For Other Than Season Three…
Unbelievable but true! There are stories being written about things other than Season Three of Chuck! Actually, there’s been a lot of good stuff going on recently. Most of it, I believe, is of the complete Alternate Universe variety. And a lot of it is really outstanding. So this time, after the jump, we’ll look at a few recent complete AUs.
I think the single most appealing aspect of the Chuck phenomena is the characters themselves. Starting with Chuck and Sarah, and continuing through a whole assortment of charming, goofy or relate-able figures. So its hardly surprising that a favorite pass time for many fans is putting them into new situations. It pleases me especially that so many writers are still at it over a year after the show ended. So with no further time wastage on my part, let’s get right to another assortment of stories.
A very fun AU that starts with a Pilot alternate is “A Good Man Goes to War” by ygbsm. This story has a Chuck who’s already a government agent of some sort. That puts it in the broad genre of stories I call “Macho Chuck” stories. That does mean some of the ordinary guy/fish out of water aspect that was so key to the original series is sacrificed. But the tone here is sweet and fun enough to overcome that handicap. In fact, what is gained, a very over-the-top James Bond/Avengers/Sky Captain sort of spy-tech comic book action is well told and tons of fun. The story got off to a fast start, Chuck and Sarah seem to like each other a lot, oh and the Intersect comes with a humorous twist I won’t give away. So far the story could be read in 90 minutes or so, but I have no idea how long it might go. I would rate it PG-13 for comic book sort of action violence.
Movie adaptions have been very popular in the fandom recently. Many of them have been extremely good too. The latest is no exception. I’ve also recommended other works by dettiot; so its no surprise the latest would be fun too. Its “The Fairy Tale of Sarah Walker” and its adapted from the movie Sabrina. This is just very well written and lots of fun. The source material is more of a pure romance, but the spy world has a role to play here as well. The catch is, this Sarah Walker is maybe a little more young and naive than in canon. We have a romantic rivalry of sorts between Bryce Larkin and his older half-brother Chuck Bartowski. What’s that? Did Dave just recommend a story with a built in love triangle? Well yeah. And it is interesting. This Sarah may be younger but she’s no dummy; and Bryce may be a convenient tool as she wrestles with the same sort of career vs love issues canon Sarah did. The construction of the plot is clever, and the parallels to both sources are intriguing. So far its only five chapters in and could be read in a couple hours. I would guess we’re around a third done. I would call it a PG rating, but the writer tagged it a “T” which is typically more like a PG-13 so it may get rougher in some aspect in the future.
edit: Wow I misread that one! Dettiot has posted this story will run seven chapters. So call it short but sweet!
My next recommendation is post-series. It is “Chuck Versus the Lost Years” by Angus MacNab. I promised some months ago I would warn readers if I ever recommend a post-finale story where Sarah doesn’t leave the beach with Chuck. Well that is the case here. And I have to admit, when I first started this story I thought it was too dark for my taste. The first few chapters are kind of tough. So I gave up on it. But Angus is an occasional visitor to this site and someone I often agree with. And I love his other on-going tale (“Sarah Versus the Farm“), so when other readers recommended the tale, and Angus gave his sales pitch, I decided to give it another try in a few months when it was complete. Best decision ever. This story is awesome. It is post-series, it takes place over a few months time, and its Chuck and Sarah’s next adventure. Beyond that, I don’t want to give anything away. But I will say it is high adventure and intensely romantic. I really can’t imagine any reader with sensibilities similar to my own being at all disappointed. So bite that bullet, get through those opening chapters, and be ready for an awesome ride. This is certainly among that upper crust of the very, very best post-series AUs. The story is now complete and can be read in about ten hours (novel length). I would call it rated R for both painful violence and passionate, well, uh… you know.
Other favorites are on-going.
“Chuck VS Life, Love, & Lies” by Uplink2 has entered its 3rd Act.
Jason75 (AKA Old Resorter) has been updating “Chuck vs The Long Island Debutante” after a hiatus and reports he has a few more ideas for new mysteries.
