Posted under Tags
BUR #6237 has been rejected.
create alias alternate_universe -> what_if
I'm not sure about the utility of these tags, but we don't need two for the same concept.
alternate universe's definition smells of wikipedia copypaste and it's a way more generic term so imo that should be the one getting chopped.
Not the same thing.
What if is more about a single event being changed, like a post depicting what would happen if the death of a character was prevented. Alternate universe is more about changing how things works in a universe, or changing how that universe is constituted.
For example, posts from pool #17105 depict the characters from avatar: the last airbender as goths, in an alternate universe. What if doesn't apply here, because you have not changed a specific event that made them goth, but how in this universe they are goth instead of non-goth(?). That's the idea.
mongirlfan said:
Not the same thing.
What if is more about a single event being changed, like a post depicting what would happen if the death of a character was prevented. Alternate universe is more about changing how things works in a universe, or changing how that universe is constituted.
For example, posts from pool #17105 depict the characters from avatar: the last airbender as goths, in an alternate universe. What if doesn't apply here, because you have not changed a specific event that made them goth, but how in this universe they are goth instead of non-goth(?). That's the idea.
That's a distinction that will never be followed. what_if alternate_costume, what_if alternate_hairstyle
I kinda agree and disagree with the alias. On one hand I think it's kinda hard to apply it on images, because it should be on so many more images depicting a kinda alternate universe. But on the other hand something like Konosuba_-_Modern_Konosuba_(izawa_koushi) pool #16905 isn't really a what if, but really an alternate universe where the characters are all in a modern world instead of a fantasy setting.
As mongirlfan says, what if is more of a "what if character x didn't die" situation. If the alias goes through, I'm fine with it too.
nonamethanks said:
That's a distinction that will never be followed. what_if alternate_costume, what_if alternate_hairstyle
Well, that's simply bad use of the tag. Popular AUs often include modern representations of a work's setting. Like representing Naruto characters in a modern/urban setting. Evern the authors themselves make AUs sometimes, like Hajime Isayama who made a highschool AU of his work Shingeki no Kyojin.
What If and AU are similar, but certainly different things. The What If tag could be a candidate for becoming a pool if it seems too subjective.
mongirlfan said:
For example, posts from pool #17105 depict the characters from avatar: the last airbender as goths, in an alternate universe. What if doesn't apply here,
Very opportune example
Avatar - Goth Gaang (Caro Oliveira)
What if the Gaang were goths?
The thing is that most of the information about a tag is conveyed through the name and it's counterproductive to stipulate a sentence to be used specifically when the person wouldn't know. Even with the perfect dialog explaining a tag I often think that there is too many tags; they are applied haphazardly while It's also being hard to the potentially interested to know about them.
Better than 'alternate universe' a less abstract name would be 'alternate genre' (technically subgenre in most cases)
with what if and the 'alternate universe' denomination or potentially 'alternate setting' another problem is along the likes of post #4467288: with extensive franchises a simple plot deviation in the prequel is an alternative setting/universe (this is why I also dislike the term universe in this context; awfully vulgar)
______
If we don't want to simplify what if for any creative reimagination then alternative universe needs to be repurposed into alternative_genre
ljhkhjkghjybtvhyt said:
Very opportune example
The thing is that most of the information about a tag is conveyed through the name and it's counterproductive to stipulate a sentence to be used specifically when the person wouldn't know. Even with the perfect dialog explaining a tag I often think that there is too many tags; they are applied haphazardly while It's also being hard to the potentially interested to know about them.
Better than 'alternate universe' a less abstract name would be 'alternate genre' (technically subgenre in most cases)
with what if and the 'alternate universe' denomination or potentially 'alternate setting' another problem is along the likes of post #4467288: with extensive franchises a simple plot deviation in the prequel is an alternative setting/universe (this is why I also dislike the term universe in this context; awfully vulgar)
______If we don't want to simplify what if for any creative reimagination then alternative universe needs to be repurposed into alternative_genre
The user that created the pool put the description as "What if the Gaang were goths?", but if you check the artist's twitter, he clearly describes these arts as "goth AU". I would say post #4467288 still counts as what if. You changed an event in the past, and the artist tries to depict in the art how that would affect the story.
One popular what if is (include Jojo Part 2 spoilers): "What if Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli didn't die?" If you search caesar_anthonio_zeppeli what_if, you will see posts depicting an Old Caesar being good friends with Old Joseph and/or helping the crusaders in Part 3.
You see, the main purpose of What If is showing something that you could see happen in the universe the author created but didn't. Now with AUs, you don't to want change just an specific event, but how that entire universe works (like I said and exemplified before).
I browsed a little more and came to the conclusion that its hard to distinguish one concept from another in certain posts. There are post like post #4580536 that is clearly What If but the artist calls it an AU; or posts like post #3778293 that should be AU but its tagged as What If. By nonamethanks's commentary, I'm also afraid of users using the What If tag for the single fact that the character is just drawn with different clothes/hairstyle and it has nothing to do with hypothetical scenarios. (what_if alternate_costume, what_if alternate_hairstyle) So I see three options:
The thing I am more worried is that the gardening in these tags could be too extensive, there are lots of posts and the user would need to know the copyright or see the artist's commentary, which would be complicated.
