AU: it means gold.
AUs, or alternate universes, were introduced to mainstream media as a plot twist by the likes of Star Trek and Dr Who (I like to think Red Dwarf did it first, but I have absolutely no evidence of that. La la la, I’m not listening!). They were snapped up by fanfic authors are an opportunity to not just play in someone else’s sandbox, but also to customize it to your own taste. While they may include crossovers, they differ from that esteemed genre by dint of being somehow messing with the cannon. It can be simple: a door never opened, a bullet dodged, a child miscarried, Snape was a vampire, whatever. They can be complete reversals of what is to be expected: someone thrown into an alien situation, a genderswap, Dean has wings; the impossible is possible (and that makes us mighty). Some AU’s are so far from the original text that with a change of name they could easily be an entirely different story, and therein lies the beauty.
The one that made me think of Sam and Dean as yellow. I can’t unsee it! Supernatural/ The Simpsons This is an AU because no-one ever points out that the Winchesters have one more finger then everyone else in town. John has a job in Shelbyville, Dean saves the beer and listens to some sax, Sam is declared “non-threatening”. It’s perfect, partly because innie draws on the cannon of The Simpsons (yes, they have cannon) as well as Supernatural’s. Bonus Points: the Bill and Ted reference.
The Bones of Shelbyville.
Remember when zombies were a cross-over? SG1 Changed my mind. Zombies just get everywhere! You think you’ve got rid of them, until a forgotten limb pops up. Worse then cockroaches. This is a brief, but hilarious zombies invade the SGC AU fic. Look, don’t fault my logic; I’ll set my ravenous hordes of the undead on you. Just wait and see.
The door shuddered once, twice, and Jack swung his weapon up, finger twitching on the trigger. The wooden door creaked alarmingly under another assault, and then nothing. Jack didn't think that was a good sign. Edging closer to the window, he pulled back the edge of the blanket, just a little. A figure crouched in front of the door, blonde hair matted against its skull. It poked at the lock, and then it cocked its head and ran broken, bloated fingers over the hinges.
Shit. Figured that Carter would be too damn smart even if her brains were leaking out her ear.
I like apocalyptofic so much I read this. And loved it. Desperate Housewives For Buffy, SGA, Supernatural, all my beloved sci-fi, the apocalypse is not really alternate so much as imminent (hell, look at BSG). But for something like Friends, Gilmore Girls, S&tC, all the shows I’m ashamed to admit I watch, an apocalypse is AU. This mysterious, atmospheric ficlet, laden with intertextual references and the edge of insanity, is the perfect example of how to handle it.
The day it comes to Wisteria Lane, Bree van de Kamp sets the fire to her house. She watches it burn from her car; the flames shoot up into the sky illuminating the street, and she reloads a gun just in case, and puts it between her legs so that it won’t fall off her knees when she drives.
As a young girl she used to think about Russians coming to America to destroy it. She smiles nostalgically at the idea.
Remember Muppet Babies? This is like that, but AWESOMER. Life I usually go to aj for my partner kink fix, but this. This is silly and glorious and the cast of Life, under ten. I would pay large sums of money to see a tiny Sarah Shahi in those kick-ass aviators. Way better then smut.
Next to her, Charlie blinked. She smirked at him. He might be ten, but that IN NO WAY meant he was smarter than her. At all.
Willow, Willow, Willow, Willow and Willow. In a good way. BtVS This is five different universes, all of them a death in some form. The first couple might make you shiver, but the last one made me sob for no good reason.
Willow is still remembering the struggle: cold, strong fingers on her and in her, and later pain like she'd never felt blooming and growing on her inner thigh as the world faded black. Thick, tepid blood being forced down her throat, and how she cried the whole time, deep racking sobs and hot tears on her face, and the way she begged for it all to stop. She is filled with a sudden surge of hatred for herself, that self, and she growls, bucks and flips them so she's suddenly on top. She somehow doesn't care that she's naked, and loves that. It fills her with adrenaline, this sudden brazenness, and she grinds against the body beneath her, which feels *good*, and makes her other self's eyes light up.
For me, this is the truth (one universe over) L&O: CI This is ridiculously spot on and apt and gorgeous. There’s romance and sled-dogs and drug dealers and snow. One of the fun parts of AU stories is playing spot-the-character. When Carver popped up, I might have squeed. I am not ashamed.
