There's AU and then there's AU...

[graculus]

As many of the people reading this will know, particularly since I mentioned it in a post yesterday, one of the fandoms I write in is Magnificent 7 - to my mind this is a fandom cursed with a wide variety of alternate universes. You name it, there's probably someone out there writing it... seriously (and for those not in the fandom, this means AU's where the 7 are dog show judges/RNLI lifeboatmen/various combinations of children and adults/members of the SGC/ATF agents/private investigators/male escorts/and so on ad nauseam...).

So, I was more than a little surprised this morning when I got an email telling me that one of my stories had been nominated for an award - 'that's nice', I thought, and then I saw what category it had been nominated in. Now I have to say this isn't a set of awards where there are many categories but even so... the category it's been put into is 'Adult Non-ATF AU'.

Call me naive, but I never envisaged this particular story as being AU. On the one archive where it's uploaded, it's down as Old West and ditto for the lists it's been sent to and nobody has ever commented on this. It's set in Four Corners in the right time period, the guys are the guys - Ezra is not a were-raccoon, he doesn't have psychic powers, he's not secretly an elf. He's who he is in the show, I just twisted the canon storyline to put him in the position of being forced to become sheriff instead of JD. Frankly, I'd say that the whole slash storyline is way more a departure from the canon than the rest of the plotline is, for it to be considered an AU. It's an AU story in the strictest sense of the word, but to my mind the very closeness of my plot and characters to the plot and characters of the show itself negates it being an AU of its own.

Does this make any sense? Maybe you have to have been in this fandom to see the difference...

Comments

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

I think it's because the M7 fandom never picked up the Alternate Universe (AU) versus Alternate Reality (AR) labels that other fandoms have. It's a handy distinction - ARs are like the ATF universe, where all the characters and the main theme are plunked down in a new time or setting, and AUs are reserved for a single departure from canon like, "What if Corcoran hadn't died in the pilot?" or "What if Ezra had become sheriff instead of JD?"

With the sheer number of alternate realities that M7 has spawned it really would make sense to distinguish between stories featuring new settings, and those that simply diverge a little from the established canon.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Well, in some ways that's understandable because there are no other fandoms as full of cracked-out AUs as Mag7 is, and most sensible cowboy fandoms would find themselves chock full of people writing about... oh, I don't know, cowboys? ;)

Alas, I think ATF has too much of a stranglehold over some people, those who've no idea it's actually a show about cowboys, to change. Also, it would be logical and that would be Bad and Wrong.

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

While I can see why M7 lends so well to ARs - because it's more about the archetypes than the setting, and after all, the original movie was an AR of sorts from The Seven Samurai - from what I've seen in the fandom in the years since the show went on the air, it's gotten way, way out there.

I've written a few ATF stories myself (though not as many as in the canon universe) because, especially with slash, it's interesting to play with how different characters would view same-sex relationships in the different time periods, or to see how certain elements of canon would unfold differently in modern times, but I started shying away from that after the ATF universe started taking on a canon of its own, and generally getting either too repetitive or just way too far removed from canon.

On an unrelated note, I'm glad M7 was brought up on my f-list today, because it reminded me that the stories I had in the last "My Seducer" zine are almost free to be published online, and I can gleefully brush off my canon-set Ezra/Judge Travis fic that no one will ever read. :-D

[betacandy.livejournal.com]

No, I think you're describing it pretty well, and it sounds wacky. Maybe after a while, the archivists/awards goobers don't know whether they're coming or going.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

The entire fandom is so full of whacked-out AU ideas most people have probably forgotten it's supposed to be about cowboys. ;)

[siluria]

If we're talking 'Obligations' - which I adore btw - then I have to say AU based on the ratings M7 seems to have developed. I agree with the previous post about it likely being because the M7 fandom hasn't developed the AR or the 'what if' catagory of fic. Personally, I always take OW fic to be anything that fits into the original show, and by making Ezra the Sheriff that goes against what was in 'Ghosts' so I can understand the AU catagory.

Slash I don't always see as AU, it depends on how it's written and in what context, but that's simply because the episodes don't show every minute and it's easier to imagine the boys sloping off without losing anything to canon - or maybe that's just me and wishful thinking ;)

[graculus.livejournal.com]

I just can't get my head around the idea that my tinkering puts my story out there with the lifeboatmen. ;)

I guess for those of us who've seen life outside Mag7, it's hard to reconcile all of this with what goes on elsewhere...

[siluria]

Oh I agree, mag7 AU's are insane in the depths they go and I've never seen anything outside of the fandom that could compare, Professionals slash runs a close second, but even that fails. And no - believe me - Obligations is nowhere near the madness that is RNLI and some of the others. For starters, it's true to the timeframe and the characters, which a lot of AU's fail to grasp completely - which means they should be labelled original fic imo.

[mer1973.livejournal.com]

I dunno, but based on your description, I'm going to go read the story.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, if you really feel you have to! :P

[cycnus39]

*throws stone and then runs away* :-P

[graculus.livejournal.com]

You're just jealous of my new-found fame! :P

[blktauna.livejournal.com]

sounds like the were-raccoons are coming in under non-AU ...