Kuroshitsuji Writing Guide:

Chapter 7:

Alternative Universes:

The term 'alternative universe' is more commonly abbreviated to AU. An alternate universe fanfiction in the most simplest terms is a fanfiction that does not take place in the canon setting. Kuroshitsuji canon is Victorian England with supernatural elements.

When I first put an AU fanfic on Wattpad I would get comments saying 'Sebastian is demon you know', 'black butler is Victorian', 'how come Ciel has only one eye before meeting Sebastian?' This was because there were not any AU fanfics on Wattpad at the time. Now it's the opposite situation. There seems to be more AUs than canon fanfics.

There are various types of AU used in fanfiction. There is a wrong way to write AUs which is why this is a chapter. Some AU settings are also overused on here so I would also like to encourage variety into AUs. There are not any distinct terms for the types so I will try my best to make the explanations as clear as possible.

Context change: Changes in the rules of the universe and in the setting. There are two categories of this.

· Familiar: the characters (it does not have to be the storyline) are transplanted into a moderately familiar setting like high school or university. Black Butler high school AUs can be found in abundance on Wattpad.

· Unfamiliar: the characters are moved into a much more unfamiliar setting. An example of this is the Pirate AU. There is usually at least one in every fandom, although I cannot say that I have seen one on Wattpad for Kuroshitsuji at the time of writing this.

What if:

· Canon Divergence: changes important events in the canon storyline or alters the outcome. An example would be what if Ciel never summoned Sebastian? It is not common on Wattpad.

· Character Alteration: alters a characteristic of a canon character. The most commonly seen example is the blind AU although in Kuroshitsuji fanfiction it's usually Ciel that suffers a disability and it is not always limited to blindness like in other fandoms. Fanfiction authors seem to like making Ciel suffer rather than any other character. In Harry Potter fanfiction it's usually Harry.

There is one more type of AU: the continuation, however this one is not practical for Kuroshitsuji fanfiction because the canon story is incomplete. It is difficult to say if the anime is complete because the continuity has been ruined by adding the later arcs of the manga that do not fit in with the first two series. I count the first two series as being nothing to do with the later additions. A continuation AU continues the canon story after it has been completed by the creator. These fanfics can be written before completion, but of course will be obsolete later on because there will be contradictions as the canon story develops further. Although I have not seen any on Wattpad there are some on other fanfiction websites that are decently written.

Now we have established what an AU is and the different categories, the problem with them needs to be addressed.

For Kuroshitsuji writing an AU is far easier than writing a canon story because the author can place the characters in a setting that they find easy to write instead of having to research the Victorian era, hence the popularity of the high school AU. With this comes issues.

A major problem with this is that the characters themselves become very different from their canon personalities and the storyline becomes drastically different. Therefore, every element that makes the canon characters and the story what they are has been removed.

For example, if I wrote an American high school AU with Ciel as star quarterback as well as a playboy and Sebastian being an unpopular nerd and the storyline was about Ciel winning lots of matches and ending up proposing to Sebastian, I would be in very close danger of a transplanted character fanfiction and this is not a particularly good thing.

Canon Kuroshitsuji has established Ciel is not a good physical athlete and he is quite weak even before the kidnapping. Sebastian does not come across as someone who would be an unpopular nerd either. The storyline of Kuroshitsuji is not devoted to Ciel winning at sports either.

Some authors have written very transplanted character AU fanfiction that becomes published with different names. The most notorious example is Fifty Shades of Grey which was an AU Twilight fanfiction.

AUs are not a bad thing to write because they allow for a different perspective on the characters and storyline which can be interesting to read. The ones with more fantasy settings are also fun to read. The negative part is when the AU is so far out of canon the only thing keeping it as a fanfiction is the character's names. What is the point of it then?

My first AU was modern day British secondary school story where Ciel started school after being privately tutored all his life and encountered Sebastian, a very bored student that spends time making contracts with desperate people to entertain himself. All of this was paralleled in canon because Ciel is tutored and Sebastian is a demon that makes contracts with people at their wit's end. Ciel did make a contract with Sebastian eventually and the price was the closest equivalent to a soul that I could come up with at the time and the villains were the same as in the anime. This AU was designed to mirror the canon story with some amendments to account for the Sebaciel.

Other high school AUs are nothing like this. All Sebastian and Ciel do is sleep together and they do not bear much resemblance to their canon selves. There might be a little last minute conflict thrown in towards the end, but that is rare.

A common Kuroshitsuji AU on Wattpad is what I call the social media AU. Ciel is usually a popular user on youtube/Instagram/kik/whatever social media site becomes popular next. Sebastian is a stalker/fellow popular user/fan. I have read a lot of them and they were low quality with nonsensical or boring plotlines and all characters were terribly out of character. Most of them had the same plotlines as well.

To summarise, AUs are not always signs of a lazy author, they can be well written and intriguing. They can follow the canon story or only have elements. The problem is that the same ones are overused and most of them read the same. I would suggest finding a less overused AU setting to stand out on Wattpad and to challenge yourself as a writer. The real challenge is using a very different setting and keeping the same story elements and characters as the canon material.

Additionally, if nothing in your story resembles the canon story and characters I would suggest rewriting it so it feels like a Kuroshitsuji fanfiction.

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A/N: I would like to add that the most challenging AUs I have written for Kuroshitsuji are a Victorian AU with cherry blossom trees and a Japanese school AU with a dead Ciel and a mystery solving Sebastian.

I am not against AUs at all, I enjoy reading them if they are decent.