Unwritten Alternate Universes

[browngirl]

vassilissa's post about MCR in Bujold's world of Chalion made me curious about unwritten AUs. What are your ideas for alternate universes for fandoms, characters, and settings that you love?

As for me, completely unsurprisingly I have Minoan ideas for NUMB3RS and Doctor Who, but I've talked about those both before. One AU I'm probably never going to write, because it would be so very thoroughgoingly dark, would be what would have happened in LOTR if the Tookland had fallen to the siege the Men set on it. I even have an idea for how the Battle of Bywater could still have been won, but with that gaping hole in the Shire the entire tenor of all that came after would have been changed.

Surprisingly, I haven't come up with any AU ideas of the fashion of vassilissa's above, where one moves a set of characters into a fictional world; this has often had good results with RPS (I remember a couple of lovely stories where the LOTRPS cast were placed into other fantasy universes) but now I find myself envisioning Young Justice in Oz, and I'd better stop giggling before my boss catches me.

*giggle*

Comments

[vass]

Young Justice in Oz

And now I'm giggling too, even though I've only seen the movie, not read the books. Because I'm imagining a Scarecrow (Bart), Cowardly Lion (Kon), and Tin Man (Tim) following the yellow brick road. Pay no attention to the Bat behind the curtain.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. And Cassie, having refused to play Dorothy, is being a really kickass Glinda. Now I'm imagining the flying-monkeys battle!

[berreh.livejournal.com]

I always thought the Mythbusters cast set themselves up nicely for a Firefly-type spaceship ensemble. You've got Sarcastically Silent Captain Jamie, Smartassed First Officer Adam, Spunky Yet Knowledgeable Kari, Feisty Mechanic Scottie, Reckless Flyboy Tory, and Nerd Who Saves The Day Grant. That would be fun as hell.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

AMEN. Oh, my goodness, I think imagining this is going to get me through many dark hours. Though it may make me giggle at inopportune times.

[berreh.livejournal.com]

I would love to write it. Too bad it seems like this year I'm really good at thinking up ideas and really crap at writing them down. :D

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Do I ever hear you. *sigh*

[cheshyre]

Stupid question, but what's MCR stand for?

[sophinisba]

I think that's the band My Chemical Romance. :)

[dreamflower]

Every now and then, I'm tempted to follow up on my "never-happened" ficlet in which Bilbo's gardener painted over those unsightly scratches on Bag End's door before the Dwarves arrived, and Gandalf was going to have to find another hobbit for Burglar...

But I've no idea of where it would eventually lead me...very scary territory!

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Oh, *my*. Who would have ended up with the Ring? Would Bilbo have eventually anyway? This really is a bewildering world of possiblity!

[ilthit.livejournal.com]

My favourite unwritten AU is definitely the steampunk LotR. I always enjoyed thinking it up, so much, but got sidetracked into the gazillion megatons of research and nuance it required, and lost notes, and rewrote notes, and really only ended up with some disjointed narratives. Sauron was an evil Transylvanian scientist who'd come up with a ring-shaped nuclear weapon in the late 1800s. Mr Gandalf, private detective, takes Lord Peregrin, otherwise known as Pippin, to east on the Orient Express. They probably stayed in a compartment called Shadowfax, or something. Aragorn (only he was called Basil Hightree) is the true heir to the throne of the Tzar. I HAD SO MUCH FUN. Too bad it just will never be written.

It is sad that when you said "Young Justice in Oz" I thought of the Oswald prison.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Steampunk LOTR! I think I remember a scene from this, long ago. It really would have been nifty, and I *love* Aragorn's renaming.

It is sad that when you said "Young Justice in Oz" I thought of the Oswald prison.

Oh, my, EEP. *shoves hands in mouth and makes meeping noises*

[ilthit.livejournal.com]

I know, I know. I'm sorry.

Though, come to think of it, it might be interesting to see how superheroes deal with actual justice in progress, or the complicated situations of crime and criminals; stuff you can't just hit.

[lazar-grrl.livejournal.com]

Somewhat in the vein of strawberryelfsp, the cast of SGA as MythBusters. Rodney as Jamie, John as Adam, Ronon as Tory, Teyla as Kari, and Radek as Grant. Buster could be played by Bob or Steve, and the rest of the cast could be rotating expert consultants (Beckett for medical, Elizabeth for folklore, etc.)

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what's more awesome, this idea or your icon. \o/

Friday

[cat-latin.livejournal.com]

Boo.
I sent an email to your lj address with my info.
I wont have internet after about 11 tonight (Thur)
ping me or call me to let me know if tomorrow's plans are still good.
:-)

Re: Friday

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Hullo! Oh, tonight will be grand. :D See you then!

wherein I rip off Mercedes Lackey

[mari-redstar.livejournal.com]

*delurks* It's not a full AU, but I have a strong mental picture of the Clocktower in the sci-fi Firefly-style verse where it's a space station, an enormous and spindly thing with twelve hour-hands radiating out from the glassy center hub. Publically, it's funded by Wayne Enterprises and overseen by Ms. Dinah Lance and associates. (Down deep in the center, past three separate elevator rides, two hidden access ladders and a variety of novel identity scans, Barbara Gordon is floating in a suspension tank. She was entirely paralyzed by a neurotoxin bomb some years ago, but she's more effective these days anyway; she's permanently jacked in now, and she can monitor all the meat and data traffic- there's a lot of both- passing through her station. She can process information a lot more quickly with her entire computer lab hooked up to her brain, and she can just download files instead of doing something so old-fashioned and roundabout as displaying them on a monitor to be input by her optic nerves.)

