Yeah, canon is very difficult to write, especially if there is a lot of lore to the canon story that you need to tie-in. And I can't do the sci-fi stuff, either.
The problem with AU, though, at least for me, is I try to still make the characters sound like they would talk in canon, at least kind of. The same style of talking, so to speak. Which is often difficult if you completely put them in an AU setting.
I used to try to write RPF, and RPF is basically just straight up AU even though it's set in some type of basis in real events/time, just cause obviously you don't know how those people's relationships really are, but at least with that you kind of have a reference for how they talk on occasion. IDK if that makes sense, but... basically, writing is hard.
That is one of my favorite gifsets.
