In an alternate dimension this was the very boring OU meme.

[followedbylemmings]

The AU Meme

Your character has now been AUed! And is doing...things!

...yeah, okay. I'll make this look like a normal meme.

• Post!


• Okay, in that top level post? Somewhere in your post...in the header, in the post itself...mention what that AU is. We're kind of aiming for a level of detail that's somewhere above 'Bob | Canon | OTA' but doesn't have to be 500 words of text. Or even 50.
  
  You know, something like, "A hardboiled detective with nothing to lose." Or, "By day a mild mannered burger flipper, by night the feared hero Blackwing." A little bit of a hook.
  
  And if you're really stumped, RNG and a list of general genres just to get you started:
  
  1. Pirate adventure!
  2. Space opera!
  3. Harem romantic-comedy!
  4. Western!
  5. Monsters vs monsters!
  6. Giant robot mindfuck anime!
  7. Magical girl!
  8. A gripping period piece set in the 1920s!
  
  (There's obviously more genres but if I listed them all it would be a really long list.)
  
  And if you can't decide, do a few quick hooks and number 'em and let people pick from your scenarios.


• And if you don't know what to post in terms of scenarios, just jack something from the random scenario meme or one of the other memes on this page.


• And stand tall and shake the heavens.

Comments

Joan Watson | Elementary

[formersurgeon]

[There are two sides to the City: the side that the slack-jawed and map-toting tourists see, all dazzling lights and shining chrome, with the whiff of a street cart dog and the strains of brassy jazz in the air. It's the City as you'd want to see it, where men wear white hats and three-piece suits and the dames are all smile and sophistication and legs that won't quit.

But beneath that, in the back alleys and the dangerous neighborhoods, is a dark and dirty underbelly, the kind of place that, if you're very unlucky, will suck you in, wring you out, and string you up. It's no place for decent folk, and certainly no place for a lady. And yet it's on the sidewalk of one of these broken streets that a woman walks, her grey jacket a perfect match to her grey pencil skirt, the seam of her stockings perfectly positioned to run down the backs of her coltish legs, and a pair of black stilettos that would pierce a man's heart at thirty paces. Eyes watch her from the shadows of the alleys, from the spider-cracks of the broken windows. That doesn't stop Joan Watson, because she's more than just a dame.

She's a detective.]

Re: Joan Watson | Elementary

[madamemorticia]

[To most people, Morticia Addams spelled trouble. A doll in a black dress that looked more like a thin coat of liquid, happily married (or so she said) but with a smile that could make a soldier turn traitor, and a penchant for turning up at crime scenes with a satisfied gleam in her eyes. But even the most no-good ladies find themselves in jams they can't get out of, and that's when they turn to the professionals.

Morticia waited in Joan's office, wearing what would have been considered mourning garb thirty years ago. But for once, it wasn't the dead that concerned her but the living.]

[formersurgeon]

[The frosted glass on the door reads "Holmes & Watson" in gold letters, even though Watson is the one to keep regular hours. Holmes is brilliant, and his mind's sharpness is to a tack like the Hudson is to a trickle of water in the gutter. But genius doesn't pay the bills like regular work.

Joan enters her office and sees the woman in black, raising her eyebrows in mild surprise, since she's fairly certain her appointment book was clear for the day. A surprise visitor always meant trouble, but it remained to be seen whether that trouble was Joan's or the woman's.]

Hello. I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting anyone, Mrs. ...?

Tim Drake | Young Justice: Invasion

[necessaryrisks]

[It had been a solo mission honored to him after years of training, the last step for him to prove worthy of a position among his brothers in order to protect their kingdom. It was supposed to be a simple mission. There were rumors of a new group of bandits running around and causing problems for one of the smaller villages of their country. It was normally not something that would require his aid, but there were also tales of these bandits not being quite...

... human.

Ghostly apparitions, some reports said. They can simply vanish in front of you, others proclaimed. Had it been any other leader, they would have simply brushed it off as superstitious mumblings of backward citizens. His leader wasn't like the others.