That's basically all there is to it- really, I just want to see the Clocktower rising over New Gotham. I'd draw it, but even if I was any good I suspect I'd get overenthusiastic while Photoshopping in lightflares.

I've got notes somewhere for an extended and labored genderswap AU where Kara touched down on Earth first and fights crime as Superwoman, mentoring her shortpants-wearing cousin Cal as Superboy- all the other heroes had the same principle applied, so Steve Trevor is Wonder Man (the Amazons got bored with him and kicked him off, he had to do something with the superpowers their Purple Healing Ray gave him...), Iris West is the Flash, Carol and Dinah are the Hard-Traveling Heroines... (Okay, I just made Hal and Ollie into Star Sapphire and Black Canary, respectively. I'm sure Ollie is secure enough in his masculinity to carry off hotpants and fishnet tights.) This would be biting gender commentary, but I get distracted quickly by costume design.

Re: wherein I rip off Mercedes Lackey

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

You have the best imagination since I don't even know when; the first one literally made me shriek in delight. Not least this image: "really, I just want to see the Clocktower rising over New Gotham." I can *see* that! I wish I could draw it for you!

That would be such a better genderswap AU than the canon one from last year, not least since it wouldn't be just for crackiness. And I agree that Ollie is secure enough to wear that, or perhaps I'm giddy enough on giggles to agree to anything. :D

Re: wherein I rip off Mercedes Lackey

[mari-redstar.livejournal.com]

Perhaps canon will get around to it sometime! We're getting a multiverse back, after all, and "...in SPACE!" is one of the classic AUs, right after "world where everyone is evil and has sleazy facial hair", "post-apocalypse," and "the Nazis won WWII". Batman, Space Pirate would appeal to editorial, surely?

Ollie would so wear hotpants, and explain to anyone who would stand still long enough about how he's unpacked his knapsack of privilege and is subverting patriarchal conventions from the inside. (Come to think of it, the old "it's to distract the villains!" rationalization probably really would work for him. "Back away from the doomsday device, Black- hold on a minute, are you really wearing- ow! Hey!") The Titans are giving me some trouble- Linda and Tula can probably take over for Wally and Garth, and I figured Babs->Helena->Steph->Tim->Steph-again for the Robin lineup, but I'm not at all sure about Donna and Roy- Terry Long and Grace Choi?

[sophinisba]

Mmm, I love your idea for a Shire where the Scouring went differently. Just the other night I was trying to get inspired to write hobbit fic again (because I'm not feeling it right now, and I miss it) and Claudia suggested something similar to that. It has so many possibilities (for thoughtful dark and badness).

There are two Lotrips AUs I always wanted to write but I was lacking in both confidence and the energy to do research: one was the cast as an itinerant band of players in Elizabethan England, with Elijah as the boy who's always played women's parts (with some prostitution on the side) but is getting a little too old/masculine-looking to pull it off. This Elijah has also long been having sex with Viggo, who's the leader of the troupe, but Dom falls in love with him on stage and then starts traveling with them, and so on.

The other is sort of Lotrips/Everything Is Illuminated rps that takes place in Berlin and Prague in the late 1940s, main pairings Elijah/Liev and Elijah/Dom, but Eugene and Viggo and some other folks had parts in it.

And I wanted to do a big post-Deep Impact AU where Leo and a few thousand other people were living underground in the arcs, and one of the others was Matt Eversman (Josh Hartnett's character from Black Hawk Down). That was one gonna be really great. :)

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*blush* Thank you. I, for one, would love it if you wanted to pick up any or all of that, but then I'd always love to see more hobbitfic from you. :)

I really like the Elizabethan actors one (but then I had that Ancient Greek actors setting, so I would be predisposed to). And oh, Dom makes a good dreamer, doesn't he? I like the other too, but the Elizabethan one may have gotten hooks into my imagination now.

Deep Impact! Oh, my, Leo torn between his pretty wife and rugged Matt (and we all know how nicely Elijah and Josh work together)... Oh, I will not beg, I will not beg!

[sophinisba]

The way I was imagining this AU his wife had also died in the impact and Leo was torn between Matt (who is older and in a position of authority) and this other sexy young OC played by Macaulay Culkin. I don't know, I was less into writing female characters at that time than I am now, but it also a question of not having to write Leo choosing Matt over her, because I did like her character a lot, even if I can't remember her name now. (I cry in that part of the movie where they give her the baby.)

You should write Elizabethan players omg!

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

There are so many AUs in Pros fanfic (That's "The Professionals" for you youngsters out there, a British version of Starsky & Hutch from the 70s), that I wrote an entire zine full of stories where Bodie and Doyle find themselves Quantum-Leaping from AU to AU with full knowledge of their real time ("Oh fucking hell, we're in Sherwood Forest again").

I've done a few fandoms as Coyote folktales -- a Blake's 7 one, several Due South ones, a Ghostbusters.

I am working on a retelling of LOTR as a Hawaiian/Polynesian folktale, "Pu'ulu Kaua A Iwa" (War Party of Nine).

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

that I wrote an entire zine full of stories where Bodie and Doyle find themselves Quantum-Leaping from AU to AU with full knowledge of their real time

Oh, that's a *great* framing device! I bet that was a really fun 'zine. My icon is in honor of those Professionals AUs, as I was told once about a bull-leaping one. :D

I am working on a retelling of LOTR as a Hawaiian/Polynesian folktale, "Pu'ulu Kaua A Iwa" (War Party of Nine).

Wow. I think I am in awe.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Er...one of my "Quanta Leap" stories is called "Dances With Bulls" -- and I wrote it before discovering the Pros AU "Wine-Dark Nexus," a bull-leaping AU gorgeously illustrated by Suzan Lovett.