I'll admit I didn't get crossovers when I started reading fan fiction (mostly because very few things cross over well with LotR, which is all I was reading when I started, and I was random archive browsing, so the crossovers I found were excruciating). And crossovers are, to me, a subset of AUs. But - AUs I always got. One of the things fan fiction does for me is answer "What if?" questions. What is an AU if not the extrapolation of that?
Admittedly, it can be done so that the characters aren't in character, and then it surely is names pastede on yaye, but you can do that without any AUing at all. It's called "bad writing," and it's not like there are any subgenres of fandom that are immune to that.
So, yeah, I agree with you - I do not understand the lack of love for AUs. Or, okay, I get that they aren't what some people are looking for from fan fiction, but that doesn't make them inherently low-rent or whatever. *sighs at those who would malign the poor innocent AU* (And, of course, they're totally a part of what I am looking for in fan fiction. So I am perhaps a little strident in my defense of them.)
no subject
Admittedly, it can be done so that the characters aren't in character, and then it surely is names pastede on yaye, but you can do that without any AUing at all. It's called "bad writing," and it's not like there are any subgenres of fandom that are immune to that.
So, yeah, I agree with you - I do not understand the lack of love for AUs. Or, okay, I get that they aren't what some people are looking for from fan fiction, but that doesn't make them inherently low-rent or whatever. *sighs at those who would malign the poor innocent AU* (And, of course, they're totally a part of what I am looking for in fan fiction. So I am perhaps a little strident in my defense of them.)