When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's 40 Below)
Remember my writer’s crush on novin-ha? BtVS/Angel So, Wesley survives LA and tracks down his old pupil, trailing everyone’s favourite smurfalicious god-king. Orgies ensue. Well, not orgies, but it’s still awesome and sexy and violent and Faith is there. Faith would kick hope and charity’s collective metaphorical ass any day of the week.
They all live in Cleveland together.
It’s not a comfortable arrangement. Wesley doesn’t forget to mention time and again that he’s only in Cleveland for a while, Faith knows better than to expect (or want) stability, and Illyria, if she even gives it a moment’s thought, calls all human affairs momentary.
The Top Three
This is the bit where the music gets all tense and the lights swish around, to set the mood of excited anticipation. Ready? Excited and anticipatory? Cool. We can start the count down to the most epic of epic AUs.
The one where Dean and Sam raise twins Alex and Lorelai Cabot to be hunters. It’s Win-twin-sis-cest! Supernatural/Gilmore Girls/ L&O: SVU/ others There’s never a really logical explanation for the situation, or the re-jigging of timelines, but I don’t care. It’s the most serious, wonderful crack you’ll ever read. Dean is Daddy, Sam is Dad, Alex and Lorelai are twins and hunters and awesome. If cest squicks you, don’t worry, it’s subtle, and so worth it if only for the image of Sam and Dean raising girls. wizened-cynic has written heaps of ficlets in this verse, building her own cannon, collected here, but I’ve picked favourites.
Lorelai has saved Alex's ass before, protected her from mean-spirited queen bees and plain old mean spirits. Not as many times as Alex has put her neck on the line for Lorelai, of course, but when you're sisters you don't keep count. When your sister has clamped her hand over your mouth and huddled against you as you both lay in the trunk of your fathers' car, listening to the sounds of your dads blasting silver bullets into a pack of werewolves, it doesn't really matter that you have to drive her home from a keg party, or let her copy off your algebra homework, or douse her prom date with holy water.
and
Lorelai finally said, Okay, okay, we'll be good daughters and they wore the pajamas and Dad took a photo of all four of them in front of the fireplace. It took three tries to get it right. Lorelai kept making faces and Alex kept blinking and Daddy kept looking at Dad like Dad was a sappy idiot.
The picture turned out perfect, so perfect that Dad wanted to make Christmas cards out of it, but Daddy said, Who the hell are we gonna send Christmas cards to?
The one that turned me onto bandom, and, for that matter, Cobra Starship MCR/ FOB/ P!ATD/ CS/ others (including the Ramones. The Ramones, man!) Basically, according to ethrosdemon, the entire indie music scene in Jersey, and all of Fuelled By Ramen, are either into the supernatural or are supernatural creatures. Don’t give me that look until you’ve tried it, because it’s way more then that. It’s a journey of personal growth and self discovery, with some poly/yaoi blood orgies thrown in. See, now you’re intrigued, right? It opens with Gerard Way waking up a vampire, and expands into an epic adventure in which Gabe Saporta is the Alpha-Cobra-Wolf, Patrick Stump is Thundercat-Dracula-Messiah and Ashlee Simpson is likable. Just read it, and stop staring at me.
Gerard Will Most Certainly Hurt You
And the winner of this delightful imaginary trophy and equally imaginary meat tray for greatest, best sustained, most creative AU work in the history of fandom: anteka’s Plastic Winchester Theatre I don’t even know how to define this sprawling adventure. Part fanfic, part fancomic, part fanvid, all awesome; replete with audience participation, including countless fandoms, memes and shout outs. With cameos by Chuck Norris, Buffy, Harry Potter, Dr Who, the cast of High School Musical, Viggo the Mountain Man, Mulder and Scully, Jayne’s hat, evil Care Bears, and Kripke himself, there’s something for all the family, even if you’ve never seen Supernatural.
It all started when a crazy (or crazy-awesome?) Supernatural fan in Wisconsin picked up a couple of barbie dolls that looked a lot like the Winchesters. She took some photos, came up with a story; fast-forward a few years and she has walls of props, a line of merchandise, three and a bit seasons of Plastic Winchester Theatre, a stack of special features and thousands of equally crazy fans. Plastic!Sam and Plastic!Dean have as many adventures as the real ones, and hug way more. (Sometimes I used to wonder if the writers aren’t stealing their ideas off Andie. If the finale sucked less, I might have believed it.) Come see where the rock music plays and be part of the love.