What Ifs create AUs. "What if this character didn't die?" "What if the setting was modern instead of fantasy?"
Most people would regard the results of a What If as an alternate universe/timeline/what have you. We can alias or imply, but I don't think trying to treat them as distinctly separate, when people use the terms interchangeably, really makes much sense. It would just mean constant gardening of vague concepts that no one is going to use "correctly."
blindVigil said:
What Ifs create AUs. "What if this character didn't die?" "What if the setting was modern instead of fantasy?"
Most people would regard the results of a What If as an alternate universe/timeline/what have you. We can alias or imply, but I don't think trying to treat them as distinctly separate, when people use the terms interchangeably, really makes much sense. It would just mean constant gardening of vague concepts that no one is going to use "correctly."
I think a what if revolves around a single question, a single change. What if Kal-El landed in Russia? Answer: Red Son timeline.
A full AU, however, requires a much more extensive set of changes. It's a 'what if...' BUT it also has an 'AND' in there. It changes at least two things, if not more.
elgee said:
I think a what if revolves around a single question, a single change. What if Kal-El landed in Russia? Answer: Red Son timeline.
A full AU, however, requires a much more extensive set of changes. It's a 'what if...' BUT it also has an 'AND' in there. It changes at least two things, if not more.
Changing the setting makes an AU, and that's only changing one aspect without a need to change anything else. An AU does not have some arbitrary minimum number of changes to be an AU. Changing a character's death makes an AU. Changing any one event makes an AU.
"What if this character didn't die?" Is identical to "An AU where this character didn't die."
blindVigil said:
What Ifs create AUs. "What if this character didn't die?" "What if the setting was modern instead of fantasy?"
Most people would regard the results of a What If as an alternate universe/timeline/what have you. We can alias or imply, but I don't think trying to treat them as distinctly separate, when people use the terms interchangeably, really makes much sense. It would just mean constant gardening of vague concepts that no one is going to use "correctly."
It could be interpreted as what if being "what if X happened instead of Y?" and AUs being much further into that question. This can lead to a BUR which AU imply What If which could potentially be a good solution.
blindVigil said:
Changing the setting makes an AU, and that's only changing one aspect without a need to change anything else. An AU does not have some arbitrary minimum number of changes to be an AU. Changing a character's death makes an AU. Changing any one event makes an AU.
"What if this character didn't die?" Is identical to "An AU where this character didn't die."
Agree with first part, disagree with second part. "What if this character didn't die?" and "An AU where this character didn't die." aren't the exact same thing, because in this case, the "What If" would focus on the character's death, showing how the preventing character's death could affect the original story. In the AU, the character's death isn't really important because you will probably have a different setting/vibe to the story in which the character's death couldn't possibly happen.
Here's an example (Shingeki no Kyojin spoilers)
post #4409645 and post #4549020 - a "What If" showing the character Erwin Smith alive in season 4 of the anime. Nothing was changed in the setting/vibe of the story, aside for Erwin being alive. It's supposed to show something that you could see happen in the original story but didn't.
https://twitter.com/ThisUserIsAngry/status/1364320348385255426 (fanart) - An AU in which changes the entire setting/vibe of the story to that of highschool. Erwin is alive here and that's it. His death in the original story (and even the original story itself) isn't supposed to have any importance or impact here.
Unfortunately, it won't matter if the users can't use these tags correctly so I'm not entirely against aliasing the tags. But the interpretation that What Ifs lead to AUs (with one tag implying the other) could be the ideal solution imo.
mongirlfan said:
Agree with first part, disagree with second part. "What if this character didn't die?" and "An AU where this character didn't die." aren't the exact same thing, because in this case, the "What If" would focus on the character's death, showing how the preventing character's death could affect the original story. In the AU, the character's death isn't really important because you will probably have a different setting/vibe to the story in which the character's death couldn't possibly happen.
You're changing the meaning of what I said. What you describe is "AU where everything is different, and also this character coincidentally doesn't die." That's not the same thing as "AU where this character doesn't die." You're assuming the setting must be different, as well as changing the focus from the character to everything else.
The actual distinction being argued here is that an AU changes the setting, and anything that doesn't do that is a What If. No one uses these phrases like this, though. Go to any social media site, any fanfiction site, any site at all, and you'll see the two phrases being used interchangeably. "AU where one tiny inconsequential thing is different" "What if HIGHSCHOOL THO?!" AU is definitely way more popular than What If, as well. Everything's an AU to writers and artists. Change anything at all no matter how inconsequential, it's an AU, because "deviation" is what it means to most people.
