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

Re: Pros AU

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

imagine reversing the positions, with Doyle as the sheik and Bodie as the novice in the desert?? Impossible
What?! Says who?! It'd just be the different characters playing the roles, and therefore the story would change a bit for it, of course - Doyle'd be a very hot-tempered, quick-witted and determined sheik, Bodie'd be a stoic, brooding prisoner! Hmmn... *pauses to let imagination run riot*... I've got to say, I'm quite fancying the idea... *g*

Re: Pros AU

[faramir-boromir.livejournal.com]

Let me ask this a slightly different way. Why is it that in a lot of AUs, Bodie's character is the one who seems to know what's going on, and it's Doyle's character who is so often in the dark? Professional Dreamers, Harlequin Airs, Arabian Nights, Batalla Ultima, Suitable Gravity, the Echo series--ok, we can call Whisper of a Kill a draw and Cook & the Warehouseman one that goes the other way--in an awful lot of AUs, it seems that Bodie's the one who more in charge, or more aware of what the real situation is, while Doyle's either suffering amnesia, being jerked around by Cowley, family members or outer space creatures. Isn't that connected to characterization? The sense that Bodie's character is more austere, brooding, whatever?

Re: Pros AU

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Well it wasn't so much that I was misunderstanding you as potentially disagreeing with you - or perhaps coming at the issue from a slightly different angle! What I was saying was that something like Arabian Nights could perfectly well be done with Doyle as the sheik and Bodie as the prisoner (because you seemed to say that it couldn't!). Just because writers have been less likely to write the pair that way around (as regards - what? Sub/dom, basically?) doesn't really mean that there's any canon basis for it - in fact I'd almost say the other way around - and so the roles could just as believably be reversed in an AU.

In canon, in fact, Doyle is generally portrayed as the one who understands the bigger picture before Bodie does, Bodie as the one who's less bothered or worried about the bigger picture anyway - and therefore less aware. He's not portrayed as stupid - in fact he himself plays on the idea that he comes across as a "neanderthal" - but Doyle is portrayed as overtly sharp and enquiring. So kind of the opposite to the way he's portrayed in the AUs you've mentioned. But then I'd also argue that just because Bodie looks "brooding" and "austere" doesn't necessarily make him the only "dom" choice either - to take the term I've borrowed to its extreme, there's always MFae's "Grievous Bodily Harm" series, where Bodie is perfectly believable as an actual sub.

What I was trying to say in my comment above, is that just because something isn't commonly done, doesn't mean it couldn't - or perhaps shouldn't - be done. *g*

Re: Pros AU

[sc-fossil.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes! I could so buy into that. I'd love to see Bodie slowly seduced by Sheik Doyle.