All my dangerous friends

[dolorosa_12]

Further to my Buffy post, I was wondering about something I noticed in a recent fanfic search. This wasn't even strictly a Buffy phenomenon, since I encountered the same thing on a link journey started by Teen Wolf/Supernatural fic rec by thelxiepia.

I do not get the appeal of 'all human' AUs based on supernatural canons.

I mean, I am obsessed with stories of non-human characters interacting with humans. Vampires, angels, demons, gods, cyborgs, even zombies if done well. The only one that usually doesn't appeal is werewolves, and I've made an exception there for Teen Wolf because it's just so cute. The point is, I like the stories that arise when non-human beings have some kind of relationship with humans. I don't even exclusively mean the My Supernatural Boyfriend subgenre, although that can be fantastic. I just love the kinds of questions these character interactions open up: explorations of what it means to be human, whether human emotions and thought patterns are an exclusively human phenomenon, whether love (not just in the romantic sense) between a human and a non-human brings the non-human closer to humanity or makes the human monstrous, whether human morality is exclusively a product of human mortality. Etc. And it just seems to me that all-human AUs take all these things away.

So, my question, born of genuine curiosity rather than exasperation, is why? What are people wanting to explore when they write or read these AUs?

Comments

[cykotyks.livejournal.com]

Personally, when I'm writing an all-human AU, it's generally because the non-human aspect of the character has turned their life in such a way, and will always turn their life in that way, that I want to explore who that character is when they're stripped of that part of their identity. Additionally, how would their non-supernatural life have to be ordered in order to get the same basic character result? It's pretty fun for me, though sometimes I'll simply swap out varying supernatural elements. (For instance, I've taken various characters from Bleach, both human and shinigami, and reordered them into an entirely different supernatural world.)

But mostly, I'm thinking of Tree's webcomic where the non-human characters' lives are so completely upset by their transformations that I want to explore who they are and what they'd be doing if they'd stayed human or if their world was drastically different. Thinking about it, though, I think my interest stems from wanting to explore how one's society affects and shapes the individual, so placing them in various worlds, with various identities (be they human or supernatural), and seeing how they operate is a lot of fun.

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's interesting. See, what I like are questions about what it means to be human, and I find the presence of supernatural (especially immortal) characters who interact with (and often love) human beings helps to explore that particular issue. (I'm thinking of characters like Cameron in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, for example.) But it seems that your interest lies in what makes a character be themself. (Does that make sense? You seem to be interested in exploring to what degree a character retains their essential personality if their environment and supernatural nature are changed or removed.) So I can see why all-human AUs would appeal.

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

Also, that Bleach AU sounds really cool.