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All Fan Fic is arguably an Alternate Continuity, since the audience can assume it intends to follow Canon to a specific point, then branch off. Indeed, the only major fic types that don't branch off are post series Continuation fics and those written to fit neatly into canon, as they don't disrupt the continuity. Because of this, fanfic authors labeling something an Alternate Universe Fic has a different implication, wherein a fundamental aspect of the series is completely overhauled from its point of origin.

The standards for how much is fundamental to the series vary by fandom and by time of writing, but the fic types that are usually considered AU are the following:

  • Contextual Reassignment: When the fundamental aspect that is changed is the world itself. Overt changes in the universe rules and Worldbuilding constitute the most universally accepted meaning of AU. Thus, the fan equivalent to an Elseworld. However, there's a lot less tolerance of altering personalities and abilities. These come in two main forms:
    • Familiar Contextual Reassignment: When the characters are taken out of their world and placed in a setting that is fairly familiar to the author and readers — the High School AU is especially common, putting characters who would not have met or even existed for years in close proximity during teenage years.
    • Unfamiliar Contextual Reassignment: When the characters are taken out of their world and placed in a setting much more unfamiliar to the author or the reader — for example prison, a Nazi Death Camp, Normandy 1066, or possibly Mars. This is often called a Transplanted Character Fic. Historic examples are called Historical AUs.
  • What If?: For lesser changes, there are the What Ifs about major events in the series — how 'major' counts as 'major' is debatable. There are three common forms of this.
    • Alternate History: Where the author takes one point of time, one event in the universe and changes the outcome of it radically, such as an important decision, or who won an important fight, and continues from that point. Sometimes called a Divergence Fic.
    • Character Facets: The author speculates on what would happen if a single facet of a character's environment was different about them, or may blatantly ignore a Word of God statement, for example, what if a character was blind, or had a little brother in the show right from the start.
    • Role Swap AU: The author explores how the story would change if two characters swap roles in the story. For example, if the unscrupulous Lancer becomes The Chosen One, while the original Stock Shōnen Hero is relegated to the role of their sidekick.
  • Continuation: There are also the Continuation fics written before the series has finished, which are rendered AU when new episodes in canon contradict the events of the fic. This is more of an Alternate Continuity, as the opening paragraph mentions, but tends to be considered AU too. Retrospectively, these fics become the What If? variation mentioned above, but are written from a different stance. (Harry Potter ficdom was particularly prone to these until after the publication of Deathly Hallows.)

Full-blown AU fic is tricky, as it should require a fair notion of the original series itself, making it harder to read for some casual fans. There's also the major danger of the Transplanted Character Fic, because if you change the plot too much the story's not so much a Fan Fic as an original story with familiar names. On the plus side, rookie fans who might suffer from Continuity Lockout in the canon series because they only found it after it became established may be able to enjoy AU fics, particularly if they actually explain a lot of the universe and don't assume that you know all the important things already. Trying to follow Buffy the Vampire Slayer when you first start watching in its sixth season, with all the Character Development that's taken place up to that point, is a lot harder than cutting your teeth on an AU fic that starts out with the Scoobies in high school and doesn't require any advance knowledge of the setting.

See High School AU, Coffee Shop AU Fic, Magical Girl AU, Soulmate AU Fic, and Modern AU Fic for particularly common variants. Contrast Elsewhere Fic and Pseudo-Canonical Fic. Some Fix Fic may take the form of this. See Universal-Adaptor Cast for when the work itself regularly does this. Other types, such as Crossover fics, are arguably AU too but don't get counted as such.


Categories with their own pages:


Examples:

