This world has shrimp but no cocktail sauce.

[antennapedia]

This morning I was delighted to notice that epic_recs has reviewed one of my personal favorite stories, "Dust on his hands from the sky". This is a long and angsty season 6 left turn Giles/Xander story. Definitely check the tags & the content warning for character death on this one (but not death of the principals, I note

Comments

[dragonydreams]

AU is one of the hardest definitions in fandom. It's also the one I have to police the hardest at the SunnyD Awards. There, we define AU as "All human or parallel universe, NOT simply UC Pairings (het or slash) or saying so-and-so never showed up/left/died, or re-writing an episode". You'd be surprised how many people consider a story AU simply because the pairing is unconventional.

I'll have to check out "Dust". I've been on a bit of a Giles/Xander kick lately and have been slowly checking out authors I know who write the pairing.

[antennapedia]

Seems like it's a term with a lot of different usages, judging from comments here! You're sensible in giving it a clear definition for the SunnyD awards, because there's less consensus than I thought there was.

I recommend highly the entire works of drsquidlove for some solid, chewy long-form Giles/Xander reading as well as light prawny fluffier reading. Can't go wrong!

[dragonydreams]

I just skimmed through the other comments and it is always very interesting to see how different people have different definitions for AU.

I recently spent a solid week devouring The Giles Thing, and then the rest of drsquidlove's stories.

[rahirah]

Personally, I consider a story AU the minute it departs from canon. I think I'd distinguish between stories where the background of the universe is different (all-human, for example) and stories where the background of the universe is the same up to some definable point, and then splits off into a what-if. That what-if can be character falling in love/lust with someone they didn't in canon, a character dying or not dying at the point tyhey did in canon, Buffy deciding to have ham and swiss instead of peanut butter for lunch, etc. And what-ifs are the kind of story I like best. I respect the skill it takes to write fill-in-the-blank fic that slips into canon without a ripple, but that's not what interests me about fanfic.

[antennapedia]

Yours is the most expansive definition of AU I've encountered. I more often see what the_emu describes below. I guess what I have learned is that the term has no clear definition right now in fandom. It varies not just from fandom to fandom but from fan to fan.

There's another genre of fanfic I love that's more canon-compatible than the what-if: the exploration of the areas that canon leaves sketchy. For example, background stories for characters canon gives us little information about. You can do a lot of fun invention there and still leave the character ending up at his or her canonical destination. In our mutual fandom, Giles's background is a big blank canvas. I always want to fill that one in in a dozen different ways.

[edit for grammarz]

[the_emu]

Yeah. From my TPM background, I'd call 'Dust' Alternative Reality (minor changes to this universe), not AU (entirely different universe). There, if it was the Jedi galaxy we knew but Obi-Wan had never become a Jedi, and instead Qui-Gon found him prostituting himself on a rim world, that was AR. If the Jedi organisation was actually an interplanetary brothel, then it was AU.

And congrats on 'Dust'! It is indeed worthy.

Even if while I in some ways love epic_recs, in other ways it bothers me, in a way, which I don't have time to go fully into. It sort of imposes its views in a non-reviewy way. Most pointed example, it spoils without consideration. I was really annoyed by how Giles Thing was spoiled (while also very grateful for the rec) and I've been annoyed at stories I wanted to read being spoiled before I even decided I wanted to read them.

8^-

[antennapedia]

The Buffy fandom doesn't seem to use AR much, does it? But I've seen other fandoms use it a lot, mostly in the way you're using it from TPM. Practically everything written in the last few years would be AR. You got the episode tags and missing scenes thing while the show was on the air and not at all afterwards.

Epic Recs is opinionated, which I like in a review comm. I might disagree at times, but that's fine; reviewers should come with points of view. I like the quirky. Spoilers, on the other hand, are generally uncool. There's an art to writing a review that entices somebody into reading a fic while giving them enough information to decide if it's for them or not. You need to hold back the story's heart sometimes and expose it other times. And you never spoil big plot points.

[rowaine]

I'm not sure how I missed seeing "Dust" the first time, but thank you for pointing it out. Delightfully written! I'm not a G/X shipper most of the time, but the way you wrote their personalities and the surrounding plot devices was riveting. Beautiful, compelling, and heart-rending/warming all at once. *applause*

[antennapedia]

Thank you very much! That was a story that surprised me a lot as I wrote it, because I didn't intend at the outset to go where it went. But I'm glad in retrospect that it went there with those two characters.

[sockmonkeyhere]

I use the term "Alternate Reality" for fics in which the characters and setting are basically the same as the TV series, but with a different plot, pairing, etc. (For example, a fic that's set in AtS Season 5, in which Nina's still a werewolf, Angel and Spike are still vampires...but Nina and Angel never date and Fred survives Illyria's possession.)

I use the term "Alternate Universe" for fics in which the characters have the same names and personalities that they did in the TV series, but with a setting and plot that has nothing to do with the TV series. (For example, Faith and Anya are ordinary humans with no superpowers, in a world without demons or magic, and they live in Nashville and are country-western musicians in the 1950s.)

That's just my own personal interpretation of the two terms, though. As you said, other folks' definitions may vary greatly. Confusion ahoy! ;D

[antennapedia]

I like your definition of AU! Though getting consensus on it is probably both impossible and pointless. It is jargon and should be ignored as soon as it's not being useful jargon.

I am terrified by the idea of Faith and Anya as country-western musicians. Faith is the hard-drinking one with the 2 pack a day habit who can't decide if she wants to sleep with the drummer or throw him out the motel window. Anya is constantly fighting bitter wars with the evil managers who attempt to bilk them out of their rightful earnings. Then one day...

[sockmonkeyhere]

I am terrified by the idea of Faith and Anya as country-western musicians. Faith is the hard-drinking one with the 2 pack a day habit who can't decide if she wants to sleep with the drummer or throw him out the motel window. Anya is constantly fighting bitter wars with the evil managers who attempt to bilk them out of their rightful earnings.

*sporfle* LMAO!

Then one day...

...they try out for American Idol and attempt to kill each other during Hollywood Week.

There's another genre of fanfic I love that's more canon-compatible than the what-if: the exploration of the areas that canon leaves sketchy. For example, background stories for characters canon gives us little information about.Oh, I like those, too! I even wrote one myself, using Jordy, the off-camera little cousin whose bite on the finger made Oz a werewolf in the BtVS season 2 episode "Phases." I included Aunt Maureen and Uncle Ken, too, although I didn't flesh them out as much. My story gave some background on how Jordy came to be bitten himself and how his