[ SECRET POST #3123 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3123 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 014 secrets from Secret Submission Post #446.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[elaminator]

I have mixed feelings...

I'm much more likely to not care about the fic if the canon is in some way fantasy or magical and the AU strips that away; that's a large reason I liked the thing in the first place.

However, sometimes when I have it bad for a ship and I've read what feels like literally everything else (that is half-decent and/or doesn't make me want to tear my hair out), I will start reading modern AU's. (Some of which I have a weakness for... like royalty!AU's.) It's definitely desperation, lol.

(This does not apply to say, Mass Effect or Dragon Age. So I agree in those cases; I'm not going to bother with those fics if the characters aren't aliens or elves, dwarves, etc. For some reason I can read modern Hobbit AU's though.)

I typically enjoy those stories less (unless the writing is particularly spectacular, and occasionally it is!), but I can still enjoy them.

Just the fic... I don't bother with the fanart.

[(Anonymous)]

I like Modern AUs, but they still need to have their powers, for me. Like Merlin. I got to where I would pretty much only read modern AUs in that fandom (for one, because I was far less likely to have to deal with evil Morgana), but there still needs to be magic, for me. Not at all interested in non-magical Merlin. Or XFMC. A lot of my favorite fics were modern or future fics, but they still had their powers. I never was interested in fics where they were just normal people. Or Teen Wolf AUs with no werewolves. :) Yeah.

[(Anonymous)]

^ XMFC. Oops.

Oh just thought of another one. Star Trek. Yeah. Not at all interested in "everyone's human" AUs in that one either.

[elaminator]

For me it depends entirely on the fandom. I could read a Merlin AU with no magic, but I would find it confusing and most likely wouldn't enjoy it as much.

That said, reading about X-Men without powers would not be worth it for me. Same for Star Trek AU's that aren't set in space or don't include aliens.

I WISH more fic like you described existed. (Modern AU's with powers.) Maybe I just have a difficult time finding it, but it seems sort of rare.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sorry! :( It might depend on the pairing? I tend to read the big pairings (Merlin/Arthur, Erik/Charles, etc). There's quite a lot of modern fic with magic for Merlin/Arthur, but if you're not into that pairing, maybe it's not so common? I don't know.

[elaminator]

I ship those pairings too! I do remember fic of that sort in XMFC fandom (that one had the most, I think), but not so much in Merlin.

However, I didn't stick around in Merlin fandom for long and though I always meant to go back and read more fic, I haven't. The few Merlin/Arthur fics I read after the series ended tended to be modern stories set post canon, but magic was either never mentioned or didn't play a big part. (Which I found disappointing.)

[(Anonymous)]

That's interesting. Hmm. I guess I never paid much to how much non-magical fic there was. If I saw No magic or Non-magical Merlin or something like that in the tags I just skipped over it. Sorry you haven't found what you're looking for though!

[elaminator]

That's okay! It's probably my own fault for not paying more attention to the tags. People tag so much shit these days that I usually just skip them altogether and give it a read if it sounds interesting and is a pairing I like.

That has backfired on me before, lol.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

You have similar thoughts to mine.

I have said this before, but I think it's an issue of having some connection back to canon. Somehow, I think The Hobbit has more connection to Modern Earth than most fantasy fandoms (maybe it's that idea o LotR being a prehistory?), but even with that I want something slightly more, like reincarnation AU or a modern retelling of the Hobbit plot.

So far I think I have only read all of one Dragon Age modern AU, which I felt retained a link (it cast the DA2 characters as gamers playing an MMO named THEDAS). Everything else though... What is the point of DA and ME if one removes it from Thedas or space?

[elaminator]

Ooo, yea, that's a good point! I've seen modern retellings of The Hobbit (where Smaug stole Thorin's company, land, etc) and I've also seen reincarnation fics. (There were a couple of fun ones where Thorin was Sebastian Moran, Bilbo was John Watson and Smaug was Sherlock. It sounded crazy in the summary, but it was actually lots of fun and quite well written.)

I just find it easier to believe that the characters of The Hobbit could exist outside of Middle Earth, and I'm not sure why. Maybe because of how straightforward the story is. It doesn't hurt that the cast is easy to picture outside of their costumes; you can just look to the actors. With Mass Effect or Dragon Age it isn't that easy; sure, the characters have VA's, but it isn't always possible to find pictures of the VA's and sometimes their looks don't 'fit' their voices, personalities, etc.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I read a few of the Sherlock crosses as well. I was very fond of a short one set in the pool scene in The Great Game, where the snipers covering them were Sebastian Moran and his team... who were also Thorin and his Company. It ended up revealing Moriarty as being what is left of Sauron.

My favourite modern retelling is one I can't find, but it has Erebor as a technologically advanced hermit nation that has been taken over by a terrorist organisation named SMAUG. Gandalf is a retired MI6 agent and Bilbo is an independent computer analyst he hires to help break into Erebor's computer systems. It was a very good story, and I read a couple of others by the same writer and those were good, angsty and dramatic as well. I wish I could still find it, but I can't see it in my bookmarks.

[dancing_serpent]

I can help you with that.

(Not Quite) Prince Charming by manic_intent

That one was awesome :)

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link! Turns out it is somewhere in my bookmarks, so I must have been missing it, but I made a browser bookmark too, so I don't get lost in my AO3 ones again.

[elaminator]

I'm not sure I've read either of these! Now that the latter one has been linked I might give it a shot. It sounds great, but at the time I had already read so many long Bagginshield fics that I needed a break, lol.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

I think the Sherlock cross was one posted on the Kink Meme. I'd have to go digging for it.