Meta Month, Day 28: More thoughts on AUs
Sep. 28th, 2011 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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amielleon’s journal (locked post). AUs are great fun, after all... and greatly frustrating. To keep it simple, we'll just look at AU adaptations of individual games or gameverses, not mash-ups/crossovers.
Ammie was talking about world-transposing AUs-- the different kinds and the pitfalls thereof. On the other hand, how about AUs that instead extract a key theme or concept from the canon and run with that, tailoring everything to fit the theme? I guess this sort of AU might run into the “fridge magnet poetry” kind of world-transposition AU that Ammie identified, except the amount of game material that gets shaved away in the course of the adaptation makes it something other than world transposition, IMO.
For example, take my failed NaNo project from last year: the FE3/12 War of Heroes storyline recast as a modern day corporate takeover drama, focusing on the themes of loyalty and betrayal, and cutting all the religious elements out entirely. No magic. No dragons. No endgame with Gharnef and the captive women. Just a straight-out political struggle for dominance, with no room for two winners. It follows the plot, or at least the initial, surface plotline. The bulk of the characters have their roles to play. But without the spiritual dimension to Marth’s victory over Hardin (and Gharnef, Medeus, etc), the meaning of the whole piece shifts. Hardin putting a revolver to his own temple in the CEO suite of ARC Industries sort of captures the idea of the Dark Emperor standing at the throne in his ruined palace, daring Marth to come and kill him... but not quite.
Or, you could take a facet of the spiritual aspect to the War of Heroes and run that. Strip it down to that confrontation between Marth and Hardin, with Hardin as a hard-driving political reformer, and Marth as the charismatic preacher-boy (think Eli Sunday without the malice) who first bolsters and then frustrates Hardin's ambitions. You could set it in an early 20th century milieu of city bosses, Prohibition advocates, and radio... or a 1980s atmosphere of Wall Street, Iran-Contra, and televangelists. Or Renaissance Florence. Or 1750s England. Or...
A core component of FE3/12, the affection and trust and shared sense of purpose gone horribly wrong, would be there, and the “magic” might even be there too, in a way, but maybe some other things wouldn’t. Like pilgrimages to the Ice Temple to retrieve sleeping princesses. Or massive armies sacking entire countries. Instead of a full-scale war, you would end up with a more intimate kind of struggle-- There Will Be Blood, with or without the bowling alley brawl as its denouement.
[Ten to one, the bulk of the readers would end up sympathizing with Hardin. Especially if his actual wartime atrocities don’t end up so atrocious in translation. Then again, often a single murder can alienate readers more than the wrecking of an entire nation.]
Or focus on something else and make that the core of the AU: the human plight of the Grust kiddies and the inner conflict of their supporters. The “failed state” theme that surfaces again and again in the War of Shadows. Or the deeper thread running under it all, the folly and corruptible nature of humanity-- which arguably gets as close as you can to the genuine core of the storyline (especially wrt FE12). All of these are true to the source material. None of these are the exact story we get in the games. But why do we want that exact story when we already have the games (in some fashion)?
And you can do the same for any of the other games, too-- the “obsession” angle in FE8, or the “failed heroes” motif in FE4. Grounding an AU in one aspect of a game and doing it successfully may well make for a better story than trying to transpose the entire game, lock-stock-and-barrel, and making a partial success of it. And someone may squawk because you omitted their favorite character or prevented their OTP from happening, but hey-- there’s always another AU to write. Right? Write.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 04:01 am (UTC)I have a looot to say about AUs but it's so much that it would hurt to type. And nobody would want to read it anyway. So the short version is what you get. :D
I really like what you said here, and of course what was said in Ammie's post, also. (Which I went back and read all the comments for since I had missed all those after mine, unfortunately. I need to track posts fo' real.) Lots of good things said, honestly. Sorry that I missed the discussion!
