The Problems of Alternate Universe Fanfiction · 7:36pm May 16th, 2017
Having spent some time on FiMFiction reviewing stories for several groups (Story Standards, Blunt Reviews, and Rage Reviews), I see a lot of tag abuse, mostly overuse of genre tags, conflicting genre tags, and so on. Tag cancer. But I have quickly come to realize that the most misused of the lot is very probably the "Alternate Universe" tag. Few other tags are abused to the extent this one is.
First, let's look at how the site rules describe the purpose of the Alternate Universe tag:
Stories that take place in a world significantly diverged from canon. Changing the outcome of major events, large setting changes, or anything else that represents a large break from canon, particularly if the change is something that does not happen during the story itself. Stories that start at a point in canon and diverge through character development or other in-story events generally do not qualify as AU.
AU is not, however, appropriate for cases where MLP:FiM has no significant impact on the story. When all characters are stripped of their defining features and replaced with fundamentally different traits and characterization, any and all relevance to MLP:FiM is discarded.
Source: FimFiction FAQ
This is fairly rudimentary, and open to a great deal of interpretation, so what you're going to read here is my personal interpretation, the guidelines I've developed for myself when writing and reviewing.
Side Note: For the purposes of this post, I'm ignoring the existence of crackfics and trollfics, since diverging from canon to achieve a particular effect is entirely the point of those types of stories. And, naturally, I'm focusing on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, since that is the focus of this site; but this applies equally to other properties.
First off, AU is at its most basic is a "(Story) that take(s) place in a world significantly diverged from canon." A story where the world described is contemporary with the canon Equestria, but is recognizably and significantly different. How different does it have to be to be "significant"? Again, quoting from the FAQ: "Changing the outcome of major events, large setting changes, or anything else that represents a large break from canon, particularly if the change is something that does not happen during the story itself." That in and of itself seems fairly straightforward. A large change, typically something from the backstory rather than the current timeline. A world where the Sonic Rainboom never happened. A world where Princess Luna never became Nightmare Moon. A world where Nightmare Moon won, and it was Princess Celestia who was banished. A world where one or more of the Mane 6 did not exist. A world where Twilight made friends in Canterlot instead of Ponyville, where the Canterlot 6 (Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, Minuette, Lyra Heartstrings, and Moondancer) became the Mane 6, and the Ponyville 6 never happened. All of these, and more, have been fodder for Alternate Universes, and give some idea of the scale and intent of the tag.
For my take on it: an Alternate Universe is, to use a musical term, a variation on a theme. A basic melody that is changed in any number of different ways, altered and manipulated to produce new, very distinctive tunes; but where the underlying basic melody is still easily recognizable. That last part is key, it should be recognizable.
And that brings up two problems, stories that do not diverge significantly enough, and stories that diverge too far; neither of which qualify as an "Alternative Universe". If the resulting "Alternative Universe" is not immediately and easily recognizable as in some way related to the canon version of Equestria, as portrayed in the television program (and the comics and books, if you consider them canon, which many do not given how often they contradict or retcon show canon), then it's not truly an "alternative" universe, it's a completely different universe. Likewise, if the difference is too slight, then it may as well be considered within the realm of canon, but as viewed from a different perspective than is typically provided in canon sources.
What does the FAQ say about these two scenarios? First: "Stories that start at a point in canon and diverge through character development or other in-story events generally do not qualify as AU." Next: "AU is not, however, appropriate for cases where MLP:FiM has no significant impact on the story. When all characters are stripped of their defining features and replaced with fundamentally different traits and characterization, any and all relevance to MLP:FiM is discarded."
In my experience, I have not run across a use of the AU tag where the canon fails to diverge significantly enough to qualify as an AU. Not to say it doesn't happen, but it's rare. If I were to encounter such a story, the misuse would hardly be worth troubling myself about. But I'll address this one first.
