seriousfic

This simple equation, which if I remember my high school Cartesian right should indicate an upward slope (the M > 0 of Longfic?), is what I call the tendency of longfic to "fix" canon in more and more visible ways as the story progresses. This can be a bit hard to discern, as many longfic are written from the beginning with the knowledge that canon is going to be impacted, but the true Y = X + 1 process resembles something like this:

The writer starts out with a one-off. It strikes a chord with their readers, who demand a sequel. The writer obliges, slowly creating a series of one-shots which eventually generate their own canon... in layman's terms, an AU. As the story draws less and less upon official canon, and more and more on this specific fanon, the writer realizes he/she doesn't have to play by the canon rules. He or she starts changing things around. For instance, a story that started with the mere supposition that Spoiler is alive might make it so that Dinah left Ollie for Barbara, Kon came back to life, and so on. These events can be depicted in-fic or just left as part of the general background. The rubicon is crossed when the writer starts referring to this as the (noun)verse. For instance, potatoverse, spoilerverse, M&Mverse... whatever. Once that happens, the writer has officially declared independence from canon and can be as self-indulgent as she (and her readers) want.

As you might've guessed, for all its self-indulgence, this creation of AUs is a healthy and positive reaction to flawed canon (or just a lack of canon, in some cases), showcasing creativity instead of stereotypical fanwank ranting. Instead of saying "I don't want that!", it's saying "Here's what I want," which is a much more powerful statement.

Some examples:

stalinglim's M&Mverse,

merfilly's happy'verse (started with the Bats and the Arrows going to Thanksgiving dinner, now it has a ghostly Stephanie Brown bonded to Cass),

teh_no's LifeonApokolipsverse (started as a vignette about how Scott Free met Big Barda on Apokolips, now it's about their unresolved sexual tension on Earth as they battle Darkseid), Claire's Journ-Elverse (started as a satirical journel Superman kept during Superman Returns, now it's about Clark's nuptials to Lois Lane), my own wonderverse (it started with Io mooning over Diana. Now it has Diana celebrating Earth Day by having a threesome with Donna and Kory, who are lovers. Take that, canon!)

Note that (noun)verse is not to be confused with pornverse, the most common AU in fandom, in which all sex-havers are above the age of consent and bisexual.