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snowflake_challenge #3: In your own space, put some favorite characters into an AU, fuse some favorite canons together, talk about your favorite AU/fusion tropes, or tell us why AU/fusions aren’t your cup of tea.

I am a huge fan of canon divergences. I am always left unsatisfied by canon (it's why I always dive into fanfic to get a specific itch scratched) and I really, really love missing scenes, fix its, and continuations from episodes. The reason why I always read fanfic was to read more about the characters from that canon world. How did James Potter ask Lily Evans out? What if Caroline Forbes used Klaus Mikaelson's affections for her to manipulate him? (This is my favourite interpretation of this relationship, btw.) Recently, I went searching for Six of Crows fanfic because I wanted to see Kaz react to Inej's burned feet, something that the book didn't cover since it didn't have the real estate to. (I've been devouring Crooked Kingdom-compliant fanfic about Kaz and Inej, a little prematurely since I'm reading the book, but I love these "What happens after?" stories.)

I like requesting canon divergence aus in exchanges, especially because I like seeing someone else's interpretation of a "what if?" scenario. I like reading about these characters' stories continuing.

I think DWRP has made me become comfortable with fusions. I'm not a big fan of them in my fiction unless it's a fusion where I can still see the character as they are in canon. (For instance, I don't like the idea of Harry Potter in The Hunger Games universe with his backstory of being targeted by the greatest Wizard in history being removed from his character. To me, that's removing Harry's very core. Put Harry in the Hunger Games because the Ministry of Magic has been taken over by Death Eaters and they want to get enjoyment out of seeing "good" wizards and witches die and they want to keep them distracted from fighting the good fight by fighting one another. Do you need President Snow in there? You can change England to Panem as long as Panem remains a magical/human world. Make President Snow and the Ministry of Magic scuffle for power… or make Snow the actual top dog of the Ministry.)

I'm not a fan of aus where characters are changed, even in profession if their profession is a big part of their character. I don't like coffeeshop aus (I don't understand them), I don't like actor/musician aus, superpowered characters were never born with superpowers (not unless it's a plot wherein Barry Allen loses his powers and has to figure out how to solve something while being a Muggle again—him being a superpowered person is still a core part of his character as he has to learn how to not rely on his powers), etc. I feel like what I love about the characters—and the world they're in, since characters reacting to their respective worlds is what I love most about them—is stripped away when we take away someone's powers or make someone a musician when they're not (and have that be the focus of the plot).

I can't see Kaz Brekker taking the place of Han Solo in Star Wars, for example. Can I see Kaz Brekker being on a spaceship? Yes, as long as Kaz Brekker remains conniving, cunning, and manipulative, and his backstory remains very close to what it canonically is. (Again, playing in jamjar games in DWRP has made this type of AU really easy for me to enjoy since I write in it daily. The character remains the same, but they have a new environment to react to and different players on the chessboard. Is it perfect? No, of course not. Characters being kidnapped or agreeing to help someone who wants to basically kidnap them would result in more mutiny and rebellion than what we write in DWRP, but hopefully you get the gist here.)

How he gets onto the spaceship can be a simple explanation of someone in the Barrel or another country ends up settling in space and invites the crime lords for a meeting to settle some disputes. (It's not the best AU, but I like it when my canon crossovers are interwoven in a way that requires some explanation that doesn't remove the fundamentals that I love about a character and a world—the politics and the manipulation is still there.) Removing Kaz from the political landscape would mean stripping Kaz of who he is as a person imo. I don't want him to become a musician because that's not Kaz.

I also don't like the idea of Game of Thrones characters being modernised. What makes them so great to read and watch and write is seeing them interact within their own canonical world (one that I wish was actually not so ripe in misogyny and racism). Could the world be tweaked a little to be less grounded in "Well, it's based in the medieval times, so therefore it has to have a shitload of misogyny despite the fact there are DRAGONS!"? Fuck yes. I love seeing worlds tweaked a little to make them less… that.

There are definitely some concepts that I'm interested in—fairytales is a big one!—but I'm very picky (in case you couldn't tell lol) about what aus I like. (I like the idea of fairytales because you're picking a character to take over the role of Snow White, for example, based on a character trait you can see in the character themselves. I love asking for Little Red Riding Hood inspired stories for The Vampire Diaries because of the dark themes of both stories. I also think many creators make great twists with their fairytale retellings, and it's interesting to see which characters fall into particular roles.)

