#fandom language

13 year old me would have looked at a fic on ao3 and thought, “what the heck is this. So many tags?? So confusing?” But now I look at a fic for five seconds and I can immediately guess even without looking at things like dates, bookmarks or kudos if I’ll like it, the approx year it was posted, the writing style and if it’s likely to be finished or not

What yall mean is, like, "Modern Earth, No Magic, Alternate Universe Setting", which could have been turned into something unique and easy to read and filter like "memnaus"

But instead, it's like how the USA isn't actually the only country comprised of united states located in America, nor are its citizens the only "Americans". Imagine saying rectangle when you meant square, and expecting people to extrapolate. Is it accurate? Yes. But come on, man. Stop hogging words

What about AUs where it's the same setting but with modern amenities? (Elves in Rivendell with smartphones, Dragons getting scammed by bitcoin, there's a Starbucks on every corner in Jinlintai, dnd bards on tiktok, Link has a nintendo switch-- wait...)

What about AUs where it's modern earth but the characters are still whatever fantasy species and/or profession they started as? (Bilbo is a hobbit who lives in rural modern England, Leliana is actually French and Zevran is actually from Spain, everything is normal modern earth but Witchers just exist, Jiang Cheng lives in Yunmeng-- wait...)

What about characters from their original setting getting isekai-ed into our modern earth? That's an in-story modern alternate universe! (Shang Qinghua DOES leave and Mobei Jun fuckin follows him! King Arthur joins a Connecticut Baseball Team! Inuyasha falls through a portal and has to go to modern earth high school-- wait...)

Anyway "Modern AU" fans have fandom default privilege, and I'm cranky about language nuance. I feel like if these concepts had more well known differentiating terms, more people would think to write about them. Instead "Modern AU" means only "the characters, but stripped of their context"

Anyway anyway I propose:

"Modern Earth, No Magic, Alternate Universe Setting" or "Memnaus"

"Canon Universe With Amenities of Modern Earth" or "Cuwame"

"Modern Earth Setting, plus--" or "Mesp--" then you add whatever you're keeping, like "mesp fairies" or "mesp cultivators" or "mesp magic system"

"Isekai" is already a thing, I just think "canon character isekai-s to earth" should be more popular

We were hanging out while she’s taking a break from editing and I said to sis “soooo hehehe, guess what? a lot of readers headcanon Susan as autistic” and she goes HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and we do finger guns at each other and are laughing about. Mum just wants to know why Susan would read as autistic and I give a bunch of reasons and she’s furiously typing them into her document then sis and I are like “okay okay guess we should explain to you why we think that’s so funny and relatable" and suddenly neither of us could find words. I managed to babble out something about androids and aliens as being more relatable to me than the heros in some stories which is not really true and it’s bothering me that i said that.

There’s a phrase right? something like egg cracking character but not for gender. Things that you look at in hindsight and go “ah. yes. indeed. goodness gracious how did nobody catch that*?!”

*In my case, I was diagnosed by a pediatrician with dyspraxia and “problems focusing” who said to 1/ absolutely not tell me and 2/ disregard the diagnosis “because labels cause kids (and their parents) to not push through their problems, falling back on the excuse of their diagnosis” 👀

It’s not blorbo, blorbo is beloved but not necessarily the character that reflects something of you (want to protect) and also representation (derogatory) when it’s your cringe parts that you havent yet really accepted.

What key words am I missing? it’s usually headcanons not explicit representation and often retroactive as in you didn’t realise you were this or that at the time or your didn’t know that multiple people who are this or that also felt like this character was important. hmm.

If it is 100 words exactly, it’s a drabble.

If it’s just kinda around that but kinda longer or shorter, it’s a dribble.