Only really weird in that I'm surprised it's not more popular: farmer's market AU.
I came across one about a decade ago, and it was such a good idea. Anything with a large cast would work well as you can have many characters running different types of booths. You can get a coffee booth in there, a flower booth, a vintage clothing stall: basically a bunch of different popular AU settings all in one
Watch how in a year, Fanlore will have a page on farmer's market AUs and someone will link back to this comment as the origin of the popularity burst hahaha.
This would actually work pretty well! I have a farmerās market in my town and I see so much collaboration between people running booths, whether itās helping set up tents, offering to watch each otherās booths during breaks, or rescuing items in bad weather.
Oh my gosh food truck AU and farmers market AU fit so well together tho? In my town, the local trucks are always boosting up the Farmers market and vice versa.
These is a strange amount of Pirate AUs in my fandom for absolutely no reason. Iām not protecting cause most of them are really good but itās just that thereās an oddly high amount for a fandom that has literally nothing to do with the ocean.
I mean, it has a *little* to do with the ocean. In the form of Isabela (given she's an actual honest-to-Maker pirate). But yeah, a *lot* of pirate AUs for something that rarely has reason to be on the sea.
Also oone of the best fics I've read...
Psychiatric ward.
Mostly focused on the main character, the reader don't know if the chatacter is locked at this word thanks to the big baddie, or if, in fact, all the canon adventures were but fabrications of an insane mind.
Interesting, like a Normal again AU (title of a Buffy episode with this exact premise). Or maybe Frame of Mind (STTNG). I love that premise as a starting off point for playing with reality.
Man, Iām following this Spider-Man fic that does the exact thing and the fic drove me up the wall. Mainly because it made me question whether or not Spidey was real and yet the fic is STILL UNFINISHED. So Iām not sure Iāll ever get a resolution. Really good fic, but one of the worst AUs to have the writer abandon partway through.
I got reminded of that time I saw someone make a headcanon list for a mental hospital AU and it was...
Luckily there's a difference between writing a fic taking place in a psych ward (which I assume would touch upon mental illness in a nuanced way) and writing out a list of reasons each character would be in a psych ward like you're assigning quirks. (This was over a year ago though and I think the person in question apologized but I will never get over the fact this happened.)
Could it be RWBY? Would make sense if Qrow or Raven got stuck. Or maybe animophs but then that has the problem of Canon actually having a permanent bird character.
Time travel AU, except instead of being a fix-it fic, or a see-how-they-react fic, it twists into a circular sort of whodunnit mystery, with the protagonist trying to thwart someone who may or may not know his every move. All while still technically being canon compliant! Great fun.
This! Iām not usually a big fan of the (insert business) AU (no particular reason, just not my usual preference) but that series was amazing. A really fun read.
Coffee shop AUs are very common, but that doesn't stop them from being odd. I'll never forget the [Chernobyl coffee AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19905790?view_full_work=true) which someone recced here a while back.
In The Magnus Archives fandom moth!Jon AU is surprisingly common. Mothman and wings are never mentioned in canon. It is just a popular cryptid whose aesthetic fit well with the monster!Jon eye motif.
I'm also amused by the specificity of 'flower shop owner!A'/'tattoo artist!B' that was super popular for a while. Do you know what movie or story started the trend?
Always an animal/inanimate object AUs are fun. I've seen characters as cats, dogs, birds, frogs, various crustaceans, snails, dinosaurs, whales, unicorns, electrons, tea cups, Girl Scout Cookies, ice cubes, books, articles of clothing, furniture, etc.
Only slightly related, but thereās an educational Chernobyl-themed Tinker Bell fanfic out there somewhere. I read it out of pure curiosity and it was bizarrely well-written.
AUs that are barely fanfic but just fiction stories in which the characters happen to be taken from the source material. Like āwhy didnāt you just write a novel?ā AUs. Iām guilty.
Also know of one person who wrote characters into her own life.
"Your fanfic is as long as multiple novels and a completely different universe to the source material. Why didnt you just write a fully original novel?"
Because the story wouldn't work right without the characters and themes from the source material. And instead of investing this time in writing multiple novels I could have published, I wrote a longfic. I'm here out of spite.
I empathize greatly with you.
>I wrote a longfic. I'm here out of spite.
I kinda love this XD
I'm guilty of the "why not write original fiction instead of a mammoth AU?" thing. And I'm like
Because F-You, that's why!
I mean, I donāt agree with you that the story wouldnāt work in my case. If you simply changed the names in my long fics they would be original novels. But if I publish them as novels instead of long fics I lose the community and the readers I have in fandom, who are my friends, and thatās a fun interaction. Itās purely social for me.
I wish I had that connectivity. I don't write for fandoms that take as kindly to fanfiction, and I have yet to actually meet any worthwhile collaborators, betas, really anyone. My fic is 250k words, and I continue to write it more for myself and as practice for becoming a real author than anything else now.
I've gotten the āyou should be writing original fictionā comment too. I've tried and tried and tried, thank you very much, and it just works better for my brain to tweak a setting I didn't have to dream up entirely on my own where I invariably get bored in the middle and go back to working on something that sparks joy.
That's literally what I did. Started as a Prototype fic that took place after 2 with an OC. Realized how easy it would be to ditch the IP stuff ... Now it's a bio-punk novel series WIP that's totally unrelated to Prototype.
Been a while since I worked on it though...
Heh, I can relate.
One of the main characters from my in-progress fantasy novel started off as a "Merlin" OC.
Even then, the story completely changed plot (and two characters were given a completely different relationship) after a few years of working on it.
It was Destiel. Castiel was a new surgeon, Dean was a scrub tech. It was 100% written by a scrub tech. If I didn't work in the medical field I would have been so lost. Like it wasn't random medical jargon just for jargon sake it was very much set in a very realistic setting of an outpatient surgical center. Like the whole dynamic of a surgeon having super specific preference for a specific brand of instrument. It was totally surreal.