Note the important part of the qualifier "start at a point in canon and diverge through character development or other in-story events". Now, this could be considered contradictory, since, for example, starting at a point in canon of, say, late third-season, and continuing on from there would result in stories in a timeline where Twilight Sparkle remains a unicorn, never ascending to become an alicorn. That would, obviously, be a significant departure from canon for fourth-season onward. However, that would mean that any story written prior to the airing of "Magical Mystery Cure", and which deals with a future beyond the show canon at that particular point in time, would automatically become an Alternate Universe. A situation which, it should be quite obvious, is entirely untenable. So it simply makes sense to exclude those stories which start in current canon, faithful to it up to that point, and then diverge. Obviously there's a gray area here, but not one which is a significant problem, given the nature of fanfiction based on a constantly-evolving property.
(I've added a new paragraph here much later than the original post.)
To clarify something in the above paragraph, part of what I would disagree a bit with the official description of AU is where it diverges from canon during the life of the show. Now, a story written during a particular season in the show and which develops from there, would not be considered AU when compared to the later seasons, since those technically did not exist when the story was written. However, a story deliberately written to diverge from current canon would, in my opinion, be an AU story. For example, a story written about or spinning off from a specific episode, which explores a different outcome to the episode. An example in the comments below is taking "The Crystal Empire" and re-imagining it so that Twilight doesn't make it back with the crystal heart in time, and King Sombra is successful in regaining control. It's that "re-imagining" a canon event that make it an AU. It's a significant event, with a significant divergence from the canon that was current at the time the story was written. (I hope that clarifies my thoughts a bit more.)
The far more common, and more problematic, scenario is when the AU diverges too far from canon, and thus the world is no longer recognizably related. The FAQ describes this scenario as "(w)hen all characters are stripped of their defining features and replaced with fundamentally different traits and characterization". That's pretty clear and unambiguous, and good as far as it goes, but misses some key elements. Certainly, when canon characters no longer act like canon characters, then you've diverged too far; but there should be more to it than that. Throwing canon characters into a completely different and entirely unrelated world can still break the bounds of an "alternate" universe, if the story fails to use them in a way that makes sense for their characters. Likewise, when foregoing the use of any canon characters, and populating the story entirely with original characters, there are still important elements of canon to be addressed.
As anyone who has been a fan of the program for any length of time should be aware, there are certain themes and values that inform the worldbuilding, storytelling, and character development of the show. Feminism, certainly, is one such theme, explicitly made so by the show's developer, Lauren Faust. The Power of Friendship is another, and probably the biggest and most consistent theme throughout the show. Explicit values include the values of friendship, referred to as the Elements of Harmony in the show: Loyalty, Honesty, Kindness, Generosity, Laughter (properly Mirth, but that's become something of an archaism) and "Magic", which is never strictly defined, but can be ascertained from the applications of these values, as enumerated in the third season finale episode "Magical Mystery Cure". When Princess Celestia addresses Twilight after the latter's ascension, she lists these applied values: Devotion, Integrity, Compassion, Charity, Optimism, and Leadership (which corresponds to the poorly-defined Magic). Among the values and themes less explicitly stated, we find not just acceptance of differences, but celebration of them; a preference for non-violent conflict resolution; courage, moral and intellectual as well as physical; family bonds and a wide definition of who qualifies as family; personal responsibility; teamwork; and a strong work ethic; to name a few. There are obviously more, but these will do for now.
In order to be sufficiently related to canon, an Alternative Universe story should deal in some way with these themes and values. It should portray them in some way, either through their application or through the failure to apply them, in a way that makes sense in canon. One should be able to read the story and think that it would still make sense if the basic plot, themes, and resolution were to take place in canon Equestria. Even "Dark" and "Tragic" stories can and should do so, naturally exploring failures rather than successes (the show has gotten surprisingly dark at times, the comics even moreso).