As far as AU 'fics go, I agree there are pretty much two kinds, and I kind of liken them to cookies. Pre-cut cookie dough cookies (AUs with direct transplant to an AU including storyline) and homemade cookies (AUs without direct transplanting into an AU setting). The former might be more familiar to us, but sometimes the latter just, well, was made with love and tastes better to boot. ;P
Direct transplants usually seem to win over because they're:
1. easy to do
2. familiar
Whereas a non-direct transplant requires the gathering of ingredients, so to speak, and the mixing of elements all on your own.
For example, long ago,
But saying it and doing it are two entirely different things!
There must always be a reason for everything. Now, your FE3/12 thing was something that sounded really intriguing to me, and I'd still like to see it done (because come ON, the idea is intriguing and I'm sure you can write it believably). But it had to have taken a ton of thought on your part to get your ingredients to mix well enough to make a good batch of cookies. (I have no doubt about this, butttt I could be wrong, as I am apt to be now and then.)
I've had so many AU ideas over the years that I've found the cut-and-dry game-to-AU transplantation to be rather...bland. You can write it a million ways in a million settings but at its core it's the same shit. And sometimes it DOES work in an AU. Some characters need to lose SOMETHING in an AU. For Lyn, it's at least her parents for me. But killing them off two-by-two...I mean, at the same time, is off-putting sometimes.
But her great loss is part of what makes her who she is in the game, and there isn't much of a real-world equivalent to that but to kill who means the MOST to her off-- and that'd be her parents. (Vs. an entire tribe, though I guess one could write about, idk, someone breaking in somewhere she's at and shooting everyone up with a gun.)
^It still gets tiresome. But at least it makes sense. And her parents dying in a car accident/plane crash/drug overdose in a blizzard okay not really that last one...is familiar enough to the game to be, well, familiar, but not to far from it that we're left confused as to how Lyn can possibly be a similar person.
I suppose to an EXTENT, all characters in an AU are OOC. When I was in the IY fandom I saw like three good authors saying they wrote OOC on purpose. But they only wrote AUs, and I thought to myself, well, an InuYasha who hasn't been abused or beat down or insulted and ridiculed his entire life IS going to be different from the one that appears in the show. Definitely! And even if he IS, modern-day conveniences and stuff change him still further. (His cute comments about ramen noodles and bicycles are cute in the anime/manga but have no place in most AU fics.)
^That said, there was a masterful AU fantasy/sci-fi 'fic in the IY fandom back in the day. And I do mean masterful.
Why? The characters felt like themselves. Different, but the core essence of them was STILL THERE. I felt like I was reading about the IY cast even though it was a totally AU 'fic that used absolutely NONE of the in-game plot with, well, Naraku and stuff.
and to think this is the short version LAWL
Date: 2011-09-29 04:02 am (UTC)But anyway, even more tiresome than the same-old-same-old transplantation of FE casts to a modern society is
1. everything staying the same, and I mean everything
2. failtastic transplantations that make NO SENSE.
Regarding #1, I mean Lyn's grandfather always being rich, him always having chased his daughter off because he refused to consent to marriage, him always being head of some kind of something important, Hector and Eliwood always being wealthy, and Prissy, too. That kind of thing. Of course, such things MAKE SENSE to us and we like to see familiar themes in our AUs most of the time, I reckon, but most of the time it's not done well or believably.
I still want to write that AU fic that follows Lyn's Story in a modern setting. BTW. But only because Mark and Lyn bumping into Kent and Sain in the grocery store with the carts blocking the aisle is just too great to ever forget. (IMO and I'm feeling egotistical atm.)
Regarding #2, I'm talking about high school AUs that don't explain a damn thing. Story takes place in Bern, so why the HELL are Hector and Eliwood there attending high school? Stuff like that. Xirysa and I discussed this on AIM I think it was last night.
I guess IMO it depends on what kind of story you're trying to tell. Are you trying to write a modern-day version of the game? Or are you trying to write something completely different while still keeping the characters intact? Because both of these are two very different things when you're sitting down looking at two completed stories. Both can be fun, but both require completely different forumulas to create.