Tim wanted to make sure that he would do his job well. He was given a sword to bring along, but he refused the heavier armor that they owned for something more practical for moving around. He wanted to blend in and see things from the perspective of a citizen, not reign in as a soldier and cause their target to move. A simple traveler, with the chainmail under his clothes for some protection at least.

In hindsight, he should've expected he'd be followed, and he frowns at his companion on the way to the location.]

You really don't need to follow me. I could handle this myself.

[socrash]

[Things had been going well until about a week ago. Bart, along with several other boys from his village, had been sent to go construct a mine in the hills a mile away. It was dusty, it was dark, but someone claimed they'd found traces of iron ore, which would've helped boost trade in the village immensely.

So they'd gone in there, lamps in hand, removing most of the rubble and constructing some columns that would help support the roof as they moved in deeper. It was a tiring job, but a good one.

And then the ghosts had appeared.

Well, hard to say if they were ghosts or not, but something ghastly was definitely in there. Bart hadn't been there the first time it happened, but tales had quickly started filtering about vengeful ghosts protecting their lair (or something along those lines). Luckily, someone had been dispatched to their aid and most of the village had been quite content to sit back and let the stranger do his work.

Except for Bart.

He's trailing the stranger now, a heavy can of paint clutched in his arm. The extra weight makes it a little more difficult to move as rapidly as he usually does, but he's never more than five ten feet from the other male.]

Maybe, but you don't know this area as well as we do. What if there's too many of 'em and you gotta run? You wouldn't know where to go.

[necessaryrisks]

[He had a point, though Tim doesn't say that, pausing in his tracks only long enough for Bart to catch up. After all, even if he shouldn't be following Tim, Tim wouldn't want to race on forward and leave him alone in case those guys decided to ambush him. Though his weapon of choice was...]

And the paint bucket? What's that even for?

Kinda figuring she's some sort of squire for Princess Diana in this one

[blundergirl]

[Diana was going to be neither pleased nor surprised when she realized her charge had managed to sneak her way out of the castle to follow along (though maybe a little bit proud of her improved stealth, getting past the royal family's guards was no easy task). She kept her hair concealed under a hood, her disguise a bit hastily thrown together, but in her opinion it was sufficient.

She'd probably need a better one sooner than later, all the same.

Cassie isn't even a little bit surprised when he calls her out. Guards? Yeah, she can slip past them, but nothing gets by a member of Tim's family.]

I'll bet that sounded a lot more convincing in your head. [Because if Tim knew her at all then he had to realize as soon as he'd said it that there was no way that was going to be enough to get her to head back to the castle.]

Totally works for me!

[necessaryrisks]

[He doesn't comment on that, because well-- okay, she had a point. Though he does worry about it either way, since he had already suspected she'd follow, but didn't actually think she would. Or rather, hoped she wouldn't, because he wouldn't want her in harm's way. Not that he didn't believe in her abilities though, which is the only reason it took him so long to say anything even if he noticed her much earlier.]

The princess isn't going to be happy about this. You know how protective she can get.

[thesatisfied]

[It was an odd mix of circumstance that the two crossed paths. While definitely a bandit, Roy and his band of followers weren't the ones Tim was looking for at the time. And while Tim was gracious enough to leave them alone after he discovered that little twist of information, Roy's interest was piqued. He was obviously more than a simple traveler, especially after the display he made in front of them all defending himself. And although his style was pretty unique, something about it felt familiar to Harper. He wasn't quite done with the boy Drake.

And that was how Roy found himself steadily following the other quite a ways back, not surprised in the least that he'd been caught. He dropped from the tree he'd been perched in and smirked, the rope he'd been hanging from retracting into his armored arm, the edges of which glowed with the magic of enchantment.]

You sure about that? You could barely keep up with me back there.

[necessaryrisks]

[It was rare to see magic outside of the royal family, and he had to wonder if that was due to his strange arm or because he was a caster himself. His own clan, at the very least, didn't have magic at all, which was why they relied on physical combat and stealth heavily. This guy had been the most difficult to engage with out of his group-- none of them were to laugh at either, something Tim respected, but the attitude not as much.

