Inspiration for AUs and Headcanons

[fleurviolette]

 Where do you find inspiration for an AU or a headcanon?

Maybe it could be from an elaborate plot of a book, movie, or even tv? Or maybe the inspiration comes from a youtube video of someone eating an entire menu in a moving truck?

I'm just curious to find out, because sometimes inspiration can be found somewhere unexpected. 

Comments

[pensnest]

I've written quite a few AUs, and they come from various inspirations.

Personal experience: I worked in an advertising-adjacent industry many years ago, and it was enough (I think!) to allow me to fit my boys into an ad agency AU. Also wrote a very late pinch-hit drawing extensively from my own experience at geek conventions.

Canon-adjacent-icity(?): Translating the actual-world existences into something similar, possibly parallel. I was very pleased with my AU in which NSYNC became the cast of 'Synchronicity', a teens TV show, and Adam Lambert became an aspirant actor who could sing, rather than an aspirant singer with acting experience

Dragons! I've done quite a few stories involving dragons. Dragons are never wrong. I ran a dragon challenge for several years. When you start with a dragon, the rest of the world will come along.

Stole a plot:

- The Full Monty - though in this case it was more the stage musical than the film.

- Shakespeare: I've always loved Much Ado About Nothing the most, and it was in essence the plot of one of my more recent stories. I also threw in a location that I'd seen in a different context. And chefs, possibly because watching so much of The Great British Bake-Off made me think Food.

- fairy stories (Cinderella has a great basic plot)

Also, canon. A Backstreet Boys video, in which the Boys are a 1980s hair metal band *and* fans of same, was just begging to have an AU written about it.

[fleurviolette]

The ad agency idea kinda reminds me of Mad Men. That's so neat that you used to work there.

I've revisited my modern au where the main characters have YouTube channels, which is obviously bizarre because the canon consists of suave spies in the 60s.