Also, as an aside, though I enjoy writing AUs, I also find them extremely difficult. Having lived in a remote countryside area all my life and having never really been anywhere else, I find...writing believable AUs to be very challenging. It's extremely strange for me to have to write about people walking places. And I have never successfully pulled off a high school AU because large schools kind of freaked me out, and most people never attended a small school (which is all I've had experience with). So writing about ~omg leaving friends who are going to a different middle/high school~ is just really odd. I attended in the same building all my life! I can't relate or understand another way without extensive thought and constantly reminding myself about it.
As far as other AUs go (Prince!Soren, Erik/Lyn, What-if-Pelleas-read-that-contract, What if Ike had been too late to rescue Elincia? What if Valter had killed Seth and Eirika had escaped alone? WHAT IF ____________?) they require special attention to detail, as it goes against canon to change anything. But, just as in real life, we may be handed 10 different paths to choose, and there are always a few we struggle to pick between. The same can, of course, be said about game characters-- just because X happened doesn't mean Y or Z wasn't almost as plausible-- or just as plausible. For all we know, someone was eenie-meenie-miney-mo'ing to make a choice.
Re: and to think this is the short version LAWL
Date: 2011-09-29 04:17 am (UTC)I mean, I live in Ohio. When we see Michigan football M stuff we cringe or make mean comments or roll our eyes. And no matter where you are there are fast-food chains and malls and convenience stores and gas stations and libraries and local hangouts for the kids and stuff like that.
Of course, maybe your AU is a sci-fi one, or a medieval fantasy one, a western, or hell, a caveman one. <--now I want to try the last one ahaha I'm a terrible person
That's cool. But they had everyday normalities that people did. Maybe it was tea at 3:00 sharp, or dinner at 6. Maybe there's a famine and everyone's eating watery soups. I mean, maybe this is a 1970s AU and the kids go hang out at the park and the teenagers hang out at the junkyard doing dangerous stuff.
That's realistic. Those types of, idk, DETAILS make me feel like I'm reading something genuine, something that's more than just "Lol I'm putting FE8 characters into a modern day setting lololol". Because it takes more than just putting them there to make it work.
They have to fit.
Re: and to think this is the short version LAWL
Date: 2011-09-29 05:50 pm (UTC)Right back at ya, Buckeye.[*]
That's a very fine line to navigate, though. That 'ficlet about FE7 characters cheering on football teams was hilarious, but putting RL cultural points into 'fic can also read like... product placement. I often find it jarring, kind of like the moment in Please Save My Earth where the characters eat at a fake McDonald's. Why is Eliwood a Red Sox fan? It is because the author is a Red Sox fan? I don't want to read a thinly disguised version of the author. Why does Lyn like pepper jack cheese? Lyn would totally not eat pepper jack cheese! And so on.
I mean, maybe this is a 1970s AU and the kids go hang out at the park and the teenagers hang out at the junkyard doing dangerous stuff.
That sounds fun, actually.
* Kidding. Not a native Michigander and do not care.
Re: and to think this is the short version LAWL
Date: 2011-09-29 06:30 pm (UTC)Yeah, I guess you're right. I tend to shy away from using myself as a model for AU fics because it's really obvious. But the more outgoing characters could easily be fans of a sport-- in fact, a huge percentage of people in the world root for some kind of sports team, if only half-heartedly.
/wearing an OSU sweatshirt/hoodie now.
Also holy shit pepperjack cheese. I haven't had that in forever. Do want. :( Your fault.
Re: and to think this is the short version LAWL
Date: 2011-09-29 06:10 pm (UTC)I think this ties back into the core rule of writing as found in the Anne books-- writing about "rich people" and having it be totally phony. :/
Story takes place in Bern, so why the HELL are Hector and Eliwood there attending high school?
HAH.
I can't relate or understand another way without extensive thought and constantly reminding myself about it.
My high-school experience did not involve hanging with friends much at all. It was a magnet school, and we all lived far away from one another, and all went our separate ways after class. None of us got cars at sixteen. We had to work around schedules to arrange a lunch date or a mall date. None of us dated. We didn't do any underage drinking or partying. Some times we went to museums for fun.
So, basically, the typical concept of "high school" life is completely foreign to me. It's nearly as fantastic as princes and dragons, and about as believable.
