edged sword.

Actually you know what? Screw the pre-tenses of garnering a reader. You wanna know how to get readers when doing a crossover? WRITE IT IN A WAY THEY CAN UNDERSTAND. Fully explain the characters your introducing. This means backstory, relationship to main character of your thing THAT YOU ARE CROSSING WITH PONIES. Detailed dialogue BLATANTLY showing your reader what to expect from them so they don't get confused when the character goes out of YOUR stories interpretation of him/her in favor of the show's. IT GETS CONFUSING AND ANNOYING WHEN CHARACTER X. Whom you have portrayed as a black, sassy 80's action cop starts going all Shakespearian on us because he didn't get milk in his latte.

Crossovers are pre-packaged stories that take almost no creative skill to write and are almost ALWAYS easy to judge the ending of just by the first chapter.

Anywho, don't pay this too much mind. I haven't been able to sleep properly these last couple weeks so my nerves are on the fritz.

Crossovers are on your shit list, fair enough. What of spin offs? Not literal 'pick up where one story left off' but to improve and give back ground to a story that had left so much to be desired, but was still received well? Not to insinuate a lack of originality on the second writers part by working off another story, but to expand on said story that had left EXCRUCIATING amounts of detail to be desired?

342099 Spin offs I can stomach. At least there's a personal touch in there somewhere amongst the pre-rendered plastic.

And I really don't care if a story is well received. I will rail on it if it's bad. period. And in all senses of the word, crossovers are bad (unless pulled off correctly). They are unoriginal, usually all end the same, the characters are the ones in the shows so there's no mystery behind them nor any real STORY of their own that hasn't already been told, and by someone much better at it than the author.

And if a story has left an excruciating amount of detail out, then it might as well be called a mystery fic since we have no idea what in the HELL is gonna happen.

342113 Fair enough.

Welcome to Equestria, Friend

Well, this has almost 50 likes and almost 80 favourites, so I must have done SOMETHING right...

342090 I love your lectures. I just hope you know that.

Now sleep, you deserve it.

342129 Please refer to the "if it's done correctly" part of my lecture. Yeah it's small but it saves me from liabilities.

Thus proving the fact that I AM AN EVIL GENIUS.

342129 I actually am rather fond of your story, it keeps to the whole mental image of John Marston and West Dickens, any new chapters soon?

I'm more than likely doing it all wrong, as usual. My most recent works are both crossovers. One of them is a multiple crossover. However, I use none of the characters of these crossover universes, not a single one. The problems and plots? Related, but somewhat different to those encountered in the crossed universe's canon, and mostly in locations not detailed in these works of fiction at all. Though, I am still in the middle of the secondary school system and inexperienced, so if anyone's going to mess things up, it's me.

I'd like to think my story A Pimp Named Spikeback falls under the "If done correctly" part as well, especially with it being the first crossover with The Boondocks to show up on here, but I can see the beef with most crossovers. Halo in particular I'm getting really tired of seeing so much.

342310 Genius cakes

342274 Well after an hour or two of good sleep I can honestly say that It rather irks me rather than rage-a-ficates me. (Sorry if it got out of hand there). But even if IS a safer alternative to a thought up story, I'd prefer an original story because it illuminates YOU as an author. And I'd prefer to see the inner workings of your head than a cop-pasted "safe" story.

The world didn't get to where it is today because of safety, kindness ,and responsibility.

It got here because of war, blatant disregard for human life, and ideology.

342146

Working on it.

I have a couple other fics (All Metroid crossovers, actually) that I'm working on, but I'll make this priority number one

>Mentions something about not liking Gurren Lagann
Me: I can't believe we disagree about something D:
>Mentions Yahtzee and Zero Punctuation being hilarious about a line or two later.
Me: Fuck anime, Mr. Ignorable is the greatest teacher ever.

P.S. Your rage is what makes your lectures so awesome, it's like a little voice in my head screaming at me, and telling me what to do and what not to do
(I mean that in the best possible way)

P.P.S. Thank you SO much for reminding me to watch the latest episode of Zero Punctuation!

The real question is where is the line when something stops being a crossover.

I.E. The story I'm working on started as a crossover, but as I am developing things, it is getting harder and harder to see the sources. Makes me wonder.

4281540 This will be fun.

4281864 It starts next month? Posting about your theme now does not strike me as the best plan.