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    Comic Books 
  • In general, there's a surprising amount of 'retelling' stories, basically with a similar premise as Ultimate Spider-Man: Spidey's adventures retold, with original and familiar ideas thrown around. Sometimes, they can be epic, other times they can fall into common fanfic problems. Notably, Gwen Stacy dies in a lot of them, seemingly for no reason. To a lesser degree, other comics, such as Iron Man, Avengers, Batman, and even Transformers, get the same treatment.
  • Winning The Witch, a Young Avengers fanfic set in the world of zombies.
  • Gotham's Finest Villains is a Batman fanfic based on a role-play, where Batman and the whole Bat-Family have disappeared, where several different authors have a unique takes and re-imaginings of the villains they play, which may heavily deviate from the comics.
  • Empath: The Luckiest Smurf is a Smurfs fanfic series where (1) the Smurfs are all born through physical reproduction instead of through a Delivery Stork, (2) Papa Smurf had other fellow Smurfs in his generation as the parents of "his little Smurfs", but have all died during The Plague, leaving the children as orphans, (3) the boy Smurflings were never de-aged adult Smurfs and Sassette was a real female Smurfling who was trapped in a Crystal Prison, and (4) combines elements and characters from the comic books, the cartoon show, Sony Pictures' live-action film series, Smurfs: The Lost Village, Johan and Peewit, and the PVC toy character line.
  • Supergirl fic Hellsister Trilogy is set in an universe created when another Supergirl interfered with the battle between the Supergirl from Earth-One and the Anti-Monitor in "Kara and the Dreamsmith".
  • Spider-Friends: A possible conclusion of Spider-Verse where all the Spider People live in Earth 616.
  • Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams is set in an alternate version of the Marvel Universe and focuses on the C-list superhero Sleepwalker. Its companion series Ultimate Spider-Woman: Change With The Light focuses on Mary Jane Watson being bitten by a genetically engineered spider from the same batch as the one that nicked Peter Parker. Spider-Man and Spider-Woman both exist in this universe, but they are not partners and Spider-Woman has her own unique Rogues Gallery instead of fighting any of Spider-Man's usual enemies.
  • Earth-27, a Fanworld created by the Deviantartist Roysovithch, with art by fellow Deviantartist Phi Cho. Created initially with "Arkham files" that showcased classic Batman villains, its popularity soared with a new presentation of information known as "Oracle Files". They were originally supposed to be primarily for the heroes, but the popularity of the files (and their accompanying "VoxBoxes") got to a point where Roysovitch has files on most of the Justice League and a significant portion of the DCU.
  • Somewhere in Time and Space is a Tintin fanfic in which Professor Calculus is a Time Lord known as the Professor, and Bianca Castifiore becomes his assistant.
  • Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Loch Lomond is set in a world where Captain Haddock is a notorious pirate named "Sharpsteel" and Tintin is a stowaway who becomes his cabin boy.
  • Something Rich and Strange: Captain Haddock is the captain of a sailing ship during the reign of King Charles the Second, and Tintin is a young merman who is accidentally caught by his crew and taken on board ship in order to recover.
  • Marvel Crossroads, It is a shared continuity fan fic website that diverges from the marvel universe after the end of The Coming of Galactus.
  • The first half of A Prize for Three Empires narrates Carol Danvers' early life, and the second half diverges from canon completely.
  • Kara of Rokyn is set in a parallel universe where Supergirl moves to Rokyn -a world settled by Kryptonian survivors- shortly before the Crisis on Infinite Earths and starts a new life.
  • In X-Men 1970, the original X-Men quit after their final mission in Uncanny X-Men #66 (1970), and the next X-Men team is made up for Havok, Polaris, Banshee, Sunfire and Mimic. Additionally, real world time is very much in effect here, so the fic is set in 1970.
  • As far as Ward story Warp (xbritomartx) is concerned, neither Rain nor the Fallen exist.
  • Dance with the Demons is a Batman fanfiction where Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle get married after their universe survives the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
  • Eight Count is a Batman fic where a number of Gotham-related characters are involved with a shady professional boxing league, whether as fighters, trainers, owners, etc.

    Crossovers — Multiple Media 

    Film — Animated 
  • The Rise of the Guardians fanfic Zastruga has Pitch Black taking Jack Frost in as a ward and protege shortly after his creation as a spirit. The story explores what effects this would have on the plot and character relationships once the movie rolls around.
  • The Lion King:
    • The Lion King Adventures is a famous example of this, focusing on an alternate childhood of Simba and Nala where they fight villains and fall in love.
    • In Letting Go Of Hate, Kiara saves Zira from falling and tries to help redeem her.
  • The Dreamworks film Megamind has become the focus of a lot of Alternate Universes. Most famously are Knocked Up, Fate, Stakes and Leather (and its sequel), Metro Cover and Bad To Be Good. The High School AU appears to be the most popular.
  • A Piece of Rebellion spins off from The LEGO Movie by having Emmet report what he witnessed instead of investigating himself. As a result, Good Cop/Bad Cop ends up accidentally being labeled the Special and considered a traitor by his boss.
  • Somos Familia: an Alternate History fic for Coco. After all, taking something as fundamental as the incident that formed the identity of the Riveras for 5 generations and reversing it? Yeah you better believe this is an alternate history fic.
  • The Berserkers Bride has Hiccup as a woman and married off to Dagur in a political marriage.
  • Frozen:
    • Darkness Burning is a fanfic where Elsa and Anna's parents came back from their trip unscathed. This results in vastly different lives for the sisters, as well as Elsa's depression worsening with time.
    • Kingdom of Isolation is an AU on the ending of Frozen where Anna is shattered by the sword. Elsa retreats into her own world while Arendelle freezes outside. Kristoff has to kill her in order to unfreeze the country.
    • When all is lost, then all is found: At the end of Frozen II, Elsa isn't revived when the dam breaks. As a result, Arendelle is flooded.
  • Shen vs. Kai is a Kung Fu Panda fic where the Big Bad of the third film gets released too early and ends up coming into conflict with the Big Bad of the second film, derailing the plot massively.
  • The Turning Red fanfic 4*Town and a Baby (AO3 link here is an AU where youngest 4*Town member Tae Young is an infant rather than in his teens.