Then again, I feel the same way about most portrayals of college life.
Re: and to think this is the short version LAWL
Date: 2011-09-29 06:26 pm (UTC)And well, I have no college experience so whenever I write it I just completely BS it.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 05:22 pm (UTC)And her parents dying in a car accident/plane crash/drug overdose in a blizzard okay not really that last one...is familiar enough to the game to be, well, familiar, but not to far from it that we're left confused as to how Lyn can possibly be a similar person.
Well, and then the whole vengeance angle and that sort of thing-- does Lyn rage against drunk drivers or drug dealers instead of bandits? For me, modern our-world AUs fall apart in that you literally cannot keep to some of the character arcs without breaking the law or inviting a reader to wonder why the FBI and maybe Interpol aren't involved with these people. Your heroes can start looking an awful lot like mobsters or terrorists. I mean, if Vigarde allegedly offs Fado, and Ephraim marches in there and whacks Vigarde... what is this, the Sopranos? With zombies? OK, zombies optional, but still...
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Date: 2011-09-29 06:11 pm (UTC)HAH! Now I'd like to see this. Renais and Grado are just two families, and, well, business is business. XD
Ties in with what I just read for a class about the average 13-14th century knight being more like a mafioso (right down to "protection" for friendly villages) than Galahad or the chivalric idea we usually assume.
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Date: 2011-09-29 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 06:27 pm (UTC)In that, I guess, it doesn't hold true to the game so there IS that variety there.
But yeah, I agree completely that it doesn't work to have the characters seeking revenge the way they do in the games. Otherwise our heroes would be just as much criminals in the eye of the law as the villains.
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Date: 2011-09-29 09:50 pm (UTC)Side characters translate easier, IMO, but the qualities that make game heroes the heroes, even flawed ones, tends to be lost in an AU... and when those qualities are cut out, sometimes what's left is really iffy.
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Date: 2011-09-29 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 09:59 pm (UTC)Yes. She's pretty and witty and feisty, but she still isn't Lyn.
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Date: 2011-09-29 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 04:31 am (UTC)Regarding different-world AUs, I think the placement of characters into roles/occupations/positions/whatever is actually pretty important to them, and it should hold some similarity. Even if all the politically powerful characters don't simply get transported into government positions in a modern AU, they should still be in positions of authority so their main traits can shine. I mean, we'd all like to think our favorite characters would be the same no matter what, but circumstances really do shape a character. That's exactly where character development comes from-- it doesn't happen in a vacuum!
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Date: 2011-09-29 05:12 pm (UTC)I mean, we'd all like to think our favorite characters would be the same no matter what, but circumstances really do shape a character.
Agreed, but there are different ways you can tweak it. I think it depends on what core traits of the character you want to focus on-- and if you WANT to have a reshaped (or warped) character. But I admit I do twitch when I see a noble lead character recast as, say, a street urchin or a slave or a courtesan. That pretty much always turns out OOC.
I find characters who have "leader" status purely through an accident of birth are the hardest to retool as sympathetic lead characters in AUs where the world doesn't care about that sort of privilege.
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Date: 2011-09-29 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 07:12 pm (UTC)This, definitely. I find that the whole "son of a CEO" or what have you idea never quite works for me.
I think probably the only main character who makes an easy fit into a modern AU is Ike - largely because take away the pseudo-medieval trappings, and he's basically an ordinary teenage boy.
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Date: 2011-09-29 09:57 pm (UTC)It doesn't mean the same thing. Even if you made L'Arachel the indulgent and imaginative niece of, say, a devout and conservative governor of Virginia, it's not quite the same thing. Modern-day royalty doesn't have the same "essence," as most of them don't have power. And the dynasties that do have power, like Kim Jong Il and his son, tend to scare the hell out of people.
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Date: 2011-09-30 12:01 am (UTC)I would agree with this, but a 15-year-old Roy's best bet is like, class president. And that is nowhere near on the level of being the son of a, well, marquess.
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Date: 2011-09-30 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 01:28 pm (UTC)Here you go, it's public.
