#I also just realised this would work better for a modern au since they'd all want to keep in touch with other to make sure they're safe?

[oc-place]

send me a 🔀 and a pairing, and i’ll shuffle my playlist and make an au based on the first song that comes up

@jennathearcher Thanks lovely, this was fun to think about! <3

The Chase - Basixx

Sounds kind of like a classic getaway car (in the traditional meaning, rather than the Taylor song meaning pfft) kind of AU? So maybe something like the lab/army follow up on their threats (I know they were more of a thing in S1 and 2 but still) after everything has been saved? Because lbr it's not as if they can do it oops

Like the gang would have to split up and run away, going incognito until they can meet up somewhere safe to try and formulate a plan? So naturally Steve and Jen would be part of the same small group (bonus if in this AU they're either in the early stages of a relationship instead) and the adrenaline etc in regards to being on the run probably intensifies, well everything, but especially their feelings/relationship I guess? (sorry to anyone else who is potentially in their small group adfgjk) Just, yeah, the danger (because obviously there's not enough of that normally pfft), passion, and keep having to find secret spots for safety? Fun times :P

[neil-neil-orange-peel]

tw // eating disorders for the name of the song but I’m Not Bulimic by Lower Than Atlantis would be a really good song to base a modern!AU of TYO on due to the parallels between thatchers Britain and the credit crunch at the end of the 00s

Hi, anon!

Yeah, totally! Anything angry at British politics has to have at least a little bit of a TYO feel. Actually, it's really weird listening to that song and hearing the 2010 vibes in it... And then realising 2010 was 11 years ago. 😶 If we were going to have the lads as Millennials (so say it's set a decade ago), then the credit crunch and the coalition and all of that bollocks would be high on their list of concerns. Austerity, anyone?

That said, Gen Z young ones (hello there), whilst likely also having a truly groovy time growing up under successive shitty Tory governments, also now have this pandemic on the doorstep of adulthood as well as just having gone through Gove's nasty exam changes and rising tuition fees. And Brexit. Which, of course, the majority of Gen Z had no say in and yet will have to live with the consequences of, whatever they may be.

So, concerning a modern TYO set at any point since the credit crunch, I for one would like to hear Rick rip the Liberal Democrats a new one (in his own ineffective, misguided way) when they went back on their 2010 election promise once in coalition with the Conservatives and agreed to raising university tuition fees. To be honest, Rick's take on anything from the last decade would surely be amusing. There's already a post of him in Summer Holiday floating around Tumblr somewhere, replacing "Thatcher's bloody Britain" with "Boris' bloody Britain". I also think he'd have been one of the young people (at least, on the surface) to become a Corbynista.

Sorry for only really mentioning Rick, he's the "political" one - he'd still hate Thatcher, by the way, he'd just probably know even less about her. I think all of the young ones would be pissed off about tuition fees, because even in the 1980s with grants (albeit shrinking ones - thanks, Thatch) they were still living in squalor. I know you don't start paying back the fees until after uni and when you're earning over a certain amount, but it's not a nice reminder dangling over you. They'd definitely all need to get jobs alongside studying - or maybe Neil could just get four jobs. 😂

Mike could still be a perpetual student, it's just his reasons for being one might be different now: he's not going to get any money for it, it just starves off finding a "career" when you don't know what you want to do. I can see him putting off the inevitability of finding work, even it it leaves him with a bloody lot of fees to pay off should he ever earn enough to do so (which is debatable). Neil likely wouldn't be very into politics - I mean, he didn't know who Norman Tebbit was in Oil - because it would depress him. He wouldn't like the Tories but he probably wouldn't know the nuances of everything going on... Although, to be fair, I don't think any of them would.

Vyvyan would just be bloody sick of everything. Still a punk and still violent... Probably not so much interested in politics as interested in pissing off authority figures. Still nihilistic. Rick would doubtless be sure he was about to lead a rising to make things better at any moment - the last decade has had a lot of big political moments, after all - but literally no one likes him so that's not going to happen. Much excitement and jeering on the night of the 2017 election; much depression and anger on the night of the 2019 election.

And that's just a vague dip into TYO and recent British politics. What would they think of modern culture? Social media? Reality TV? Wokeness? Whatever the fuck is going on with America?

The Young Ones is very much of its time in that it was produced in a world where it was risqué and cutting edge to swear and be violent and political on TV. That's no longer the case - thanks, in no small part, to TYO - so if it was made today (which I don't think it could be), it likely wouldn't be viewed as so ground breaking.

But TYO modern AUs? Keep 'em coming! And keep your eyes on Scumbag Monthly in the coming months...

Thanks for the ask! Sorry I went completely off topic... Again.