    Film — Live-Action 
  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon) began as a Continuation of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), being written and published while the sequel film Godzilla vs. Kong was awaiting release. After Godzilla vs. Kong and its supplementary materials came out, the fic's last few chapters and the post-story official timeline adapted several aspects of their new lore and characters into the fic's setting with a canon-divergent spin or two. Major divergences from the MonsterVerse's post-King of the Monsters canon presented in Abraxas include: San's decapitated head regenerating the rest of Ghidorah instead of becoming an undead skull, the Titans remaining awake with King of the Monsters' Dawn of an Era instead of returning to hibernation, and several characters such as Ren Serizawa being nicer and/or more heroic than their Godzilla vs. Kong iterations.
  • between the crosses, a 1917 fanfiction series, is based on the Alternate Universe concept of the protagonist, William Schofield, having the ability to see and interact with ghosts.
  • The Dark Angel, a Hellraiser fanfic that takes a look at Pinhead...as an unintentional superhero.
  • Heroes and Demons is an AU of Iron Man. What if Pepper never met Tony until way after he got kidnapped in Afganistan? It involves mixing in elements from comics but really fleshed out the world without Iron Man.
  • Mike Wong's Conquest applies an alternate continuity to post-movie Star Wars in order to make the story work. Here, Darth Caedus kills Luke and reforms the Empire, and also brings Jaina Solo to the Dark Side.
  • There's a 30 Day AU Challenge on Tumblr, in which people have to write a specific AU for a fandom each day. Here's one for Star Trek (2009).
  • Flight of the Condor is essentially "The City on the Edge of Forever" set in the timeline of the Star Trek (2009) film.
  • Ouroboros has multiple universes- and so far, the Wake Verse and Gambit Verse are 'What If Anakin Skywalker went to the OT timeline in the middle of a battle and was replaced by Darth Vader for two months' and 'What If the hyperdrive wasn't cracked in Episode I' respectively.
  • The Minkiad - Halfway through working on Lives of Genius, the status of both that and Unhappy In Its Own Way were changed to Alternate Universe for two reasons: 1) Because how Jennifer is portrayed in the series’ official canon is very different from the way she is portrayed in the fic, and 2) Because Farkle’s suicide attempt preceded many of the episodes many of the canon events were altered accordingly to fit those events into the fics’ storylines.
    Among the changes are: Jennifer Bassett is not as nice as she is in the canon; instead, she is more of an abusive manipulative bitch, in keeping with her portrayal in Boy Meets World; motives for the creations of Farkle, Riley, and Maya's other identities in Girl Meets Yearbook; different pairings caused by the events of the fic; both Farkle and Maya are revealed to be abused children; Minkus loses his money earlier on because of his divorce and dismissal from Minkus International,
  • Fire and Ice, inspired by the film Man of Steel, is an AU fanfic with a Lois/Zod pairing...except they aren't called Lois or Zod, live in a universe free of superpowers or extraordinary events, and Superman is not even mentioned once. Basically it is a story about a pert, pretty redhead who once was in love with a handsome journalist falling in love with an uncompromising, pug-nosed giant of a man.
  • Reversed Destinies is set in a world where Luke Skywalker is Prince Luke Organa, while Leia is Leia Amidala Skywalker and raised by Owen and Beru.
  • The Blackened Mantle is a Star Wars Prequel edit set in an AU where Grievous is a rebuilt Darth Maul.
  • The Motion Practice series takes Marvel characters — primarily the Marvel Cinematic Universe versions of the Avengers and SHIELD — and places them in a mundane Law Procedural setting. Nick Fury is District Attorney in the fictional Suffolk County, somewhere in the Midwest, with Maria Hill, Phil Coulson, and the Avengers as his assistants, and various other familiar faces as interns and staffers. Loki Laufeyson is that one defense lawyer who will stop at nothing to get his rich clients acquitted.
  • You Are My Sunshine is a Marvel Cinematic Universe fanfiction in which Peter Parker is Tony Stark's biological son.
  • The Heart Trilogy (Heart of Fire/Heart of Ashes/Heart of the Inferno) is a connected series of fanfictions of The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings, covering events from sixty years before The Hobbit to during the War of the Ring; which follows the development of the dragon Smaug's relationship with the Seer Kathryn. One of the primary divergences is Smaug's survival beyond his death at Lake-town (which most of Middle-Earth at large initially remains unaware of).
  • In Man of Steel fanfiction Daughter of Fire and Steel, Kara Zor-El is Kal-El's cousin -instead of a distant ancestor-, and a member of General Zod's crew.
  • Somewhat downplayed with The Secret, a fanfic based upon The Hobbit (with some material taken from the book). The events of The Hobbit played out exactly the same, including poor Fili and Kili dying, but one major divergence is that Thorin survived and became King of Erebor. A major focus of the fic is Thorin trying to establish a stable reign and being pressured to find a queen as soon as possible.