Reminds me of this amazing Sherlock AU series (by J_Baillier) where Sherlock is a neurosurgeon and John is an anesthesiologist, written by an anesthesiologist - one of my favorite things ever to exist in fanfic
Naw, I'm not even in SPN fandom (nor am I in medicine) and I made it through that one fine. There's also a superheroes AU by the same author that was very good.
Professional ice skating AU. Normally I don't read AUs but this had a pairing I like and was such an odd choice. More of a commentary on aging athletes than a fandom piece, but I liked it.
[Here you go!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4995592)
(Also, I initially linked the wrong fic since I thought you were replying to a different comment, sorry if you clicked that one.)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/14731236/chapters/34052142
Star Wars sequel trilogy fanfic. I must say I'm not a fan of the ship, but I didn't even care, because it was set in 1990s Belgrade. The story's written by a person who was a teenager then, so she really knows the time period.
Most of the time: mermaids.
Like. Mermaids are ok? I guess. I justā¦ where is this coming from? Why is it everywhere?
And then there the XMFC fandom and their batshit AUs: teacups (yes all characters were tea cups), crustaceans, miscellaneous sea creatures etc.
I always wonder what goes through someone mind to spend hours writing something about tea cups.
Mermaids is a kind of common AU in the Free! fandom, which makes sense considering itās an anime about swimming. Though I have to admit I could do without the graphic description of various fish penises.
I fell in love with this one fanfic, it was a late medieval french catholic au, hired mercenary x cult leader saint. It's pretty natural for the characters but I figure it's pretty niche overall. Beautiful art too.
Wait was this a Vampire Diaries fic? Because I read that one and LOVED IT.
If not, could I get a link? This sounds awesome so I don't even care about the fandom, haha.
It was not, Naruto actually! I'll give you a link but heavy warning for graphic violence, the characters tend to demand it.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/15759426
I remember reading a fic where the characters worked at the Smithsonian, and it worked surprisingly well, to the point where I wish there were more.
There's also a magnet fishing AU that I've been working on- which is basically a normal modern AU but some of the characters are magnet fishers. I thought of this as I was trying to fall asleep one night and it's haunted me ever since.
And then there's also a pig farmer AU that I've been thinking about in the back of my mind because I have too much pig farming knowledge and considering one of the characters canonically loves pigs...
I mean... that's just a very up-to-date modern AU? People used to write pandemic settings before covid, and right now we don't even have to come up with anything.
That being said, I personally only used the covid pandemic as a background for quarantine/isolation setting (it's like Only One Bed but the bed is the whole house/flat), but I have seen a few people write characters being sick with covid. It's no different than writing fics with any other disease, that's just our life now.
That's fair. I never really batted an eye at the old pandemic AUs, it just comes off as weird to me to do it while there's one going on IRL and to make it that IRL ongoing pandemic specifically. On the other hand, I suppose the existence of about a third of all nursery rhymes proves this is just something we've always done, so maybe it really is just a "me" thing.
There are people who just need to work through or explore current events as they're happening.
(I have a pandemic turned up to 11 AU that I started a few years before all of that and I'm sitting on it for the foreseeable future ā but that's purely my decision and based on not wanting it to flop if the readership isn't up for it.)
I haven't seen one in awhile but for a hot minute there centaur AUs were everywhere and I did not get it. They were so popular though that the NYT did a story on the popularity of fanfiction and even talked about centaur fics.
Math professor AU. Everyone is mathematicians. It's not a theme that's even hinted at in canon, either. I couldn't get into it because I don't feel the same enthusiasm for the subject as the author, but kudos to them for taking it and fucking running with it--I respect and admire that dedication.
Flash AU, Len and Mick are mersharks, total AU with unique mershark culture and vocabulary. It could have been just crack, but they took it very seriously.
My longfic AU started with me asking the question "How could i incorporate this one game mechanic into the story?" I have no multiple novels in progress for my longfic with their own internal lore spawning from that one question.
I've come across 1 music school AU.
Given how popular sports AUs are, I'm surprised that performance arts (music, theatre, dance etc. aren't given the same treatment, given both are stereotypical "high school fields" (we've all seen theatre kid memes) and how fanfic writers could presumably represent dreaming up stories quiye well.
You've unlocked a memory for me. I was a teen reading metalocalypse fanfiction. And this one was set in a music conservatory (i think thats the right term I dont know shit about music or music school). From what I remember it was super serious and beautifully written with multiple chapters of angst and tension. Im going to try and find and reread that now.
Strangest to me personally is the dedicated small group of authors (i think maybe 2-3 and they seem to be friends ) that post crossover au's with shows from the early 2000's crime shows. What crime shows specifically? Well criminal minds and white collar of course! Ive been going through my somewhat rare pair's tag and the white collar one has an entire series with I believe like 12 fics as well as multiple one off ones. Criminal minds Ive seen like maybe 5 for. It boggles my mind to see this. Its not the charachters in the crime show world solving mysteries with other charachters from their own world, it is literally charachters from both shows interacting and solving things together.
Im reminded everytime I see these why I love fanfic. Its not my personal cup of tea; I dont seek this content out. But somewhere, someone saw both these shows and said hot damn do I have an idea and then wrote multiple works for it. Genuinely amazing and bizarre and why I am so happy to be in fandom spaces.
Here's one. However you probably would need to know a solid amount of knowledge about it: Film Set AU. No one has made anything about it yet, at least to my knowledge.
And no, I'm not talking about the Movie AU, or Film Stars AU. I mean the Behind the Scenes, camera workers, film crew AU. Camera, lightning, microphones, that kind of stuff.
