This is one of those posts that make me wish we could tag multiple tildes. Because this would apply to ~tv, ~movies, ~comics, ~games, ~books, and ~anime, with possibly even more.

A long time ago I read an article about weird crossovers, and it made the point that thanks to unrelated crossovers and six degrees of separation, the Archie comics Sonic technically existed in the same universe as... Some popular live action shows, because that show had a crossover with some other show that crossed over with Sonic. Obviously not really, but it was a funny thought.

I failed to find the article I remember, but my brief search did bring up the Tommy Westphall Shared Universe, which comprises 400+ shows thanks to various crossovers, cameos and in-universe references. There is a whole fandom wiki dedicated to it. There's also this site that lets you search for connections between TV shows. The site's description from DuckDuckGo is "Easily search and find the relationship between shows in the Tommy Westphall Universe and beyond." It's silly, but fun!

Thing is, most of my cursory searching into it has people focus on live-action TV and movies. And... Well, like I said at the start: the article I remember reading made a connection between Archie comics Sonic and some live-action show thanks to some crossover.

Since that first article, I've wondered off and on about the weirdest crossovers out there, and just how weird of a shared universe could exist. I don't want to limit it to one or two mediums, I want to find crossovers that can transcend mediums! Comics, TV, games and more!

So: what are the weirdest crossovers, cameos and in-universe connections you know of? What are the wildest connections we can make? And, for bonus fun, what are the ramifications of shoving all these wildly different series into one ridiculous universe?? how many different apocalypses can we shove into it

A simple question. I know LLMs are currently not a replacement for authors. Will that remain true in 5 to 10 years?

EDIT: No. I never expected to earn a living either mostly or exclusively by selling books. There are however many "side gigs" in my country that can greatly benefit from being published by a real company. Ultimately though, I'm not in it primarily for the money. But I wonder what the future holds for fiction as a whole.

I had a little interaction over at the local ~health.mental monthly meeting that sprouted the idea of trying to create a kind of poetry/illustrated book together.

Original comment, for reference

I moved back to my parent's place, and mentally that has been hard because of past trauma issues related to the place.

But I've come up with many coping mechanisms and meditate a lot. So that has been helping.

But I still cry sometimes.

I think the cadence is kind of sweet and an interesting base to tell small stories (either as part of a larger story or independent) from daily life.

As I wrote there I think having each spread of the book in the same format will drive the point across best: that no matter how life is, sometimes we cry and that's probably a good thing.

Well, let's see if we can come up with similar short stories, or just talk about the idea, or share a drawing that you'd like to show us that you think would fit.

It could be a novelization of a movie, game, television show, etc. Or any of the other combinations (e.g. a movie based on a game, television show, novel, etc.).

It doesn't solely have to be an adaptation either. Tie-ins are often universe extensions, such as when books are written in a pre-existing movie/show/game universe.

Often, media tie-ins are seen as soulless marketing cash-ins (which is sometimes accurate), but others are legitimately great in their own right.

What are the ones that you like and would recommend? What makes them noteworthy?

Meta note: Feel free to interpret this criteria as broadly as possible. This isn't about splitting hairs about what "counts" as a tie-in, but more about exploring things that have done a good job at jumping between media types. If you've got a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles watch that you love, that counts! Same for that Death Stranding fanfic you can't get enough of.

I've been writing, editing and designing a book in my spare time for the last four years. After a pro edit, I finally got it to the point that I was comfortable sending it out to a few people in my field for some feedback.

Meanwhile I've been reading up on self publishing and now I'm realizing how hard it is to stay in control of your work.

There are many warnings about scammers. As soon as you self publish on any of the common sites like Amazon or Ingram Spark, you will be contacted by "publishers" and "advertising experts" and "promoters" who all have an interest in trying to make a buck off you. Mostly they want to gain control of your work for their own benefit and some will post it for free even if you have it advertised at a low price elsewhere, just to gain traffic and views.

Getting your work pirated is almost a given for digital books. And how in the world do you stop THAT from happening when a PDF or ePUB file is super easy to copy and send in a second?

If that's not the greatest insult, with the help of AI, someone can easily copy your book and use AI to rewrite in a different voice or style and republish it as their own. The chances of proving that it was originally your work then become next to impossible. If it's completely rewritten is it still your work? How do you prove it?

I've done the best I can - copyright registered the book, applied for an ISBN number and have a watermark on the pre release copy. But it still feels pretty vulnerable.

I had never thought of these issues before I had something worth publishing but I suppose the same issues apply to just about any digital work - music, art, software. Trying to maintain control of your work in a digital age can easily be a game of Whack-A-Mole even if you want to spend your savings on lawyers and cease and desist letters and take down requests.