Do I actually care enough to post this?

[jmtorres]

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.

Comments

[ysobel]

...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.

[jmtorres]

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.

[echan]

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

[synecdochic]

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

[krait]

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.