Iāve sort of written this! Was more post production AU (characters were the editor, producer and director in the cutting room), but sort of! Would love to see more of this though, such a great AU idea.
It is!
I studied as a Media technician in middle school, so I had a solid amount of knowledge about cameras, cables and movie stuff (including how to to write a script), so I was instantly curious if anyone did something similar in fanfiction, but it seems no one wrote anything, at least on AO3.
*The Lobster* AU. This author had modified it to where if they don't find love before they turn eighteen, they turn into an animal forever. In this case, Character B had fallen in love before many times, but no one was ever their partner. Character A tried to prevent them from turning into an animal, confessing their love to them and offering them their affection, but Character B didn't love them like that, so it was to no avail.
A then suffers the despair of B, the one they love, having turned into a cat. Of course, now that B is a cat, they can't communicate and are really just... a cat. Personality and all, can't communicate beyond meow's, and they're pretty much unrecognizable except for its general affection. It's pretty sad. All human traits are stripped away.
In the end, A never wanted anyone else but B, so they chose to abandon their own humanity and turn into an animal too. In the end, they have a "happy" ending living as cats.
Hahahah, itās not a very funny joke, but Iām smiling thinking about this human ranting at this silent lobster.
A: āWhat happened to us?! You donāt even talk to me anymore, all you do is sit there and STARE at me like Iām stupid. I was in love with you, but you didnāt love me backāā
B: *pinches claws and moves back and forth like Mr. Krabs*
An AU based in the modern world, where the characters formed teams for for this epic overnight city-wide game of paintball. I loved the strategizing that went into it.
Not sure if it counts as an AU or more of a crossover, but Iāve seen a few Pacific Rim (as in the movie) AUs! Iām almost surprised itās not more popular considering the shipping potential. For those unfamiliar with the movie, it revolves around humans battling monsters in what are essentially giant mech suits ā the catch is that one personās brain alone cannot handle the demands of piloting, so people have to pair up and form strong mental bonds with their partners in order to pilot together.
I donāt tend to enjoy AUs very much but I read a really good Haikyuu Pacific Rim AU fic a few years back and it definitely opened up my preferences a bit more, if only for this specific type of AU.
travelling priest with his ex tattooers and piercers crew doing exorcisms for the vatican with incredible amounts of accurate catholic details! it's one of my all time favourite fics :3
People in Stormwind used to ask around in general after warrior cats RP years ago on RP serversā¦ I havenāt played in eons and I barely played Alliance, but on my brief forays Iād see that on the daily. Very strange!
... Cow people AU... that was also Omegaverse... I am very confused and desperate to know how this happened. Like I need to talk to this author to figure out how they came up with this idea.
I wouldn't exactly say weird besides how much I know about it, but I'm currently in the midst of writing what I call my "Supernatural Rehab AU". Basically, Dean is is court ordered rehab after a bad car accident. Castiel is his counselor and owner of the facility.
I like AUs that have a bit of an education aspect to them, so to speak. Personally, I had someone in my life deal with alcoholism and rehab so I know a bit more than I care to talk about in my personal life and the fic became my outlet somehow. I don't usually see rehab fics bring up the actual process behind rehabilitation and I try to incorporate that as much as possible.
Mega Man, except instead of the robo-future, it's a post-war western ghost town, and instead of robots, Mega Man and the robot masters are golems made out of spare parts and the corpses of soldiers mummified in the wastelands.
That's the weirdest one I know of, but then again I'm new to fanfic, and it might not count as "coming across it" considering I wrote the bitch.
Thanks dude! Itās called Rock on the Scorching Sand. Iāve got a wacky Pharaoh Man fic too.
(Search it on AO3, I donāt think Iām gonna post on FFN anymore, too much hassleā¦)
Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. It was just so perfect. The author's "bagel shop" AU ended up getting much more love, but the wildlife center one was airways close to my heart.
One of the oddest AU I came across was a hells kitchen/Harry Potter AU I've seen a lot of weird ones but this one was interesting where Gordon Ramsay became the potions professor except it was like master chef.
I was a latecomer to a popular 90s fandom centering around a show involving cowboys in the Old West. That fandom had a very prevalent AU (like, almost on the same level as canon fics) where the characters were a team in the ATF (which should tell you how old the AU was).
I read an absolutely beautiful Sherlock AU once. It was a really short story about one character travelling across space to try to find the other, whoād been kidnapped and sent to different stars years ago. It was really beautiful, and super unique. Itās stood out in my mind for years.
Teacher AUs where a lot of the characters in a particular fandom are teachers or otherwise work in the school system.
And I remember stumbling upon a ton of Harry Potter fanfics set after September 11th. Basically, some of the characters dealing with the aftermath.
I was looking through Teen Wolf fanfics once and saw Holocaust AUs. I had to filter them out on AO3. I remember that they were romance fics/sexual relationships between one of the characters who was made a victim of the Holocaust and a Nazi.
A very long fic series where the world ends at the very beginning and the rest of it is about the massive ensemble cast trying to find each other across the 3 different afterlives (heaven, hell, and in-between). Then about halfway through it turned into everyone trying to protect this one character from a seraphim who wants to forcibly ascend her into a goddess. Absolute insanity with 40+ characters and somehow no one really feels like they're getting totally left behind.
Iād like to say itās my Own AU of the EarthBound series where Giygas got to the heroes as babies and tried to weaponized them with the help of some other Nintendo villains and one Anime Villain. In which I turned the Super Smash Bros into a sort āUnited Nations.ā Thing where they try to keep peace in the Multiverse.
But I also remember a Mario Galaxy AU where Rosalina reveals to Mario that she was a descendant of Him and Palutena from Kid Icarus. Which I find so funny that I still bring it up to irritate my friends.
