I like to think of it as same setting. Like characters from other novels in shared universe can pop up in another novel set in that shared universe
Its basically the connection through stories like how DBS is not at all connected to GT but the Tapion movie is directly connected to the story because he gives Trunks his sword and this has the effect of Trunks later on kills Frieza with said sword. Impacts from a different event in the past ties the future story together with different characters. Example 1 is the DC franchise in which Flash travels through different dimensions doing crazy shit. If Flash didn't do any of that crazy shit then there wouldn't be crazy shit to be messed up in the future. Example 2 is the Great Depression; once it happened the other countries that were trading with the U.S.A. were greatly harmed from this recession. Example 2 is how some of the stories have a book one where the MC becomes a king and etc then in book 2 the MC from book 1 is considered an ancient, wise king. The final example is @Ai chan her posts are random but some lore followers say that her posts all connect to a higher realm where rabbit shoutas rule the government and that the translators are actually sleeper agents that will one day tell the readers to over take the government so that the almighty shoutas can be empowered and hog all the onee-sans.