Alternate Universe Milestones (plus tag-list)
Recently I wrote my first ever Regency-AU and as I was celebrating the fact this morning (and mentally awarding myself a shiny plaque for it), @klushund and I wondered about the AUs out there. One does know some staples, ofc, like Coffee Shop or Hogwarts or Mafia but Fandom is clearly a limiting factor when it comes to what kind of AUs are used.
Or as someone pointed out in 2018: Banana Fish is the Mafia-AU.
The question behind this is: If there is a bucket list of books one should have read to be called well educated and if there is a list of places one should have visited to be called well traveled, should or could there be a bucket list of Alternate Universes a fanfiction writer should have written to be called an accomplished author? Which AUs should be included? :Va
Generally, I’m playing with the idea of trying my hands at other AUs. A whole setting as a prompt seems to work better for me than a one-word-prompt-list and I have been in a creative slump these last 18 months. So, naturally, I went to AO3 to see what kind of AUs they have to offer. I went to the “Post New Work”-page, filled in “Alternate Universe” in the Tags, added a letter of the alphabet or a number and waited for the auto-fill.
I went with the premisse that auto-fill suggests the most used tags for Alternate Universes. This is the list that came up without any letters or numbers:
No real surprises there, tho I missed some of the staples I have seen over and over again in my fandoms. The list for letter O for example does not list Omegaverse but has Over the Garden Wall Fusion in it. It is entirely possible, ofc, that people writing Omegaverse do not tag it with “Alternate Universe - XYZ” and therefore it doesn’t show up - it’s still weird. Mafia is also absent, although Mob and Yakuza exist (and so does Yoga apparently…).
Anyway, I think I’ll got through the lists and pick a few of the AUs that catch my fancy and I’ll try my hand at writing them to create and fulfil my personal bucket list. There will be Omegaverse, I’m sorry to say, but maybe also Coffee Shop & Tattoo Parlor, who knows.
There are screenshots of the alphabetical lists under the cut.
@klushund perked up at Sugar Daddy and Yuri on Ice Fusion but she’s mean and won’t tell me what mental images or possible plot bunnies she had. Knowing her playground atm is “Planet of the Apes” I definitely want to know more … @dorkshadows, poke her for answers, please! XD