The problem with so many Alternate Universe stories is that none of these apply. The characters are not even remotely recognizable as their canon counterparts except by name, the world lacks any similarity, and the themes and values are in no way present. Often such works are little more than stories cribbed from other sources — popular anime or television programs, movies, computer or tabletop games, role-playing sessions, etc. — with little more than the names changed and a smattering of "ponified" language added; a superficial "pony paint job" as it were. Other examples are original work having nothing to do with MLP:FiM, such as Tumblr or DeviantArt blogs, personal fantasies, or pontificating on real-world socio-political issues that do not translate well to canon Equestria. Very often these are nothing more more than excuses to indulge in projection, self-insert fantasizing of a sexual or violent nature. Remove the names and ponified terminology, and the story could be dropped into any other world without differing in any noticeable way.
A good example of an alternate universe done right is Novel-Idea's Wavelengths Timeline stories. A universe where the Sonic Rainboom never happened, and the Mane 6 did not come together in their canon incarnation; but are replaced by the Canterlot 6, with Sunset Shimmer in Twilight Sparkle's role. Other canon events happen, such as the return and defeat of Nightmare Moon, but with a different cast, and of course with variations to the canon stories. Canon characters exist, and while their roles are different, they are still recognizably related to their canon portrayals. For example, Twilight Sparkle exists, but rather than being the Element of Magic (which has gone to Sunset), she's a socially-awkward research librarian, a position that fits well with what we know about her from canon. Care is taken to make her personality consistent with canon as well, despite the differences necessitated by the AU setting.
By contrast, there are far too many stories that violate these principles. So many that entire sub-genres exist that diverge from canon so far as to be unrecognizable. But a few can be pointed out, such as JackAnarchy's "EMPIRE", "Aria" by SprocketProductions, "The Pastromorbo Epidemic" by Aeluna, and Jack Hammer's "Equestrian Alliance: Project Oblivion", to name a few that I have personally reviewed. (Note, at the time of this blog post, several of the authors on this list have stated a desire to re-write these stories, so their AU status may change.)
Now, I'll be the first to admit that there is a good deal of gray area here, room for interpretation. But in each of the stories I posted, the divergence is so far as to be irreconcilable with canon Equestria. In one case, the difference is so bad that the author did not even bother to ponify most of his story, adding only a tiny handful of inconsequential references to the canon universe, which are directly contradicted by other references. Whatever else "Alternate Universe" may be, it is not an excuse to go rambling off on an adolescent power or sex fantasy, preach one's pet political philosophy, plagiarize one's favorite Dragon Ball Z episode, or dump a Fallout RP chat session onto the site.
My rule for writing Alternate Universe fanfiction (one which I keep in mind when reviewing) is that, whenever a gray area is encountered, to always err on the side of faithfulness to canon. Even if that means making substantial changes to the stories and characters to keep them from becoming unrecognizable in a canon context. That is the entire point of writing fanfiction after all.
I definitely agree with you that AU versions should still be recognizable as their canon counterparts, or at least have a good backstory on why they're different. Too often we end up with a square peg being forced through a round hole for the sake of making it just like the storyline of another franchise.
I think my first story on this site was an example of that. It basically did an alternate version of The Crystal Empire where the Crystal Heart is not delivered in time... although after the ensuing conflict the actual changes are minor, baring Sombra headcanon. Bizarrely enough, I'd put the AU tag on the first and unfinished third story, but not the second. Now, of course, none of them do.
I actually had some confusion at the time as to whether or not to use the AU tag...
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*flashbacks to a fic which was basically "Death Note, but with MLP characters... almost exactly Death Note"*
Agreed on all points.
An interesting point on AU's that needs to be considered is the frequency with which the tag is used a fig leaf to justify and excuse poor or non canon characterisation. A key feature of such fics is the lack of effects related to the changes.
For example, rather than exploring the logical changes that would occur if, say, Celestia was a petty tyrant, that change exists in isolation, with no effect on the setting at large, to facilitate the author's choosen plot. Or else, as is often the case, the author's thinly disguised vendetta against that character.