“Chuck vs the U-boat” by NinjaVanish had a new chapter added recently. Let’s hope this fun adventure in a unique AU continues. NV is reporting work is taking too much of his time. Lame.
And “Chuck vs The Sound of Music II” by Quistie64 has been consistently updating every other Thursday. It may be nearing a climax, but I’m not sure if it will be the end? I kind of hope not, this story has been a constant in the post-Chuck era. Loosing it will be like the show ending all over again…
So this was fun. We’ll have to do it again some time.
~ Dave
amyabn
atcDave
Ernie Davis
Faith
joe
thinkling
Chuck This 
atcDave
I agree completely and I’m following or have read all of the stories you mentioned. I will also point out a completed work by BillandBrick called “Long Road Home” that is I think as good as Angus’ story about post series finale. So many of the post finale stories have Sarah running off. I think the ones where she realizes, objectively, that she’s married to Chuck and makes a go of it are much better.
I like the AUs where our main characters remain, personality wise, as close to the show as possible.
Yeah there’s actually quite a number of post-series stories I’ve really enjoyed. Starting with Thinkling’s “Sarah vs Finding Herself”, Anthropocene’s hypothetical S6 series, mynameisjeffandimlost’s “Chuck and Sarah vs Their Next Adventure”, billandbrick’s “The Long Road Back”, and actually a few more and a large number of one shots…. Wow there’s a lot of good post series stuff.
Angus’ story was a particularly nice surprise to me as I’d given up on it once. As it turns out, I needed just a very little more patience than I had. I have very little patience with dark post series stories; to my mind the healing was well under way on the beach, and I am very cautious about anyone taking that places I don’t want to go. But Angus’ really did an excellent job making it exciting and appealing.
I would also say my favorite thing is when the characters are recognizable from the show. But I have enjoyed a number of distinctly different takes too. I’ve seen some very good stories that exaggerate one or more sides of a character. And of course a huge advantage of the written word is getting inside of a character’s head, which is very hard to do on screen. So it can be tough to call some introspection strongly in character, or not, simply because we get so little of such information from canon. Generally, if that reflection is interesting and “in character” as I understand it, it can be a lot of fun. But writers who focus on less appealing or destructive traits tend to loose me awefully fast.
Thanks, Dave! I’m back from off the grid, working hard on “Chuck Versus Route 66,” and hope to have the prologue posted some time next week.
Well you know I’ll be excited to see it! Welcome back.
That is great news to hear season 6 is on its way back. I cant wait.
Thanks—glad to know it!
Me too. The series up to now have been really good
Thank you as well, Wllf!
Thanks for the kind words about Chuck Versus the Lost Years, Dave. And the Farm, as well! I’m glad I was able to get it done so you could finally read it. I thought you would enjoy the story once you got past the slightly difficult first couple of acts. Things weren’t always wine and gardenias for these two, so it only seemed fitting to me that they’d have to work to get to that final place almost all of us see them eventually arriving. I really wanted to make that journey a wild ride, special, and poignant.
This blog, and the myriad of insights and opinions expressed was extremely helpful when I researched Lost Years, and I made some key decisions based on what some very astute viewers here often discuss about the original plot, and many of the things from canon I wanted to delve into as the story progressed – all those memories, the strengths, the weaknesses, the loose ends, a few plot holes, and some of the questionable or unexplained behavior our favorite pair of CIA operatives sometimes exhibited on their journey.
In the end, I was at the place the Goodbye didn’t leave me, and it gave me the more solid closure I wanted, and more. I know many here were just fine after the Goodbye on that beach, but I still tried to write this story for them, too, so all of us could enjoy a new adventure with Chuck and Sarah, and the rest of Team Bartowski, and maybe find something a little unexpected along the way.
