Dragonriders of Pern AU
| Tropes and genres | |
|---|---|
| Related tropes/genres | Dragon AU |
| See also | Dragon (creature), Dragonriders of Pern, Fusion (genre) |
| Related articles on Fanlore. | |
A Dragonriders of Pern AU or Fusion (genre) is a subset of Dragon AUs that incorporates elements from Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series.
Unlike a Daemon AU, which may or may not be set within the world of His Dark Materials, nearly all Dragonriders fusions are set in Pern or a very Pern-like world. The details of said world may be altered to fit the characters' original canon, but the key components of a Pern fusion include Pern's Weyrs and dragon colors, an ongoing battle against Thread (a force that falls out of the sky and consumes all biological matter in its path), and telepathic bonds with dragons that form upon the dragon's hatching.
For many years, Pern fusions were highly uncommon due to McCaffrey's heavily-enforced rules for fanworks based on her books. Many sites including FanFiction.Net refused to host Pern fanworks, period. In 2004, the rules were relaxed and FF.Net finally opened a category for the Pern series, including crossover and fusion works.
Common Tropes
One of the most common tropes used in Pern fusions is the mating flight, in which a female dragon is pursued by various males and mated by the strongest flyer. The resulting sensations carry over to their riders. While riders in canon technically have the option to have sex with a partner of their choosing instead, fanfiction nearly always uses mating flight as a form of Sex Pollen that brings out hidden feelings, or as a form of arranged marriage. More rarely, characters may be bonded to fire lizards instead of dragons.
According to Anne McCaffrey's original rules, Green dragons are Impressed only by women and effeminate gay men, Gold dragons by straight women, Bronze and Brown dragons by straight men, and Blue dragons by masculine gay men. These rules, along other questionable statements on gender and sexuality by McCaffrey, have been challenged by fans over the years, and eventually the later books became more permissive. A Pern fusion may strictly follow the original rules, completely disregard them, or pointedly subvert them: for example, in a subversion, a male character may unexpectedly become the first man ever to impress a Gold queen. Other stories may dispense with the original rules completely and have characters riding any color of dragon without question.
Some fics incorporate the Pern tradition of shortening a male rider's birth name after they Impress their dragon (e.g. the canon Fallarnon to F'lar), while others keep names the same for clarity's sake. Likewise, the dragons may or may not have names that end with -th as in the Pern books. Dragons are usually original characters, but they may also be a re-interpreted version of a pet or iconic item from the source canon.
Example Fanworks
Fics
- Dragon Dreams by Morticia (Mulder/Krycek, 2002 or before)
- Acceptance (archived version; McKay/Sheppard, 2007) by macx
- SG-1 Dragonriders AU (Sam Carter/Jack O'Neill, 2007) by holdouttrout, the earliest known Pern fusion posted publicly to AO3
- On the Wings of Imagination (Stargate Atlantis, gen, 2008) by xparrot. Written for the "Not Human" challenge at SGA Flashfic.
- The Golden Queen (Sean Astin/Elijah Wood, 2007-?) by Fritiriel, an ongoing series begun later in 2007, in which Elijah unexpectedly Impresses a Gold dragon
- Pride, Prejudice & Dragons (Pride and Prejudice, 2009) by Dragonrider2203
- Aero by Exmanhater (Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki podfic, 2011)
- Winging It (Steve/Danny, 2012) by harrycrewe
- Avengers of Pern (The Avengers/Agent Carter, 2013-?) by uofmdragon, which features a search for fire lizards similar to their discovery in the Pern books
- I breathe for You, Only You (Victuuri, 2017) by ICanSeeClearlyNow, in which dogs Makkachin and Vicchan are reimagined as a dragon and a fire lizard
- And Their Hearts Are Guarded By Dragons (Stony, written for 2018's Cap/Iron Man Big Bang) by runningondreams
- Dragonlove (Wayhaught, 2018) by RaeDMagdon, in which Nicole Haught is a female Bronze rider with a penis
- From the Shell, Archived version by MarvelousMenagerie (HiddenOne) (Tony Stark, gen, 2020), which focuses on the Impression ceremony. With art by feignedsobriquet.
- climb the sky, make the flight (Wangxian, 2020) by Exmanhater
- Green Light Go (Hiratsuka/Imaoka, 2021) by imahira, in which two non-Dragonriders are affected by a nearby mating flight
- Impression (2021) by tiamatv, a Destiel Pern fusion that keeps some aspects of the Pern books, but changes Thread to demons in keeping with Supernatural's setting
- Pernese Miniature Dragons Adopt Agni's Human Dragon (Zuko, gen, 2021-?) by Kree_Minory, a gen series focusing heavily on fire lizards
- Dragonbrothers of Pern (Atli/Torgrim, 2021) by vincestsaga, a Vinland Saga series incorporating Watch-Whers along with dragons
- Bangtan Weyr (BTS, 2022) by jacedesbff, which uses the Pernese Harper system along with Dragonriders
Art
- "some more Weyrbrat!Tony dragonriders of pern/iron man AU" (Tony Stark, gen, 2018) by dksartz
- Big Bang art (Stony, 2018) done by phoenixmetaphor to accompany runningondreams's And Their Hearts Are Guarded By Dragons
- "i’m going to mcfreakin lose my mind how dare you bring up dragonriders of pern au goldrider izuna..." (Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Izuna, 2022) by denialcity
Archives & Resources
- Dragonriders of Pern series Crossovers on FanFiction.Net
- Dragonriders of Pern AU and Alternate Universe - Pernese Dragons tags on the Ao3
- Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey tag on AO3 with only Crossovers visible
- Mating Flight (Dragonriders of Pern) tag, used to tag some fics not otherwise tagged as fusions
- dragonriders of pern au and pern au on Tumblr
- Recs tagged with Dragonriders of Pern at Fancake; primarily fusions