*waves*

[sage]

Helllllllllooooooo, AU-makers! We are SO GLAD you're playing in the Alternate Universe challenge, and we want to say a huge thank you to everyone who's contributed to the GIANT BRAINSTORMING POST OF AWESOME! If you haven't looked lately, go check it out. It's still open to new suggestions, and everyone is welcome to jump in (again and again) at any point.

Right now we want to give y'all a place to chat about what you might want to make. Feel free to ask for or offer help, work out logistics, recruit co-creators, ask research questions, request help with plot or format ideas, crowdsource ideas for your AU fanworks-to-be, and so on!

Comment Policy:
Kindly be respectful! We have a wild array of fannish loves in this challenge, and so we expect ALL characters, pairings, fandoms, and fanwork-formats to be treated with respect, no matter how far out in left field you might think they are. Please leave the "My OTP is the BEST!" jingoism at the door, okay? There's totally enough fannish love here for everyone!

Deadlines:
The first posting weekend is in 9 weeks! The last one is in 29 weeks. ALL types of fanworks are welcome, of whatever length/complexity, so let's get started!

Optional questions:
What are you making/going to make?
How far have you gotten?
When/how did you find DS/C6D fandom?

The next check-in post will go up in 2 weeks, but they'll become weekly as the deadlines near. As always, if you have any questions, let us know! \o/

Comments

[brigantine]

What are you making/going to make?

*scratches head* Well, it's a fic, and it's set in contemporary Chicago, but there's... well, there's a tavern and possibly a brothel... or possibly it's a tavern with the brothel upstairs, and a nice lady vampire, and maybe a fortune teller... I don't know, there's gonna have to be worldbuilding, you guys, OMG! *headdesk*

Aaugh, what was I thinking? Which pretty much tells you how far I've gotten. /o\

[sage]

I am already hooked! And yay worldbuilding! There's nothing like a well-drawn setting to make me a happy reader. I love a 'verse that feels REAL, you know? Especially when it's invented. *g*

The idea of contemporary Chicago with vampires and brothels is srsly intriguing. Can I ask what characters you're using? If you'd rather not say, no worries. I tend not to talk about what I'm doing before it's safely on the page, so that I won't derail my own momentum.

*cheers you on*

[brigantine]

I'm pretty much the same way - I tend to hide my work until it's finished, so that it doesn't lose power. Or something. \o?

However, I think I can tell you without jinxing anything that it's got Fraser and Ray Kowalski in it (which will surprise absolutely no one), and some Stella being badass-for-great-justice. I hope, if everything works out. *falls over*

[sage]

Woohoo! That sounds awesome! \o/

[luzula]

I look forward to whatever you end up writing! \o/ I remember that awesome AU you wrote for dSSS a year or two ago (the one that I podficced).

[sage]

What are you making/going to make?

There are soooo many possibilities. Unfortunately I'm not really feeling the writerly muses poking at me atm, which is kind of normal following the holiday challenge season madness. Maybe some combination of crochet and photo essay. *ponders*

[brigantine]

Crochet? Hee. Does this mean little cuddly crochet characters? A diorama? *giggles* My brain is seriously going, OMG what can it be???

[sage]

I'm totally still brainstorming, so I don't knowwww. The idea I keep coming back to is SpaceRanger!Dief & his trusty sidekick Turtle trekking through SPACE to capture Evil Villain...Somebody. Maybe an evil iguana for the Iguana crime family? I know where to find an iguana pattern; I don't know where to find a lobster (for Armando Langoustini). After that, I could find places to take their pictures to fit the story. Also I have patterns for a rocketship & various aliens, so, scenery! But Dief & Turtle are going to need some kind of space ranger uniform, aren't they? Assuming I even go with this? There are about a million other possibilities that could be just as fun.

Like Old West/NWMP officer!Meg Thatcher! There are loads of doll patterns. The real challenge would be her uniform. And hair. Doll hair is intimidating.

*has yarn on the brain*

The more I think about the toys, the easier it is to come up with a story for them. What a weird left-turn in my creative process...

[luzula]

Ooooh, I would love to see more of Old West Meg Thatcher, in doll or fic or whatever form your brain wants to bring her to life.

The more I think about the toys, the easier it is to come up with a story for them.

Huh, that is interesting!

[sage]

OH HAI I JUST FOUND A LOBSTER PATTERN. I could do a lobster with 2 iguana henchmen!