Easter egg! These aren’t AU’s, but to go with the multi-media epic of PWT, check out the Winchester paper trail, in all its bedside glory, and Sam’s drunken letters to Stephen King, who SucKs. It’s pretty much all glee.
The one that made me think of Sam and Dean as yellow. I can’t unsee it! Supernatural/ The Simpsons This is an AU because no-one ever points out that the Winchesters have one more finger then everyone else in town. John has a job in Shelbyville, Dean saves the beer and listens to some sax, Sam is declared “non-threatening”. It’s perfect, partly because innie draws on the cannon of The Simpsons (yes, they have cannon) as well as Supernatural’s. Bonus Points: the Bill and Ted reference.
The Bones of Shelbyville.
Remember when zombies were a cross-over? SG1 Changed my mind. Zombies just get everywhere! You think you’ve got rid of them, until a forgotten limb pops up. Worse then cockroaches. This is a brief, but hilarious zombies invade the SGC AU fic. Look, don’t fault my logic; I’ll set my ravenous hordes of the undead on you. Just wait and see.
The door shuddered once, twice, and Jack swung his weapon up, finger twitching on the trigger. The wooden door creaked alarmingly under another assault, and then nothing. Jack didn't think that was a good sign. Edging closer to the window, he pulled back the edge of the blanket, just a little. A figure crouched in front of the door, blonde hair matted against its skull. It poked at the lock, and then it cocked its head and ran broken, bloated fingers over the hinges.
Shit. Figured that Carter would be too damn smart even if her brains were leaking out her ear.
I like apocalyptofic so much I read this. And loved it. Desperate Housewives For Buffy, SGA, Supernatural, all my beloved sci-fi, the apocalypse is not really alternate so much as imminent (hell, look at BSG). But for something like Friends, Gilmore Girls, S&tC, all the shows I’m ashamed to admit I watch, an apocalypse is AU. This mysterious, atmospheric ficlet, laden with intertextual references and the edge of insanity, is the perfect example of how to handle it.
The day it comes to Wisteria Lane, Bree van de Kamp sets the fire to her house. She watches it burn from her car; the flames shoot up into the sky illuminating the street, and she reloads a gun just in case, and puts it between her legs so that it won’t fall off her knees when she drives.
As a young girl she used to think about Russians coming to America to destroy it. She smiles nostalgically at the idea.
Remember Muppet Babies? This is like that, but AWESOMER. Life I usually go to aj for my partner kink fix, but this. This is silly and glorious and the cast of Life, under ten. I would pay large sums of money to see a tiny Sarah Shahi in those kick-ass aviators. Way better then smut.
Next to her, Charlie blinked. She smirked at him. He might be ten, but that IN NO WAY meant he was smarter than her. At all.
Willow, Willow, Willow, Willow and Willow. In a good way. BtVS This is five different universes, all of them a death in some form. The first couple might make you shiver, but the last one made me sob for no good reason.
Willow is still remembering the struggle: cold, strong fingers on her and in her, and later pain like she'd never felt blooming and growing on her inner thigh as the world faded black. Thick, tepid blood being forced down her throat, and how she cried the whole time, deep racking sobs and hot tears on her face, and the way she begged for it all to stop. She is filled with a sudden surge of hatred for herself, that self, and she growls, bucks and flips them so she's suddenly on top. She somehow doesn't care that she's naked, and loves that. It fills her with adrenaline, this sudden brazenness, and she grinds against the body beneath her, which feels *good*, and makes her other self's eyes light up.
For me, this is the truth (one universe over) L&O: CI This is ridiculously spot on and apt and gorgeous. There’s romance and sled-dogs and drug dealers and snow. One of the fun parts of AU stories is playing spot-the-character. When Carver popped up, I might have squeed. I am not ashamed.
When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's 40 Below)
Remember my writer’s crush on novin-ha? BtVS/Angel So, Wesley survives LA and tracks down his old pupil, trailing everyone’s favourite smurfalicious god-king. Orgies ensue. Well, not orgies, but it’s still awesome and sexy and violent and Faith is there. Faith would kick hope and charity’s collective metaphorical ass any day of the week.
