Yeah, agreed on the novel-length butterfly effect AUs. The shortest viable ones I've seen can clock in at around 5-6k, but usually we're talking tens of thousands for a fully realised AU.
I've seen some amazing radically different AUs in DC, Homestuck and even Dresden Files, but I think it's a matter of finding stuff by specific authors I like, more than a quality of individual characters or fandoms.
Regarding the way people write Kylo into modern AUs where he's de-aged and/or focusing more on interpersonal and family relationships, I suspect it comes from relatability in some cases. Here is a character, who underneath the space opera trappings and murder, reflects some interesting things about family relationships, hard choices, and growing up. Tweek the setting, extrapolate some characteristics and suddenly it's something that can resonate with the right kind of audience.
To a degree that's why non-Star Wars AUs *don't* appeal to me personally. A lot of my reading is for escapist purposes, and rich overblown settings with semi-contradictory world-building minutiae is way more my jam. A homeless Rey, a Finn from a terrible family background that he escapes, a Kylo struggling with family, are all things that cut just a little too close for my personal taste. But hey, I can absolutely see why people would go for that too and such stories have the capacity to say even starker things than a Star Wars setting.
I have a kind of conflicted relationship with the way D/s is presented in fic. I feel like most characters outside of certain settings probably don't have that much access to kink culture. So there's this delicate line to walk between showing good D/s without necessarily going through the proper forms like having characters knowing about good negotiation, safewords and aftercare. I like the idea of characters independently deriving those sorts of things through trial and error (hopefully without too many catastrophes along the way) and discovering kinks almost incidently. I suppose I like the discovery aspect, then, hmm.
Also I am so here for dynamic-switching where roles are flexible, or emphasis that bedroom roles don't necessarily creep into out-of-bedroom situations. I agree completely about the loss of control in A/B/O-verses potentially erasing characterisation. It's why I prefer the fuck-or-die trope to sex-pollen. Same end game, completely different characterisation and emotional tone, usually. Though some of my favourite fics have been dealing with the aftermath/fallout from sex pollen the "morning after".
Also no worries about off-topic-ness. This is the off-topic page after all (I say, while going off topic too).
Re: Radically different AUs - OP
Yeah, agreed on the novel-length butterfly effect AUs. The shortest viable ones I've seen can clock in at around 5-6k, but usually we're talking tens of thousands for a fully realised AU.
I've seen some amazing radically different AUs in DC, Homestuck and even Dresden Files, but I think it's a matter of finding stuff by specific authors I like, more than a quality of individual characters or fandoms.
Regarding the way people write Kylo into modern AUs where he's de-aged and/or focusing more on interpersonal and family relationships, I suspect it comes from relatability in some cases. Here is a character, who underneath the space opera trappings and murder, reflects some interesting things about family relationships, hard choices, and growing up. Tweek the setting, extrapolate some characteristics and suddenly it's something that can resonate with the right kind of audience.
To a degree that's why non-Star Wars AUs *don't* appeal to me personally. A lot of my reading is for escapist purposes, and rich overblown settings with semi-contradictory world-building minutiae is way more my jam. A homeless Rey, a Finn from a terrible family background that he escapes, a Kylo struggling with family, are all things that cut just a little too close for my personal taste. But hey, I can absolutely see why people would go for that too and such stories have the capacity to say even starker things than a Star Wars setting.
I have a kind of conflicted relationship with the way D/s is presented in fic. I feel like most characters outside of certain settings probably don't have that much access to kink culture. So there's this delicate line to walk between showing good D/s without necessarily going through the proper forms like having characters knowing about good negotiation, safewords and aftercare. I like the idea of characters independently deriving those sorts of things through trial and error (hopefully without too many catastrophes along the way) and discovering kinks almost incidently. I suppose I like the discovery aspect, then, hmm.
Also I am so here for dynamic-switching where roles are flexible, or emphasis that bedroom roles don't necessarily creep into out-of-bedroom situations. I agree completely about the loss of control in A/B/O-verses potentially erasing characterisation. It's why I prefer the fuck-or-die trope to sex-pollen. Same end game, completely different characterisation and emotional tone, usually. Though some of my favourite fics have been dealing with the aftermath/fallout from sex pollen the "morning after".
Also no worries about off-topic-ness. This is the off-topic page after all (I say, while going off topic too).