And last night I found a doll pattern that reminded me of Meg, although I have no idea how to dress her. Leather like Maggie? A uniform? A dress? I have no idea. :/

And, yeah, it's odd. I mean, it's exactly like being a little kid and making up stories while playing with my toys, so in a way it's perfectly logical, but it's definitely happening IN PLACE OF my usual writing process. Words alone just aren't doing it.

[ardyforshort]

What are you making/going to make? How far have you gotten?

Oh my... At the moment, I seem to be massively drawn to fantasy/supernatural elements, but the real challenge is to a)decide which specific elements I want and which canon I want to mix them with, and b)to somehow make a 'verse with those elements that can stand on its own two feet and is way further away from canon than what I've done so far.

The problem with this is that I am fairly terrible at plot and writing long things, and I do better with loosely connected stories, but worldbuilding works better with long stories. So... I'm not sure. Still at the contemplative stage of the process. I need to knuckle down.

When/how did you find DS/C6D fandom?
Very, very recently. I'd seen people talking about due South for as long as I can remember being on the internet, but it only ever occurred to me to actually watch it when my friend Amy (flawedamythyst) mentioned it some time last autumn. She's a big fan. Thankfully, the series is on YouTube these days. Started watching, bought the DVDs after I'd seen S1, mainlined the series in about two months, then started branching out first in Paul Gross' direction to Men in Brooms (thanks to Amy) and S&A, then in CKR's to Hard Core Logo and Wilby Wonderful. Currently hooked on Flashpoint, and very happy to have found the online comms, because they're full of fab people :)

[sage]

You can always do small vignettes! Epic AU works are awesome, but they're a hell of a commitment, and, as you say, plot can be really really hard, especially on a large scale. Go with what works for you!

And welcome to the fandom! If you're a fan of theatre/Shakespeare at all, you should put Slings & Arrows on your list, too. It is smart, fun, and Paul Gross' Geoffrey is AMAZING. (FWIW, the first episode is the most, ah, problematic? of the lot, as they're setting so much up. After that, it's soooo good.)

[ardyforshort]

Aw, thanks for the encouragement! I'll see what happens. I have a couple of vague ideas so maybe I can work a couple of snapshot/vignette type things.

S&A is on the list, you just overlooked it :D I've watched up to midway through S2 now. I made Amy come to my house the other weekend so I could introduce her to it. She didn't complain, strangely enough...

[sage]

Oops, that's what I get for multitasking. YAY S&A! And yay vignettes! I'm partly tempted to try to do drabbles for a whole bunch of random ideas on the list, but that's largely because my writing muses are still AWOL. *sigh*

[ardyforshort]

Drabble is what I do when all else fails, so I am in favour of this plan *nods encouragingly*

[luzula]

At the moment, I seem to be massively drawn to fantasy/supernatural elements, but the real challenge is to a)decide which specific elements I want and which canon I want to mix them with

Oh, that sounds interesting! What are your ideas so far (if you want to tell, of course--sometimes it feels better to keep them to yourself until you're done thinking about them)?

[ardyforshort]

Thanks for asking! I think this is one of those cases where talking is better than silence, so, um, prepare for length.

You've seen what I've done with Wilby, so that's one way to go. Well, two ways, actually, but I figure the second one would be easier as there is more source material. Making it completely AU would involve quite a different tack from what I've done so far though, so it's challenging, but definitely possible.

I also had this random classic fantasy setting idea some weeks ago, about Ray K being some sort of old bard kind of character who tells stories about the adventures of his youth at the tavern fire on cold winter nights. The idea being to retell the relevant parts of due South as a fantasy story (this involves figuring out what the relevant parts are and whether to take it as a classic "a stranger comes to town" tale or put a romance spin on it or what). It's grown since I first thought about it though and there's various ways this one could go. He could actually tell the story, or the tavern could just be a framing device, or the story of Ray and Fraser could be a legend that's been told in various ways through the ages... I don't know. I just really like the idea of old Ray and stories at the fireplace. (I blame "Likely Story".) And I should probably figure out what happened to Fraser in this 'verse, because Ray on his own is a sad kind of concept.

There's a couple other ideas that I'm kind of flirting with at the moment, but these are the ones that I've got the farthest with so far. Any comments welcome :)

[luzula]

Ooh, I like the idea of old fireside Ray and retelling dS as fantasy-style legends. That could be really cool. And now I'm getting the image of Fraser as a sort of shining knight, Lancelot-style. "From underneath his helmet flowed/his coal-black curls as on he rode." Er, sorry, I have The Lady of Shalott on the brain. *g*

Anyway, it sounds like the telling-stories-by-the-fireside idea could lend itself to a sort of snapshot/episodic format if you want?

