Vathara
A long-time fanfiction writer who started out in fanzines and is now found on fanfiction.net, Vathara is often referred to as the Crossover Queen. Despite that, her most famous work, Embers, is not a crossover, although it contains a large number of expies.
Her largest series, the Urban Legends universe, is based off of and views as series canon a fanfic by another author.
Notable works include:
- Embers, which has its own tropes page. Theft Absolute takes place in the Embers universe; Scarlet and Black is a standalone pilot episode for another Avatar: The Last Airbender AU fic universe.
- The Urban Legends series, which incorporates:
- Airwolf
- Daredevil
- Forgotten Realms - At least, in a oneshot that hasn't been followed up on.
- Gargoyles
- Ghostbusters
- Godzilla: The Series
- Hannibal King from Marvel Comics
- JAG
- Power Rangers
- Rurouni Kenshin
- The Sentinel
- Seven Days
- Something Is Out There
- Special Unit 2
- Stargate
- Among others.
- Foreign Exchange, a series of five fics, one removed (songfic).
- Upon A Fiery Steed, a novel-length Stargate/Gundam Wing fusion.
- Blades of Blood, a series of two novel-length fics (so far) combining Rurouni Kenshin and the Nightlife RPG.
- Ethan Rayne's Very Bad Day, which takes the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fic cliche of 'what if they went as someone else that Halloween and turns it Up to Eleven.
- Mending Songs, a series of four Rurouni Kenshin and Bleach crossovers.
- Lone Flower, a series of three Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bleach crossovers.
- Shadows in Starlight, a novel-length Star Wars and Rurouni Kenshin crossover.
- Project Tatterdemalion and its sequel Project Asclepius, a Bleach sci-fi/horror AU. This series also has an All The Tropes page.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot - Subverted with Airwolf. She's genuinely loyal to her adoptive family, and wouldn't hurt a fly. Unless it shot at them. Then she'd blow it to smithereens.
- Air Vent Passageway - Conference Calls
Archangel: "Foreign operatives turning the source of life, the very air you breathe, into the channel for your destruction. Freud or Jung, the psychological connotations are damning… And second only to air ducts, I despise babbling."
- Alternate Universe - O'Neill encounters one where the SGC has a longstanding alliance with The Firm, and Sha'uri was found alive.
- Author Appeal: Look at her stories. Now count how many involve: (psychological) transformation, predatory variants of humanity, or (psychological) transformations into predatory variants of humanity.
- Also note that most of these transformations tend to involve Kenshin in particular. And she likes giving him Cute Little Fangs too.
- Badass Adorable - Airwolf, who would count as a Tyke Bomb if the people who'd intended to use her as a weapon had considered her a person in the first place.
- Bond Creature - Airwolf.
- Character Alignment - Most clear in the Foreign Xchange universe, but a theme throughout.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience - The Firm.
Hawke: "Of course (we are the good guys). We wear white hats."
- Combat Tentacles: Hiko and Kenshin in Walk Through the Valley; all the shinigami in Project Tatterdemalion.
- Doing In the Wizard - Her profile states that she enjoys scientific explanations of magic.
- Empathic Weapon - Airwolf.
- Fantastic Racism - After Demona nearly exterminates New York, and would have killed more, orders were nearly cut to wipe out all gargoyles. There's also Colonel O'Neil's reaction to youkai, and the people of Cerberus regard him as an inhuman monster because he carries Ancient genes.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink - Urban Legendsverse.
- Fridge Horror - Vathara seems to be able to find this in damned near everything. Take Stargate SG-1 for example:
- Hearts On Barbed Wire points out that the SGC essentially started and is fighting an illegal war with an unspeakably powerful enemy - one that a number of more ethical individuals in the government would attempt to stop if they knew of it. She also points out that their treatment of their scientific staff is appalling - ordering Jackson to publish false documents to preserve the SGC's secrecy would permanently ruin him academically if it was ever discovered - no scientist would trust that he is publishing legitimate research if he is willing to create false documents for the government, and he would essentially be the next Trofim Lysenko.
- Flat Tire with Bad Guys expands on this - the scientific staff cannot publish research or take interns, and is subject to casual degradation by military personnel. A similar situation for soldiers would be if they were repeatedly sent on high-loss missions with minimal support to capture objectives that were later surrendered without any stated reason - while being treated as barbarians by their supporters.
- Veritas has a nasty one. In the mythological background, Amunet(the Goa'uld who possessed Daniel's wife, Sha'uri) is far older, smarter, and more powerful than early Big Bad Apophis(her husband). It's entirely possible that Sha'uri is still alive - and that General Hammond knows this. Daniel Jackson is The Worm Guy of Worm Guys - a uniquely capable individual in an already small and specialized field. If Daniel got his wife back, the possibility exists that he'd retire to Abydos and leave the SGC without his talents. Therefore, Hammond could be refusing to even allow anyone to consider the possibility that Sha'uri is alive and could be rescued... which is a good example of the "military intelligence" oxymoron - ensuring the defeat of Apophis while faking Amunet's death is like ensuring the death of Osama bin Laden and faking Stalin's death - something that could lead to Earth's defeat... just to make sure his pet geek won't desert. Worst part? Since Daniel's not military, yet used those talents to ensure a place in his command, it's entirely ethical by military standards to screw with his head to ensure his loyalty in turn.
- Functional Magic
- Gunship Rescue - Airwolf, most notably rescuing Archangel from Muerta.
- Ho Yay - While there are male/male relationships in a few fics, she usually averts the fangirl tendency to slash any two men that tolerate each other, and mostly depicts deep friendships as entirely platonic.
- Les Yay - In the Urban Legends universe: a gargoyle/human pairing to boot.
- Man in White - Archangel.
- Masquerade - In Urban Legends, the US government (or parts of it) are aware of much of what's out there.
- The Men in Black - Sort of subverted by The Firm, a rare sympathetic example which wears white, and while they do do cover-ups, they're rarely supernatural-related. Despite being a more conventional espionage and R&D group, they are gradually shifting towards handling supernatural and alien issues since the CIA often refuses to take it seriously, the NID can't be trusted, and the SGC aren't sharing their information.
Marella: The truth? The truth is, good friends of mine risked their lives to save you.
- Mindlink Mates - A rare platonic instead of romantic example in the Wolfpack. There are also romantic examples, such as Daniel Jackson and Sha'uri.
- Power of Friendship
- Reset Button - Used in the one fic that incorporates Seven Days and then never mentioned again. So far.
- Team Pet - Airwolf. Never has a helicopter been so adorable.
- There Are No Therapists - Averted. Dr. Lita Kino, an Expy from Ellen Brand's Power Rangers series Personality Conflicts, makes several appearances, and several fics comment on the amount of damage having an incompetent (or outright enemy agent...) psychologist on staff has done to the SGC.
- The Tape Knew You Would Say That - Daniel does this to Jack twice in a letter he sends to SG-1 after being rescued by Duo in Upon a Fiery Steed. "Stop strangling the paper Jack."
- True Companions - HEAT and Airwolf's pilots, among others. It's essentially the key theme in just about all of her works--you may not be "normal" now, but You Are Not Alone.