    Literature 
  • Animorphs:
  • Harry Potter:
    • Weasley Girl is a Gender Flip story for the Harry Potter series and an answer to all the "What if Harry Potter was a girl?" stories out there: In this universe Ron Weasley was born a girl. This makes for a very different Weasley family dynamic, which again means the plot develops very differently from canon.
    • Holly Potter and the Witching World is a Harry Potter Gender Flip AU, in which 90% of the magical world is female and polygamy is the norm. And that's only where the differences begin.
    • Harry Potter and the Mother Who Lived: Exactly as it says on the tin. What would happen if Lily was injured instead of killed by Voldemort?
    • Seven Favours For Harry Potter takes place in an AU which, according to the author "looks like the canon universe at first glance, but isn't.'' One of the biggest changes is the presence of the Fair Folk, who take an active role in the story, but also smaller things such as "wizard" being considered a gender-neutral word and the word "witch" being treated as an old-fashioned term for female wizards.
  • Lucky Number Thirteen is a What If? fic for Fifty Shades of Grey, revolving around Ana having a conversation about Christian with one of his ex-submissives, Sharon. Ana canonically never met any of Christian's former subs (save for Leila) and was certainly never persuaded early on to leave Christian, meaning that many of the later events of Fifty Shades of Grey and the other books didn't happen. However, it is canon that Christian had a sub who got injured during a BDSM scene, with Sharon being the sub in question...
  • Luminosity's laconic page says it all: Twilight with a Rational Bella. And then the story just goes from there...
  • Worldwar: War of Equals is of the What If? variety. The description and the very first chapter make it clear that the Canon series had happened in another universe.
  • Cyber Dine Dreams is a completely alternate universe of Perri Rhoades' Spectral Shadows. It's also a Crossover with the cast from the original story and the fanfic author's characters, the idea being that all the characters live together in the same large world.
  • Cashelmara by Susan Howatch is essentially the reign and fall of Edward II set in Victorian Britain, with some I and III on either end.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • The Lord of the Rings fanfics Growing Up, Taking Care and Departure's Eve all take place in a world where Frodo has a daughter named Primula.
  • Dancing with My Punchlines examines the drama and conflict of The Silmarillion in a modern context
  • As Dreams Are Made On owes a great deal to the Twilight novels, but starts from the premise of Jasper, Alice and Leah all being gay and ripples out from there. The presence of a protagonist with knowledge of the books and films introduces further changes, and things get stranger and significantly more alternate as time goes on.
  • This seems to be a common theme in Worm fanfiction:
    • Bird takes several obscure characters and elements of the world (such as the asylum for parahumans, Burnscar and Labyrinth) and builds Taylor's story around them being her first experiences as a cape.
    • Cenotaph is an AU where Taylor didn't give Armsmaster a real answer following the pivotal first meeting with the Undersiders. The result is... well...
    • Propagation features a universe in which Eden transferred the core of her powers to Taylor, as a final effort to perpetuate the life cycle of her race.
  • Warrior Cats:
    • In Fire and Shadow. Rusty is taken in by ShadowClan instead of ThunderClan. The fic features parallel events to what happened in canon. For example, Firefang falls for both a young cat named Nightpaw as well as Mistyfoot, an older, forbidden cat from RiverClan, similar to how Fireheart was torn between his fellow Clanmate Sandpaw and the older, forbidden (because she's a celibate Medicinecat) Spottedleaf. Instead of Fireheart apprenticing his obliviously adopted kittypet-born nephew Cloudpaw, Firefang apprentices an obliviously adopted WindClan-born cat named Gorsepaw.
    • Clémentine is a Warriors fic where Squirrelflight tells her mate Brambleclaw that her sister Leafpool is pregnant and they're doing a Family Relationship Switcheroo. Brambleclaw agrees, averting the canonical problem where he's left in the dark until the kits are adults. He knows all along that his children are adopted.
    • In Bluefur's Choice, Bluefur kept her kits instead of giving them up to adoption to a RiverClan cat.
  • Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi:
    • A common MDZS Alternate Universe setting is Imperial China, often featuring the Lan family as a Chinese royal family and Wei Wuxian/others as concubines. Examples of this include The Concubine Mo Chronicles and Impenetrable Walls.
    • The Beast Of Gusu explores what would happen in a world where shifters exist and Wei Wuxian is a wolf shifter.
    • Lan Sizhui Sees Dead People takes place in a changed canon in which Lan Sizhi can see ghosts.
    • Letters to My Partner in Crime becomes this when Madame Jin gets involved to personally ensure Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli's engagement doesn't get broken off like in canon. It continues to ripple from there.
    • Second Bite of the Cherry: Wei Wuxian is female and was raised as part of the Lan sect.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Better Angels is a What If? fic about Shane Walsh taking over the leader role from Rick Grimes and how his actions would affect the group when they arrive at The Prison.
  • Stargate Atlantis:
    • The Retrograde series by Ltlj. Its main premise is that the Daedalus did not reach Atlantis in time, but rather, the shadowy bad guys of the NID sent the Iapetus to destroy Atlantis first.
    • Out Of Bounds by Icarus (figure skating AU)
    • Written By The Victors by Speranza (secession AU)
    • Take Clothes Off As Directed by Helen (D/s AU).
  • There is an entire genre of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfics called "Halloween fics," set during the events of the season 2 episode "Halloween". They're mainly Crossover fics. They are all based on the premise, "What If? so-and-so had dressed up as such-and-such on the Halloween Ethan Rayne came to town, and there was some sort of lasting effect?" There are actually a bunch of really good fanfics that come out of this genre, particularly Scribbler's "Jedi Harris", in which Xander had dressed up as Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan MacGregor's version) instead of a generic soldier.
    • There is another genre of fic that involves Faith returning to Sunnydale between seasons 5 and 6 after Buffy's death instead of her canonical return in Season Seven. It's most often used in Buffy/Faith fics, but other pairings do pop up from time to time.
  • There are several AU NCIS fanfics where Caitlin Todd does not die and is still a member of NCIS alongside Ziva, more often than not in a relationship with her, like the work here.
  • Take My Hand is an AU Lost fanfic where the Others, rather than hostile natives, are soldiers running a tyrannical government led by Ben. The whole story is full of nods to the original continuity, while maintaining the mood and atmosphere of classic dystopian fiction.
  • The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries has Blood Circles, where magic works, Joe Hardy is psychically gifted, and Orrin Thatcher from the "Voodoo Doll" episode is a real serial-killer/magic-user using death and blood to raise power. The tale crosses into Dark Fic territory, but keeps the sense of humor prevalent in the show and stays mostly in the show's continuity.
  • The fanfic What if Jim Accepted the Job at Corporate? takes place at the end of season 3 and asks the titular question.
  • These kind of fics are popular in the Supernatural fandom, most of which take place in the alternate universe presented in the season 5 episode "The End" (those that do are known as End!Verse fics).
  • Battlestar Galactica (2003) has The Long War which takes place in an an alternate universe that seems to diverge from canon seven years before the Cylon return with brutal Colonial civil war. The effect seems to be a serious up-arming of the colonial navy and a darkening of its attitude towards warfare, enabling enough damage to the Cylons and enough surviving ships to make a guerrilla war plausible.
  • Horseshoes and Hand Grenades. Kamen Rider Fourze going Darker and Edgier with Gentaro going against friendship and wanting nothing more to kill the people who "left him to die". Also, there's seven Kamen Rider shows that got dragged into this mess.
  • Reimagined Enterprise is a Continuity Reboot of Star Trek: Enterprise. Its continuing mission: To address issues fans had with the writing and characterization, to rewrite ENT into something that fits better into later canon, and to still produce something recognizably similar to what has gone before.
    • Deep Dish Nine focuses on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine but it's set on modern Earth and everybody's human. The station has been split into three places: a pizza shop where most of them work, a bar where Quark works, and an apartment where all the characters live.
  • The Mysterious Case of Neelix's Lungs is a rewrite of Star Trek: Voyager where the Caretaker captured Gul Evek's ship Vetar in addition to the Val Jean. Another major change is that Chakotay and Janeway were both killed in the transit to the Delta Quadrant. Command of Voyager then fell to the helmsman Veronica Stadi, who was killed in the canon show.
  • Law & Order: UK. The vast majority of fanfics, typically picking up after Series 1, cash in on the sexual tension between Matt and Alesha and pair them — they begin dating at the beginning of one long-running collection of stories and are Happily Married and expecting their second child as of the most recent one.
    • Additionally, most of those that focus on his shooting have him recovering from his injuries.
  • A late-90's ER fic, titled "Dreams That You Dare To Dream", copied the format of Sliders, placing five of the show's main characters in timelines that altered key points in the show's storylines — Carol did die from her overdose, Susan didn't move to Phoenix, etc. Another, titled "Countdown", set on New Year's Eve 1999, did the same thing, but only focused on one character, Kerry Weaver.
  • Doctor Who has So You Aren't As Human As You Thought You Were which is an AU where The Doctor uses a chameleon Arc in contemporary Britain and is friends with Donna Noble via university.
  • Harboured & Encompassed (Horatio Hornblower fic) has familiar contextual reassignment as it is a Modern AU Library fic. The characters who are young officers in the Royal Navy from Napoleonic wars in canon are re-imagined as students of naval history and one of them is an aspiring actor who has just been cast as an officer of the British Royal Navy in a period piece.
  • Ships Ahoy! is a Odd Squad fanfic that presents a What If? scenario of if Olive had a second former partner in the form of Oscar, and also expands on the endings of episodes from Season 1 of the show.
  • Wednesday fanfic Either Way What Bliss: The story is an alternate take on Wednesday and Enid's climactic hug in the final episode, with the two admitting their love for each other and kissing as well.