The words earns him a look, like Tim was tempted to reply in kind-- but decided against it. He wasn't about to go with a battle of egos with him.]

Only because of your magic. Besides, this has nothing to do with you. Your group must be worried.

hercules hansen; PACIFIC RIM

[striker_eureka]

[When the aliens attacked Earth, they did end up coming from the stars, descending upon a terrified, unprepared population with a righteous fury of biblical proportions. The damage the first kaiju wrought nearly leveled half of North America; the ensuing cloud from the nuclear fallout covered half of the northern hemisphere.

So humanity did what they did best: they adapted. Namely, they adapted to live on other worlds. The space program of every country advanced in leaps and bounds; terraforming became the way of the future. The humans fled their demolished little planet and set up shop on other rocks, but they did not forget what had been done to them. The kaiju would be made to pay for their deeds.

From the ashes of now-defunct military organizations rose the Jaeger Program. An interplanetary, intercultural defensive fleet tasked with protecting the fledgling new worlds that humanity has laid claim to.

And, oh. They certainly did.]

(ooc | or: the pacific rim/firefly mashup you didn't know you wanted.)

[hidingworks]

[Sometimes, strange things happen. Like when a young woman is found in a restricted area, helping herself to pieces of dismantled Jaegers, meant to be refitted onto the new models or scrapped entirely. Typical procedure would see her given a court martial, whether or not she could prove her claim at civilian status, and, more likely than not, she'd be executed for her theft.

What made Lenore Drale different?

The fact that she was found in the restricted area without a single alarm going off. Someone on patrol had found her, and none of the monitoring systems had noticed her presence. Her portable computer was checked, and a program was found. Her own design, and it had effectively cloaked her from the threat assessment, programmed her identification into the system to allow her to pass as if she had been granted clearance.

Needless to say, it would have been a waste of a good programmer to kill her.

So, Len got the access. No more street living, salvaging metal and mechanical parts to help refurbish illegal racing vehicles and betting on that. No, she had a roof over her head, three square meals a day, and a job.

At present, she'd been tasked with designing new weapons systems. The kaiju were learning and adapting. That meant humanity had to do the same if they wanted to keep taking the fight to their enemies. Lenore sat -- or, rather, laid, as she was presently stretched out on a table's bench with her computer on the table above her -- in the mess hall, her mind stalled on a particular system and trying to think.]

[striker_eureka]

[Hercules doesn't often really bother himself with getting to know the maintenance crew; it's not snobbery or a deliberate shunning on his part, he's just way too busy most days to be able to sit down with engineers and repair technicians and shoot the shit.

It means that he often doesn't recognize them when he sees them, only really able to tell what their job is based on what kind of jumpsuit they're wearing.

So today, upon entrance to the mess hall in the bowels of the Shatterdome Space Station, he has no problems with nudging the legs of the girl who's taking up most of the bench as he looms over her with his tray in one hand and Max's leash in the other.]

Move your arse, love, you're taking up the only free bench in this whole bloody hall.

[suoxi]

[ Out of the ashes of the devastation rose all sorts of new 'roles' for human beings to engage in.

Pilots, scientists, engineers, builders, floaters, Companions. Humanity had to literally change the way it looked at everything, and Companion Houses were established throughout the newly formed worlds and initially existed primarily for the pilots and the military -- the idea by the women running them to provide 'moral support'. As time passed, Houses became more and more steeped in ritual and ancient tradition, the idea of geisha and the way they were treated, thought of, and appreciated becoming more and more appealing than the words 'whore' or 'prostitute'. This continued until an encounter with a Companion became something that was highly sought after, paid for, and politely requested rather than demanded.

They became very respected individuals in the fleet and highly thought of members of society that were as expensive as they were graceful (incredibly).

