a conspiracy of cartographers

So I watched some telly? Spoilery but short:

The Smallville finale: ( I watched it with Olivia, and we almost broke each other's hands with joyful clutching. )

And Doctor Who: ( 6x05, The Rebel Flesh and the Weird Pacing )

Something I have discovered about being polyfannish is that, when I am in the shower or on a bus or folding clothes or whatever it is that puts my brain on screensaver mode, I will start making up crossovers. I love clever crossovers, and clever fusions (and, I'll be honest here, I would be perfectly happy if every fandom ever had a His Dark Materials fusion where all the characters had daemons and this did interesting things to the fic plot). Most of the time I do not actually get around to writing them down, but I do like to pretend that I might.

I am not quite sure why the rest of this post is a poll, except that I am in a poll-making mood and I want to know if people know what I'm talking about.

In ... 2007? but mostly in 2008, I was really, really into Doctor/Master. It hit pretty much every single one of my (some of them previously undiscovered) buttons: they were best friends when they were young, who eventually had a massive falling-out due to dramatic difference in worldview; all grown up, now one of them saves the universe but mostly Earth while sometimes being suspiciously messianic, and the other concocts increasingly ridiculous schemes, ostensibly to rule/destroy the world but mostly to get his ex-boyfriend's attention; together, they don't so much fight crime as distract each other sufficiently to keep the world from ending. Oh, and they're aliens, and routinely break the laws of physics. And the best part is that I didn't find myself with just a few precious shippy episodes: no, these guys had an excess of forty freaking years of history and canon and debatable canon and general absurdity.

Perhaps you can see where I'm going with this.

I'm being good and finishing my work and packing and generally doing all those pre-travel things one must do, but I'm starting to run out of Smallville episodes with promising summaries, and it's not like all the other clips of the Bad Romance vid didn't look just as ridiculously shippy. I'm frankly bewildered. I've always been pretty good at avoiding the sucking vortex of comics, and I'm mostly conversant in Marvel anyway (although not for lack of trying; I love you, Batman friends). So I am not quite sure what the hell I am doing! All I know is that none of the other DCU continuity has Chloe, and yet this probably won't be enough to stop me from really, really ill-advised forays into the abyss in search of more good Lex material.

...Speaking of Doctor/Master, which I wasn't really, there are now a bunch of cryptic teasers for s6 Doctor Who floating around the internets. I have no particular insights, except that most of it sounds hugely awesome, and also I am, as per usual, crossing my fingers for more Master, whether he's Benedict Best-Name-Ever Cumberbatch or not.

One of the things I am enjoying about Smallville is getting to play the "spot how other late '90s/early '00s shows also did a variation on this plot" game, although usually 'other shows' really means 'Buffy.' (Imagine my amused eye-rolling when Lana accidentally joins a vampire sorority presided over by Buffy Saunders, and James-Marsters-the-professor takes a moment to seriously declare, "Clark, there's no such thing as vampires.") When it's not taking cheap shots, though, Smallville does delightful things like the bodyswap episode (Lionel Luthor clearly beats out both Faith and Callisto-from-Xena in the People You Don't Want Possessing Your Body Awards) or the one-person-split-into-two-bodies episode (Dorky Xander vs. Competent Xander < Idealist Lex vs. Evil Lex. Sorry, Xander).

It probably sounds like my point is that I am a big fan of the Luthors (which is true! I am also a fan of the Blacks, and the Horsemen, and I'm sure I'd be a big fan of the Master's family if we'd ever met them, &c) but my actual point is that I started thinking about how cool personality-aspects-in-different-bodies episodes are. And how the aspects that get split are different depending on the character! For instance, in Buffy the split was meant to hit Buffy herself, to turn her into Ordinary Buffy and Super-Slayer, but when it got Xander, since he didn't have superpowers, it split him down a competence line. I'm not sure it would have worked the anticipated way on Buffy either, though! I think it would have more likely turned her into Insecure Lovesick Teenager Buffy and Competent Self-Sacrificing Leadership Buffy, and they would have both still had Slayer powers. On the other hand, with Willow we'd probably get Sweet Nerdy Willow and Dark Willow, so don't point personality-splitting radiation at just anyone, okay.

The problem is that once I start, I want to point personality-splitting radiation at everyone just to see what happens. Earnest, idealist Delenn vs. kill-you-mercilessly Delenn! Do-anything-for-a-story Chloe Sullivan vs. do-anything-for-her-friends Chloe! Awkward paternalistic librarian Giles vs. Ripper! Patient, dispensing-backhand-wisdom Methos vs. shanking-you-with-his-second-sword Methos! I keep thinking of more, but I will stop now. (If anyone wants to continue in comments, though, man, I could do this for hours.)

I wonder if Clark would turn into Ordinary Farm Boy Clark and Superman. Somehow, I think this works about as well as Ordinary Buffy and Super-Slayer. It is much more likely that he would turn into saves-his-friends-at-all-costs while smiling like a total sweetie Clark vs. some lying asshat. It's even worse than Merlin! I want to call out Gaius and Jonathan Kent and punch them for impressing on their wards the importance of secrecy unto sheer stupidity. God, Morgana and Lex should form a fucking support group.

Now that I am doing an idle Lex-Luthor-bits-of-Smallville watch, and unsurprisingly shipping Clark/Lex like burning, I have had the same conversation with a handful of friends. It goes something like this:

ME. And I love Lex! Oh my god, I love Lex! But Clark is, uh ...
FRIEND. Boring?
ME. Yeah! And this is becoming a pattern. Like, okay, take Highlander --
FRIEND. You love Methos, but Duncan is boring?
ME. ...Yes. Or Star Tr --
FRIEND. You love Spock and Kirk is boring!
ME. You are a mind-reader!

...although I have had this conversation with three separate friends, so in this case it's probably just that my friends know me. Anyway, it led me to imagine what would happen if I just eliminated the things that are boring, which incidentally leaves me with the mental image of Methos, Spock, and Lex Luthor in a room together. I am a little worried they would clean up nice and then take over the goddamn world.

Of course, then my brain took "What could possibly be more awesome than Methos, Spock, and Lex Luthor in a room together??" as a challenge, and I hereby submit for consideration the notion of Nyota Uhura, Kara Thrace, Zoe Washburne, Susan Ivanova, and Cordelia Naismith going on space adventures together. That is what is more awesome.