This week's fannish five....

[graculus]

1. AUs: yes please or what's the point?

Both. Depending on the skill of the writer involved and their ability to mess with the setting without messing with the characters. AU is *not* just an excuse to write original fic where the protagonists just happen to have the same names as the characters they're 'based' on.

And by 'AU' do we mean Jack and Daniel as pirates or Jack and Daniel in a universe that resembles our own but is slightly/more than slightly altered? I'm going with both possibilities here... ;)

2. What's the best AU you've read?

BTW, these are all slash:

I'm very fond of This Is It by Quinn, which has Daniel-whumping taken to the extreme. He gets whumped, doesn't get better, Jack has to cope...

Then there's Prison by Jack Reuben Darcy, which is an excellent Sentinel AU.

I'd also highly recommend Lilith Sedai's excellent series of Phantom Menace AU stories that start with Water, when Obi Wan ends up as Yoda's apprentice instead.

Then, despite it being Skinner/Krycek (kind of), there's Beyond the Barrier of Snow by Josan.

3. What's the worst AU you've read?

Most of the Mag7 AUs are pretty poor, or just badly thought out and disobey Grac's First Law of AU (that'd be 'Who the hell are these guys and why should we care? If you can't make me bother, you've lost me...'). The seven as dog show judges? The seven as a rock band? Pffft.

4. How would you like to see your fandom altered that you haven't seen yet?

Don't really mind as long as the characters stay true to themselves. Is this a good time to say that I've written an AU Stargate novella that pretty much breaks new ground this way? ;)

5. What AU worked that you never would have expected?

Another slash fic:

Shalott's Master & Commander story, Five Things That Never Happened 5: The World Turned Upside Down. Read it and discover why! ;)

Comments

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

"Is this a good time to say that I've written an AU Stargate novella that pretty much breaks new ground this way? ;)"

This is an excellent time to say just that. I have the sneaking feeling it'll be headed for a zine, though.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

http://fanzines.ashtonpress.net/offtherecord.htm

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

And absolutely no detail there, either. Oh so secretive, eh?

[graculus.livejournal.com]

It started off as 'not telling anyone, so nobody will steal my idea, which hasn't been done before as far as I can tell...' and moved through into 'shit, how do I do a summary without giving the entire premise away?'. And that's where we stuck. ;)

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you need to not write a summary, per se, but more of a tantalising glimpse or set of glimpses. Make it about what people feel rather than what happens. Or about who's in it.

Or a bit of chatter on what an AU might be.

Or the negative approach: "You've seen stories where everything makes perfect sense, the characters are just as we see them on the show, where SG-1 defeat their enemies and come home in glory... this isn't one of those stories".

Or the obvious "A unique take on SG-1, where Jack is heroic, Daniel is inquisitive, Sam is smart and Teal'c is mysterious. Adventures and drama abound, with a sprinkling of passion and intrigue."

Or... I dunno. I'm out of ors.

Any help?

[graculus.livejournal.com]

How about 'this novella is set in a universe where there is no Sam Carter, guaranteed!'? ;)

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

ROFLOL! Works for me

Y'know, if there really is no Sam, it would be worth mentioning. Some people do still like her... though why they'd be buying a J/D slash zine is a mystery. Yeah, don't mind me.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

That's the thing about AUs (bringing this back onto the original topic) - I can't stand it when people shoehorn as many characters as possible into them just so they can be there.

There's no place for Carter in this AU, Hammond isn't there either or Janet, but I wouldn't putting a disclaimer about *their* absences...

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

On AUs, I haven't seen as many good ones in SG fic as I have in TS fic. I wonder if it's because of this attempt to stay too close to our universe that then interferes with the integrity of the AU?

One of the best AUs I've read was Quinn's Echo of Freedom, which had Jack and Daniel and nobody else from the show. So I have no worries about yours, not least because I've been re-reading some of your J/D fic this past week (Into The Past and Unrequited - going to start on Resistance again soon). I haven't read all that much SG in the past year, which I think is because of my feelings on the show. So when you say there's no Sam, I won't miss her. No Hammond or Janet? Might miss them, but you've never written anything yet that made me feel something was missing from it.

A good AU is a real treat, IMO. When I first came across the genre I wasn't interested, but I got pulled in. And now they're something I seek out. I seek them out so much that I was trying to decide if I could write a slash fic for Annie to go in the zine. Never written one. Not sure I'm capable.

P.S.

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

Forgot to add - I'm re-reading a lot of old fic, because the newer writers in SG just don't do it for me. I think I've found maybe one or two new people whose writing excites me (and no, not in *that* way). It's a shame. Of course, new fic by reliable writers is like gold-dust these days - I'm always ready to read that!

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Shucks, you're making me blush now. ;)

Anyway, this novella has Teal'c and Bra'tac in it, as well as a couple of recurring characters making appearances. I hope people will enjoy it... Like you say, it's hard to mess with the premise without completely short-circuiting the characters. What is it about Jack and Daniel that makes them *them*?

Annie's AU zines are equally home to what if? stories as they are to messing around with the quantum mirror or out and out AUs.

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

"Shucks, you're making me blush now. ;)"

Yay! You deserve it. Well, the compliments, not the blushes

And the next novella sounds exactly like something I want to read.

"What is it about Jack and Daniel that makes them *them*?"

They both have nice smiles, nice eyes, nice hands and nice arses. What, you want characterisation as well?

"Annie's AU zines are equally home to what if? stories as they are to messing around with the quantum mirror or out and out AUs."

In all that blushing, I think you missed what I was getting at. Since the finances are low, the only way I can get hold of this zine is to write a story for it. But since I want to read your fic, I have this problem in that I've never written slash. No idea how to go about it. But damn, I wanna read your fic! Waaaaa!

So, it's time to expand into a different realm of writing, methinks. All I have to do is find a way to control time so I have at least 36 hours in the day.