fhplotterywheel | AU Weekend 2011!

We now interrupt your hair-teasing and jelly-shoe-wearing preparations for this weekend to talk about ...dun dun DUUUUN... another weekend! One you all know and love, with slight....mutations. (Please disregard the tentacles. They're not dangerous. Really. DON'T PUT THAT THERE!)

On June 4th and 5th, Fandom Island goes Alternative! However, the island will be hopping around again on the night of the 3rd, and will land in an area of the ocean that has its own wacky dimensional forces at play -- so this year, AU Weekend will be getting a little freaky with it!

Original Recipe: Getting Replaced

Never fear; the old options are still here. For that weekend only, your character may be transformed into a different version of him or herself as a result of Fandom Weirdness.

To steal and mutilate from

exactlyaverage with love but no apology, your choices for AU characters are:

An alternate universe version of your character that occurred within the character's own canon: Xander -> Evil Vampire Xander

A version of your character that was played by a different actor: Daniel Craig Bond -> Sean Connery Bond

The counterpart of your character from a re-imagined version of the canon: Momoko (a Japanese teenager whose codename is Blossom) from Powerpuff Girls Z -> Blossom (an American kindergartener whose real name is Blossom) from the original Powerpuff Girls

The counterpart of your character from a canon that's loosely based on yours, or vice versa: Romeo -> Tony from West Side Story

The fh_wishverse version of your character (only for characters who had an AU version in the original plot): these should be played out of your character's regular journal, not their wishverse journal

A different role that the actor (including voice actors for animated characters) who portrays your character/PB has taken: Jack Sparrow -> Edward Scissorhands

A character (or inanimate object if you'd like a way to sideline your kid for the weekend) who shares part or all of your character's name:
Bo Jones -> Bo Duke
Annie Edison -> Edison Carter
Dahlia Mancini -> an actual dahlia flower

A ridiculous stereotype of your character frequently found in fanfic: Hermione -> Hermione Sue

If you are struggling to find a character to turn into, ping us and we'll try to help you out! You also always have the option of keeping your character normal so they can WTF at all of the crazy people.

Some answers to questions you didn't ask:

Yes! Your character will physically transform into the Alternate Universe Persona that you chose.

Yes! Your character will remember what happened afterward. (Though you're welcome to make those memories as clear or fuzzy as you'd like.)

Yes! This is open to alumni, expatriates, and characters who are temporarily off the island.

Yes! Those characters may come back to the island for the weekend, without it counting against their regular 5 days per month. There'll be a community event on Friday, the 3rd to which everyone is invited.

No! They don't have to come back to the island to be affected; through Fandom's clingy, clingy love, they can go AU no matter where they're physically located.

New Extra Crispy: Getting Yanked Away

If you choose, instead of your regular character being replaced by an AU self, you may have them snatched away to wake up in an AU world! The

fh_wishverse is off-limits for this one, because that's a big shared universe and if that world is ever fully revisited, it deserves to have a plot of its own, but your many other options are:

An alternate universe that appears within your character's canon: FH!Xander wakes up in the BtVS canon Wishverse, where everyone knows him as a badass vampire

An alternate version of your canon from a different production: Arthur and Merlin wake up in the musical version of Camelot

A canon loosely based on your own: Romeo wakes up on the West Side of New York and looks out the window to see street gangs dancing

The canon of a character played by the same actor as your character: Jack Sparrow wakes up in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory

The canon of a character who shares part or all of a name with your character: Annie Edison wakes up 20 minutes into the future, in the world of Max Headroom and Edison Carter.

The alternate universe/future from which any of your character's established AU kids have come. So yes, you can go see them again in their natural habitat.

But wait - there's more! Since it might not be so fun to putter around alone in an AU world, people can be snatched away in groups! As long as at least one character in the group can provide the AU connection from the list above (let's call that the anchor character), any number of additional characters may be snatched away to wake up in that universe with them. Some rules for groups:

The player of the anchor character (or characters, if the canon or the AU kid is shared) gets the final call on who else may accompany them. Please communicate with your canonmates and AU co-parents so everyone's on the same page there.

Characters dragged along need to be close to the anchor character either emotionally (friends/family) or physically (went to sleep near them, next hotel room over, etc.) Basically as long as you can come up with a connection that seems plausible to you, you're golden.

Characters who are emotionally close don't have to be in the same location when they go to sleep on Friday to end up in the same AU world together on Saturday. One could be on the island while another is in deep space.

More answers to questions you didn't ask:

No! Your character will NOT physically transform into their AU counterpart. Your character will look like they normally do, wake up wearing the clothes they went to sleep in, and be aware of who they really are.

Yes! Natives of the alternate universe will also see them as they really are. So if it's a canon AU or shared actor, an anchor character may be mistaken for their local counterpart. If the connection is based on a name, or the alternate character is played by a different actor, not so much.

Will your character replace their counterpart in the AU world? Due to the vagaries of Fandom and further weirdness caused by its temporary location, this could go either way. Obviously characters who were dragged along and don't have a counterpart won't be replacing anyone. Players of anchor characters may decide for themselves if their local version is also still hanging around the AU world (Ooh, hi, we're very pretty!) or will disappear while your characters are visiting. (What did you do with my Mom, OMG?) The only thing we ask is that this remain consistent within the same AU world. (If Xander and Willow wake up together in the BtVS Wishverse, either both of their vampire selves are also around, or neither of them are.)

No! If your character gets snatched away to another universe, they can't also have an on-island AU version running around. You'll have to choose between the two options.

Yes! Your characters will remember everything that happens on the weekend perfectly clearly. They were just physically stuck somewhere else.

Yes! They'll wake up on Monday wherever they went to sleep on Friday, be it on-island or off in their own world.

Yes! This is open to alumni, expatriates, and characters who are temporarily off the island.

Yes! Those characters may come back to the island for the weekend, without it counting against their regular 5 days per month. There'll be a community event on Friday, the 3rd, to which everyone is invited.

Yes! You or any other FH players you'd like to help you are welcome to NPC the natives of your AU world. You can do this out of your own journals or any PW or other NPC journal that you've already had approved for a plot.

AU world posts go in your character's journal, labeled with enough information that readers know where they're set and which other characters are allowed to join in; beyond that, feel free to go crazy with your adventures, or just sit around at Cheers trying to outdrink Norm for the weekend.

Sign-ups can be found here and will be due by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on June 2nd!

Questions you didn't ask that we didn't answer? Comments? Concerns? Storming of Barns? There is OCD for you.

AU Weekend 2011!

Re: AU Brainstorming: I Has An Idea; Want To Play With Me?