Indeed, a common feature of tyrantlestia AU's is the remarkable lack of impact Celestia's tyrannical misrule has on, well, anything really.
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That pretty well describes the vast majority of the New Lunar Republic sub-genre. And one of the reasons I dislike it, despite being a dyed-in-the-wool Lunatic. Pointless and poorly done character assassination of Celestia, for no real justifiable purpose, completely out-of-character for pretty much everyone involved, and no more than a token attempt at worldbuilding, if that.
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i reviewed an "alternate universe" Revolutionary Girl Utena "crossover" fic here (for Blunt Reviews), which was nothing more than a badly-compressed re-telling of the first Utena story arc with the names swapped and a few pony words thrown in. There wasn't even the slightest attempt at keeping anything resembling canon characterizations. they were literally just Utena characters given canon character names -- the Mane 6, Spike, and Starlight. After the review, the author went back and "rewrote" it; but the rewritten form is nearly as bad as the original, and still has nearly all of the biggest flaws, including badly OOC canon characters, and a world that has nothing to do with canon Equestria in the slightest.
One of the weirdest things is that he tried to keep the sword-fights with hooves, despite the laughable clumsiness of doing so, when he could just as easily have made it an EQG crossover and avoided the problem entirely.
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While the concept of the Solar Empire versus the New Lunar Republic interests me, I've only made one mental attempt to create it - and it was a sci-fi setting meant to crossover with the general themes of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise. In it, Celestia is dead, Luna has faked her own death and taken a new identity as an anonymous ace pilot, and the war wasn't what either of them wanted. Indeed, the war itself is stated to be pointlessly destructive, much like in the Gundam franchise itself.
There's another story I've seen - part of a fan game called Shattered Kingdom - where the war basically springs from simple yet severe disagreements on the future of Equestria, but neither side really wants the war.
4535348 The aforementioned Death Note fic was like that. MLP Characters were assigned to Death Note counterparts, it seems, and did almost exactly the actions their counterparts did, regardless of how stupid it was in Death Note or how OOC it was for them. It was basically "Death Note Re-Enacted by Ponies" except it wasn't a ten-minute parody video, it was an entirely-too serious fanfic that potentially took longer to read than the actual anime took to watch, so I've heard.
The tragic thing is that the author obviously has talent - he described characters, emotions, and events in ways that riveted me more than the anime itself did. It was just sad that instead of using that to write an original story, he ripped off Death Note. It almost felt like it was an in-universe movie with the characters we know playing various roles rather than acting according to their real selves. I've heard that further on, around the end of the story's equivalent of the end of the first season, things start changing up a bit, but that was way past how far I'd gotten in the anime itself so I wouldn't have known, and after the conclusion of that arc I called it quits on the story. I'd been hooked up to that point, but I wasn't reading a My Little Pony story, I felt, so I stopped.
I think MLP stories that follow the plots of other, well-known stories can be interesting, but I feel there the trick is to throw the reader for a loop by having things happen differently in the fanfic - especially if you can pull it off in a way where the changes are due to the crossover being in an MLP setting with MLP characters, such that if you hadn't expected things to happen as they do in the crossed-over original, it would have been quite obvious that things would have gone how they instead went. If that makes sense, being kind of meta there.
First, I would like to thank you for this informative piece of information. I have already been following along with what you were saying before; I had had AU tags on a couple of my stories that didn't need it, and I have removed them a month or so back since reading some of the reviews you mentioned. After listening to your statement about it before, I had carefully read through the definition of the tag and came up to pretty much the same interpretations as you have. Admittedly, the gray areas are still a bit confusing, but when in doubt, I try to look closely to see if it really does constitute the tag or not.
In general, I try not to add too many tags, as that just raises confusion as to the central theme to the story, and while certain aspects of a genre may be present in one of my stories (maybe there's a mystery as to who ate the cake!) which can be covered in a particular chapter, I shouldn't add the mystery tag if the central theme is a romance.
