fanficrants

jaaaarne posting in

Dear "Merlin" ficwriters on AO3. You know you're awesome, don't you? :) However, will it, I don't know, kill you dead to put an "Alternate Universe" tag (or something) on your story if it is an AU? Sometimes it would be obvious from the summary, but sometimes it wouldn't. Please, do take pity. It's not like it irritates the living daylights out of me [yet]. It's just that sometimes I don't have the willpower to backbutton and therefore generally lose the time I could be spending reading (and commenting on) your other stories.

Love you anyway,
me (who is awful at tagging herself, what a shame *gg*)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dancing_chimera

This. I like the occasional AU story, but it really should be in the tags or in the header.

From:

noracharles

I agree. I wish people would tag their AUs, especially modern day AUs.

I realize YMMV hugely on this, but to me, modern day AU Merlin fits under the Merlin fandom umbrella, but just like Merlin RPF it ought to be tagged as its own separate thing.

It's kind of funny, in Supernatural fandom J2 AU is a big thing. It combines a non-incestuous pairing with a fictionalized and deliberately divorced from reality Real Person pairing. The Merlin modern day AU fics seem to fill the same genre niche as J2 AUs, but the characters are drawn from the series rather than the actors' personas. (Are there more than a few RPF AUs in Merlin fandom?)

I guess it makes sense, no incest squick to worry about, no Real Person squick to worry about, easy. But quite honestly, most of them have as little to do with canon caracterization and mythology as the J2 AU fics have to do with Supernatural canon, so there's very little there for me as a fan of Merlin.

From:

skauble

Yeah, some info should really be given out up front and AU is a big one, IMO. That's such a basic part of the plot that I'm not sure why an author would think not to mention it.

Although sometimes I wonder what people consider an AU. For me it's usually the characters in a different setting, like high school (assuming they're not in high school in canon lol). But I've had stories where I stop at a certain point in canon and then change something - like character X doesn't come to town, or character Y leaves town - and someone told me that was an AU, too. So now I'm just unsure.

From:

pseudo_tsuga

People have been debating alternate universe vs. alternate reality vs. non-canon vs etc. for a long time. I don't think there's ever going to be a consensus on the terms and what they mean.

From:

jaaaarne

Well, I personally don't really care how an author wants to call it. I'd say, whatever they feel will express it best. It's their story after all and nobody knows it better than the author. It's just that Arthur and Merlin being, say, college students in modern-day America is quite different from the original show settings, so I'd expect at least a hint about it. Don't care how exactly it is done, really. Like I said, if it's obvious from the summary alone, then it'll do nicely. Just let me know it's an AU, okay? :) That's not too much to ask, IMO.

From:

kutsuwamushi

Fandom doesn't agree on what "AU" means.

Some people make a distinction between "AU" and "AR", where one describes a brand new setting (like high school) and one describes a deliberate change in canon but not a new setting--but they don't agree on which. Most people don't use "AR" at all and use "AU" for both, at least in my experience.

From:

jaaaarne

Well... umm... that's a good point, yeah. Deliberate changes in canon is something I personally do, but they've always been rather small and didn't influence the general logic of the universe, so it's hard for me to judge. If you're only changing small details, then it's probably not worth mentioning (although I personally make footnotes in such cases). But if the change is big, if its impact on the canon in question is big, then I'd like to know it beforehand. Say, writing Merlin as a blond doesn't make a huge difference, but writing him as a pizza delivery boy in the modern era does.

Besides, there is always a summary. :) If an author is undecided on what to call it, then they can at least give a reader a summary from which at least the big changes could be obvious.

From:

kutsuwamushi

I'm not sure if you think I'm disagreeing with you or not. I was replying to

skauble

I think it should be marked either way if it has a major impact on the story. Merlin doesn't save Arthur in the first episode and Arthur dies--major impact. Inserting a little extra time between episodes--not so much a major impact, and possibly just something you overlooked.

From:

jaaaarne

Nonono! I don't think you're disagreeing or something! :) I'm just in a talkative mood today, sorry. *gg* I have a story to finish, therefore I've finding myself all kinds of things to do that can prevent me from actually sitting down and writing that story. *gg*

From:

pseudo_tsuga

Yeah, it's annoying when you're searching for one or the other and the author doesn't clearly mark it, especially in ao3 because it has so much freedom with tags.

From:

elf

You shouldn't admit "sometimes I don't have the willpower to backbutton;" that just encourages them.

Instead, leave long, detailed comments that detail the fic's failings:

Dear author,

I can tell you worked very hard on this story, but I regret to inform you that it has some problems.

First, Arthur is a prince. That's someone who's next in line for being king. He is not a VP of sales who's expected to take over as CEO when the current one retires in a few years. Arthur has never heard of a VP of sales; such things don't exist in his country. Which is not the US of A.

Second, Merlin is not a pizza delivery boy. There is no pizza where Merlin & Arthur live. There may not be tomatoes where they live. Certainly, there is no double-decker pepperoni-and-bacon combo. Merlin does not ride a bicycle, nor is he hoping to upgrade to a Harley sometime.

Morgana does not ride a Harley. Really.

You need to get your eyes checked; those are horses. Living things. They *eat hay*; they do not *guzzle gas.* You cannot park them in a lot for the weekend while the smexings go on inside; they'd *die.* Little details like that can ruin a story for your readers.

Honestly, author, I think you need to cut back on the pharmaceuticals, or stop watching the show on your iPod, because you're missing some critical details.