They all live in Cleveland together.
It’s not a comfortable arrangement. Wesley doesn’t forget to mention time and again that he’s only in Cleveland for a while, Faith knows better than to expect (or want) stability, and Illyria, if she even gives it a moment’s thought, calls all human affairs momentary.
The Top Three
This is the bit where the music gets all tense and the lights swish around, to set the mood of excited anticipation. Ready? Excited and anticipatory? Cool. We can start the count down to the most epic of epic AUs.
The one where Dean and Sam raise twins Alex and Lorelai Cabot to be hunters. It’s Win-twin-sis-cest! Supernatural/Gilmore Girls/ L&O: SVU/ others There’s never a really logical explanation for the situation, or the re-jigging of timelines, but I don’t care. It’s the most serious, wonderful crack you’ll ever read. Dean is Daddy, Sam is Dad, Alex and Lorelai are twins and hunters and awesome. If cest squicks you, don’t worry, it’s subtle, and so worth it if only for the image of Sam and Dean raising girls. wizened-cynic has written heaps of ficlets in this verse, building her own cannon, collected here, but I’ve picked favourites.
Lorelai has saved Alex's ass before, protected her from mean-spirited queen bees and plain old mean spirits. Not as many times as Alex has put her neck on the line for Lorelai, of course, but when you're sisters you don't keep count. When your sister has clamped her hand over your mouth and huddled against you as you both lay in the trunk of your fathers' car, listening to the sounds of your dads blasting silver bullets into a pack of werewolves, it doesn't really matter that you have to drive her home from a keg party, or let her copy off your algebra homework, or douse her prom date with holy water.
and
Lorelai finally said, Okay, okay, we'll be good daughters and they wore the pajamas and Dad took a photo of all four of them in front of the fireplace. It took three tries to get it right. Lorelai kept making faces and Alex kept blinking and Daddy kept looking at Dad like Dad was a sappy idiot.
The picture turned out perfect, so perfect that Dad wanted to make Christmas cards out of it, but Daddy said, Who the hell are we gonna send Christmas cards to?
The one that turned me onto bandom, and, for that matter, Cobra Starship MCR/ FOB/ P!ATD/ CS/ others (including the Ramones. The Ramones, man!) Basically, according to ethrosdemon, the entire indie music scene in Jersey, and all of Fuelled By Ramen, are either into the supernatural or are supernatural creatures. Don’t give me that look until you’ve tried it, because it’s way more then that. It’s a journey of personal growth and self discovery, with some poly/yaoi blood orgies thrown in. See, now you’re intrigued, right? It opens with Gerard Way waking up a vampire, and expands into an epic adventure in which Gabe Saporta is the Alpha-Cobra-Wolf, Patrick Stump is Thundercat-Dracula-Messiah and Ashlee Simpson is likable. Just read it, and stop staring at me.
Gerard Will Most Certainly Hurt You
And the winner of this delightful imaginary trophy and equally imaginary meat tray for greatest, best sustained, most creative AU work in the history of fandom: anteka’s Plastic Winchester Theatre I don’t even know how to define this sprawling adventure. Part fanfic, part fancomic, part fanvid, all awesome; replete with audience participation, including countless fandoms, memes and shout outs. With cameos by Chuck Norris, Buffy, Harry Potter, Dr Who, the cast of High School Musical, Viggo the Mountain Man, Mulder and Scully, Jayne’s hat, evil Care Bears, and Kripke himself, there’s something for all the family, even if you’ve never seen Supernatural.
It all started when a crazy (or crazy-awesome?) Supernatural fan in Wisconsin picked up a couple of barbie dolls that looked a lot like the Winchesters. She took some photos, came up with a story; fast-forward a few years and she has walls of props, a line of merchandise, three and a bit seasons of Plastic Winchester Theatre, a stack of special features and thousands of equally crazy fans. Plastic!Sam and Plastic!Dean have as many adventures as the real ones, and hug way more. (Sometimes I used to wonder if the writers aren’t stealing their ideas off Andie. If the finale sucked less, I might have believed it.) Come see where the rock music plays and be part of the love.
Easter egg! These aren’t AU’s, but to go with the multi-media epic of PWT, check out the Winchester paper trail, in all its bedside glory, and Sam’s drunken letters to Stephen King, who SucKs. It’s pretty much all glee.