My goal was to put a big red bow, around their story so many of us love. Couldn’t see how it would be possible without a lot of passion, romance, and action, and a dose of humor too, that’s Chuck. I’m listening to Chuck and Sarah’s theme, A Question and an Answer, as I complete this thank you note, and like completing this story did, it’s bringing a smile to my face. 🙂
The end result was certainly terrific, and count me among those who needed a bit more after that ending. But you do have to realize there is an issue with causing more grief after the end. That is, while fan fiction reaps all the benefits of established characters and setting, it also picks up the baggage. So with an ending like we saw, it’s not just a matter of the reader accepting challenges or hardship in your story; they’ve already taken on the challenges and hardship of the source material. The reader’s capacity for grief may vary a lot based on the point in show history the story spins off from. More specifically, if say you wrote a story of separation at the point of Marlin, it would likely be easier to accept many months fighting to be reunited. There’s a newness, and fresh energy to the story at that point. It would be easy to imagine going to great lengths to right the wrongs inflicted on Chuck, even if Sarah
is ignoring what he personally means to her (in fact, that process of self discovery may be the real point of the story). In a post series story the reader will have different expectations; in particular, that Chuck and Sarah both know the future they want and they’ve already overcome huge obstacles to get it. The reader’s capacity for further grief will likely be far less.
At least it is for me.
I am not at all saying you went to far. Only that the opening chapters were rough, and when you first published I was not prepared to deal with them. But now, both enough time has passed and its possible to see it all in its full context. And I sure am glad for that. Because you pay it off in abundance. It really is a terrific and beautiful end to the story.
I have to concur with Dave in what a fantastic story Lost Years was. Now he and I are a bit different in that I really liked the first few chapters and kind of was championing that story because I couldn’t understand why more people were not reviewing. However I think writing Farm helped you gain a number of other readers who might have not taken a look at Lost Years because it was tough in the beginning. Farm is such a delightful story it opened people up to your talent as a writer and built the necessary trust to get through some of the tougher parts of Lost Years.
But certainly the bow you put around it would look fantastic on beautiful new car at Christmas as it is so large and so perfect. Thank you for that.
Also Dave as always thanks for the mention of LL&L I just hope I can do this final act justice.
The insights of the commenters on this blog are tremendously helpful, Angus, I can’t agree more. Even when I disagree with people about certain aspects of S3, their thoughts often find their way into my story, making it richer in ways I hadn’t thought of on my own.
Thanks Dave. The only sad thing is that I had already read most of the stories you presented. I have really enjoyed all of (in no particular order): Uplink’s LLL, Angus’s Lost Years, Anthropocene’s Season 6, Ninja’s Uboat, and Quistie’s SOMII. I continue to thank each of them for furthering the Chuckverse and taking the time to write. I would also like to give a nod to Marc Vun Kannon’s Nine to Five series which is nearing its exciting conclusion.
Thanks for the plug, Garnet.
Like atcDave, I was also put off by the darkness of the first few chapters of Lost Years, but it is one of my favorites now, one of the few post-beach stories that use the Intersect to fix what the Intersect broke. While my own story would perhaps make a good 5.14, or a movie, I would recommend Lost Years for season 6. I can only hope that Anthropocene’s stories make that decision more difficult as his S6 progresses. Good Man Goes to War is quite fun, if a bit over the top with the gadgets, but I’m loving it. And Dettiot’s Fairy Tale is a jewel. It doesn’t quite follow the Sabrina storyline, but that’s all to the good.
Thanks for the mention Dave. I’d encourage anyone who even has the slightest interest in a movie or a 6th season, try their hand at FF. It’s easy to do. I’ve done several one shots, and three longer stories. In many ways, it scratches my Chuck itch, plus, I get the show exactly how I want it to be, at least when I don’t screw something up – LOL.
On that note, writing also helped me develop empathy for the actual writers of Chuck, as well as for all TV. Especially interesting things I found out, is how writing to an end can be troublesome, on purpose I gave myself a back half in one story, that is a challenge just like we were told, and the more canon you try to serve, the harder it is to write.
But I’d highly recommend to any of you to give it a try. And again, thx to Dave for his encouragement and championing of all FF!
Thank you, garnet—and I agree that Marc Vun Kannon’s nine2five series is great reading. I only recently started on it (I find it hard to be a regular reader and writer of FF at the same time—job and all that) and am a long way from the end, but enjoying the stories (especially Marc’s witty dialogue) immensely.
