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, sain toyed with the idea of an FE7 AU whereee I think Lyn's family stayed in Caelin (didn't elope, or maybe they came back before Lyn was very old). That type of story forces what you might consider "unnatural" conditions on the characters-- a Lyndis raised in a castle might not be the same as a Lyndis raised on the plains. Of course, she is still herself at heart, and she must be in an AU, for if we don't recognize the character, why in God's name are we reading it/writing fanfiction anyway?
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.
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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.