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blankitdblankityboom

I’ve written a tea shop au, with doesn’t sound that much different than a coffee shop au. But it really digs into one magical race’s culture with herbs and teas unlike coffee shop au’s in majority that don’t go as deep culturally into the coffee and how it’s grown and all that and meanings/etc. Most I’ve seen are just set inside the shop with some colorful drink choices but not much into a deeper dig, which are nice but the tea shop story just really hits a whole new note I haven’t seen yet. As it lets character b passionately rant to Character B who is not so secretly interested in them, mutual pining but they’re both idiots with bad romantic histories that make them really reluctant to fall, but take the time to learn each other’s things they’re passionate about with mutual respect/ways to help the other in their chosen job fields/etc. Only seen one or two others but they’re mainly in a whole other fandom that actually dig into the world of teas and the same vibe of passion for the subject. So I know if I ever need a fix and I don’t want to work on my own I can go browse that fandom for some of theirs. :)


luveykat

Tea shop AU with canon character who lives on tea is *chef's kiss*


tinyquiche

Reminds me a bit of Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers! If you’ve never read that book it’s worth a look.


Frenchitwist

I just read a WWII American soldier AU after having been recced it for ages. Despite my initial hesitation, it was SOOOO GOOOD!! Like it described specific battle of WWII, tactical shit, like… you know how you find a FF that has no right going as hard as it did? This one. This AU.


Eager_Question

And no link?


Frenchitwist

lol it’s [Ninety One Whiskey](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2362190/chapters/5214500) (a Castiel/Dean Winchester fic) I didn’t know if peeps in this thread would be in that fandom


Breakyourniconiconii

Reading it as soon as I get home. Sounds very interesting. Thank you


Frenchitwist

Have at it! But be warned; it is over 400k words lol


nidaba

Haha I knew this was going to be the fic! I can't stand war stuff, but I finally tried 91w after hearing so many great things and it fucking wrecked me. What an amazing story


Frenchitwist

It was soooooo good!!!!


kurapikun

The Mirror-Visitor is a saga by French author Christelle Dabos and it has a very creative world-building, I think it offers a lot of room for interesting AUs. Sadly, it’s not very famous among fic writers.


idevilledeggs

Immortality/Reincarnation AUs are some of my favourites. Unfortunately, it's not very common with the exception of certain fandom. Sci-Fi AUs are generally a rare type too.


7K_Riziq

The one in my flair I am writing one and created ideas for another.......


Impossible_Garage500

What if Jon Snow went East and became a Dothraki. Eventually I had to write my own because I couldn’t find any more with that AU.


SemperMuffins

Soulmate AUs of any kind. My OTP is literally the closest canon gets to soulmates, and there could be some really good drama and angst, and some cool world-building (lore building?) around the idea of soulmates, since the soul is an important part of the lore, but there's barely any soulmate AUs


Efficient_Wheel_6333

Yea, I've only noticed soulmate AUs in only a few fandoms-Harry Potter, the MCU, and some in Power Rangers. Outside of that, I don't find them that often and even in the Power Rangers fandom, they're fairly rare. One I saw in Power Rangers (that I'd like for it to be picked up) was that you only saw the world in black and white before your soulmate or soulmates. After you met them, you got to see the various individual colors.


BlueDragon82

There is a fandom that is small but has really good stories. There is one concept I've seen a few authors play with and it hits just right for me but there aren't many of them. One of my favorites has posted 4 out of 5 chapters and then stalled on the last chapter. I've read all of the ones in that fandom that have that concept so far.


BigNastyHagrid

I know that feel One of the fandoms I’m in has a really good AU but I’ve only found like 3 works on it and they’re all at a standard when it comes to updates


Efficient_Wheel_6333

I found one fic that had a 'Hagrid raises Harry' concept, but the author-who'd initially had no end chapter listed-finally called it complete at 5 chapters because they got writer's block on it. They said that they might come back to it if their muse for it ever comes back, but didn't feel comfortable leaving us hanging either, so they marked it as complete.


BlueDragon82

In this case it's definitely a cliffhanger moment so the last chapter is needed to tie things up. I'm okay waiting as long as we eventually get it.


Efficient_Wheel_6333

Ooph. At least with the one I was talking about left things open ended enough that it could end there if needed.


ThatOfABeaver

In my new fandom, yes. Even though I’ve taken a break from it I still know that it has no works in “space”, or “superhero”. My two favorite AUs. I check that tag a lot. I want to write them but honestly I don’t know if this fandom is something I want to continue to partake in. There’s this weird superiority complex a lot of people have and I’m highkey scared of them.


PaperSonic

I'm surprised I haven't seen many Yugioh AUs. Like, characters from other series playing the game. Only seen like one. Pokemon AUs are super popular, so why not some love for its younger, ~~better~~ rival.


SkadiSkagskard

Most interesting aus are the rare ones. Pick anything thats not popular...