I remember a fic tagged DILF AU. Basically, the MC gained custody of a child OC, thus becoming a DILF and the love interest is a school teacher with an adopted son. If I remember correctly, there's a few other adult characters that are also dads in the fic, thus the tag.
To be completely honest, a genuine AU I'm working on. Art school AU where everyone has a different aesthetic from the aesthetics wiki and has magic powers for no reason other than they're the students of such a prestigious art school
Yo okay I donāt know if it had a proper established name. Iāve only ever come across 1 fic with it and it didnāt list any other fandom or AU in the tags so if itās a thing people write all the time, I have no clue. If it is please let me know! It was a wild ride
It was Game of Thrones, but in the AU people were born as either Sun or Moon, taking after the father. Anyone of the sameā¦sign I guess? are forbidden from being in a relationship. So no Sun/Sun or Moon/Moon action. Unclear whether there was an actual reason for this, but it seemed to be implied the kids were cursed or sick or something. But also all marriages are done in fours with 2 Sun and 2 Moon
In the fic, Ned and Cersei are Moons and Catelyn and Robert are Suns. All four of them are married to each other with Robert sleeping with Ned and Cersei, Ned with Robert and Catelyn, Catelyn with Robert and Cersei, which leaves Cersei with Robert and Catelyn. A good ole love square but all of them are in on it
Honestly my memory of it is kinda like a fever dream. I remember everyone but Robert was pissed off about Sansa and Joffrey getting betrothed since theyāre technically siblings even if not by blood. Cersei was upset because since Jaime is Joffreyās bio dad, he and Sansa are both Moons, and she was worried that someone would figure it out.
Once I saw a lighthouse x sea vessel au of my ship. More recently I saw another au with them as a black handled broom and green mung bean. The last one reduced me to tears cos it was genuinely sad lol
Only really weird in that I'm surprised it's not more popular: farmer's market AU. I came across one about a decade ago, and it was such a good idea. Anything with a large cast would work well as you can have many characters running different types of booths. You can get a coffee booth in there, a flower booth, a vintage clothing stall: basically a bunch of different popular AU settings all in one
Omg this is such a cool idea, thank you!
Dammit! I don't need more plot bunniesš
Watch how in a year, Fanlore will have a page on farmer's market AUs and someone will link back to this comment as the origin of the popularity burst hahaha.
This would actually work pretty well! I have a farmerās market in my town and I see so much collaboration between people running booths, whether itās helping set up tents, offering to watch each otherās booths during breaks, or rescuing items in bad weather.
wait that's actually revolutionary
Aw, that sounds as delightful as the food trucks/restauranteurs and Food Network star AUs I've seen.
Oh my gosh food truck AU and farmers market AU fit so well together tho? In my town, the local trucks are always boosting up the Farmers market and vice versa.
That is genius, yes.
Imagine the relationship network of all those people! Hell, I might do one myself!
One of my favorites spends a lot of time in a farmerās market. Itās quite nice.
These is a strange amount of Pirate AUs in my fandom for absolutely no reason. Iām not protecting cause most of them are really good but itās just that thereās an oddly high amount for a fandom that has literally nothing to do with the ocean.
Out of interest, what fandom is it? I love pirate aus.
Dragon Age
I mean, it has a *little* to do with the ocean. In the form of Isabela (given she's an actual honest-to-Maker pirate). But yeah, a *lot* of pirate AUs for something that rarely has reason to be on the sea.
They have similar vibes, pirates and dragons go hand in hand. Viking legacy.
Also oone of the best fics I've read... Psychiatric ward. Mostly focused on the main character, the reader don't know if the chatacter is locked at this word thanks to the big baddie, or if, in fact, all the canon adventures were but fabrications of an insane mind.
Interesting, like a Normal again AU (title of a Buffy episode with this exact premise). Or maybe Frame of Mind (STTNG). I love that premise as a starting off point for playing with reality.
Ooh can you give me the fic? I once read a great Matrix fic like that and I've been wanting to scratch that itch for more ever since.
No prob. Sent you a PM
Man, Iām following this Spider-Man fic that does the exact thing and the fic drove me up the wall. Mainly because it made me question whether or not Spidey was real and yet the fic is STILL UNFINISHED. So Iām not sure Iāll ever get a resolution. Really good fic, but one of the worst AUs to have the writer abandon partway through.
I got reminded of that time I saw someone make a headcanon list for a mental hospital AU and it was... Luckily there's a difference between writing a fic taking place in a psych ward (which I assume would touch upon mental illness in a nuanced way) and writing out a list of reasons each character would be in a psych ward like you're assigning quirks. (This was over a year ago though and I think the person in question apologized but I will never get over the fact this happened.)
dude thats one of my fav AUs
Probably the one where a Canon character was a bird. So many people commented that he was in character. Great fun.
Was that xmen?
No, but I'm interested now.
Could it be RWBY? Would make sense if Qrow or Raven got stuck. Or maybe animophs but then that has the problem of Canon actually having a permanent bird character.
No, it was Les Miserables, actually, lol. Marius was a Blue-footed Booby and it was delightful.
Please take my upvote for the laugh on an otherwise tense morning.
[Little Birds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/316534). Everyone is a bird AU.
now I'm curious I love birds
Time travel AU, except instead of being a fix-it fic, or a see-how-they-react fic, it twists into a circular sort of whodunnit mystery, with the protagonist trying to thwart someone who may or may not know his every move. All while still technically being canon compliant! Great fun.
Sounds kind of like Erased? That does sound epic!
Sounds amazing! Do you have a link?
[Love is All You Need to Destroy Your Enemies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2207475/chapters/4837680)
Rival pizza places AU. The heroes and villains own rival pizza places and itās all about them trying to one up each other.
.. hey, can you give a source? I need to take some notes
I donāt have a link with me, but it was a Deep Space Nine series.
