Looking at pb_recs and the different categories you can give a fic made me think and what I should give mine. Basically, what constitutes an AU
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I think that for me, a different interpretation of canon is not AU. I tend to think of AU as something that takes the canon characters and creates a completely different scenario for them. For example, a story in which Michael and Lincoln aren't brothers but meet through work, on a blind date, etc. Or stories in which the characters go back in time to the Wild West or some such thing.
I suppose that if someone changes the facts of canon to an extreme extent, I would also consider that AU. For example, if the premise of a fic were that Lincoln was sentenced to life in prison without the death penalty and Michael had himself incarcerated, sans tattoos, just to be locked away with him for decades in a completely fucked up attempt to keep him, that would be AU. And interesting. And hot. Hey, anybody wanna write that? *bats eyelashes*
Maybe it would be better if AU really covered anything not canonNo, I agree with your above distinctions - because if anything not covered in canon is AU, then shouldn't pretty much all fanfiction be considered AU? Because isn't that kind of the point of fanfic, to write what we don't get from canon
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Yeah, I realize that I'm probably weird that way. That it matters what the canon was like when they were writing it.
No, I don't think that's weird at all, actually I agree with you (did I not say that? I might've gotten too confusing - what's the opposite of AU? Non-AU? Canon Universe? CU? That might be where I got mixed up or confusing...)
As in, I think something that starts out within the framework of canon but then goes off in it's own direction, or something that fit into canon at the time of writing but is later proved untrue by canon is still Canon Universe to me, not Alternate Universe.
But if I write "In this story Michael met Susan, fell in love with her and we now jump in at the point where they are already happy together and everybody accepts them" maybe it would be?
Hmm, hard to say, I think it would depend how their relationship is written - take iscaris's Michael/Kellerman series, for example - I would not call that AU, because the way in which she wrote them (Michael and Kellerman meeting a while ago and not
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But something like, "Michael and Susan have been in a relationship for years and are a happy couple when Michael goes to Sona" would, to me, be AU. But it's tough, something like that I think comes down to how it's written - bottom line, a plot like that does not automatically equal Alternate Universe in my opinion.Exactly. To me there's a difference between "could maybe happen at a chance of 1:1000000 (but probably won't)" and "couldn't possibly happen
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When labeling my fics, I label anything that varies from canon as AU but that doesn't include what I like to call 'deleted scene' fic. Like I wrote a fic about LJ and Jane on their way to Washington. To me that's not AU because it 'happened' just not on our screens. It could have been filmed and then was edited out. If at the time I'm writing something and it's not AU and then later developments invalidate it, I don't go back and change the category to AU because at the time it wasn't. And I think anybody reading it would get that from the notes and/or the fic intself.
I go by these distinctions whether I'm writing pre-series, the present or some point in the future. I think it's tricky to say pre-series and post-escape stuff is AU since unless it's been laid out what a character's backstory is, it's all AU in a sense. The same with post-escape. You really won't know what's canon or AU until the show is over.
By the way, thanks for all your great discussion topics.
I have to admit I tend to approach it more from a "If it hasn't be actively negated or defined by canon then it's fair game" perspective. I think that's a good way to look at it and that seems to be my perspective, too, without me ever having 'defined' it before now.
I was just thinking that there's actually two kinds of AU. There's AU that varies canon in some way and then there's AU that sets the characters in a completely different universe, like M/S set in Roman times or something like that. I rememebr reading something somewhere where someone said they don't read the latter kind because it doesn't make sense or something along those lines.
Me personally, I'm not a huge fan of reading AU outside of the PB universe. I can't really put my finger on why, it just doesn't really interest me since I don't know that you can have the characters without the PB universe since by it defines who they are.
Sorry, if I took this in an entirely different direction.
I think to me the problem with many different setting AUs is that ideally there should be two types of AUs. The ones that change the setting (PB set in Roman tims) and the ones that change the characters (rather than breaking into Fox River Michael decided to fight the conspiracy the legal way
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I write almost exclusively in the Batman (and family) fandom. Given the way DC comics reinvents its canon periodically and randomly, I use the following terminology
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Oh, interesting. I rather like the Elseworld/AU distinctions. Mabye that's more akin to AR/AU. Like, AR varies the setting, AU is pretty much or at least close to the current universe but events differ.
Where would something like "Bruce Wayne was born to Martha and Jonathan Kent" or "Bruce Wayne was raised by Ras Al Ghul" fall in this distinction?
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I suppose that if someone changes the facts of canon to an extreme extent, I would also consider that AU. For example, if the premise of a fic were that Lincoln was sentenced to life in prison without the death penalty and Michael had himself incarcerated, sans tattoos, just to be locked away with him for decades in a completely fucked up attempt to keep him, that would be AU. And interesting. And hot. Hey, anybody wanna write that? *bats eyelashes*
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No, I don't think that's weird at all, actually I agree with you (did I not say that? I might've gotten too confusing - what's the opposite of AU? Non-AU? Canon Universe? CU? That might be where I got mixed up or confusing...)
As in, I think something that starts out within the framework of canon but then goes off in it's own direction, or something that fit into canon at the time of writing but is later proved untrue by canon is still Canon Universe to me, not Alternate Universe.
But if I write "In this story Michael met Susan, fell in love with her and we now jump in at the point where they are already happy together and everybody accepts them" maybe it would be?
Hmm, hard to say, I think it would depend how their relationship is written - take iscaris's Michael/Kellerman series, for example - I would not call that AU, because the way in which she wrote them (Michael and Kellerman meeting a while ago and not ( ... )
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I go by these distinctions whether I'm writing pre-series, the present or some point in the future. I think it's tricky to say pre-series and post-escape stuff is AU since unless it's been laid out what a character's backstory is, it's all AU in a sense. The same with post-escape. You really won't know what's canon or AU until the show is over.
By the way, thanks for all your great discussion topics.
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I think that's a good way to look at it and that seems to be my perspective, too, without me ever having 'defined' it before now.
I was just thinking that there's actually two kinds of AU. There's AU that varies canon in some way and then there's AU that sets the characters in a completely different universe, like M/S set in Roman times or something like that. I rememebr reading something somewhere where someone said they don't read the latter kind because it doesn't make sense or something along those lines.
Me personally, I'm not a huge fan of reading AU outside of the PB universe. I can't really put my finger on why, it just doesn't really interest me since I don't know that you can have the characters without the PB universe since by it defines who they are.
Sorry, if I took this in an entirely different direction.
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Where would something like "Bruce Wayne was born to Martha and Jonathan Kent" or "Bruce Wayne was raised by Ras Al Ghul" fall in this distinction?
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Oh, interesting. Though I guess everybody has a different definitoin of what "minor" constitutes :(
Thanks for the input!
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