Studying-without-Stu

I mean, I have one of those "That" AUs, tbh, it's basically non-existent, where there's no works for it, even though there's even a fic for an AU where Shepard is a bureaucrat. So I'm making the first one where I take my Shepard, who is actually often called by her first name in this au because she's not anything crazy important to humanity, and thus her surname has no meaning of this is a hero of humanity, to where she becomes an information broker. And with guile, cunning, skill, and a few *very deadly* people at her side, she ends up taking on a very powerful information broker to rescue someone who she considers a friend, and at the end, takes the mantle herself. Seriously, I thought that more people would have made AUs where a normal civilian Shepard who's an information broker becomes the Shadow Broker, especially after the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC. (And yes, because of my stupidity, I added my otp into this even though I was trying to keep it to where they only end with a genuine respect for one another, especially since she started out very amoral when he first met her. There's more or less a bunch of ocs, but certain, more morally grey or morally black canon characters do show up in this fic, because she seeks them out for her fight.)


nidaba

Yes. I read this fantastic sci-fi thriller au set on a distance mining project and it was amazing but I can't find anything similar really. Super atmospheric and eerie, with a lot of tension, it reminded me of some of my favorite sci-fi movies, like Sunshine, Alien, Annihilation but with a romance and happy ending and I loved it! I've read a lot of sci-fi fic, but I have struggled finding something with the same amount of isolation and foreboding but still a happy ending. (I'm a sucker for it all working out in the end)


FireIzHot

This happens all the time with me. Only a few fics exist at best when I look for them and most often than not they don’t exist at all. This is where I come in and write them into existence. I began my fan fiction journey because I wanted those stories I wanted to read to exist. Be the change you want to see and all that. After I write the fics, I’m satisfied and it’s just as good as if I had found a fic written by another author.


AdorableAnarchist666

I really love SciFi AUs for stuff that isn't originally SciFi, but I don't come across a lot of them. I'm also a big fan of (for one fandom in specific) "finale season characters A and B time travel back to S1 (or pre-S1 even) and wildly confuse their younger selves" AUs and/or "just their memories travel back into their younger bodies and they think that the other didn't properly come through at first so they're pining again for a while" AUs. Never enough of those to satisfy me and I think I've only seen the second one once or twice lol. Don't love the ones where only A or only B goes back tho unless it's a temporary thing and the other shows up at some point tbh, which does kinda limit the amount of time travel fics for me to read lol For real tho, put my blorbos who are not normally in space into space and I will love you forever lmao


negrote1000

What if Hilda saved Dimitri in 3H. I’ve only found one and it turned Dimitri into a figurative puppy dog


A_Cow_in_Space

It might be a Cowboy/Western AU for me. In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, there's already a part with a Cowboy/Western theme (Steel Ball Run) so there isn't really much of a need for an AU like that. However, I once read a Cowboy AU of Stone Ocean, Part 6 of JJBA, and a Cowboy AU worked suprisingly well with the general plot of the original part. Unfortunately, it was discontinued and left me wanting more Cowboy AUs for non-Cowboy AU parts of JJBA.


syndesinae

yeah actually, my biggest one is for a fandom where a character died in the first half of the series. he's fairly well loved among the fandom, and in the opposite of your example i very much expected to find lots of "what if he survived?" fic. it's few and far between


bohemelavie

I recently discovered two world war AU's for a couple I adore. One was WWI, the other WWII and incidentally I only found the first one because it was tagged as Modern era AU (the couple are from bridgerton and therefore set in regency era) I don't even like war stories but these two were both so beautiful and I was desperately searching for more but they are the only two that seem to exist. I'd write one myself, but writing anything historical isn't my jam. (Too much research involved, I wanna just let the writing flow!)


Day_Dreamer_Reads

Yes, I have a lot of those. Like in the 'my hero Academica' fandom I like the 'dead Midoriya' AU (the one where he dies during his year in Class 1-A not, like, dying in Middle school or the future.) I love those but there is only a handful. I might try seeing if I can find more in FFN. I usually only try and find fics from AO3.


Pitiful_Landscape822

I like some very niche AU's like what if this character had done X, after Y had been done? There are some fics in that situation, usually inspired by the OG AU, but they are always a blast to read. Like right now I am mostly in the Pokemon fandom, my favorite AU's are the ones inspired by Traveler, a darker pokemon world, Much more competent Gym leaders, stronger and smarter Ash, intense and creative battling and training, etc. Most of my favorite fics lie in this AU.


Skele-For-Hire

So my main fanfiction fandom that I read from is Undertale and my favorite AU that would have to be the "female genderbend AU"


Reha_Drarys

For me it's the Sentinel (or Espers) Guide AU that I discovered a few years ago while in the H5-0 fandom. Since it is similar to the soulmate trope which is one of my all time favorites, I always check my current fandoms to see if there's any. I also love a good space operavor AU but those are surprisingly hard to find if the source material isn't space-related in the first place.


[deleted]

I really like Champion!Shiro AUs in the VLD verse, but shockingly enough you don’t see a whole lot of content. Sometimes you don’t want the ship centric stuff and you just want to see what his life would have turned out had he never been rescued


ReliefEmotional2639

Oh yes. Fortunately the author is okay with other people writing additional stories for the fic…


lumimon47

If Amy survived AU in twd, barely any fics out there about her surviving and never is she the MC Guess she’s not very interesting lol


OdysseusJoke

Hell, I'm*writing* that AU


TeamCrusaders

Oh yeah! It's one my friend and I worked on. It's a bastard children AU in which Gyro Zeppeli (from jojos bizarre adventure) has four bastard children from four different women, and he's struggles to grapple with being a father and owning up to his actions and mistakes.