jmtorres | Do I actually care enough to post this?

Answer: Apparently.

I am frustrated by how people keep using the AO3 tag "Alternate Universe - Canonical" in a way that makes no sense to me. Like, they use it for things that I would just call Alternate Universe. To my mind, a canonical AU is one that makes an appearance in the canon, like:

--the classic Spock's Evil Beard universe
--any of the eleventy billion universes Stargate discovered via the mirror device
--and also that alternate timeline where no one discovered the Stargate and they all had sad, unfulfilled lives as ESL teachers
--or the thought-universe where Daniel went mad with power and blew up Moscow
--or the one where Rodney wears leather and is secure enough to go by Mer
--frankly Stargate had rather a lot of them
--*points up* the universe of my icon, that one episode of Andromeda where Rhade killed Dylan and the entire series was his journey to um, time travel suicide
--"unrealized realities" shown to us in Farscape, like the one where Scarrans took over the Earth in history or the one where everyone wore each other's make-up
--or like, I guess if you wanted to stake a claim on a particular episode of Sliders and write about the universe where sexism worked backwards and Quinn got slapped on the ass in his temp secretary job
--or that dream universe in Supernatural where their mom didn't die and Dean had a hot nurse girlfriend
--or that one time bisexual vamp!Willow wandered into Buffy's universe from next door

Right?

*breathe in, breathe out*

But since it seems that a lot of people are not using the Alternate Universe - Canonical tag in this way, and are using it as like, I don't know, "this AU is an 'I changed one decision from canon' AU and not a 'they are all girl scout cookies' AU or 'I transplanted them to the age of sail' AU or 'suddenly, there are dragons' AU" --I guess that is how they are using it?

That being the case, wtf tag could one use to indicate the first case outlined here--the AU whose existence was presented in canon? I tested "canonical AU" and it has been wrangled to point to "Alternate Universe - Canon" so that's out, which, fuck, that's what I use. And it becomes meaningless and impossible to find the thing I actually want when it's all wrangled together. Damn it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The way they're using it makes sense. If it's their AU, then by definition it cannot be canon.

I understand the need to differentiate between "AU where Angel stayed in Sunnydale" and "AU where they're all pirates", but not at the expense of fuzzing another category.

...I agree with you wrt what canonical AU refers to. (and the distinction in my head is fine enough that I would hesitate to put that tag to, say, a quantum reality other than one of the ones shown on Stargate, or reboot mirrorverse, both of which are legitimately endorsed by canon but are not specifically canonical.)

There does need to be a distinction between "just changed a slight bit of canon but otherwise everything's recognizable" AU and "hey they are ROMAN SLAVES lol" AU, but. yeah.

Surely there are! Historical AU! Fantasy AU!

And then what do we call the "one choice different" AU? Argh. If we had a name for that maybe they'd stop stealing Canonical AU.

One choice different => Squished Butterfly AU? If a butterfly died, how similar/different would things be.

I've always called it a Ten Minutes AU, where ten minutes or so are different in the past.

In TPM fandom, we called the "they're all ancient Romans in Brittany" sort of fic "Alternate Reality", in contrast with "AU" where they were still Jedi but one left the Order earlier, or one is a Jedi but the other never got picked up by the Temple and instead grew up as a moisture farmer, etc. -- basically, if the essential background universe is the same, it's AU; if the entire surrounding temporolocational setting is different, it's AR.

For what it's worth, in some fandoms canon AU means AU set in the canon time/setting of the series as opposed to a modern AU. Case in point: Merlin fandom.

Sure fine whatever we need different terminology or it becomes meaningless.

Parallel Universe (and Mirror Universe) are canonicals in their own right. Potentially, what if Alternate Universe - Canon was changed to Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence and we changed the other to Alternate Universe - Parallel Universe, which seems to be what you're looking for?

(hi, tag wrangling committee member here via network)

Alternate Universe - Parallel Universe

What about keeping the canonical in there, so there would be "Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence" for road-less-traveled-by and whatnot, and "Alternate Universe - Canonical verse" for various Goatee Of Evil universes.

Thanks for your input! See my reply below, but in short, we have kept "Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence" and added "Canonical Alternate Universe".

As far as I know, Mirror Universe is actually the specific case, the Star Trek "Mirror, Mirror" Spock has a beard universe. Although not actually necessarily specific to Trek fandom, just specifically "everyone is evil and/or openly bisexual" as seems to um, be the trend in the Mirrorverse.

Parallel Universe -- it seems like that really only applies some of the time? Some of them are wish 'verses or dream 'verses or alternate/collapsed/paradoxical timelines or whatever. What their common thread is, is that canon produced them and gave us a glimpse. I don't know how you signify that without somehow saying they're from canon.

Apologies for the late late late reply.

You're right, those tags are for specific universes, such as the Mirror universe (and various Stargate ones I believe) - although there's no reason you can't use them how you want to. Unfortunately, linking them all together at this point would be difficult due to the nature of tagging.

Our freeform tag experts made a new tag "Canonical Alternate Universe" - if a better name is thought of, we can change the filterable tag name. It's under Alternate Universe - Canon in the hierarchy. The tag "Alternate Universe - Canonical" was already being used for differing reasons, so we can't change that tag to a different name. "Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence" was already a tag, so we've kept that.

Also, I didn't say above, but thanks for your feedback. We're always happy to look at tags that we may have wrangled incorrectly, or could be better defined.

But since it seems that a lot of people are not using the Alternate Universe - Canonical tag in this way, and are using it as like, I don't know, "this AU is an 'I changed one decision from canon' AU and not a 'they are all girl scout cookies' AU or 'I transplanted them to the age of sail' AU or 'suddenly, there are dragons' AU" --I guess that is how they are using it?

That's what I'd assumed it meant. The term "Alternate Universe - Canon" confuses me because if it's canon, it's not AU, right? So I figured it was to differentiate itself from Alternate Universe - High School and that kind of thing. If it's an AU that's in canon, I'd call it Alternate Timeline or Parallel universe, or something, or whatever it was called in canon (Trek was Mirror Universe, yeah? Probaby Stargate as well.)

This is not a terrible idea except when they all get wrangled together anyway. For instance: the tag "unrealized reality" which is what they were called in Farscape got wrangled into "Alternate Reality" at the first three stories are bandom, General Hospital, and Final Fantasy XII.

I sympathise. Sometimes fandom needs disambiguation pages.

Yes! That seems totally reasonable! I wonder if it's feasible in the code.

I have no idea, but best of luck to whoever might try to implement it.

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