Follow-Up Poll: AU versus AR

[kennahijja]

Alright, people - I ran into a definition problem with yesterday's poll. Basically, I used the options Alternate Universe (AU) and Alternate Reality (AR) because those often turn up as categories in archives, but I have no idea what they mean exactly.

Ok, I do know what area they cover - from 'nonmagical AU' to H/D as dragon riders in a fantasy dimension to Harry-in-Slytherin to Sirius/Remus living happily ever after after the war, no Veil. But the difference? Not a clue. So...


[Poll #785583]

And abuse the comments if you run out of space!

Comments

[chthonya]

I think taking characters out of their environment and keeping them *true* to their character is what distinguishes a good AU/AR, while OOC-ness violates their character rather than their environment

Whereas for me, the environment is a character, and putting the HP characters in a completely different setting (without good canon-grounded reason) feels weirder than suddenly introducing an exchange student to Harry's year-group.

[kennahijja.livejournal.com]

Ah, but for me it's *supposed* to feel weird, and the fun thing is the similarities being gradually revealed. The only thing I need to find in an AU/AR are the character traits of the protagonists - i.e. even if their history is somewhat different, Harry should be recognisable as Harry and Draco as Draco even if they're battling corporate overlords in a cyberpunk universe (*points over at liriaen*). Everything else is fair game for me :).

[chthonya]

Yeah, I can theoretically see the appeal of that, though all the other-world fanfics I've seen have been too way-out for me to get into (or perhaps poorly characterised).

Hmmm. I guess I see the characters as being part of and growing from their environment, and so putting them elsewhere doesn't feel like HP fanfic to me, in much the way as crossover fic doesn't feel like HP fanfic so much as a hybrid of HP and something else. AR could be characterised as crossover with an 'original universe', it seems to me.

I wonder if the environment is so important to me partly because I'm British? Part of the appeal of the books to me is that they tap into some archetypes of Britishness, and I miss those aspects when the environment is changed - an original character in the 'canon' environment is much less jarring.