Inara Serra is currently stationed to Herc's 'dome, along with several others from her house, and she's moving through the halls with unrivaled grace and dignity, head head high as men and women alike parted for her, heads dipping in acknowledgement. Companions weren't only high class courtesans these days -- they were also Buddhist priestesses in their respective houses that many respected and revered.

She's on her way to visit the Marshal, not yet having had the opportunity to meet him yet, since she's newly arrived on this particular 'dome.

Arriving at his door, she pauses and lifts her hand, tapping once with her knuckles against cool metal. ]

Andrew Carter | Hogan's Heroes

[stlg13bomber]

[The Nazis started getting really desperate around the end of the war. They began rushing all of their odder ideas into production--superweapons, pointlessly huge tanks, and chemical enhancement to make their soldiers more resistant to damage and the elements. Of course at that point they couldn't afford to waste their own soldiers on getting the formula right. A group of prisoners were randomly selected from Stalag 13 and taken, against their kommandant's fervent protests and a near-riot by their fellow inmates, to be used in the Nazis' experiments. Stalag 13 was liberated by the Allies soon afterward, but it was over a month before they managed to track down the secret laboratory where the prisoners were being held.

And they found it because Sgt. Andrew Carter had turned half the facility into a massive fireball. Whatever the initial purpose of their experiments, the chemicals had changed his body to make him the personification of that which he loved so dearly. He was a living bomb.

Colonel Hogan had wisely kept the matter under wraps. The army would likely make Carter's life miserable as they tried to replicate the formula, and even if they didn't they'd be keeping him under constant surveillance. The gang found a place for him out on the English moors to hone his abilities and control the fires that constantly raged within his body.

Carter learned to channel flames through his hands and create controlled explosions that didn't take out every tree in a 50 foot radius of him. No matter how many times he detonated himself he was left unharmed. When the gang felt comfortable letting him wander back to civilization Carter was eager to put his talents to work for the good of society. Somehow. Maybe this new superhero thing people were starting to get into.

As a pseudonym, he chose a translation of the name he'd seen written on the files the Germans had kept at the laboratories. Feuerwerkskörper.

Firecracker.]

ender wiggin | ender's game (book!verse, obviously)

[atallcost]

[ the lengths that humanity will go to when faced with extinction are impressive and often terrifying. the first wave of the kaiju had taught humans just how truly vulnerable they were. they'd begun building the jaegers, training pilots, and for a while, they'd beaten them back. maybe they'd even won. some people, though, hadn't thought so.

when the second wave came, the rift spilling kaiju out with months between, then weeks, then days, more pilots and jaegers lost with every battle, despair set in. entire cities were lost, populations decimated. the more the kaiju learned about humanity and its warriors, the more quickly they adapted.

and then they were introduced-- children, no older than fourteen, a few as young as nine, and their leader, a small, serious boy who never laughed. with them came greater weapons, faster and more powerful jaegers, some outfitted to accommodate child-pilots. resentment and horror and anger also followed, though as weeks passed and these warrior children began to make a difference, people quickly forgot their moral outrage. forgot, even, that they were children in the first place.

it's been six months, now, and humanity has gained some ground in the war. not enough, though, and it's clearly something that ender wiggin spends a great deal of time considering, if the long hours spent hunched over plans and calculations in the command room are any indication. ]


[ ooc; ender's game/pacific rim crossover, anyone? ]

[justlittle]

[Bean is too small to fit in a drive suit. He wants to fight, wants to pilot a jaeger, knows he would bring nothing to the drift but his emotionless tactical mind, but still he's left on land, watching as others risk their lives fighting the kaiju.

As Ender studies the kaiju, Bean studies Ender, because he knows he's the PPDC's next hope should Wiggin fail.

Three days on the war clock since the last event, and Bean finds Ender in the command room.]

Ho, Ender.

Joel | The Last of Us | space western obviously | open!!

[surething]

[ Work dries up quick on the fringes, ship parts and medicine and food get pricey, and Joel's never been good at keeping with any kind of regular crew. It's limiting, so he's closer to the center of the populated part of their galaxy than he's been since the sickness seeped it's way through their slice of populated universe.

