Challenge #3: In your own space, put some favorite characters into an AU, fuse some favorite canons together, talk about your favorite AU/fusion tropes, or tell us why AU/fusions aren’t your cup of tea.Oh, biscuits--see, that's what all my recs were going to be about this year. No, no, I'm not dropping them right now. It's hard enough for me to scrape together recs. We shall speak in general terms instead!
I love me an AU. There's always something nice about the idea that so much of the world can change, but these people will still find each other. Since I'm a sucker for teamwork and found family, anything that reinforces the inevitability of these characters coming together will get me right in the tender heart bits. For reference, when I think AU, I'm not usually thinking of fix-it fic (glorious on its own merits), but more sweeping changes to the known universe.
I don't
generally go for mundane AUs--the coffee shops and colleges and whatnot. (With the exception, perhaps, of essieincinci's
No Finer Mess To Be Found series, aka the Chubby Punk universe, which features tattoo artist Steve and the aforementioned chubby punk Bucky. There: a rec after all.) I'd be lying if there haven't been a few to win me over. But if anything, I want to inject even more weirdness into my fictional worlds, not subtract what canon already gave me.
Also, I worked in food service myself--why would I do that to fictional characters I like? Can't I just torture them lightly and toss them into the arms of their loved ones instead? Wouldn't that be kinder?
Since I'm mainly in superhero-based fandoms, I've got a pretty thrilling range of weirdness at my disposal already. So to add more, I quite like adding magic that is a bit more high fantasy--witches and curses and kingdoms at war. Psychic powers (not originally attributed to the character in question) are always fun as well. Soul bonds, as one of the AUs du jour lately, are a solid option as well.
Despite being otherwise indifferent to zombie stories, a fandom-based zombie apocalypse has a good chance of doing it for me. Apocalyptic settings in general, when handled by fandom people, are a lot of fun. I can generally trust them to give me happy endings and only the sorts of suffering I like to read about, which is not something I can safely say about the publishing genre.
I also enjoy a good alternate timeline AU. The gang's all here, they just met up at a different stage of their life or at a different point in the storyline. See owlpostagain's
Stilinski's Home for Wayward Wolves and, in a more general canon divergence, KouriArashi's
Adult Wolf. (Where did all these recs come from???)
Of course, you can also just turn the whole cast of characters into, idk, stray dogs or something. Cracktastic AUs are an extremely valid life choice.
Now then: the semi-exception to my no-mundane-AUs preference. Hockey. All I can say is, damn all you weirdos* for making me not only know things about a sportsball for the sake of seeing more superheroes kiss, but for making me
actually. care. about. a sportsball. Do you realize, I have started watching hockey games on tv when one of my meager selection of channels carries one? I have seriously considered paying actual monies for ESPN+ to be able to see all the games said meager channels DON'T carry? All because certain people had the bald-faced audacity to take a whole assortment of Marvel characters and put them on ice skates and make them punch and/or kiss each other in deeply compelling ways. Unbelievable. Who let you in here?
*It's
thepartyresponsible. They're the weirdo. More on that later.
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