Thank you for your time and input, Batwing.
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What really gets me about the whole thing is, why is this even the case? Why are these people here if they're not even really fans of the show? If they don't care about the things that make the show what it is? Is it just to piggy-back on a large and fairly active fandom? A way to get supposedly-guaranteed views for stories no one will read anywhere else? I just don't really get it.
I mean, I understand clopfic, there's a certain aesthetic and personality to the characters that some find appealing in that way. And to some extent I can comprehend the motivation of trolls and shitfic writers. But is there any reason to write non-Pony stories and slop a pony paintjob on them except to try and trick people into reading? Some kind of twisted attention-whoring?
4535516 I wonder that about the creators of some of the darker fics and universes out there... like, if you disagree with certain base components of the setting, or you write a fic that throws those components into hell, what's the point of making it an "MLP" fanfic?
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The show has delved into some surprisingly dark areas at times -- Luna's self-harm, Trixie's near-suicide -- and has the potential for some very dark stories. The story of Nightmare Moon has a lot of darkness implied and referenced, if not actually shown. There's a lot of room for exploration there.
But there's dark, and there's dark. Dark for the sake of dark, edgelord stuff, that doesn't make sense, since as you noted at that point it's no longer an MLP fanfic, it's just a grimdark fic wtih a pony paintjob.
I think there are two motivations for this sort of thing, AU and Dark. One is the aforementioned edginess, the refusal to accept the world at face value, and need to make it more "real", which almost invariably means making it more violent and dysfunctional. But this isn't necessary, since we've already seen that Equestria has quite a bit about it that's already dysfunctional. There's also the dislike for pat, easy resolutions to problems, which the show has a tendency towards, due to the format and time constraints, not to mention the target audience. But again, the response is often over-done, and not really justifiable in canon.
The other motivation is a simple "what if?" What if Nightmare Moon had succeeded. What if Twilight had never made friends? What if King Sombra or Queen Chrysalis had won. There's a good deal of room for exploring these alternatives, and indeed, the show hinted at them in "The Cutie Re-Mark", which was also quite a dark episode in its way. Lots of room for "what if?" scenarios.
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I'm going to have to quote this at some point. A reason I've heard of for such edginess is to make it more "realistic" - as if that in itself was a good thing - and poorly-done, the edginess isn't actually any more realistic than the show itself, and much less satisfying.
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That was the biggest problem with the whole '90s "Dark Age" movement. Everything had to be dark, violent, dysfunctional, and grim. Nothing truly noble or heroic, only conflicted, damaged anti-heroes and black-and-gray morality. No one capable of normal human decency, or if they were, they had to be brutally beaten down. I liked some of it, but for the most part it got old real fast. Like you said, just not nearly as realistic as creators liked to claim it was. Pretty much the origin of all the edgelord tropes (well, most, Lord Byron was responsible for some of them).
4536710 The 90's Anti Hero trope, eh? Tellingly, from the description:
And when you have a premise bordering on ridiculousness, it's a hard trope to do well.
I'm actually having issues figuring out whether a story of fine fits into AU, despite recently removing the tag... can I ask you for advice on that?
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Not sure there's much I can say that wasn't already covered in the blog; but I can give it a shot.
4541579 Unfortunately for whatever reason I'm having trouble deciding... my story (an old one, one I'm not terribly proud of) involves an alternate take on the season 3 premiere, "The Crystal Empire" where the Crystal Heart isn't delivered in time and Twilight is captured, and corrupted, Though her friends free her in short order and the story ends without too much having changed in the long run.
I removed the "alternate universe" tag after reading your blog, but I don't remember my reasoning for doing so and I got a comment from someone fairly quick telling me I should add it.
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Since it's a major event in the story, and it resolved (or not) in a different way that has a significant impact on the story and characters, then yeah, it definitely qualifies as AU.
4541824 I see. Guess I need to read this blog again...