[ardyforshort]

Oh, I like this :D
If Fraser is the knight in shining armor, that would make Ray the damsel in distress though...

Okay, yeah, ACCURATE.

I hadn't thought of it as being suited to an episodic format but now you say it, I can see how that could work. TYK!

[sage]

Also: Trusty Sidekick! Arthur/Launcelot is canon, after all, depending on which canon you go with. *g*

[ardyforshort]

Ahaha, trufax on Arthur/Launcelot.
This is starting to take shape. An odd sort of shape but shape all the same \o/

[garonne]

I've got this idea slowly taking shape in my head, where RayK is the first Ray, who then goes undercover with the Russian mafia or something (is there even a Polish mafia?) and is replaced by RayV. Obviously that changes a lot of stuff like where Frannie fits into things, how RayV interacts with Stella... Haven't quite got that figured out yet.

How far have you gotten? Above paragraph is the sum total of my work so far ;)

I also want to put them all in a Raymond Chandler hard-boiled detective type setting, but doing that in the same fic is maybe overdoing it...

[sage]

Oh, that is AWESOME! \o/

Either hard-boiled or not (both?), this sounds great!

[luzula]

Oh, interesting! I know of one fic that does that (switching the Rays) which I could link you to if you wanted, but of course you might also want to write it without reading that fic first. : )

[garonne]

:( I might have known it was too nice an idea not to have been done already! Please do send me the link - I'd rather be sure I'm not just writing the same story again. If it's also a Fraser/RayK story from RayV's POV then... argh! I'm out of luck...

[luzula]

Okay! Here it is--it is hugely long.

And I hope you didn't take it as discouragement! There is absolutely room for many takes on the same story idea. : )

[garonne]

Thank you! Wow, that is long... And thanks for the encouragement! :)

[sage]

Oh, honey, keep in mind that Due South's pilot aired 18 1/2 years ago and the fandom's existed since the Usenet days. Don't fret over whether something's been done before. Focus on making it what you want it to be. Granted, it's nice to check and see if you're accidentally echoing something someone else already wrote, but as Oliver Welles would say, "That just proves it's a good idea." You can absolutely reframe it in a way that makes it your own. Yay transformative work! :)

[ardyforshort]

That's a fab attitude. I'm just going to put the last part of this in my quote journal for a rainy day :)

[garonne]

Hey, thanks for the encouragement! Yeah, I guess I was being a little bit naive :-) I haven't been kicking around in this fandom for very long. I even just had to go look up who Oliver Welles was. Well, now I know what show I'm going to be watching on youtube this evening!

[luzula]

I suppose I should talk about my own work, too! I'm about 4000 words into my Temeraire/dS fusion, and I'm having so much fun with the worldbuilding/setting aspect of it. Hardest so far is getting a handle on Dief's character/voice as a dragon, because the set-up does change a few things about him.

[sage]

I am looking forward to this SO MUCH!!

And, yes, I can see that. Dief is so independent. I keep remembering The Wild Bunch (I think?) and how he finally chooses to stay with Fraser -- it's not an easy translation to a 'verse where the dragons commit to their human at birth, so something would need to change.

*imagines Dragon!Dief*

Also, yay 4000 words! That's fabulous! \o/

[luzula]

Yeah, the independence thing is part of it, and also that Dief is actually older than Fraser is. *ponders what you said* Hmm, I think you've possibly given me some ideas. : )

[ardyforshort]

This means I will finally read Temeraire so I can read this, because it sounds awesome. Also DRAGONS.
And 4,000 words! You're so organised *admires*

[luzula]

You won't actually need to read Temeraire, I think--it's enough to know about the basic worldbuilding. This is a modern day AU, with none of the characters from Temeraire. But hey, they're fun books, and I recommend them!

[thursdaynext_27]

At this point, I'm still mulling over my 3 AU ideas from the brainstorm (Blade Runner, Alien!Ray and HCL in space). I might take a stab at writing short pieces for each and go from there.

I was a longtime lurker who stopped lurking in 2009: got involved in the rewatch chats, drove the Crack Van, posted to AO3 for the first time, saw the Headstones in Dec 2011 (!). This last year I've been heavily into XMFC, which is rich with fantastic AUs, powered and non-powered. But DSC6D is still my first fannish home.

[garonne]

I've been wanting to read the Blade Runner idea since I saw it in the brain-storming list - such a cool idea. The other two are as well, in fact.

Long-time SF fan here, looking forward to reading any or all of them!

[luzula]

I am all in favor of more science fiction AU:s! All of these sound intriguing, but the Blade Runner idea especially sounds like something I'd love to read.