Thanks, anthropocene. Welcome back. I’m looking forward to your next story too, as well as your comments. That is perhaps the worst thing about writing after the series is over, fewer comments. Or perhaps I’m just not writing what people want to read, but that’s the way the story goes. I have given some thought to an improved S5, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever get around to doing it. Probably nine2five will be my last story.
We often criticize the “writing to an end” issue but I suspect that really isn’t MUCH of the actual problem. I think a lot of writing is actually done that way. The bigger issue is choosing an appropriate end. Like the “end” chosen for S3 might have made a better goal for episode four (3.04 instead of 3.13!). It was a chosen end far to close to where they started to justify 13 episodes getting there. Kind of like an employer telling you to read and sign a memo within three weeks or something…. It’s just setting the bar way too low.
*casual plug of Steampunk.Chuckster’s excellent ConVerse goes here*
Yes! My favorite of the currently regularly updated stories, just fantastic.
Maybe I should give “A Good Man Goes To War” a try, but I too generally dislike “macho Chuck” stories.
Maybe I should have been more clear that the “macho” part is sort of played for laughs. It is not so “in your face” as much of the genre. It’s more campy comic fun, with a bashful, good natured hero.
I agree. I love the story and can’t wait for some of the things he has planned.
*Enthusiastic plug of Steampunk.Chuckster’s excellent ConVerse goes here*
ConVerse (Chuck vs the Con Game) seconded…
Err, thirded…
🙂
It started out very, very good and just keeps getting better and better.
Fourthed
(Too slow on the trigger)
I agree. *Huge* plug for ConVerse. Can’t wait for The Steampunk Chronicles.
Ms. Steampunk has written some of the most fantastic Chuck and Sarah moments I’ve ever seen on FanFic. So vivid, so endearing.
I avoided it at first, but it has grown to be something different.I avoided it. to be honest I stopped 3 times in the beginning of the first chapter. Once I got past it, I am really enjoying it. In fact, I am off to read some more.
Fun thought of the day; since I started the alternate posts, and now including this one, we’ve seen a lot of link hits from this site over to fanficton.net. Some stories have been visited from here 30 times or more, and the Chuck fiction home page is usually the single most used link from this site. I have no way of telling how much of that traffic might be new readers, but it sure makes me happy to see so many Chuck This readers supporting those writers who are truly keeping the Chuck-verse alive.
When you see something you like, be sure to leave a good review too, it’s the only reward those writers get for hours of work.
Thanks very much for that reminder, Dave! You are spot-on.
Add me to the list of enthusiastic readers of Chuck fanfic. Angus MacNab, Quistie64 and Anthropocene know this from my review and PMs on the fanfiction.net site. I’ve also read with great enjoyment, the stories of Thinkling, mynameisjeffandimlost and billandbrick, that you’ve mentioned, Dave. I have to thank you, Dave, for doing these fanfic updates, because I was totally unaware that such a world existed until I started paying attention to your reviews. These days I’m on a bit of a Frea O’Scanlin binge. Another great AU writer, in my opinion.
It is always great to hear from someone else who got the bug! That’s great Resaw.
And your thoughful reviews and PMs are always appreciated, resaw! Thanks again!
Looking forward to the journey with Chuck and Sarah down Route 66!
Oops! Don’t know how I missed this. This is important!
Thank you for all those reviews and PM’s, resaw. I can’t begin to say how much I appreciate the way you took a hard look at what I wrote and expressed it so thoughtfully in a review. You, and a few of other regular reviewers really kept me going through a couple of rough patches where it seemed there was very little interest in the story.
You. sir, can take some credit for Lost Years being completed. Your contribution was that important.
I just finished an oldie that I came across by accident, AKADenny’s “Witness Protection” (sorry I can’t do links) The story involved memory loss on the part of several characters, and I find it makes me wish they had done something like this for the finale (if they had to use memory loss at all). It is all the more amazing when you consider that it was written in 2009. I think Denny must have been channeling TPTB when he was writing! It is well written, and I’m sure someone will be able to tell me what other name AKADenny writes under, It is worth a read!
