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

[faramir-boromir.livejournal.com]

London is definitely a character (I've already said that elsewhere in this thread, but thanks for repeating it), and somehow, I feel a bit cheated when the city is missing from a story--an AU set elsewhere has to work that much harder to hold me.

I agree that each fandom creates its own sort of vibe, such that the AUs in one fandom don't seem to match those in another. I brought this up at CQ, saying that the AUs in QAF turn on things like disabilities (major character is blind, deaf) or end up age-inverted (young Justin is now older than Brian and his teacher), while those in Pros are more likely to be far out (outer space, that is, or circuses, or camel backs, or whatever). I happen to like The Cook and the Warehouseman very much, but I was told by others that they didn't, couldn't stand it, so as with all AUs, YMMV.

Interesting that your plot bunnies in Pros are canon ones. So far, I can say the same about me. Maybe that will change with time. But it's an interesting observation about the differences between fandoms.