    Music 

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Scott Keith's World Hero Federation fics, and the countless verses inspired by them, cast professional wrestlers as superheroes. Maybe it's the spandex...
  • One wrestling crossover is this epic series, written in the late 90's, called Wrestle Trek. Yes, that means what you think it means.
  • A recurring column on WrestleCrap is "Rewriting the Book," which explores scenarios in Professional Wrestling's past storylines (e.g.: Ted DiBiase once offered to buy the WWE World Heavyweight Championship off of Hulk Hogan for one million dollars. In the RTB story, Hogan accepts the payoff).
  • The Hounds of Vegas, as the title suggests, takes place in Las Vegas and features The Shield. In it, Seth Rollins is a dirty cop working under Triple H, Roman Reigns is a good cop in the same department, and Dean Ambrose is a former cop who faked his death. The fic was expanded into a full universe and features other wrestlers as well.

    Tabletop Games 
  • The Odyssey, an Exalted fanfic, is notable for both its quality and the fact that the point of divergence has not yet become apparent. (Something happened to the Fivescore Fellowship, though.)
  • The Warhammer 40,000 universe, courtesy of the Bolter and Chainsword forum, has a variation of the canon universes Horus Heresy entitled The Dornian Heresy. Essentially it explores the setting replacing the main antagonist with the titular brother - Rogal Dorn. Still a work in progress.
    • Also of note is a separate attempt, from the same forum, to replace the main antagonist of the Horus Heresy with another of his brothers - Roboute Guilliman.
  • Actually a game mechanic in Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder. A number of the cards are said to be from one of Twilight's more unusual experiments...

    Theatre 
  • Not Completely, Altogether Here has many of the same events as in Wicked canon. Glinda and Elphaba start off as enemies, become friends, run off together to see the Wizard together, etc, etc. There's one major difference: Elphaba began one year later than she did in canon. This caused Galinda to hang around her Girl Posse more, which led Galinda to attempting to prank Dr. Dillamond during a sleepover with her friends, and ultimately ended in Galinda being killed when she catches Morrible murdering Dr. Dillamond. Galinda spends the entirety of the fanfic as a specter. Then she meets her roommate and love interest Elphaba Thropp.