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Date: 2011-09-29 06:24 pm (UTC)IMO, when considering any AU, you have to consider the conflict. An AU fic without a significant conflict to parallel the game's just doesn't interest me (actually, a fic in general w/o conflict doesn't interest me). At its heart, FE is a game about warfare-- very large-scale, massive warfare. So any AU (even one that doesn't involve an actual war) has to address the sense of confrontation (your examples of period AUs are a great example of what I mean.)
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Date: 2011-09-29 08:44 pm (UTC)You just knocked it out of the park-- no conflict, no story. No story, why am I reading (or writing) this thing?
Yes. These are war games. Not even small-scale turf wars, but massive devastating wars that change the future of entire continents. The stakes are as high as they can get-- sometimes, survival of sentient life is what's at stake. At least SOME of that has to be communicated in some fashion in fiction, or the retelling just doesn't make much sense.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-29 11:59 pm (UTC)It works really well for period pieces, or AU (or AC, alternate continuum) 'fics, though.
I mean, the French Revolution was its own conflict. And Lyn not making it to Caelin (essentially "losing"), for an example of an AC fic, presents its own set of, er, conflicts.
But modern day, idk, anything can't possibly hope to be made equal (on the scale of conflicts) to a world war. No matter how hard you try.
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Date: 2011-09-30 07:30 pm (UTC)Well, if you think about it, even in the setting of FE, where armies regularly got into the tens of thousands, 40-50 normal people themselves wouldn't be able to swing the momentum completely. I think we're supposed to just accept that our characters are more powerful and more "mythic" than the "Average person." They might not be privy to the world leader's decisions as to grand strategy but if you suited up 50 FE chars for modern combat I think they'd have a similar impact on the outcome just on merit of being, well, FE chars XD
But it doesn't necessarily have to be something as large as a world war, IMO. Mark's examples of business and political conflicts are good ones, and also the plot of most thriller flicks released in the last 10 or 20 years where the heroes take on gangs, or domestic terrorists, or runaway trains. It just has to be a situation where something is at stake. For example, say there was an AU where our heroes have to save a group of ten hostages; it may not be the same as a war where hundreds of thousands of people die, but it's still a pretty big deal and a big source of conflict.
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Date: 2011-09-30 08:00 pm (UTC)^I don't like "hurr durr let's kill people off for cheap entertainment" kind of stuff, but I do like suspense, which crime dramas usually have. :D
So an AU where heroes are saving hostages? I would be reading it, I think. The bonus to this sort of thing is there might not be any room for romance. And holy shit are we lacking true genfic. :P
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Date: 2011-09-29 08:41 pm (UTC)There's something that falls flat about the idea of say, history major Lyon who really likes poli-sci student Eirika, but is hopelessly intimidated by her amazing rugby player brother and his knee socks of power. Or something. I guess if the immediate personal things are all you're interested in, that might sound really fun, but for me, it's the combination of those personal factors and the larger than life struggles they form around that interests me. It's really hard to translate that to an alternate setting without feeling stiff or silly.
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Date: 2011-09-29 09:22 pm (UTC)Yeah. I mean, if your absolute favorite characters are Lyn, Kent, and Sain, then I guess recasting them in a "new girl in town" romantic comedy will tickle your fancy. They're not my favorite characters and watching Kent and Lyn hook up while Sain looks on with a smile isn't really going to excite me. Same goes for Seth and Eirika having a white-dress modern wedding. Same goes for a billion jillion AU Ike/Marth romances over the in SSB section, some of which do bear a passing resemblance to canon characterization but can't hold my interest for more than two chapters. With nothing at stake, to me it turns into Two Guys and a Girl, or That Guy and That Chick, or Those Two Prettyboys.
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Date: 2011-09-29 09:48 pm (UTC)I wonder if there's really a way to make the characters seem right while leaving bits like that out, though. There has to be some balance between floofy sitcom nonsense and gritty global conflict driven AU, right?
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Date: 2011-09-29 11:55 pm (UTC)Though I think I like AU fics for the sole reason that the struggles in an AU are usually...small, intimate. Not on a global scale-- teenagers saving the world.
