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

Pro's AU writers

[jagr1968.livejournal.com]

Regarding flamingoslim's suggestion that authors who felt closed out or scorned by S/H fandom for their AU's moved over to Pro's and went wild there. Many of the early and best Pro's writers came not from S/H but straight from Star Trek, which abounded with AU's. English writers such as: HG, Sebastian, and O Yardley all started with Trek and struggled to write American sounding dialogue. When Pro's came along, they happily embraced a fandom where they could write "British-isms" to their heart's content and took their AU's with them. Many of the first American Pro's writers also came from fandoms other than S/H. If I remember rightly, Anne Carr and Lainie Stone came from Dr. Who; Pam, Lezlie, Thomas, and Courtney Gray all came from Trek.

Re: Pro's AU writers

[faramir-boromir.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this information! The first I heard of this theory was at CQ, and once I considered it for a while, the idea had some clout. What I lacked was data to confirm it. Of course the British-isms would be a problem in Trek, plus Trek...well, every episode in Trek might be considered AU. So in that sense, Pros would be a very good place to go and take that creativity. Much appreciated!

Re: Pro's AU writers

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

Of course the British-isms would be a problem in Trek

So in the future American culture and American idiom will have taken over the universe? *g*

Re: Pro's AU writers

[faramir-boromir.livejournal.com]

Nah. I fully expect the Southern Hemisphere to survive the nuclear holocaust when the North decides to do something idiotic. So you can look forward to Kirk and McCoy saying "g'day" in the 23rd century. *g* Or do only Aussies say "g'day"? Kiwi version?

Re: Pro's AU writers

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

You'd be fine using 'g'day' in either place. Australian usage is a little more vowel heavy: "g'daay, maate". If you're a member of the Australian Labor Party you can add another 'a' to "maaate" *g*.