(no subject)

[skygiants]

kiarasayre asked me for the Top Five AUs I Think Every Fandom Should Have.

Now, I will be honest here, I don't actually read all that many AUs. Nonetheless, I found when I searched my heart that there were several AUs that I firmly believed should exist for all fandoms!

1. The High School AU



Understand, for a long time, I thought I did not have particularly strong feelings about high school AUs. I did not realize how strong a hold they had taken on my fannish consciousness until I was skimming the AO3 archive one day and found not one - not two - but three separate Valdemar High School AUs (all of them, if I remember right, Vanyel/Tylendel.)

And it's not that I needed or wanted to read Valdemar High School AUs, particularly, but that sense of hilarious joy I felt at the sheer inevitability of fandom has brought me around. Yes, every fandom should have a high school AU. All serious interpersonal drama can INDEED be displaced onto the question of who asked whom to the prom. I EMBRACE THIS FACT FULLY, BRING IT ON.

2. Character [X] Is A Secret Petrelli



("On the one hand," thinks Ned the Piemaker, "this explains a lot. On the other hand: SO UNCOMFORTABLE.")

Okay, so you guys remember Heroes, that now-obscure show from a few years back that ended after one season at the height of its glory? Me too!

And remember how that show had a hilarious habit of revealing that various of its characters were . . . SECRET PETRELLIS? (Well, okay, only two that I'm actually thinking of, but Hiro was at least a sort of step-Petrelli and I'm sure we would have had more if nonexistent later seasons allowed.)

Anyway, it is a hilarious trend and one that I fully feel fandom should capitalize on more. In any situation where parentage is in doubt: SECRET PETRELLI. This has the handy advantage of allowing for a superpowers AU, as well as for HILARITY as otherwise-logical people have to cope that they have suddenly inherited the most ridiculous family in sff.

3. The Regency AU



Yes, this is basically just an excuse to dress everyone up in costume porn and add excessive Austenian ostentatiousness to their language. NO, I DO NOT CARE. (Actually there is no real reason that BSG should not just had everyone dressed this way anyway. It makes about as much sense as them all wearng 20th century business suits. Way not to commit to awesomeness, BSG!)

4. The AU Where Everyone Is Kate Beaton Characters



It is just a fact that everything is amazing when its characters become Kate Beaton characters. Les Miserables! Batman! For versions not written by La Beaton herself or terribly photoshopped by me, see Oooh Mister Chretomanci that just went up the other day and cemented my belief that you can never go wrong with a Kate Beaton homage. IT SHOULD EXIST FOR EVERYTHING.

5. Look around you.

Just . . . look around you.

Have you worked out what we're looking for?

For 9/10 of you at least, the answer is probably 'no,' but that is easy to fix!



(In this case, the answer is Maths. But if you enjoyed that there is MUCH MORE awaiting you.)

"Look Around You" is an amazing science show from the UK full of WELL-KNOWN TRUE SCIENCE FACTS, like, for example, the fact that germs come from Germany, every piano includes nineteen forbidden keys, and the largest number is forty-five billion. (Scientists suspect, though, that there may be even LARGER numbers! Like . . . forty-five billion and one????)

And, I mean, I dunno, I just happen to believe in my heart that every fandom could use an AU set in a universe where people polish their iron every Sunday, scientists regularly conduct earnest experiments to show that sulfur and champagne mixed together gives you LASER VISION and the question "What are birds?" can only be answered with "We just don't know."

You guys should tell me your favorite kind of AU! . . . you do not need to commit to terrible Photoshop to do so.

Comments

[skygiants]

PROOF POSITIVE OF MY THESIS. >:D >:D >:D

[ashen_key]

INDEED! Oh, god, the high school AU would. Just. Oh man.

Sadly the Austen one would be too racially charged, given, uh, Trudy's Hispanic. And what WOULD you do with the Na'vi.

But.

Oh, man. High school. Secret super-powers!

[skygiants]

Hey, it probably wouldn't be that much more problematic than Avatar itself . . . .


You know, actually, I'm pretty sure Jane Austen With Aliens is about the only mashup they haven't done yet. MAYBE IT'S DUE.

[ashen_key]

*snorts* Well, at least in the movie at they are at least non!native americans. Which reminds me, in my Inception!AU I started, I made Neytiri Egyptian (it. made sense at the time - Neytiri, Nefertiri, and in the dreamscape she can do whatever she wants. Um).

...Jane Austen With Aliens would be HILARIOUS.