Hi everybody, I just thought I'd pop in and lend my own view of the AU!AU trend in BBM fanfic.
When I first heard about AU!AU I was dubious. What's the canon connection? Why call them Jack and Ennis at all? I think this is a fairly common reaction to the whole idea. But then I started reading some of it...I think "Lead Me To Your Door" was the first, and it's a good AU!AU to start with seeing as Jack and Ennis are very closely connected to the canon characters...and I gradually changed my mind.
I think what makes AU!AU interesting and what makes a good AU!AU is the way in which the writer incorporates the canon characterizations, settings, themes and even key pieces of dialogue or significant scenes into their new setting. And the more new settings I read, the more it altered my thinking. I started viewing Jack and Ennis not only as characters from the canon, but as archetypes. These two men started to feel like people who'd existed in all times, all places, and had had this connection with each other no matter where or when they met. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, sometimes they lived happily ever after, sometimes they didn't. But they are always there, and that lent new resonance to each new AU!AU I read, each new version of Jack and Ennis.
In addition, I've come to think that AU!AUs are essential to the survival of the fandom and the fic-writing community. Because we have so little canon...a thirty-page story and a two-hour movie...the AU!AUs are, in a way, creating new canon for us. Each new incarnation of our boys is a new story we can invest in and sustain our interest in the characters and the storyline. So much has been done within the canon and in AU stories, but there is infinite freedom to explore in an AU!AU.