Preliminary Legend of Korra post

[lizbee]

I'm sure I'll make a proper post later, when my thoughts are ordered, but weirdly, this made me want to dig up and finish the Lin-never-gets-her-bending-back private detective AU I started last year. Even though it will need a bit of a rewrite to be compliant with the current course of events.

(I'm very finicky about AUs. Anything that's different from canon has to be traceable to the single altered event, otherwise it just falls apart for me.)

(This is the for-want-of-a-nail type AU, not the barista/law firm/Melbourne hipster type of AU.)

Comments

[attackfish]

I was just thinking that I couldn't really trace your Narnia hipster AU to one moment. Oddly enough, this season of Korra has given me one event to trace my The-Avatar-is-an-Eldritch-Abomination-that-makes-everybody-that-comes-into-prolonged-contact-with-him/her-evil-and-crazy verse back to, which was not something I anticipated.

You and I share this about AUs, and since I am extremely partial to for-want-of-a-nail AUs, this sometimes makes finding readable ones difficult for me.

I envy you and your having watched the episodes already thing intensely right now.

[lizbee]

You and I share this about AUs, and since I am extremely partial to for-want-of-a-nail AUs, this sometimes makes finding readable ones difficult for me.

I'M SO GLAD IT'S NOT JUST ME. A full on alternate reality is one thing, but if it's just a divergence from the current continuity, I like it to make sense!

I was just thinking that I couldn't really trace your Narnia hipster AU to one moment.

Yeah, different kind of AU. And I can probably never write it, because it involves smushing everyone's age together so they're roughly contemporaries. I did that with my Avatar high school AU, but I felt bad about it!

Oddly enough, this season of Korra has given me one event to trace my The-Avatar-is-an-Eldritch-Abomination-that-makes-everybody-that-comes-into-prolonged-contact-with-him/her-evil-and-crazy verse back to, which was not something I anticipated.

EXCELLENT.

[attackfish]

It really really isn't just you. And it makes the good ones all the more special.

In my Hufflepuff!Zuko verse, I made Azula and Zuko twins, and put almost everybody in the same year. It's sometimes a necessary weasel. No, what I felt bad about in that verse was making Zuko and Azula white, and Mai half white, the latter for the sake of a very silly pun (her name is Mai Nott) and the former because they're Voldemort and Bellatrix's spawn. Not exactly my best moment.

[lizbee]

Not exactly my best moment.

Ouch. Yeah, that seems like it was a good idea at the time (Voldemort and Bellatrix: better or worse than Ozai?), and yet...

[attackfish]

Yeah, I was chugging happily along, making poor little Zuko as miserable as possible, giving him an eeeeeevil father and mother, and having all kinds of fun, and then, only after I had posted all kinds of drabbles in the verse, did the implications hit me.

It also made me realize just how very white the important characters in Harry Potter are, if not the HP universe as a whole

[lizbee]

Yeah, it's not exactly reflective of British society. Back when I first read them, years ago, I was impressed that there were multiple people of colour in the wizarding world -- and true, JKR does better than a lot of writers there -- but it's still not enough.

[kerravonsen]

I'm very finicky about AUs. Anything that's different from canon has to be traceable to the single altered event, otherwise it just falls apart for me.

Totally agree! I express it as "you get one 'what-if' for free". All other alterations have to be paid for with logic and Reasons.

On the other hand, if I've already written a story and then later canon contradicts it, I will NEVER go back and re-write it, even when obnoxious commenters complain about the contradiction give me helpful corrections.

I got into a whole big argument about "Making A Life" in reference to the comment by Daniel Jackson that he was "an archaeologist, not an anthropologist", when it had apparently been revealed in later canon that I hadn't seen, that he was both. Then the person went on to argue that ALL archaeologists were anthropologists because it was a requirement at her college. Never mind that my OWN FATHER had done digs without having an anthropology degree. And been an Associate Professor of Ancient Near-Eastern History without having an anthropology degree. Humph!

[lizbee]

I express it as "you get one 'what-if' for free". All other alterations have to be paid for with logic and Reasons.

That's a neat way of putting it!

On the other hand, if I've already written a story and then later canon contradicts it, I will NEVER go back and re-write it...

If I had posted this fic, I wouldn't either, but I just feel like I'm cheating if I don't do it properly.

ALSO, I recall there being QUITE A BIT OF CONTROVERSY in the field re: whether or not archaeology should be conflated with anthropology when I was a student. I think now it's standard for archaeologists to have backgrounds in anthropology, but around the time Stargate was at its peak, that was still being debated.

[sabotabby]

I'm very finicky about AUs. Anything that's different from canon has to be traceable to the single altered event, otherwise it just falls apart for me.

I'm the same. When I write fic at all, it tends to be AU but not far removed from canon—for-want-of-a-nail is a good way to describe it. It just feels like the characters would end up unrecognizable otherwise.