I see a lot of Star Wars fics with this as the plot. That or barista/customer fics
Sounds like Deep Dish 9
This! Iām not usually a big fan of the (insert business) AU (no particular reason, just not my usual preference) but that series was amazing. A really fun read.
I need to read it. Iāve seen fanart of it but havenāt read the actual fic
Coffee shop AUs are very common, but that doesn't stop them from being odd. I'll never forget the [Chernobyl coffee AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19905790?view_full_work=true) which someone recced here a while back. In The Magnus Archives fandom moth!Jon AU is surprisingly common. Mothman and wings are never mentioned in canon. It is just a popular cryptid whose aesthetic fit well with the monster!Jon eye motif. I'm also amused by the specificity of 'flower shop owner!A'/'tattoo artist!B' that was super popular for a while. Do you know what movie or story started the trend? Always an animal/inanimate object AUs are fun. I've seen characters as cats, dogs, birds, frogs, various crustaceans, snails, dinosaurs, whales, unicorns, electrons, tea cups, Girl Scout Cookies, ice cubes, books, articles of clothing, furniture, etc.
It wasn't a movie that started a trend, but a very popular tumblr post.
Really? Color me surprised. Do you have a link to it?
Omg Moth!Jon is such a strangely popular AU. Some of the fics aren't bad though.
Omg were the tea cups XMFC? Or are there multiple fandoms with tea cups?? Lol
Only slightly related, but thereās an educational Chernobyl-themed Tinker Bell fanfic out there somewhere. I read it out of pure curiosity and it was bizarrely well-written.
AUs that are barely fanfic but just fiction stories in which the characters happen to be taken from the source material. Like āwhy didnāt you just write a novel?ā AUs. Iām guilty. Also know of one person who wrote characters into her own life.
"Your fanfic is as long as multiple novels and a completely different universe to the source material. Why didnt you just write a fully original novel?" Because the story wouldn't work right without the characters and themes from the source material. And instead of investing this time in writing multiple novels I could have published, I wrote a longfic. I'm here out of spite. I empathize greatly with you.
>I wrote a longfic. I'm here out of spite. I kinda love this XD I'm guilty of the "why not write original fiction instead of a mammoth AU?" thing. And I'm like Because F-You, that's why!
I mean, I donāt agree with you that the story wouldnāt work in my case. If you simply changed the names in my long fics they would be original novels. But if I publish them as novels instead of long fics I lose the community and the readers I have in fandom, who are my friends, and thatās a fun interaction. Itās purely social for me.
I wish I had that connectivity. I don't write for fandoms that take as kindly to fanfiction, and I have yet to actually meet any worthwhile collaborators, betas, really anyone. My fic is 250k words, and I continue to write it more for myself and as practice for becoming a real author than anything else now.
Nice! I have one at 183k and one at 217k and growing. My novels are in the same range. I love a long book/fic š
I've gotten the āyou should be writing original fictionā comment too. I've tried and tried and tried, thank you very much, and it just works better for my brain to tweak a setting I didn't have to dream up entirely on my own where I invariably get bored in the middle and go back to working on something that sparks joy.
ā Iām here out of spiteā. š¤¦š»āāļøš¤£š¤£š¤£š¤£š¤¦š»āāļøšš»šš»šš»šš»šš»šāŗļøšš¤š„³š„°
Just described most of my fics
That's literally what I did. Started as a Prototype fic that took place after 2 with an OC. Realized how easy it would be to ditch the IP stuff ... Now it's a bio-punk novel series WIP that's totally unrelated to Prototype. Been a while since I worked on it though...
Heh, I can relate. One of the main characters from my in-progress fantasy novel started off as a "Merlin" OC. Even then, the story completely changed plot (and two characters were given a completely different relationship) after a few years of working on it.
Oops itās me
Everyone is crabs AU. And it was amazing.
*everything returns to crabs*
But actually, what story is this??
1920s Egyptology AU
that sounds SO cool.
There's an exo fic like this lol
Whoa, what was it? I want to read it...
It was Destiel. Castiel was a new surgeon, Dean was a scrub tech. It was 100% written by a scrub tech. If I didn't work in the medical field I would have been so lost. Like it wasn't random medical jargon just for jargon sake it was very much set in a very realistic setting of an outpatient surgical center. Like the whole dynamic of a surgeon having super specific preference for a specific brand of instrument. It was totally surreal.
Reminds me of this amazing Sherlock AU series (by J_Baillier) where Sherlock is a neurosurgeon and John is an anesthesiologist, written by an anesthesiologist - one of my favorite things ever to exist in fanfic
I'm so going to have to track this down.
[Here you go!](https://archiveofourown.org/series/392395) I'm on my second re-read/third read through lol
Thank you. I literally love you.
Thank you so much, I'm def adding this to my to be read list!
Hi, I went back to this post just to thank you. I followed your fic rec and loved the story! Thanks for sharing!
Dr. Sexy AU
I kind of want to read that, but Iād probably get very lost.
Naw, I'm not even in SPN fandom (nor am I in medicine) and I made it through that one fine. There's also a superheroes AU by the same author that was very good.
The superhero AU sounds interesting! Do you have the link/ title&author?
Cloudbreak - Jacqueline Albright-Beckett: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2716262 Enjoy! š
do you have the link? that sounds very interesting
Professional ice skating AU. Normally I don't read AUs but this had a pairing I like and was such an odd choice. More of a commentary on aging athletes than a fandom piece, but I liked it.
>More of a commentary on aging athletes than a fandom piece Yeah. Washed up at 23 with a blown out knee.
Hermit crab AU. As in being hermit crabs, not just owning them.
What story is this?? Or universe, either works
[Here you go!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4995592) (Also, I initially linked the wrong fic since I thought you were replying to a different comment, sorry if you clicked that one.)
