Every Fucking Author writes Modern AU. And I just don't get it. The universe is the whole damn point of the thing. The characters are so profoundly of their world that they cease to be themselves in significant ways if you move them to a modern setting.

I mostly agree with you; I think at some point the fandom saturation is so much that the characters become like kinderblocks. You can rearrange them and they still vaguely look like they did before, and that seems to be enough for most people. They are composed mostly of fanon and magazine shoots.

Occasionally, though, an author will really work to find the allegories between the story of the fandom's world and a different setting, and those modern!AUs (albeit few and far between) are a joy to read. Thought has actually been put into them. For example, I read a Hobbit modern!AU recently where Erebor was an Eastern European city-state that had retained its sovereignty, and the state had gone through a coup d'etat, which had resulted in the many deaths in the Durin family. Bilbo comes into play, and while it does occasionally bow to the whole Princess Diaries-romance novel soppiness, it was remarkably well conceived, because it wasn't "hey these people are pretty I bet Bilbo would look cute in glasses" nor was it "and then Bilbo becomes the QUEEN." It was really an account of what would have happened to a city-state like Erebor if it operated in the 21st century, with the modern "eh" towards monarchies.

So I defend the modern!AU, but only in the sense that the best exceptions thoroughly prove the rule.

Shawn and Gus, on the other hand, are basically the most married.

Yesssssss my precious.

A/B/O gets an automatic back button for me, which is ironic since I gather it originated in werewolf fics and I've been fascinated by werewolves since I was a kid.

It partly came through that, and then it also partly came through the "BDSM" worlds. Tepid bestiality + Fifty Shades of BDSM + bodice-ripper = a/b/o. Some of it is excellent. Most of it is horrible and uncomfortably hot. (In my experience, which is more extensive than I should perhaps admit to.)

You might like that Jaime/Brienne Regency AU story I mentioned above

thanks for that!

specifically because the author has thought a lot about translating the setting and making the characters work in it.

Mmmm please share!

Another modern!AU I recall--Downton Abbey, where the family was a corporation and Mary was trying to run part of it when the dude who kicked it came in as a ringer. It was very charming.

SGA is the ancestralhome of all crack, it is known.

I maintain that everything popslash cleared the way for the cracky joy that was SGA fandom.

And there was this fabulous (and sadly unfinished) Jaime/Brienne fic that was set in Regency Era England that I spent all night up reading a few months ago...

t perks up Vonnie, do we share a ship? I love sharing a ship with people. And, if I ever get hard up for reading material, I may go seek that one out (I am currently re-reading canon, so that's...not gonna be soon (As Ned Stark can't be Too Stupid To Live for too much longer, and those tend to be the chapters I put off reading)

I love AUs, myself. As long as it's well-written and the characters are still IN character, I have no problem seeing them in a new context. I've written modern day AU's for Star Trek characters, fusions with other fandoms (Firefly and Buffy, no surprise there), magical realism, it's all fair game to me.

See, the difference, for me, in moving a future to a present is that our imagined futures are inherently reflections of our presents. Whereas taking pasts (or fantasy that is strongly influenced by history) and dropping it into the present removes a huge amount of cultural context that profoundly shapes characters. Once you start removing some of those limits, then they stop being them in the same way. Removing cultural limitations from characters seems perhaps gratifying to the Id, but not as narratively interesting as adding cultural limitations (which is more likely in future to present AUs)

I will absolutely grant that there can be excellently-executed, well-thought-out Modern AUs for historical/historical fantasy canons. But, yeah, not worth wading through the 90% crap, for me. And there is sooooo muuuuuch craaaap

Contrariwise, legionseagle/A.J.Hall has an excellent, EXCELLENT Sherlock AU that is set in the Bronte juvenilia universe of Gondal, sometime in the 17th-ish century. I cannot say enough good things loudly enough.

[link] [link]

I've gotten good reviews on my Italian Renaissance version of Spike and Xander.

Mmm, Betsy that looks delightful.

Weirdly, for the two shows I am most rabidly fannish about (Hannibal and Penny Dreadful), I have not looked for fic. I am a little terrified to look for fic, because what if the fic writers mean well and don't get it?!

(Also, in the case of Hannibal, while I totally get the overlapping of boundaries and folie aux deux in Will and Hannibal's story, and while I joke about Murder Husbands and how the finale of S2 was the worst break-up ever, I don't want to read slash about them.)

One of my favorite AU fics is a slightly modernized (40-50 years worth) fusion of X-Men in the White Collar universe. It's Limited Release. [link]

The Gondal Sherlock fic sounds interesting--I'll check it out.

Nora Bombay's A/B/O primer is everything my day needed and I didn't even know.

EXCELLENT Sherlock AU that is set in the Bronte juvenilia universe of Gondal

I tried, I really tried to read this series, because I am a huge Sherlock fan, but I just couldn't. I don't know if it was the thought of wading through all those fics (bit of a hypocrite if you read my next paragraph) or if it was that they paired Sherlock off with an OFC, but I just revolt at that, I'm too much a Johnlock shipper.

If you like fics that are set in real historical times, I can recommend a couple of series. One is very long, twenty some odd parts, but I don't think any of them are more than about 5k words, so they're relatively easy reads, and takes place during WWII. Sherlock works at Bletchly Park and John gets invalided back from Africa. Lots of period typical hiding their sexuality and all. Long Ago and Far Away by lotherington. I haven't finished the series yet because it's so easy to stop and then pick it right back up again.

I love historical stories even if they aren't a completely AU setting of the original. I found a War Horse fic where Jim Nicholls didn't die on the field and he rescues Jamie from a prison camp. Very angst-worthy and lots of h/c. Roses of Picardy by splix. I actually found it because she writes Sherlock fic, but this piqued my interest. It's probably the only War Horse fic I will ever read, because it's become seminal for me. Again, lots of period typical homophobia, plus class barriers.

Oh, I love Limited Release. Such fun.