flickering fannish thoughts

[schmerica]

A. So I was thinking about AUs, earlier, for some reason. And the thing about AUs is that they really come down to basically, how much you can change while still keeping the characters, still keeping the core important stuff. Which led me to the conclusion that I really can't imagine how someone would manage to do a decent story where Fraser's mother had never died, or died when he was much older. Presumably it might be possibly, with a good enough writer, but -- man. Who the hell would Fraser be, then?

B. I suspect the reasons I find the early Willow/Xander stuff kind of yicky are pretty much the same as the yickiness I got from Clark/Chloe. The "girl pining hopelessly for her best guy friend, who is completely oblivious and wanting other girls" squicks me out SO MUCH. It makes me horribly embarrassed for the girl, and damn annoyed with her at the same time. And, really, my desired outcome for that scenario is always going to be "girl gets over him and finds guy who likes her from beginning" and never, ever going to be "guy friend comes to his sense and they get together." Ick ick ick.

C. Can any of you Buffy type people point me to some stories? I'm interested in knowing if there's anything taking place in Buffy's high school years, but with Dawn included. So far I've seen a couple things of fox1013's, and basingstoke's Big Rock Candy Mountain, but I'd be interested in seeing more.

Comments

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

The other problem is that we know NOTHING about who Caroline Fraser was. We see her once, and she doesn't even speak. Was she outgoing? Shy? Did she thrive on the rough and rugged frontier life or did she resent Bob for dragging her out into the frozen middle of nowhere? Was she quietly bitter each time Bob left home to chase bad guys across the tundra for four months, or did she breathe a sigh of relief that now she could put away the good china and let life get back to normal? Hell, Fraser doesn't even know who she was--how well did you understand who your mother was at age 6? Since we don't know who she was, we can't imagine how her presence would have influenced Fraser.

*nods* Those are really good points. Right now we see Fraser with that ... lack strongly represented in him, but that really doesn't tell you anything about what would come in to replace that.