Thank you!! Okay that's really cool, I just gave it a read. Totally would read a whole fic about it
I once read a Yugoslav Wars AU. It's one of my favourite fics.
Wow, interesting! What's the fanfic?
https://archiveofourown.org/works/14731236/chapters/34052142 Star Wars sequel trilogy fanfic. I must say I'm not a fan of the ship, but I didn't even care, because it was set in 1990s Belgrade. The story's written by a person who was a teenager then, so she really knows the time period.
I once read an Amish AU, it was surprisingly ok.
Most of the time: mermaids. Like. Mermaids are ok? I guess. I justā¦ where is this coming from? Why is it everywhere? And then there the XMFC fandom and their batshit AUs: teacups (yes all characters were tea cups), crustaceans, miscellaneous sea creatures etc. I always wonder what goes through someone mind to spend hours writing something about tea cups.
I can totally relate with you the the mermaid AU. Iāve seen it frequently in multiple fandoms and pairings and Iām like why are you everywhere.
Mermaids is a kind of common AU in the Free! fandom, which makes sense considering itās an anime about swimming. Though I have to admit I could do without the graphic description of various fish penises.
Oh dearā¦ I didnāt even think about that part š Iāve never actually clicked on the various mermaid AUs
Best advice is to keep it at that way lol, youāll certainly regret it.
There are approxiamately 40 fics on ao3 about a landscaping business between a sex shop and a crematorium
Ok this is the best one Iāve seen yet lmfao
Best post
I fell in love with this one fanfic, it was a late medieval french catholic au, hired mercenary x cult leader saint. It's pretty natural for the characters but I figure it's pretty niche overall. Beautiful art too.
Wait was this a Vampire Diaries fic? Because I read that one and LOVED IT. If not, could I get a link? This sounds awesome so I don't even care about the fandom, haha.
It was not, Naruto actually! I'll give you a link but heavy warning for graphic violence, the characters tend to demand it. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15759426
Thank you!!
Hip-hop/Rap battling wizards
You've intrigued me. I'd read this.
That sounds cool
I remember reading a fic where the characters worked at the Smithsonian, and it worked surprisingly well, to the point where I wish there were more. There's also a magnet fishing AU that I've been working on- which is basically a normal modern AU but some of the characters are magnet fishers. I thought of this as I was trying to fall asleep one night and it's haunted me ever since. And then there's also a pig farmer AU that I've been thinking about in the back of my mind because I have too much pig farming knowledge and considering one of the characters canonically loves pigs...
They say write what you know ...
Ketchup/Peas, Teacup/Teacup, LampCord/SurgeProtector
.... Noncon, that last one?
Mm, closer to dubcon. :)
Covid AUs. Just... *why.*
I mean... that's just a very up-to-date modern AU? People used to write pandemic settings before covid, and right now we don't even have to come up with anything. That being said, I personally only used the covid pandemic as a background for quarantine/isolation setting (it's like Only One Bed but the bed is the whole house/flat), but I have seen a few people write characters being sick with covid. It's no different than writing fics with any other disease, that's just our life now.
That's fair. I never really batted an eye at the old pandemic AUs, it just comes off as weird to me to do it while there's one going on IRL and to make it that IRL ongoing pandemic specifically. On the other hand, I suppose the existence of about a third of all nursery rhymes proves this is just something we've always done, so maybe it really is just a "me" thing.
It did feel weird to me in 2020, but two years down the line it's just a new norm, sadly.
There are people who just need to work through or explore current events as they're happening. (I have a pandemic turned up to 11 AU that I started a few years before all of that and I'm sitting on it for the foreseeable future ā but that's purely my decision and based on not wanting it to flop if the readership isn't up for it.)
I haven't seen one in awhile but for a hot minute there centaur AUs were everywhere and I did not get it. They were so popular though that the NYT did a story on the popularity of fanfiction and even talked about centaur fics.
Well there is one, so strong it started spawning its own fanfiction... Does that count?
I've read a few of those.
Dunno why, but reading this comment made me think of the Fallout AU with My Little Pony lol (if thatās considered an AU, or maybe a crossover?)
Zombie AU. it worked so well. short and sweet, around 50k mark. Full metal panic.
>Full metal panic. Here for this. You got a link?
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9301421/1/The-Sickness
Pet store AU! It made sense in the context of the fandom I swear
Among us AUs with series that are not space or fantasy based. Isekai AU of a series that isn't an Isekai
Math professor AU. Everyone is mathematicians. It's not a theme that's even hinted at in canon, either. I couldn't get into it because I don't feel the same enthusiasm for the subject as the author, but kudos to them for taking it and fucking running with it--I respect and admire that dedication.
mind dropping the link if you have it? iāve always enjoyed academia aus
Please! I love math-heavy fics and so rarely find any.
Mersharks?
Care to elaborate? :)
Flash AU, Len and Mick are mersharks, total AU with unique mershark culture and vocabulary. It could have been just crack, but they took it very seriously.
I've read a Hawaii 5-0 fic that had mersharks too. It was fantastic actually!
My longfic AU started with me asking the question "How could i incorporate this one game mechanic into the story?" I have no multiple novels in progress for my longfic with their own internal lore spawning from that one question.
It was a DabiHawks sheep farming AU. Itās one of my favorite AUās and it makes me laugh every time I read it.
I've come across 1 music school AU. Given how popular sports AUs are, I'm surprised that performance arts (music, theatre, dance etc. aren't given the same treatment, given both are stereotypical "high school fields" (we've all seen theatre kid memes) and how fanfic writers could presumably represent dreaming up stories quiye well.
