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

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?