Boston is the same as any other safe zone: fortified walls, uniformed dicks with guns, skinny civilians, and not a bit of anything worth scavenging for miles. He pinches a local id tag and doesn't meet the eyes of any soldiers on his way to a bar, following a tip from the friend of a friend of a guy who owed Joel money. The place is a hole, predictably. He hunkers down at the end of a dirty bar and trades a pair of mostly charged batteries for a drink.

Armed with nothing but a first name and a bare-bones physical description, Joel cases the clientele from over the rim of his lukewarm homebrew. ]

[queensbane]

[In a place like this, 'gaunt and hollow-eyed' probably isn't be a helpful descriptor but Alice would have the same frame no matter where you put her. She'd spent puberty in a medically induced coma while machines patiently rebuilt her fire-damaged body and mind. They had tried to make her a hybrid of woman and machine, a prototype of a powerful soldier who had a human's thought patterns but no free will of her own.

The first part had gone all right. The second part, not so much.

Alice is huddled over a glass of cheap moonshine. Her prosthetics are covered by gloves and stockings, and the scars on her scalp by crudely chopped black hair. She's staring at nothing in particular, but for once she's not hallucinating either. While the programmers had toiled Alice had created programs in her own mind as unconscious barriers against her intruders. crafted from the demented ruins of her childhood fantasies. They had allowed her to throw off their control and escape from that horrible place, but she couldn't completely control when the hallucinations activated. And there was always more corruption to clean out of her mind.]

Kurama | Yu Yu Hakusho | Pirates

[yuukaihan]

[He's walking the docks, his few meager possessions slung over his shoulder in a threadbare bag, looking for a ship that might take him on. For someone who looks like he's had a pretty long run of pretty bad luck, he's being awfully picky - the distaste is clear on his face as he passes by several of the ships, his eyes passing dismissively over their crews and captains.

Drunkards and slobs, the lot of them - their clothing in disrepair and their ships no better. He wants no part of any of that - he'll go back to living on the streets and stealing his supper before he stoops to their level. But the military ships are no good either - he's not cut out for their rigid command, for taking orders from someone he knows he could outsmart with little effort.

A ship of his own, that's what he needs - a ship and a crew he hand-picks for their skills and forms into his own little team. But that's just a pipe dream and he knows it - where's he ever going to find that kind of money? And a ship's a lot harder to steal than a loaf of bread - especially on his own.]

[aceinthehood]

One of said slobs is perched on the pier. His clothes are worn but obviously started their life as something high class. The same could be said for the owner--he might have been attractive once, but that was before someone took a knife and cut his smile nearly up to his ears. The man next to him is wearing a black cloak and gloves in defiance of the warm weather, and the shadows hide his face completely. (At least that's the impression given, to hide the fact he's actually got no face at all. Or any visible body parts under his clothes.)

"We can't just leave with a man short," the smiling man was saying. "We're stretched thin enough as it is."

"I'd rather be stretched in then pick some dishonest vagabond from the riff-raff inhabiting this port," replies the figure in black.

"And who'll take up the slack? Our navigator? Perhaps he can use his brilliant mind to steer the ship." His Lordship Cerebrum, despite his skills as a strategist, had limbs withered by horrific illness and at times was barely able to move. His massive manservant Mallah cared for his every need but one couldn't help biology.

[petitvoleur]

Overseeing the hustle and bustle on one of the smaller ships is a rather surprising sight: a woman, and a young one, with men addressing her as "Captain" left and right. Women sailors aren't unheard of in these parts, but a female captain is something to behold. She's standing with one foot propped up on the guard-rail, surveying the scene below on the docks with a quizzical expression on her tanned, weather-beaten face. She barks a few orders to the men below, loading cargo onto the ship, before spying a red-haired youth about her own age, seeking out work, from the looks of it.

