A Brane of Extraordinary Women

Revision as of 14:27, 27 April 2019 by Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (update)

A Multiverse Fanfic setting initially created by Diane Castle but since transformed into a Shared Universe in the wake of a groundswell of Recursive Fanfiction written first for one of its universes, The Teraverse, then spilling out into the other 'verses touched on by the setting.

The Brane[1], as it is called, first appeared in Castle's story The League of Extraordinary Women (published between November 2011 and April 2012). In it, Hermione Granger summons Samantha Carter, Selina Kyle, Jaime Sommers, Buffy Summers and Willow Rosenberg, and Alex Mack from their home universes to help face the invasion of her version of Earth by an army of demons led by a demon princess named D'Lazza.

The Brane's home page can be found on Twisting the Hellmouth.

A chart of the (known) Alex Macks of the Brane Multiverse can be found here on DeviantArt.

Stories

As of April 2019, stories set in the "Brane" include:
Tropes used in A Brane of Extraordinary Women include:
  • Alternate Universe: A collection of them, in fact.
    • Something seems to be using portals to gather up the various versions of Alex Mack from the universes that contributed to The League of Extraordinary Women (and anyone near them) at the beginning of The Secret Collocation of Alex Mack.
  • Conversational Troping: In The Secret Collocation of Alex Mack, Harry Dresden describes a tactic used by Terawatt and Stormburst as "Summon Bigger Fish", and actually makes a comment in his narration about explanations for the "trope-deficient".
  • Crossover: In addition to the entire setting itself, most if not all of the individual worlds include crossover elements. Outside of The Teraverse, which is a massive Mega Crossover, most worlds seem to have counterparts to the characters from original core worlds from League -- in any Brane 'verse you are likely to have (or have had) an Alex Mack, a Selina Kyle, a Hermione Granger, a Buffy (or Liz, or Elizabeth) Summers, a Willow Rosenberg and a Sam Carter, along with most of the people associated with them. (See In Spite of a Nail, below.) They're also likely to have some form of Harry Dresden, although Dresdens are far more mutable and there's no guarantee he (or she) will be immediately recognizable as such. In addition, the Brane!Buffyverse is also home to the godlike witches and warlocks of Bewitched.
  • God Guise: Alexandra Mack of the Stargate SG-1 universe has to do this several times with the help of a friendly Tok'ra.
  • In Spite of a Nail: Despite widely varying histories (and even different physical laws), the universes in the Brane all have remarkable parallels -- starting with Alex Mack herself. (See Crossover, above.) This is true to such a degree that the members of the League seek out the local counterparts to their teammates when they get home, and in Collocation trade extensive lists of "people of interest":
 

Rashid grimly said, “Alessandro Armata.”
“That greasy bald bastard?” Ebenezar cursed.
Rashid nodded unhappily. “You thought he was up to no good. He probably is. We have knowledge that in other universes, there's an analogue who is a ruthless supervillain or ruthless industrialist villain.”
Alexa cut in, “Lex Luthor! Alee said he's one of the biggest supervillains in her universe!” She glanced over at Rashid. “Did I get the name right?”
Rashid nodded gravely. “And not just that universe. Every one of our interdimensional Alexas has an analogue with a name like 'Alexander' and a surname that means 'army' or 'army of the people'. Which seems... insane.”

 
  • Maximum Fun Chamber: A Slayer training camp in the Brane!Buffyverse is known as "O'Neill Funtime Vacationland".
  • Recursive Fanfiction: Not only did the Brane expand by inspiring other authors to write within its setting, it itself is recursive fic, as the version of Selina "Catwoman" Kyle it uses is not the canon version direct from the pages of Batman comics, but the version who appears in the Cat Tales fanfic series by Chris Dee.
  1. According to The Other Wiki, a "brane" is, in advanced physics, "an extended object with any given number of dimensions, of which strings in string theory are examples with one dimension. Our universe is a 3-brane."