I’ve always had really mixed feelings about that one. I love the middle part of it, sort of the “search for the truth” stage. But I never bought how it could have happened, and I think the resolution is dragged out WAY too long. But I guess that makes you right, he was channeling the show runners!
Well having just finished it, it seemed like a page turner to me. I guess when I accepted a gu with a computer in his brain I was prepared to suspend my beliefs for certain other plot mcguffins. I will admit the ending was not exactly perfect, but I accept that the author was following a rom-com type script and I think it works relatively well. Again what impressed me was how Sarah became the “preChuck” agent and was initially not willing to let him back because she was afraid of losing herself….sounds like the finale but ends better!
Oh it’s not the memory reassignment thing I can’t buy, it’s the human dimension, that these characters would have chosen that solution in the first place. It is a shame, I really like the mystery and adventure of it. Perhaps if it had been forced on them I could have bought into it more completely.
So glad that NE71 is reposting Chuck vs Fulcrum and that there will be a sequel finally. I’ve loved that story for a long time and it has one of my absolute favorite moments in all of Chuck FanFiction in it. If you know the story, you know which scene I’m talking about. Fantastic scene.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9381852/1/Chuck-vs-Fulcrum
I’m definitely pleased to hear a sequel is in the works!
Just read through the original and thought it was a really fine piece of Chuck fiction.
Thank god for fanfiction. I have read a lot of these stories mentioned in this post and they are nothing short if fantastic. I tip my hat to all the incredible writers on fanfiction.
Glad you enjoyed them bajangal. I love how active the writers, and this whole community still are.
Anyone not reading the brilliant “My Girl Sarah” by Frea O and mxpw is seriously missing out. Easily one of the more entertaining Chuck fics I’ve seen in a long time, especially fans of the detective/hardboiled genre should enjoy it. Oh, and It’s already fully written and getting released on a steady schedule, so no excuses.. 🙂
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9653806/1/My-Girl-Sarah
And since no one has mentioned it so far. Dettiot and SteamPunkChuckster are working on a story under the name “thecharleses. It is on its third chapter and is worth more than a look..
Yeah, very fun story so far.
I hate to say the collaboration effort is spotty at best Detiiot and SteamPunkChuckster do way better work separately. Dettiot’s Saving series is far superior to this tale of anachronastic materials. If you want a fantasy this is the one for you..However, if you want a bit more realism it is not your cup of tea. So far they have written Chuck as a drunk. Personally I don’t find that appealing in the least.
I can’t really agree with that Theresa, I think the collaboration has been a lot of fun.
I’m glad you find it fun but a Pinkerton agency?? Men’s fashions with Hats? With modern tech just seems so disjointed.
Calling it a Thin Man homage threw me in the first chapter, I expected it to be set in the 30s or 40s. But its not, its more of a mash up, modern tech with classic style. I like it.
Yes it is a mashup but the problem with mash up everything is connected. Certain styles can only be fashionable with a certain level of technology. That is why Steampunk works, Placing modern tech is only applicable for our society.
Well it’s not steampunk, it’s modern with some anachronisms. Even if that weren’t true, I reject your premise, I think its fair to allow a writer(s) to imagine whatever eccentric setting they want as long as it is rational. And I don’t believe you can object to style issues on any rational grounds. But I completely don’t get what you’re talking about in this case. One story briefly confused me purely based on an author’s note, but the story itself is actually internally consistent.
Maybe you’re confusing two different stories currently underway? We do have both a Thin Man homage and a true Steampunk story, both involving one of the same writers, going concurrently.
At any rate, it is not the intent or purpose of this site to undermine another fan’s writing. If you really have issues, I suggest you take them up with the writers via PM.
I think a great Season 6 A/U version is by BigFan22 it is called Tides of War…Another great Season 6 is Sarah vs. The Getaway by Charah409 Both are great reads you can find them at FF net.