AUs in the Pros community--discussion

[faramir-boromir.livejournal.com]

Hi, all. You may have been reading the panel reports that I've been posting about CQ in my LJ and over on the CQ yahoo group as well. If not, go read 'em, and enjoy!

It occurred to me that I didn't have notes on a panel that I very much enjoyed---why do you think the Professionals has so many good AU stories---I think I was blasted on Sunday morning and had lost the will to write, hence no notes. Then I realized, there's no reason that discussion couldn't go on here, at ci5hq. gblvr got the ball rolling in the panel discussion, and I'll borrow the three things that I do remember from the panel to get things started.

1) If you look at the total number of stories archived at the Circuit and click the "only AU" stories option, you get about 7% of all the stories. So on the whole, there don't seem to be many AUs in the fandom.

2) Yet, if you ask somebody to rec in the Pros fandom, within the first few recs, they'll be saying, 'oh, but you need to read this AU.'

3) One comment that was offered by flamingoslim at the con was that, back in the day, Pros picked up AUs that were scorned by the Starsky/Hutch fandom early on. As one of the oldest fandoms, she suggested, authors who felt closed out of one fandom moved over to another and went wild.

So, why the contradiction? Compared to other fandoms, Pros has very few AUs, but some are notably (and worthily) famous. And which AUs would you automatically rec to others? And what elements make for a successful AU, using Pros characters?

Comments

[blkandwhtcat.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed that you've gone so far having seen no episodes of Pros. That's incredible

Well, I have looked at many, many pictures of the guys from the show. I've read short and long descriptions of the characters. I've read recaps and discussions of many of the key episodes. And I've read a lot of the classic fanfic stories that people say captures the characters of the guys.

I suppose that not having actually seen the show, my opinions on fanfic have very limited value, but I have picked up a particular impression of the characters, and I see my impression played out over and over again in the fanfic, so it must be accurate to some degree.

[faramir-boromir.livejournal.com]

I think the next question is, what country do you live in--I now feel it is my duty to get you a set of the episodes. But that depends on what region of the world you live in, and maybe whether you have a region-free DVD player.