    Visual Novels 
  • Ace Attorney:
    • A Complete Turnabout takes place in an Alternate Universe where the DL-6 incident never happened, with the twist that the main character is Canon!Phoenix, trusted into Alternate!Phoenix's life for reasons yet to be revealed.
    • Dirty Sympathy is a Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney fanfic based on the premise that Daryan Crescend didn't kill Romain LeTouse and Kristoph didn't kill Shadi Enigmar, they were both framed by Klavier and Apollo. They both have their reasons for doing so.
    • Ace Attorney: Shattered Glass is an Ace Attorney fan game where the majority of defense attorneys and prosecutors have switched roles. Winston Payne is still a prosecutor though.
    • Somebody That I Used To Know is a fanfic that works on the premise that Matt Engarde and Juan Corrida were originally long time friends and lovers, instead of being bitter rivals, until something went terribly wrong, and that Juan Corrida and Celeste Inpax didn't REALLY break up, and her death wasn't actually a suicide. An odd example in that, in the end, this story COULD fit in line with actual canon, as only three characters in the entire story are really privy to the alternate events. And given that two of them are Doomed by Canon, and the third would never bother to set the record straight...
    • The Empty Turnabout is one of Dual Destinies. Here, Athena Cykes is not part of the Wright Anything Agency but instead an up-and-coming defense attorney who's pretty famous thanks to Apollo's defense when she was put on trial six months earlier. With the prologue twist that Athena was actually guilty, as Apollo finds out just before the Not Guilty verdict. There's also the fact that Courtroom No. 4 wasn't bombed, but instead it was destroyed in an earthquake.
  • Mean Time to Breakdown diverges from Katawa Shoujo by making Iwanako the one with arrhythmia, suffering a heart attack after a botched Love Confession.

    Webcomics 
  • An Epic Comic is an odd example, the characters are the same from their original franchise, it's that ??? has seen an alternate universe his writers made as canon to the franchise that insults him greatly for what they do to him.
  • Slightly Damned:
    • Blizzard Storm is an AU that diverges from canon via a mix of Alternate Universe Fic and Trapped in Another World via the introduction of an original character from our world and the revival of a popular character.
    • A Different Medius changes just about everything by ending the Great War several millennia early, and stranding angels and demons on Medius. Things like Buwaro being adopted by Azurai and Iratu, being much smarter and a badass, not needing a needing a Star Pendant, instead owning a star-shaped pendant serving a completely different purpose, and Samantha and Toby being Buwaro's best friends are among the less drastic ones. Rhea, oddly, is absent.
  • Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name has several well-loved and widely played with AUs:
    • Dead Of Night is a swapped 'verse, with zombie!Hanna, Unzombie, vampire!Worth, human!Conrad, and so on. Pairings are Conrad/Worth and platonic Hanna/Unzombie. Has coverart, Chapter illustration, and assorted other comics and art.
    • The Punk AU has... well, a brash and outlandishly dressed Hanna, with Unzombie as a police officer he ends up working with. sometimes slash, sometimes pre-slash or friendship.:
      • This is the journal post that started it.
      • Here is a collection of Punk AU fanfic.
    • Then there's the obligatory post-apocalyptic dystopian AU, Lightwaves.
  • Homestuck:
  • Rain:
    • Hypothetical, An AU where Rain did not come out to Fara at the start of the story, yet still arrives at St. Hallvard.
    • Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow, An AU where Emily had her life-changing epiphany a year prior to Rain's arrival at St. Hallvard. References Chapters B and D, but doesn't go heavy on the bonus chapter spoilers.