Better example, take super hero comics. "AU where everyone is evil." This is literally a plot they do, all the time. The setting is the same, what changes is the characters. Everything else that's different is always a result specifically of these characters being evil. You wouldn't argue that that's just a What If, it's literally an alternate universe. Any time travel plots too, those focus a lot on changing one event, like a What If, and then exploring the resulting future, the "alternate universe" created from changing that single event.
blindVigil said:
You're changing the meaning of what I said. What you describe is "AU where everything is different, and also this character coincidentally doesn't die." That's not the same thing as "AU where this character doesn't die." You're assuming the setting must be different, as well as changing the focus from the character to everything else.
The actual distinction being argued here is that an AU changes the setting, and anything that doesn't do that is a What If. No one uses these phrases like this, though. Go to any social media site, any fanfiction site, any site at all, and you'll see the two phrases being used interchangeably. "AU where one tiny inconsequential thing is different" "What if HIGHSCHOOL THO?!" AU is definitely way more popular than What If, as well. Everything's an AU to writers and artists. Change anything at all no matter how inconsequential, it's an AU, because "deviation" is what it means to most people.
Better example, take super hero comics. "AU where everyone is evil." This is literally a plot they do, all the time. The setting is the same, what changes is the characters. Everything else that's different is always a result specifically of these characters being evil. You wouldn't argue that that's just a What If, it's literally an alternate universe. Any time travel plots too, those focus a lot on changing one event, like a What If, and then exploring the resulting future, the "alternate universe" created from changing that single event.
No, I did not changed the meaning of what you said. You're changing the meaning of AU by saying it is identical to What If, which is not. If the only thing you changes in the story is the death of character, that's not AU, it's What If. I also never put rules to what an AU should have differently from the original story. AUs for anime/manga frequently have different settings, I just used examples of it.
And yes, the superhero example where everyone is evil is an AU, of course. The Marvel Zombies have same setting and characters but it is by all means an AU because the universe is fundamentally different, you're not changing an specific event of the story here. There's this comic with this title "What If Aunt May Had Died Instead of Uncle Ben?", it changes an event and shows how it impacts the story, this is what "What If" means, not something like "everyone are zombies", "everyone is evil", "everyone is in highchool" which would be AUs.
It's ironic that you use marvel as an example when their What If one-offs are canonically alternate universes.
This is another example of someone making a duplicate tag 10 years ago because they didn't know about the existing one and now we're trying to rationalize that with arguments that border into nonsense.
If you want a tag for alternate universes so much then kemonomimi mode also goes into it, along with alternate costume, alternate hairstyle, genderswap and a bunch of other tags with tens or hundreds of thousands of posts.
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nonamethanks said:
It's ironic that you use marvel as an example when their What If one-offs are canonically alternate universes.
Of course everything in Marvel is "canonically" alternate universe, and this "universe" I mentioned there's only a single story that shows an specific event occurring differently to show it impacts the original story in earth-616.
nonamethanks said:
This is another example of someone making a duplicate tag 10 years ago because they didn't know about the existing one and now we're trying to rationalize that with arguments that border into nonsense.
If you want a tag for alternate universes so much then kemonomimi mode also goes into it, along with alternate costume, alternate hairstyle, genderswap and a bunch of other tags with tens or hundreds of thousands of posts.
No I don't want this tag so much, in fact I'm actually okay with nuking/aliasing it, as they are similar but still different concepts, but as tags they are messy, can be subjective and they would need gardening. I just disagreed with the assumption that What If and AUs are the exact same thing, or that everything fits in AU (which is even worse).
Don't think they should be the same thing; here is my example for why.
Evangelion (manga) spoilers
If you haven't read Evangelion, the manga is very similar to the original anime with a few differences. The ending, after instrumentality is stopped, is entirely different or, at the very least, shows what happens a bit further down the road while the anime ends right after instrumentality. Basically, everything returns to normal except there's pillars or something all over the world as remnants from the instrumentality and people no longer remember each other from before it happened (I guess because they became goop.) So, I think this applies to this tag in at least one way. You could consider the future after instrumentality where the main characters are normal and no longer know each other as an "alternate universe" and not a "what if," OR you could consider the manga's events in general as an alternative universe from the anime's and not a "what if" (like Shinji hating Kaworu in the manga.) Also, in the manga, Shinji has a panic attack and Kaworu gives him mouth-to-mouth.
I guess another way that you might use them individually is to have "alternate universe" be for canonically alternate universes like the ending of Muv-Luv Unlimited if Alternative didn't happen while "what if" could be for non-canon.
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elgee said:
How about making the disnction instead that one of the tags(what_if is my choice) should be about unofficial stuff and the other should be about official stuff, like the million and one alternate realities of Marvel and DC comics, while they continue to last.
Eh not sure if that'd really be the best way to use it. Official AUs shouldn't be under the tag IMO, otherwise it'd get flooded by stuff like all the non-UC Gundam series and official high school spinoffs of military and fantasy series.
There's also the matter of contemporary, which is basically a dedicated tag for modern AUs and alternate costumes of fantasy media.