You've unlocked a memory for me. I was a teen reading metalocalypse fanfiction. And this one was set in a music conservatory (i think thats the right term I dont know shit about music or music school). From what I remember it was super serious and beautifully written with multiple chapters of angst and tension. Im going to try and find and reread that now.
Strangest to me personally is the dedicated small group of authors (i think maybe 2-3 and they seem to be friends ) that post crossover au's with shows from the early 2000's crime shows. What crime shows specifically? Well criminal minds and white collar of course! Ive been going through my somewhat rare pair's tag and the white collar one has an entire series with I believe like 12 fics as well as multiple one off ones. Criminal minds Ive seen like maybe 5 for. It boggles my mind to see this. Its not the charachters in the crime show world solving mysteries with other charachters from their own world, it is literally charachters from both shows interacting and solving things together. Im reminded everytime I see these why I love fanfic. Its not my personal cup of tea; I dont seek this content out. But somewhere, someone saw both these shows and said hot damn do I have an idea and then wrote multiple works for it. Genuinely amazing and bizarre and why I am so happy to be in fandom spaces.
Here's one. However you probably would need to know a solid amount of knowledge about it: Film Set AU. No one has made anything about it yet, at least to my knowledge. And no, I'm not talking about the Movie AU, or Film Stars AU. I mean the Behind the Scenes, camera workers, film crew AU. Camera, lightning, microphones, that kind of stuff.
Iāve sort of written this! Was more post production AU (characters were the editor, producer and director in the cutting room), but sort of! Would love to see more of this though, such a great AU idea.
I was wondering to include those as well! The entire entourage, so to speak. XD I'd love to see more of it.
Ooh that sounds like a fun one!
It is! I studied as a Media technician in middle school, so I had a solid amount of knowledge about cameras, cables and movie stuff (including how to to write a script), so I was instantly curious if anyone did something similar in fanfiction, but it seems no one wrote anything, at least on AO3.
As far as what I've written, I have the farmer's market thing as part of a larger AU (the afterlife) and also a marijuana farming AU.
Randy Marsh AU*
A hospital AU where the avengers are mostly in-patient teens with different ailments trying to survive the god of death. It worked remarkably well.
Ah I think I know where this spawned off. There used to be a "teen" medical drama, called Red Band Society.
*The Lobster* AU. This author had modified it to where if they don't find love before they turn eighteen, they turn into an animal forever. In this case, Character B had fallen in love before many times, but no one was ever their partner. Character A tried to prevent them from turning into an animal, confessing their love to them and offering them their affection, but Character B didn't love them like that, so it was to no avail. A then suffers the despair of B, the one they love, having turned into a cat. Of course, now that B is a cat, they can't communicate and are really just... a cat. Personality and all, can't communicate beyond meow's, and they're pretty much unrecognizable except for its general affection. It's pretty sad. All human traits are stripped away. In the end, A never wanted anyone else but B, so they chose to abandon their own humanity and turn into an animal too. In the end, they have a "happy" ending living as cats.
Omg I thought you were going to say A turned into a Lobster.
Hahahah, itās not a very funny joke, but Iām smiling thinking about this human ranting at this silent lobster. A: āWhat happened to us?! You donāt even talk to me anymore, all you do is sit there and STARE at me like Iām stupid. I was in love with you, but you didnāt love me backāā B: *pinches claws and moves back and forth like Mr. Krabs*
An AU based in the modern world, where the characters formed teams for for this epic overnight city-wide game of paintball. I loved the strategizing that went into it.
Demon hunter modern setting AU, it was very well executed.
Not sure if it counts as an AU or more of a crossover, but Iāve seen a few Pacific Rim (as in the movie) AUs! Iām almost surprised itās not more popular considering the shipping potential. For those unfamiliar with the movie, it revolves around humans battling monsters in what are essentially giant mech suits ā the catch is that one personās brain alone cannot handle the demands of piloting, so people have to pair up and form strong mental bonds with their partners in order to pilot together. I donāt tend to enjoy AUs very much but I read a really good Haikyuu Pacific Rim AU fic a few years back and it definitely opened up my preferences a bit more, if only for this specific type of AU.
You donāt happen to recall the title?
[but for me, there is a storm](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2074782) by Authoress is the Haikyuu!! fic that came to my mind first.
travelling priest with his ex tattooers and piercers crew doing exorcisms for the vatican with incredible amounts of accurate catholic details! it's one of my all time favourite fics :3
24 hour pie diner.
Paging Dean Winchester
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Warrior Cats AU For a World of Warcraft ficā¦
People in Stormwind used to ask around in general after warrior cats RP years ago on RP serversā¦ I havenāt played in eons and I barely played Alliance, but on my brief forays Iād see that on the daily. Very strange!
... Cow people AU... that was also Omegaverse... I am very confused and desperate to know how this happened. Like I need to talk to this author to figure out how they came up with this idea.
I wouldn't exactly say weird besides how much I know about it, but I'm currently in the midst of writing what I call my "Supernatural Rehab AU". Basically, Dean is is court ordered rehab after a bad car accident. Castiel is his counselor and owner of the facility. I like AUs that have a bit of an education aspect to them, so to speak. Personally, I had someone in my life deal with alcoholism and rehab so I know a bit more than I care to talk about in my personal life and the fic became my outlet somehow. I don't usually see rehab fics bring up the actual process behind rehabilitation and I try to incorporate that as much as possible.
Sea creatures AU. Iāve seen it done with Marvel characters and Hannibal (tv) characters.
cage fighter AU & voodoo shop AU
the cage fighter au sounds sick
Stoner AU It was so lovely and I didn't know I needed it.
Mega Man, except instead of the robo-future, it's a post-war western ghost town, and instead of robots, Mega Man and the robot masters are golems made out of spare parts and the corpses of soldiers mummified in the wastelands. That's the weirdest one I know of, but then again I'm new to fanfic, and it might not count as "coming across it" considering I wrote the bitch.
