A Question about Fannish Terminology

[attackfish]

sholio wrote an essay just recently about why Steve/Bucky AUs don't work for her (the AU part, not the Steve/Bucky part) and quite apart from the contents of the essay, it got me wondering about what we call AUs in fandom currently.  Back when I got started, *crotchety old fan voice* things like high school AUs and coffee shop AUs were called "ARs", or Alternate Reality fics whereas  "AU" referred more broadly to both ARs and also "what if" stories.  However, sholio only talked about AR-style AUs, and a number of her points don't really work for what if AUs.  A while back, I ran an Avatar: the Last Airbender AU meme, and after getting almost exclusively AR prompts (and most of those for fusions) I had to explain that what if prompts were definitely also accepted.  I periodically see meta about how the writer of said meta doesn't think AUs are enough like canon, then goes on to describe only AR-style AUs.

Did the meaning of AU narrow  and I didn't realize it? I would kind of like to know, most of what I write other than drabbles are what-ifs.  What if Lupin bit Snape when they were in school, what if Azula captured Zuko at the beginning of  "The Southern Raiders," what if Iroh died when he drank white jade tea. The story I'm working on right now is a what if: what if those Earth Kingdom soldiers in Book One had managed to capture Iroh and Zuko and take them to Ba Sing Se.  If these aren't AUs, I kind of would like to know what to call them.

Comments

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Well, there would have been a war, since Sozin started it, but would Hakoda have tried to supplant Iroh? would Katara and Sokka be a team, would Sokka be jealous, what would Ozai and Azula do as nearly powerless peasants? All these questions, and the AUs I've found with this premise never answered them to my satisfaction.

I believe that everyone has the potential for both great good and evil.

I believe that everyone is capable of great good and great evil actions, but my experience leads me to believe that not everybody is capable of good motivations. However, the most dangerous people usually aren't psychopaths, but people who were born capable of empathy and understanding and choose instead to disregard it. On the flipside, could Azula have been taught to prove how great she is by doing charitable works? Would this make her a good person if she were only doing it for self aggrandizement? Would that matter to the people for whom she built hospitals and wells?

[sheenianni.livejournal.com]

Great points!

You may be on to something with the actions/motivations distinction. In certain circumstances, I can totally see Azula doing just that; actually doing something that would help people but for her own selfish reasons. Could I see her becoming selfless? - not really. Could she recognize her emotional shortcomings and choose this path as a way to deal with them? That I don't know. Maybe one day, if she became mature enough... If she recognized her inability to feel compassion and empathy and choose to do charitable work both for her grandeur AND as a way to do something considered "noble", would that be a good motivation? And no, the majority of the people she helped probably wouldn't care.

It just proves that there are few things that are clearly black or white. People, actions, motivations... it's rarely simple, and different view points may both look justified from their own perspective.