fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2542 ]

[ SECRET POST #2542 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2542 ⌋

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

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Speaking to people who do not automatically loathe AUs with a horrible fiery passion -- are there any characters who you find more complicated to accept in AUs because their character is so defined by their particular circumstances and experiences?

Anyone from Supernatural, especially Sam and Dean.

I don't automatically loathe AUs, but it's the Supernatural fandom's love of them that turned me off to them. I'm talking AUs that place them completely different circumstances, like working in a coffee shop. Hunting is what MADE them. A demon killing their mother is what their life is based on. You can't just stick them in an AU, pressing paninis, and expect them to be the same character, or even remotely close.

Edited 2013-12-19 00:54 (UTC)

Yes, Dean happy in any healthy domestic situation. Doesn't matter with whom. (Cas, his brother or a original character.) I can't see Dean giving up his hunter's life to play the good husband/boyfriend. He is practically addicted to hunting. And I don't mean being in The Man of Letters base and cooking up a mean burger. I mean, living in the middle of Mayberry and being happy with it.

In a lot of ways that's exactly why I find the scenario so compelling. I acknowledge that it would be a massive change in his life and it would require a real change for him, but that's what makes it interesting - to see him not tied up in something that's so central for him and, in a lot of ways, so awful for him (the addiction metaphor works really well here).

Derek Hale from Teen Wolf. His character is so bound up in his ridiculous tragic life that I find it hard to really read him without it. A lot of AUs tend to tie in some of his canon backstory, or give him something similar, so those work. But taking it completely out and writing something like coffee shop AU or happy single dad AU just does not work for me.

I was going to say him too, although a ton of AUs do keep his backstory, so that's something.

Homura Akemi.

I haven't read much fanfic for this show so I haven't come across any AUs but I think you're right that I would have a hard time accepting her in one.

I'm usually pretty okay with AUs once I get used to the fandom, but I wouldn't try to place most of the characters from Discworld in an AU unless it was canon divergence. One example (since I write him the most) is Vetinari. It's difficult to imagine him being anybody other than the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.

I get what the people above me are saying about Supernatural though. A lot of things wouldn't be the same if Sam and Dean had never started hunting. I usually only read AUs for Supernatural when I'm desperate for fluff.

I enjoy AUs, depending on the type (I won't even glance at anything to do with coffee shops) -- but Dragon Age is one fandom where they just don't work for me. They're usually filled with nonsense like "Fenris had an abusive boyfriend who made him get a bunch of tattoos!" *shudders*

Mass Effect characters. Welcome to Night Vale characters. Hmmmmm, Tony Stark?

A lot of Marvel characters, really. Especially Steve Rogers.

Really? Because with Steve he was always the nice guy beneath it all. What made him Captain America wasn't the super juice. It was his core personality. I guess, however, something could be said for the angst he has at his time travel problems.

In a sense, I feel like his character is defined by gaining a tremendous power to go with that core personality of his, and severe displacement. It's absolutely possible for him to exist in an AU - but the same can be said for any character. Some of them fit into AUs easier or harder than others, but all of them can.

I compare him to, say, Thor, who is strongly defined by his family circumstances (being the favored son, backstabbed by the brother he loved, thrown out on his own and needing to work his way back) - that works in nearly any setting and is much easier than Steve's circumstances.

But then, I'm kind of picky about characterization, and while I may still enjoy a story, I tend to look at many/most fanfics and mentally complain about how OOC it is.

I feel like his character is defined by gaining a tremendous power to go with that core personality of his, and severe displacement.

You can get that pretty easily without a super serum or magic, though. For a lot of people, we can call that "puberty." Someone feeling like they don't belong in a "new" body could also be the result of a recently cured illness, a new diet/workout routine, etc, etc. There are more possibilities than people realize, which is probably why I think the Avengers are one of the casts that fit the most easily in AUs.

Like I said, I don't think it's impossible. It's just that whenever I see him in an AU, his story isn't anything close to that, and it shows in his 'current' characterization. Then again, I see most fanfics as "enjoyable but still OOC", and I'm apparently a wee bit of a stickler about characterization when I bother to get into it/pay attention.

Ah, what you say has weight. I guess it just matters on how flexible you are on them.

Attack on Titan. Without the darkness and constant threat, both internally and externally, caused by living in the canon world they just don't seem like the same characters.

What if they were in a universe filled with a different threat, like a zombie apocalypse or a war setting?

But as much as I love AUs, I do have to admit that some AOT characters just won't work without their tragic backstories - Eren and Mikasa in particular.

For me, it certainly depends on the AU, and whether the author is trying to parallel the characters' backgrounds.

Of course, most AU will handwave it for putting a character, whose quirks are due to specific reasons, into a friendly setting where those quirks would never have arisen, but keep the quirks anyway. Sam and Dean in a coffee shop for instance, and even I know that ain't quite right without having watche enough of the show.

I've said this before, but there ain't no convincing me that in every AU where his life didn't suck Dean wasn't a happy goofy domestic creature, with prize rosebushes and frequent family gatherings.

Light Yagami.

He's just not Kira, and not that person, without the Death Note. I can't think of a character whose situation defines him more. The first chapter/episode may have been quick, but it was an enormous amount of character evolution.

I feel the characters from The Hobbit lose the point if they're not Dwarves trying to regain their home and the Hobbit dragged along for the ride.

If it's a reincarnation AU, that's okay, because they're still those characters under the skin and the drama comes from working out how modern humans adjust to past life memories.

Katniss

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[ SECRET POST #2542 ]

Characters defined by circumstances

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Dean Bloody Winchester

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