A Rogue Regency AU Arrives

I was reading a Jujutsu Kaisen story that happened to be a Regency AU with a remarriage concept and it’s a good story. Great, even.

But it made me think about how fandom really resists (or runs away from) doing research when something easier is at hand?

Regency AUs are everywhere in fandom because… they are everywhere in Romancelandia and so the first thing many people thinks of when putting together a historical romance for their favorite character is… a Bridgerton style romance in a culturally fuzzy world.

The Georgette Heyer, Julia Quinn style of Regency romance is seen across media. I don’t know anyone in fandom of a certain age that doesn’t have a favorite Pride and Prejudice adaptation. A specific kind of period film and historic romance holds fandom’s imagination captive… Even when branching out to other fandoms where the home countries of most of the characters had their own things going on at the same time period.

I’m not gonna lie though… It kind of makes sense to write a Yuri on Ice!!! Regency AU because of the globe trotting nature of the series and the diverse cast of characters. With some light fudging, it works. But… it doesn’t really make sense to write Regency AUs for the members of a Korean boy group, the cast of the Fast and the Furious franchise, the characters in Scum Villain, or the characters in Chainsaw Man.

I mean, I won’t exit out of a fun fic… But I will have questions.

If it’s the comedy of rules and errors that’s appealing, why set these East Asian characters and celebrities up in an ambiguous European flavored setting… Why not look to concurrent time periods in the sourcelands and do a little research there? And the research can be just as light or high intensity as you want, but it is possible. You can marathon some dramas, read a Webtoon or a novel. Ask questions and get answers!

I’ve felt like this for years, from when I realized that the britpicking folks did for Harry Potter or Sherlock and the research that went into understanding every single aspect of ice hockey wasn’t something that extended into other media fandoms? Especially when it came to “getting things right” for East Asian media?

I was in BTS RPF fandom at a time when Asian people (including Korean Americans) got accused of “essentializing” Koreans for pointing out ways that writers could put more “authentic” details in stories rather than writing raceblind. I saw some of the backlash to Chinese diaspora danmei fans who tried to offer guides on writing names properly and offered themselves up as gentle beta readers to the new American and European fanbase as those series became widely accessible as international fannish objects.

Not just that this communal offering of help was seen as abnormal but by trying to offer help to make other writer’s work more effective and less culturally insensitive, fans of color (here primarily East Asian fans from different diasporic communities) were treated as fandom cops and killjoys in a way no white Brit has ever been? (And they maybe should’ve been because wow I remember some of those Britpickers being militant.)

The thing is that I don’t remember any (white) British person being harassed for offering help but I’ve seen dozens of fans of color get treated like “antis” for offering, gently, to do the barest amount of cultural sensitivity or beta reading for stories that use their own cultures or countries?

Anyway, the fic I’m reading is great and more widower alphas need to fall in love with a fresh faced and youthful omega that makes them laugh. I just don’t see why the Regency aspect was necessary, but it’s not like it takes me out of the story… it just raises questions because you can tell the author (not necessarily here, just… broadly) also doesn’t know that much about the regency era either?