people write AUs where characters from a fantasy universe are in like, the setting or plot situation of another non-fantasy story all the time, and usually it’s a no-powers version of those characters because more often than not the powers would absolutely break all the stakes of the au.
And that’s totally logical and makes sense, but I think the version where the transplanted characters get to keep their powers and break the stakes has hilarious and underutilized crack potential.
Like just once I’d like to read “The 74th annual Hunger Games goes absolutely tits up and nobody knows why none of the kids seem to be dying despite some serious effort on the part of the gamemakers. Meanwhile sharp-eyed viewers at home may notice that the shy and unassuming male tribute from district 11—whose personal item was a pair of costume glasses—hasn’t been seen on-camera even once since the opening gong. But not many people do notice. After all, in all the pageantry leading up to the games, no tribute was more boring than Clark Kent.“
I absolutely love this and will contribute the ideas:
- The Animorphs must kill both Donald Trump and Putin in order to avert nuclear war
- Perhaps the fault is not in our stars, but in the fact we haven’t killed enough rats yet for me to level up to a third-level cleric and become immune to cancer
- Just the Karate Kid movie but halfway through Luke figures out how to use the Force, surprising and confusing his mentor Mr Miyagi
- Every character from League of Legends suddenly exists in Game of Thrones and now everyone has to cope with that, somehow
- The Princess Diaries but your dad is Poseidon and your mom is a queen and therefore your life gets very complicated whenever you’re really supposed to be at a royal function but you have to flee to Camp Half-blood so you don’t get eaten by monsters
But I ALSO want some non-powered individuals walking into situations where the characters ought to have powers.
- How do we get the ring to Mordor? We get in a modified Aston Martin and drive. Whoever this wizard guy is, he’s no match for Bond…. James Bond.
- Just a competent, functional adult tries tackling the Yeerk invasion. Like completely no powers but they’re a functional adult who makes excellent life choices. Instead of turning into an animal to raid Yeerk headquarters, they just buy large quantities of plastic explosive.
- How fast can Sherlock Holmes speedrun Pale?
- What if you were in the Pokemon universe and you did not have any Pokemon but you did have a basic grasp of economics
And I kind of want to read stuff where they keep their powers…. and go into a setting with completely different powers.
- Taylor Hebert Beats Up Aslan, Takes Over Narnia
- The USS Enterprise encounters an odd society where people are divided into factions like Dauntless and Abnegation, which Spock thinks is illogical
- Gracelings vs. Fire Lord Ozai in the ultimate showdown
- You have a Portal gun. Your task is to find the Holy Grail. Morgana le Fay may interfere
I participated in an (on indefinite hiatus) glowfic that was, basically, a D&D druid meets the USS Enterprise. The druid couldn’t use most of their powers normally because they work with ensouled life and classical elements, not these ‘atoms’ and life that does all its cognition with just the brain. It was fun.
And ahead of me if I work on it is the uplifting story of a magic school student … not having access to his powers and instead introducing a high-magic lower-nonmagical-tech setting to the wonders of electricity and electronics and modern medicine.
Tags:
#yeah I was reading this post the whole time thinking ”have *I* got the genre for *you*” #glowfic #recs #story ideas I will never write #fanfic #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what
Brinens and Things 