Crack!Writing Crossover Idea

[fikgirl.livejournal.com]

I often get odd ideas when I am falling asleep at night. This should come as no surprise to you creative types, because the weird ideas often show up when our minds are most relaxed, correct?

The latest idea involves a Lost crossover open community or rpg (haven't decided which yet). It would be a multifandom crossover with the following premise: Character(s) from the writer's (player's) fandom of choice were on that ill-fated plane going from Australia to Los Angeles.

For example, Buffy Summers, Dawn Summers and Faith (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) were on their way to help out with the fallout from "Never Fade Away" (Series Finale of Angel). Or maybe Grissom (CSI) had just gone to a particularly cutting edge and informative bug conference in Australia. Generally, the idea is that the plane is loaded with fandom characters when it goes down ... well, wherever it is that the plane went down.

Now comes the fun part: this premise allows, no let me change that, this premise requires interaction among the characters from the various fandoms. Which the crossover junkie in me thinks would be a lot of fun. The nice thing about it would be that it doesn't really require any knowledge of the television show, "Lost" for people to take part. Those who don't know anything about "Lost" could simply approaching writing/playing from a "stranded on a desert island" concept.

I do have several questions that I'm not sure how to resolve however:

1. Writing community or RP? Or a mixture of both?
2. Choosing fandoms vs. characters: each participant would be allowed to chose one fandom or a select number of characters from a prescribed number of fandoms
3. involve the actual cast of Lost vs. just using the setting of Lost

My thoughts:

1. Writing community allows for more fun and flexibility as author's, but if it's a cooperative, open community, then it makes it a bit harder for everyone to incorporate everyone else's ideas/fandoms/characters as they've developed them.
   
   An RP allows for a participant to retain more control over their selected fandom/characters and also allows (and forces) greater interaction among the fandoms/characters.
   
   
2. I think choosing characters would work better because it would allow for more participation and wouldn't automatically make people feel shut out. For example, if someone chose Buffy the Vampire Slayer as their fandom, but only wanted to write Dawn, then that leaves a whole busload of characters someone else could be playing with. However, if participants were only required to choose characters, then there's a good chance that everyone would be writing/playing someone that they want.
   
   
3. I don't see one option as worse than the other, except that using the cast of Lost requires that those unfamiliar with Lost at least get a basic primer. The second option also requires a basic primer, but only in the sense that "weird stuff happens on The Island."

Although now that I think about it, the biggest question is: Would anyone be interested in this sort of open community or online role-play? If it did happen, I'm pretty sure I don't think that it would get off the ground until after the holidays and all the holiday fic-a-thons die down.

Anyway, I'll make this simple. (Follow the fake cut to the poll at my LJ)

Comment please with any other thoughts you might have.

(x-posted to fikgirl)

Comments

[azarsuerte.livejournal.com]

Writing community allows for more fun and flexibility as author's, but if it's a cooperative, open community, then it makes it a bit harder for everyone to incorporate everyone else's ideas/fandoms/characters as they've developed them.

Not necessarily. What I did with denver_legal and serenity_gate was stated upfront that there was no immutable canon for the universe, but if you wanted to use something from someone else's story, you could. That way people know coming in that sequels may be written to their stuff, and if they don't want that then they shouldn't join. *shrug*

Sounds like a fun idea. :-)

[fikgirl.livejournal.com]

stated upfront that there was no immutable canon for the universe, but if you wanted to use something from someone else's story, you could. That way people know coming in that sequels may be written to their stuff, and if they don't want that then they shouldn't join. *shrug*

That's a good idea. I never thought of it that way. It's a good approach that still allows people to pretty much write what they want so to speak.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[vegmb.livejournal.com]

I think this is a really neat idea.

[weirdweb.livejournal.com]

I think it's a neat idea - but personally, I *know* I wouldn't have time to contribute. :(

It also doesn't help that due to having 2.5 channels for the past few months (the .5 was ABC, which had really bad reception) I haven't seen Lost in forever and have no clue what's going on there. ;)

[fikgirl.livejournal.com]

*surfaces from searching ebay*

Hey, I'm only on the first season of Lost. Dealing with Lost (and the cast of Lost) is problem the second. One hurdle at a time :)