I'd love to see an AU fic where, say, teenage FE characters have to overcome something major on their own-- but it doesn't have to be global anything. For all I care it can be a teenage pregnancy. (Just an example.) It's certainly not global, but to a group of teenagers it might FEEL global.
^I mean, if we're going with teenage heroes again.
But then again, making, say, Serra or L'Arachel into mid 30s adults issssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss against canon and it's AU so I can safely say that a mid-30s AU L'Arachel is not going to be like the one in the games. In fact. They shouldn't be imo. Not in a modern AU. None of the cast, particularly the main cast, should feel exactly the same. Or there's something wrong.
I mean, Lyn can be all ragey over some drunk guy in a semi kersplatting her parents but he's going to jail or prison or some shit, and it's not like she's going to contemplate murdalizing him when he gets out. (Because it'd be a while? Because it's illegal? Well duh.) That strips part of her character away either way: you have to choose: is she going to be amazingly full with the desire to get revenge and try to kill the guy, which goes against all the rest of her character?
I mean, there aren't exactly modern-day equivalents to bandits destroying an entire settlement of people unless you wanna go back to the 1800s and do Cowboys vs. Indians stuff. But that's not exactly modern, you know? And a drunk guy running over her parents isn't even REMOTELY like seeing them be mercilessly slaughtered along with only God knows how many other people.
But we have to also make allowences for modern-day bringing up. Death was a big deal to Lyn, definitely. I mean, in the canon. But she lives in a medieval fantasy world where death happens, bandits do kill people for trinkets (or for fun), and murder plans are just hush-hush among the villagefolk but all plans are totally out in the open-- just, nobody chooses to act on stopping them.
They way her people and, especially, parents, died had a big impact on canon Lyndis. But on a modern-day person? It'd probably traumatize the fuck out of them.
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Date: 2011-09-30 02:12 am (UTC)I think this is very true. My favorite AU fic and one of my favorite FE stories in general (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7215075/1/Consolation_Prize) did this seamlessly: not performing a cast transplant, but building the world around the perspective of one character and her personal struggles. It felt wonderfully real, both to Florina and to the world the story created, and it managed to hook me even though I'm rather lukewarm towards these two characters. I didn't need a grand struggle to care about what happened, but the story didn't feel pointless, either.
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Date: 2011-09-30 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 02:53 am (UTC)Those can work really well-- I'm glad Kyusil linked to "Consolation Prize," because I was trying to remember that story as the sole example I've seen of a modern AU that worked completely. Though I did like a lot of what you did in... that story where Lyn was raising Sue as a single mom? There were some really vivid parts in it, like the birthday party scene. Kinda felt Rath got the Innes treatment there, though.
I think a pitfall of many modern AUs is that they don't have that kind of tight focus seen in "Consolation Prize," or they start out with focus but then lose it. And then you either have something that's trying to follow the canonical plot and failing because the pieces don't fit, or something ditches the plot but ends up losing the sense of whatever struggle there was-- personal, interpersonal, or otherwise. And since there's not the canonical anchor points to fall back on, the story kind of goes off a cliff, Wile E Coyote style..
Canonical anchor points, after all, being a big part of what makes fanfiction, well, fanfic.
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Date: 2011-09-30 03:54 am (UTC)Yeah, I never got to explain what happened at all in that one. Never got far enough. I assure you, though. He's not a bad sort of guy in it. It was just one of those relationships that ended up not working out.
At least that was my intent but I haven't read it in so long I don't remember what I actually wrote. >_>
Good point though, re: canonical anchor points. Or any anchor points. And focus. I mean, I think a lot of them end up as pair the spares, or a better example: Let's Include Everyone. Where it's fairly likely in an, idk, FE8 AU, that all of the characters who see each other and get to know one another, might not do so in an AU. Having Lyon already know the twins? Makes sense. Having the twins know THE ENTIRE CAST? ...Eh. That makes a huge cast to play with, and it doesn't work very well in a modern setting imo.