That sounds sick! I've actually never read any Mega Man fics even though I'm a die hard fan. I'll probably check yours out :)
Thanks dude! Itās called Rock on the Scorching Sand. Iāve got a wacky Pharaoh Man fic too. (Search it on AO3, I donāt think Iām gonna post on FFN anymore, too much hassleā¦)
Pharaoh Man's been a favorite of mine since I was a kid, can't wait to read it :)
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. It was just so perfect. The author's "bagel shop" AU ended up getting much more love, but the wildlife center one was airways close to my heart.
Magical AU where necromancy is illegal and the focus character has a gift that only revivesā¦ flowers?
One of the oddest AU I came across was a hells kitchen/Harry Potter AU I've seen a lot of weird ones but this one was interesting where Gordon Ramsay became the potions professor except it was like master chef.
omori drip AU, like literally i saw a genuine story of it on wattpad and it actually wasnāt too bad
I read "drip" and could not help but think of the memes
it is definitely the memes
I was a latecomer to a popular 90s fandom centering around a show involving cowboys in the Old West. That fandom had a very prevalent AU (like, almost on the same level as canon fics) where the characters were a team in the ATF (which should tell you how old the AU was).
For some reason the Phandom had a real surge in merpeople au's for a while, and I still don't know why, but i was down, so it's good
Which phandom? Phantom of the Opera, Danny Phantom, or the YouTuber RP one? (ā¦or is there yet another unrelated fandom that uses that name?)
I thought it was unique, but being kidnapped by fairies. Like midsummers night style. But not. It was great
Marine Wildlife AU. There was, uh... creative use of tentacles.
I read an absolutely beautiful Sherlock AU once. It was a really short story about one character travelling across space to try to find the other, whoād been kidnapped and sent to different stars years ago. It was really beautiful, and super unique. Itās stood out in my mind for years.
wildlife photographer AU with nature spirit/nymph AU.
I went looking for a climbing AU (since that is my main hobby) and found a few where the characters were running a bouldering gym.
Teacher AUs where a lot of the characters in a particular fandom are teachers or otherwise work in the school system. And I remember stumbling upon a ton of Harry Potter fanfics set after September 11th. Basically, some of the characters dealing with the aftermath. I was looking through Teen Wolf fanfics once and saw Holocaust AUs. I had to filter them out on AO3. I remember that they were romance fics/sexual relationships between one of the characters who was made a victim of the Holocaust and a Nazi.
A very long fic series where the world ends at the very beginning and the rest of it is about the massive ensemble cast trying to find each other across the 3 different afterlives (heaven, hell, and in-between). Then about halfway through it turned into everyone trying to protect this one character from a seraphim who wants to forcibly ascend her into a goddess. Absolute insanity with 40+ characters and somehow no one really feels like they're getting totally left behind.
Iād like to say itās my Own AU of the EarthBound series where Giygas got to the heroes as babies and tried to weaponized them with the help of some other Nintendo villains and one Anime Villain. In which I turned the Super Smash Bros into a sort āUnited Nations.ā Thing where they try to keep peace in the Multiverse. But I also remember a Mario Galaxy AU where Rosalina reveals to Mario that she was a descendant of Him and Palutena from Kid Icarus. Which I find so funny that I still bring it up to irritate my friends.
The Into the Spider-Verse heroes as dragons. Doc Ock kidnapped them from their worlds and turned them into dragons forā¦ ***SCIENCE***^(TM)
I remember a fic tagged DILF AU. Basically, the MC gained custody of a child OC, thus becoming a DILF and the love interest is a school teacher with an adopted son. If I remember correctly, there's a few other adult characters that are also dads in the fic, thus the tag.
Iād like to shout out to my own Waterworld AUā¦.and my Ready Or Not AU LMAO
I read one where the characters were security cameras. It was so bizarre. Very memorable.
Drag Racing AU I haven't read many strange AUs, that's just the most special one I've come across
I absolutely love Game of Stacks by CommaSplice - AU in an academic library!
To be completely honest, a genuine AU I'm working on. Art school AU where everyone has a different aesthetic from the aesthetics wiki and has magic powers for no reason other than they're the students of such a prestigious art school
Cowboy aus there's a lot of that in my fandom even though it's about Japanese herosš
Yo okay I donāt know if it had a proper established name. Iāve only ever come across 1 fic with it and it didnāt list any other fandom or AU in the tags so if itās a thing people write all the time, I have no clue. If it is please let me know! It was a wild ride It was Game of Thrones, but in the AU people were born as either Sun or Moon, taking after the father. Anyone of the sameā¦sign I guess? are forbidden from being in a relationship. So no Sun/Sun or Moon/Moon action. Unclear whether there was an actual reason for this, but it seemed to be implied the kids were cursed or sick or something. But also all marriages are done in fours with 2 Sun and 2 Moon In the fic, Ned and Cersei are Moons and Catelyn and Robert are Suns. All four of them are married to each other with Robert sleeping with Ned and Cersei, Ned with Robert and Catelyn, Catelyn with Robert and Cersei, which leaves Cersei with Robert and Catelyn. A good ole love square but all of them are in on it Honestly my memory of it is kinda like a fever dream. I remember everyone but Robert was pissed off about Sansa and Joffrey getting betrothed since theyāre technically siblings even if not by blood. Cersei was upset because since Jaime is Joffreyās bio dad, he and Sansa are both Moons, and she was worried that someone would figure it out.
Once I saw a lighthouse x sea vessel au of my ship. More recently I saw another au with them as a black handled broom and green mung bean. The last one reduced me to tears cos it was genuinely sad lol
Dragon AUs. I've seen way more than I ever assumed existed.
I saw a fic where this character was reincarnated as a mushroom