While she may have a good crew already, she's always looking for an extra hand, especially since some of her crew has a tendency to be not so loyal. To them, serving a woman is beneath them, and they'll take any opportunity to be underhanded. The core of her crew, however, her first mate, her navigator, they're all hand-picked, and loyal. They've seen the things she's done, things some of her men could probably never imagine her doing. Here on the docks, she flies a legitimate flag, but out there, on the seas, she's been known to raise a black one.

"You." She calls out, staring down at the young man on the docks with a raised eyebrow. "Looking for work?"

Abe Sapien | Hellboy | Victoriana

[bprd_fishman]

[There were rumors about the Brutenholm place.

Several months ago the reclusive Professor Brutenholm's body was discovered out on the moors. An investigating doctor had declared it heart failure, most likely while he was out for a walk, and the expression on his face was peaceful. No foul play, just the reaper come to take away an old man whose time had come. But the nearby townspeople whispered about the marks found near his body. The marks of a wheelbarrow in the wet earth, heavier as it approached and lighter as it departed. And they also whispered about the strange footprints that followed its path.

Now the house lay empty. The professor had no locatable kin and he had lived alone, not keeping so much as a servant. The only residents of the house should be owls and rats. The local children swore, however, that they had seen a pale face with wide, glinting eyes peering out of the upstairs windows, only to duck back into the shadows when it caught them watching. Some thought it was the professor's lingering ghosts. Others claimed that it was a forsaken bastard child who had been locked in the attic to hide the shame of his deformities. More cynical minds said it was just the light playing tricks on children given to overactive imaginations.

In defiance of nature's law, the front porch was always meticulously swept.]

Doumeki Shizuka | xxxHolic | Pacific Rim AU

[monsterepellant]

[After the Kaiju, Onibaba, leveled half of Tokyo in 2016, and Doumeki lost his grandfather to the attack, the decision to enlist was an easy one to make

Doumeki is now 18, a member of the PPDC, and is currently going through training to become a Jaeger pilot at the height of the program in Tokyo. He's well-liked and popular enough, though he's not the most talkative young man, and he does quite well on his scores. He's been in a couple fights to determine compatibility so far, but as of yet, he hasn't really connected with anyone. He's drift compatible, but with who, well, he doesn't know that yet.

Currently, he's down at the archery range that's built into the Tokyo PPDC base, practicing a favored hobby (and one he learned from his grandfather.) It's calming, archery, and Doumeki uses it to practice his focus. There's a decent sized group of people down there already, either practicing or milling about, but Doumeki doesn't seem in the mood to chat. Not really. So insofar, no one has bothered him.]

[repelling]

[ Uryuu grew up on one base or another, so really, it had been inevitable, even before. Sensei let him follow reports he shouldn't have been allowed, much to Ryuuken's tight-lipped and ever growing disapproval. (He'd once been as much a military man, but after Uryuu's mother's death of cancer in 2011, retired to civilian life, dedicating himself to a hospital in Tokyo.)

Sensei was involved in the creation of the PPDC itself, and Uryuu tagged along as often as he could. When it became clear jaegers would need two pilots, he'd become, if foolishly, obsessed with the idea of piloting with sensei -- promising him they would, they'd definitely be compatible, and only Ryuuken's intervention prevented him from enlisting as soon as possible, in 2015 at thirteen.

Sensei died in 2016, on the scene, assisting in the arrival of the jaeger. Uryuu emancipated himself at the tail end of 2017, enlisted, and quickly stood out -- his scores and numbers were outstanding, he's compatible, and yet... finding a match has proved to be this side of impossible. It's frustrating, but that has little to do with the less stellar aspects of his reputation. Professional and extremely talented, but cold, almost unkind. He's closed off, and that's the problem. He doesn't connect, and at his age, demo numbers aren't enough.

Passed over again, he heads now to the range to relax. It's nostalgic for him, too. Sensei's reverence for archery made an impression, settling into his very soul, and these days, there's little that can improve his mood like gripping his bow, taking aim.

Needless to say, if possible, he's even less inclined to chat. The bother won't be coming from him. ]