When AUs Don't Work

[redbrunja]

 So I recently read an excellently written AU that left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Not because it took a loved character down a darker path, aligning her with the villain instead of the hero (that is what AU is for) and I spent some time pondering why this fic didn't work for me.

What I realized was that the best AUs keep the characters themselves even as they make different choices. At the end of this fic, the character in question didn't feel like herself. Because of the parameters of the AUs, one relationship she had in canon (a pretty important one, too) doesn't exist and there isn't a good replacement for that relationship OR ghosts of that relationship in a different form.

Thus, by the end of the fanfic, I had no emotional connection to the characters and felt like they were paper dolls with familiar names.

Comments

[ivy-chan.livejournal.com]

That one where Pepper works for Obadiah instead?

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I didn't want to name names, but yes.

I mean, the writer clearly had chops! ...it just didn't work for me. And I actually figured out what I would have needed to make it work: either I wanted to see Tony and Pepper falling in love DESPITE them not working together or I wanted to see Stane needing Pepper as much as Tony does/did. THAT would have made it feel like it was still Pepper, even while the author added in the elements of physical abuse.

[ivy-chan.livejournal.com]

Yes, I also thought the Tony/Pepper dynamic was missing in that fic. For me I also felt like the moral core of the character was dramatically altered. Pepper cleaning up Tony's one night stands was understandable, but Pepper cleaning up Stane's...abuse victims wasn't. And then there was the murder, which also didn't make sense to me. I think in the comments the author implied that Obadiah used a drug to provoke that reaction, which was more understandable to me.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Pepper cleaning up Tony's one night stands was understandable, but Pepper cleaning up Stane's...abuse victims wasn't.

Not without a lot more codependency on her and Stane's part, imho.

And then there was the murder, which also didn't make sense to me. I think in the comments the author implied that Obadiah used a drug to provoke that reaction, which was more understandable to me.

Okay, that did not come through at all in the fic. I got the feeling that she was mentally compromised from her exhaustion, but not that Stane was drugging her.

[aj.livejournal.com]

*nod* I kind of felt that way about that one too. Where the prose was good and the idea was good, but the very nature of the AU just turned me off of it. There are times when I remember that there's just some stuff that, despite being good, just do not resonate with me.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

devil's advocate \o/

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, an AU can be used to explore how a character would be different or develop differently depending on different circumstances or choices. In cases of the AU you mention, maybe exploring that character without that important relationship highlights how important that relationship is to how we understand her in her OU context.

Re: devil's advocate \o/

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

It can, but there was just TOO MUCH different for me to feel it was the same character. Like, even if a character is behaving differently, I should still be able to recognize them.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

True. They should at least remain true to themselves or retain their voice, if nothing else.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[tobu-ishi.livejournal.com]

*nods* I've been debating back and forth with myself for years about writing an AU fic where Katara stays behind with Jet's Freedom Fighters instead of continuing on Aang's quest, gets caught up completely in his crusading craziness, and then realizes that she has to extricate herself from it years later when the war is over and Jet obviously will never stop wanting revenge.

I have written an AU fic where Alphonse's body was ravaged by the Gate to the point that he becomes an invalid when he gets it back, and Edward becomes so obsessed with healing him somehow that he does some very bad things. People who comment on it consistently tell me that the story works because they can see something like that happening.

These AUs appeal to me because we've seen flashes of that sort of vengeful nature in Katara and that level of obsession with his brother's safety in Edward, even in canon, so it's less hard for me to believe that Jet could manipulate her into cultivating that part of herself or that Edward would go that far. But the stuff you're describing Pepper Potts doing just...doesn't seem like anything we saw in her nature, even in flashes.

It reminds me more of the horrible Star Wars NJO novels and onwards, and what they did with Jacen Solo. I swear to you up and down, the authors must have been motivated by sheer shock value. "Hmm. I know what will shake things up! Let's take the sweetest, gentlest, least likely character in the series--the boy who keeps a jillion pets in his bedroom and talks to them and cracks really hilariously bad jokes and loves his twin sister dearly--and turn him into a murdering, psychotic Sith Lord!" Why? Who knows. I can't think of any reason beyond wanting to SURPRISE EVERYBODY...but sometimes the least likely plot twist is so unlikely that it just. Doesn't. Work.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yes, as you mention, both of those AUs work because they are extensions of personality traits we've already seen.

In the same vein I think the Pepper AU COULD have worked, if the author had mirrored Pepper's relationship with Tony more clearly in her new relationship with Stane.

Everyone who read the NJO novels had the exact same reaction as you to Jacan's character dive arc.

[hungrytiger11.livejournal.com]

the best AUs keep the characters themselves even as they make different choices.

I imagine this could be the hardest part of writing AU, depending on what the AU is (Somehow " Fandom Characters In Space" would seem less hard than an AU where its an alternatre timeline or something), but, yes, we read fanfic because we love the characters. If they are acting like different people, we lose something we normally read for. Which is why I've yet to try a hand at AUs...

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I imagine this could be the hardest part of writing AU, depending on what the AU is (Somehow " Fandom Characters In Space" would seem less hard than an AU where its an alternatre timeline or something)

Well, yes and no. While I think in some ways it's easier to drop a cast of characters into a new setting wholesale, nothing irritates me quite and much as writers not doing to work to keep their characters relationships similar to canon (like, maybe the entirety of Naruto WOULDN'T be on a soccer team.. maybe some of them are managing team or scheduling or working concessions).