[ SECRET POST #4043 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4043 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.











Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 37 secrets from Secret Submission Post #579.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. https://i.imgur.com/fF6VKrl.png

[(Anonymous)]

Well, i'm not going to lie to you: it does seem like a pretty silly reason. I mean, I think non-contemporary college AUs can be really cool for sure, but... the whole thing is an AU. Putting characters in college is no less of an AU than putting them in a different decade.

But you do you. Personally, my problem with most college AUS is that they're unbearably generic and not well-written or distinctive enough.

[(Anonymous)]

I guess it depends on where you draw your AU line. "What if they all went to college together" is a different hook than "What if they were all 15 years younger and in the same college together right now!"

[(Anonymous)]

It honestly doesn't seem like that much of a difference to me

but different strokes I guess

[(Anonymous)]

If they went to college in the 90's then it's a massive difference.

[(Anonymous)]

is it really?

[(Anonymous)]

Yes. Especially if it's slash. Student culture was different enough then that you'd have to do a little bit of research to write a good story.


But people today are lazy as shit and uninterested in anything outside their tiny pathetic bubble.

[(Anonymous)]

cool, a Kids These Days rant, that's always fun

[(Anonymous)]

I said people actually you fucking moron.

[(Anonymous)]

I can't speak for the 90s but my mother was in college in the 80s and from what she's told me about it, there were most definitely some major differences in student culture. A lot of times, I don't think our generation which has grown up with the internet and social media etc really gets just how much those things have shaped student culture in the modern day.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think AYRT was arguing that college in the 80s isn't any different to college now. I think they were saying that a college AU is a college AU. Why would it being set in the present be an issue? Why would the reader expect an AU to be canon adherent about what era it's set it, when the whole thing about AUs is that they're NOT canon adherent.

If it's not your thing it's not your thing, and that's cool. I just don't think the specific criticism of modern-day college AUs for not being canon adherent makes sense in this context.

[(Anonymous)]

I think there's a big difference between 1) exploring what characters might have been like when they were younger, how they got to be the way they are today, and whether there could be any surprises in their past, and 2) de-ageing characters but maintaining the exact same personalities, mannerisms, tics, and often, inexplicably, similar levels of experience and knowledge as their older counterparts. The latter is also awkward if part of a character's backstory is something that happened when they were older, like the death of a child or military experience, but you're writing them at a point in their life where that hasn't happened yet.

DA

[(Anonymous)]

I think there's a big difference between 1) exploring what characters might have been like when they were younger, how they got to be the way they are today, and whether there could be any surprises in their past

I wouldn't call that a College AU, though. If all you're doing is exploring what legitimately could have happened in the character's pasts, in accordance with canon, that's a backstory fic. It's only an AU if you change the circumstances somehow - such as having the characters meet in College rather than years later like they do in canon.

Once a fic is an AU, I agree with AYRT, it really doesn't make much difference whether there's one AU axis (the characters meet in college), two AU axes (the characters meet in college in 2018), or even more.

Re: DA

[(Anonymous)]

It's all AU, but the only way it doesn't make a difference is if you don't read anything that's AU. If you do read them... well, most people have preferences. If someone wants to read an AU set in medieval times and all they can find are medieval fics where the characters are also psychic were-dragons, it's a bit precious to tell them that there's no difference because it's all AU.

Re: DA

[(Anonymous)]

but the only way it doesn't make a difference is if you don't read anything that's AU.

That's your opinion, sure.

I read a metric fuckton of AU, and IMO it really doesn't matter whether your College AU is set in 1990 or 2018. Either way, it requires the exact same acceptance that, "Yo, this is not meant to be canon compliant."

Now if you want to add in, say, Vampires, then that requires an addition level of acceptance that, "Hey, so there's shit in this universe that doesn't exist in the real world." Or, if you want to set your fic in the 19th century, then sure, that adds in the additional level of acceptance that "this fic is going to be set in the past and things are gonna get historical up in here."

[(Anonymous)]

I think non-contemporary college AUs can be really cool for sure, but... the whole thing is an AU. Putting characters in college is no less of an AU than putting them in a different decade.

Agreed. Do I generally prefer non-contemporary College AUs? Sure. But that's just a matter of personal preference/nostalgia. Does it require more of a suspension of disbelief to read a modern-day College AU? No, because an AU is an AU.

[(Anonymous)]

I totally get this, OP, though since I'm not a big fan of most AUs (high school/college ones in particular) my pet peeve is when someone does a flashback, prequel or origin fic where the character is definitely younger, in an earlier time period. I've seen people write fic about a character at an age when it would've been like... 1989, and they're carrying around small cell phones. I don't know if it's down to the author being too young to remember that era, or too lazy/careless to research, or both.

[(Anonymous)]

My problem is reading university AUs set in the university I went to.. which are so hilariously unresearched it's painful. "The campus", "roommates", "the canteen", "office hours"... Please, US writers, do some modicum of research!

"The university building" hahaha no

[(Anonymous)]

What university? I didn't think people set these things at specific universities, just... some unnamed generic university.

[(Anonymous)]

Every college AU I have ever read has been set at a specific university.

[(Anonymous)]

Oxford/Cambridge is my bet. They have LOTS.

[(Anonymous)]

I think a college AU is different to a college backstory though. I went to college in the mid-90s and seeing a character my age having a flashback to using their smartphone at college would be super weird, but most college AUs just dump everyone together in a nebulous "present". Which is one of the reasons why I don't like them much.

[(Anonymous)]

Let's be real here: pretty much all high school/college AU's suck.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel much the same way!

You want to write a college/coffee shop/whatever AU, fine. But why does it always have to take place in present time, regardless of the time setting of canon and/or the ages of the characters? It bugs me.

[(Anonymous)]

OP, I get it.

Most college/university AUs are kind of terrible but I still read them even though reading characters known as adults but re-cast as teenagers usually feels like I'm eating underbaked bread -- almost but not quite done yet.

I don't expect hyper-reality in fic, but I was in post-secondary in the late 80s and early 90s and my age is starting to match some of the "older" characters, so it jangles my senses something fierce when those types of anachronisms pop up. Most of the time I can let it ride -- it's fic, after all -- but if it's bad enough, I have to stop reading because my own memory of reality gets in the way of accepting that someone could have googled something or watched movies or TV shows on their laptop in 1992.