    Web Original 
  • Battle For BFDI But There Is No Split is an AU in which BFB never split and no one quit.
  • If No One Loved The Sun Would Burn Out. From The Dreamer fandom, it's Alexander Hamilton/Beatrice Whaley. Yeah, you read right, the Alexander Hamilton.
  • RWBY:
    • Coeur Al'Aran:
      • Several of his fics deal with Jaune having a different Semblance to the one he has in canon, and he often unlocks it a lot earlier in the timeline. In Null, Jaune has a Power Nullifier Semblance and is hunted by a malevolent Government Conspiracy for it; in Raise, Jaune has a resurrection Semblance, and the multinational attention this grants him quickly teaches him that Celebrity Is Overrated; and in In Your Wildest Dreams, Jaune has a dream-walking Semblance which forces him to get to know his Beacon peers far more intimately.
      • Arc Corp: Remnant is secretly host to numerous "anomalies" in the style of SCP Foundation, Jaune and his family run a company that deals with anomalies, several characters like Winter Schnee and Jaune's family are more villainous than their usual portrayals; and Blake, Ruby, Pyrrha and Jaune join Arc Corp instead of going to Beacon Academy, due to diverges in the events depicted in the "Black" trailer and the show's first episode and due to Jaune's alternate occupation in this fic.
      • Arc Royale: The universe this fic takes place in is seemingly identical to canon... up until during the time skip between Volumes 1 and 2, when the Brother Gods suddenly dump dozens of alternate Jaune's originating from Coeur Al'Aran's other fics' settings into this world, and they announce to both the heroes and villains that the rules of the war driving the entire series have been changed.
      • Captain Dragon: Cinder Fall is killed during the Fall of Beacon while Pyrrha, Professor Ozpin and Roman Torchwick all avoid their canon deaths in the Fall. Afterwards, Yang doesn't go home to Taiyang's house on Patch but instead takes command of a new police team consisting of recruited criminals.
      • The Eternal Crown: Salem has ruled the world for the last several millennia after she broke Ozma's mind. Subverted when it's revealed it's not really an alternate present — it's actually a distant future set after the main series' events, with mysteriously reincarnated versions of all the main cast.
      • From Beyond: Jaune dies during the Beacon initiation in Volume 1, and his soul becomes tethered to Blake.
      • Knight of Salem: Due to a misunderstanding involving Ozpin being on sick leave from his post, Jaune is kidnapped by Salem's faction before he ever joins Beacon, and he accidentally purges the Grimm pools' influence from Salem.
      • Professor Arc: Jaune ends up joining Beacon Academy as part of the faculty instead of as a student.
      • A Rabbit Among Wolves: Jaune accidentally kills Adam Taurus and ends up saddled with leadership of the White Fang's Vale branch just before he would've gotten into Beacon.
      • The Second Choice: Jaune joins Atlas Academy instead of Beacon Academy.
      • Service with a Smile: Jaune's application to Beacon Academy is rejected, so he opens a coffee shop instead of becoming a huntsman.
      • Stress Relief: Cinder has a fling with Jaune for... what the title says, setting off a chain of events which complicates her infiltration of Beacon.
      • The Unseen Hunt: An Earth-based Familiar Contextual Reassignment. The Creatures of Grimm, instead of being soulless, physical creatures that spawn from the God of Darkness's pools and are public knowledge while they roam most of the planet; are interdimensional creatures of varying levels of sentience which inhabit an adjacent alternate dimension, and they can usually only be seen by and interact with the select few people who "Awaken" (that's to say, become aware of the Grimm dimension's existence or open to the possibility that such things exist), unless they possess a human body.
      • White Sheep: Jaune and his sisters are the half-Grimm children of Salem; who, as a result of motherhood, effectively settled down twenty years ago (though the heroes don't know that).
    • I Can Almost Hear The Hounds: Mostly similar to canon, with one minor difference and one major difference. Ilia joins Blake when she defects from the White Fang, and Ruby is kidnapped by Cinder and turned into a Hound a year before Volume 1.
    • My Abominable Monster Classmates Can't Be This Cute!: Before the series' start, Ruby, Yang, Weiss, Blake, and several other familiar faces were captured and forcibly twisted into Grimm hybrids in Salem's realm. In the present, when Jaune sets out to join a huntsman academy, Salem's forces lure him to the Academy of Evil in the Grimmlands where the hybrids are being taught to infiltrate the kingdoms.
    • Team LVDR starts as a Pseudo-Canonical Fic for RWBY, but unexpectedly diverges when Cinder fails to infiltrate the CCT.
    • RWBY: Dark is a Dark Fic where Remnant is reimagined as a dystopian wasteland, all the heroes are now villains, and all of the villains are now heroes, with the Resistance group of Cinder, Mercury, Emerald, Roman, Neopolitan, and Salem standing up to the tyrannical Lord Ozpin and his army of Huntsman and Huntresses.
    • RWBY: Scars starts out as a rewrite of RWBY, however Volume 3 is where the story really begins to deviate from canon. One major change is Pyrrha surviving while Jaune dies.
    • Pawprints is a Weiss/Blake story that replaces Faunus with people with animorphism powers called "Panthers". Hunters in this story kill Panthers, not Grimm.
    • Species Identity Disorder takes place on a mundane version of Remnant without dust or huntsman. Weiss is a human who identifies as a cat faunus.
    • In Misshapen Sparks, Raven took Yang with her when she left Taiyang.
    • Ironside: Takes place during Volume 7 where Winter takes charge.
  • Channel Awesome:
  • City of Lost Characters: During the hiatuses in the main game, players would sometimes pass the time with AU side games. These included a High School AU spinoff and a Pokemon-themed spinoff.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Alt Fic, Divergence Fic, AU Fic

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Private Slide, Slide-vate Eye

Craig made an AU fanfic for Slide the Ferret, a shout-out to Sonic the Hedgehog, where he's a detective.

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5 (2 votes)

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