I believe the current common term is Canon AU, though most people would say just that they were writing "an AU where Azula captured Zuko, etc." to use your example. I remember the term AR, but I don't think it's in use now at all, except possibly in the oldest fandom spaces where people are still discussing long defunct shows.
It's perhaps not so much that canon AUs aren't happening now, it's just that they tend to come up less in meta because people seem to have fewer issues with broad trends in them (except perhaps fandom specific ones, if there's a spate of "latest huge spoiler in $show never happened!"), whereas a lot of people have Views on how to determine which elements of character and setting-as-it-defines-character (e.g. the Steve+Bucky longstanding friendship in the post you linked) are most crucial to correctness in ARs.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-09-17 08:24 pm (UTC)It's perhaps not so much that canon AUs aren't happening now, it's just that they tend to come up less in meta because people seem to have fewer issues with broad trends in them (except perhaps fandom specific ones, if there's a spate of "latest huge spoiler in $show never happened!"), whereas a lot of people have Views on how to determine which elements of character and setting-as-it-defines-character (e.g. the Steve+Bucky longstanding friendship in the post you linked) are most crucial to correctness in ARs.