I do think it's great that there are fans out there who create content for these aus and that they go wild and have fun and be super creative with how they assimilate characters into these new worlds and "What if Harry was never a wizard?" concepts. They're just not for me.

The type of aus I like to write and consume are:
• what if X doesn't die?
• what if X made a different decision, i.e. they didn't open the front door?
• what if X took care of Y when Y was hurt?
• what if X's stubbornness was a trait that was kept strong in their character development and they remained stubborn against Y?
• what if X, who is claimed to be the most manipulative person in the universe, was actually the most manipulative person in the universe?
• what if X was not woobified?
• what if X did not forgive Y?
• what if X and Y banged? (My favourite.)
• what if X and Y met? what if they fell in love?
• what if the writing didn't completely disregard a character's trauma and actually dug deep into it?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

• what if X, who is claimed to be the most manipulative person in the universe, was actually the most manipulative person in the universe?
• what if X was not woobified?

Preach! These two are so good. This reads like you have such a good understanding of what you like and what you're not so much interested in - it was great to read! I kinda just tossed my spaghetti thoughts at the blank page.

I'm glad you think so! If yours is spaghetti, mine is bolognese. 😉

Honestly, one of my biggest gripes in any canon is when a manipulative character is dumbed down or woobified. Give me a cunning villain! Give me a manipulative protagonist! I find a lot of canons really dumb down the manipulative side of attractive villains for shipping purposes, and it's so disappointing. :( (They did this with Klaus on the Vampire Diaries, who is the character I had in mind while writing this.) My wants are simple, big honchos in Hollywood! Cater to me!

I very much share these reasons for preferring canon divergence to setting-change AUs. It's also a pleasure to see you use some HP examples here (because I'm still stuck in that single fandom). I've been a bit disappointed after my long hiatus to see so few fics set in the combination of the wizarding world and Britain of the 1970s where my favourite characters lived, even though I understand that people prefer a world without homophobia. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!

I find HP is the easiest one to think up crazy scenarios for! It's so rich (the characters are, especially).

Ooo, 1970s. Marauders? I love a good Marauder fic, although I find them super hard to come by. I bet there's good stuff at ff.net (there used to be so many good fics there, even though I have no idea how to find them anymore). I hope you're able to find a few that you enjoy. Good fics these days (or probably even back in the prime of HP fandom) are like a needle in a haystack, but they're out there!

Oh yes, some of the characters in the HP world made me come back and continue their stories. I keep writing a canon-divergent-after-OotP story, in which every fic works separately, too, while not contradicting the others. (My pre-Azkaban stories about the Marauders are in this series on AO3.) I actually never used ff.net, only Fiction Alley and Livejournal after the small forum where I started in 2003. The HP fandom is so huge that I doubt it's easier even with one big archive to find what you'd like best.) Thank you so much for your response!

Oo, thank you for the link to your series! I'm going to have to check this out! (I have never read Pomfrey fic and I think it's a good way to start 2022!)

FICTION ALLEY! God, that's a blast from the past. I think there was a lot of good fic on there that's probably lost to time now.

I'm thrilled you are interested! (There's Pomfrey also as one of the povs in Sense of Strategy, which is my take on the infamous Prank.)

Oh, I loved the discussions and review exchanges on Fiction Alley. I remember seeing at some point that all the fics would be moved to AO3, but I guess it didn't work out.

Canon divergences are the best type of AUs for sure. I do read other AUs, but I think canon divergences are the most fun to write and read. Like you said, there are usually so much potentials for "what if's" in media and it is nice to explore those possibilities in fanfic.

I get what you mean about fusions. I want the characters to sound recognizable even in AUs and taking off a chunk of their backstory definitely changes that voice.

I enjoyed reading your thoughts!

They really are! I don't think I ever really exposed myself to other aus when I used to read fic religiously. Maybe I would've liked them if I had? But I get so much out of reading fics like "What if Jess actually said 'Hello' on the phone?" because that's a scenario that I'd love to see (and then be upset, you know... that it didn't happen). Some creators are also so good at fleshing things out in a believable way that the canon didn't.

The best feeling in the world to me is consuming a canon and then going "Okay, but THIS THING DIDN'T GET ADDRESSED" and immediately looking for fic on AO3 lmao. I missed this feeling—I haven't read fanfic in a few years, but I recently did this and it felt like coming home.

Maybe I haven't found the right aus, but I always worry the fusion aus or the ones that are a complete au on the canon and character is basically reading an original character (most of the time, poorly fleshed out—sorry, fandom) who goes by the name "Harry Potter".

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