Crossover and/or fusion?

[graculus]

So, in the interests of furthering my chances of writing stuff for trope_bingo, would anyone like to have a go at explaining to me the what makes something a crossover fic rather than a fusion fic, preferably citing examples of fandoms I actually know something about (i.e. not Teen Wolf or Supernatural)?

Because I have managed to get a card with both and can't really see what the difference is from the definitions linked from the community...

Comments

[alyse]

Yep, I agree with the comments already made. Basically a crossover is where two fandom universes collide, and a fusion is where characters from Universe A are written in Universe B as if they'd always been there.

The other thing that often distinguishes them is that with a crossover you will have characters from both universes in the story, but with a fusion it may just be the characters from Universe A in Universe B. You don't have to have any of the Universe B characters in there. I don't think that's obligatory, but it's a very common type. (So in a Mag7/Firefly fusion, the characters from Firefly could be the Magnificant 7 rather than Chris, Vin, Ezra et al.)

[graculus.livejournal.com]

That makes much more sense, thanks. :)