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Date: 2011-09-29 11:55 pm (UTC)There is ABSOLUTELY no real world equivalent to this. Or to the Demon King, or Ashnard, or even the beginning of Marth's journey.
I mean, there are real world equivalents to tragedy-- the Holocaust, for example-- but then you run into all sorts of other problems by writing, idk, Marth and his family as a prominent Jewish family on the run at the height of the Holocaust.
^I mean, an interesting concept to be sure, but I doubt it'd be very well-received.
And of course, as something modern-day-2011? Yeah, even less likely we'll find some real-world equivalent if we want our characters to be somewhat normal, to not be dabbling in all sorts of drugs (though drug-addicted Lyon is kinda interesting haha) or living on the bad side of town.
And of course, monarchs/leaders of powerful countries/etc have no real-world equivalent that even makes sense. A powerful CEO is about the closest you can come. A millionaire who designs clothes or a pop star-- and THOSE things are even LESS relateable to the average reader than, idk, average-normal Ike and his buddy Soren whose parents were drug addicted alcoholics and left him in the care of random ass crazy people.
The latter isn't very ACCURATE, no, but neither is average-working-class Ike BECOMES A WORLD CLASS HERO. Or L'Arachel is a pop star making millions and her slave...I mean...assistant lugging all the equipment is Dozla. (And maybe Rennac.)
There are a lot of fun ideas, but none of them are going to be canon. And they're AU. So why should we WANT them to be a carbon copy of the canon material? We've played that game before, you know? Heard that tune. Etc.
Of course, sweet perky happy Lyon with his bffs Eirika and Ephraim might ring untrue, so it's better to at least give him some reasons for being, well, different. Because even if he's not some happysugarfest to read about, he shouldn't be the same EXACT person he was in the canon, because he didn't go through the same things.
(And similar =/= same, nor does it yield the exact same results.)
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Date: 2011-09-30 01:30 am (UTC)I wrote "Emperor" instead, and I'm not entirely sure there's a whole lot of difference.Yes, definitely. I think there's nothing wrong with wanting to read or write those cute happy AUs. There's clearly an audience for it, though they're not my thing, usually. But like you said, I think if you want to create a thought-out AU, you have to consider that the characters won't be the exact same. I mean, obviously you can't take it too far -- the characters have to be recognizable. But when everything around them changes, why should the characters be the exact same?
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Date: 2011-09-30 03:02 am (UTC)Or Russian nobility fleeing the Bolsheviks. I did think about trying that one, actually.
The latter isn't very ACCURATE, no, but neither is average-working-class Ike BECOMES A WORLD CLASS HERO.
He could've made it in the Soviet Union. They were into that kind of thing.
Anyway, regarding pop stars: I tried and tried with that FE8 rock band AU for fe_fest last year, and it just didn't work. It was, "OK, Innes is pushy as fuck, and Lyon's insecure and smoking weed and dropping acid, and Joshua is just sort of skating by and not contributing, and Ephraim is oblivious to it all and just wants to play his guitar, man. Damn, I should've just taken an article on Pink Floyd and changed the names, because that's EXACTLY what this is. So, is there any point to this, or does Innes just fire everyone?"
Rock music stories have trouble succeeding if there's not actual, you know, music to help the audience care about these people.
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Date: 2011-09-30 04:02 am (UTC)Every time I see a band AU in a fandom I am just never impressed by it. Sometimes it can make a good story? But more often than not it doesn't. Though I daresay for the most part, it's because, say, InuYasha. There had to have been like 30 band fics. They had the main cast shoved together, but without reason. Any reason. No indication on how they met or anything.
To me, that feels...wrong. The cast met by TOTAL CHANCE (or fate or something) in the anime/manga. So for them to just be like bffs already makin' a band? Just. What. how did this. Even. what.
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Date: 2011-10-01 12:58 pm (UTC)Also, most "rock band' AUs deal with types of bands I'm not interested in. They bear no resemblance to the bands that move me-- Beatles, The Who, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., even U2-- as having "mythical" narratives. It's about as realistic as Josie and the Pussycats.
I think I'll post an analysis of the failed AU. That should cheer me up.