(no subject)

[vaznetti]

Minisinoo's poll on current and old canon in fanfic writing (look, go read the poll, it will make sense) got me thinking about different ways of ignoring canon. I thought I'd write about them here rather than wibble on about the X-Files in her journal.

I think that for the purposes of this discussion I'll separate "canon" from "characterization," using "canon" to refer to a series of events and characterization to refer to the effect of those events on the characters. This is why stories with the header "Oh, and Krycek still has both arms" usually make me hit the delete key -- the event is so important to the development of the character (at least, insofar as I find him interesting), that authors who decide to ignore it are generally not writing the kind of stories I like to read. The same is true of the betrayal (or whatever it was) in RatB: without it, the relationship between Krycek and Marita is much less interesting to me. Authors can write around it in a variety of ways, but I like them to deal with it somehow. And this brings me to a second point -- the distinction between fanfiction which ignores problematic canon and fanfiction which attempts to resolve it; I prefer the latter, but I think that may just be a matter of taste. I know that there are a number of readers who really dislike "fix-it" stories. All else being equal, I'll prefer a piece of resfic to a piece of denial fic, at least if we use resfic to include stories which explain away the (apparent) character death.

Since all else is never equal, none of these are hard-and-fast rules, as can be seen from my own stories -- I'm quite fond of The Gates of Ivory, even though it's more like denial fic than resfic, and I grew Krycek's arm back myself in Traders in Snow (although had I continued that storyline, I was planning on a scene in which Krycek nearly gets killed because he forgets he has a second working arm now, and anyway, that's a fix-it story rather than a denial story.) I think I find it difficult to accept stories which ignore one specific piece of canon while accepting the rest of it because of the way I see the characters as being shaped (to a greater or lesser extent) by events -- whereas stories which reinterpret canonical events don't seem to have that problem.

Sometimes, of course, it’s nice to write a story set earlier in the timeline, just to deal with slightly less traumatized characters, but I’m not quite sure that’s the same thing as writing a story which ignores certain parts of the shows canon -- those later events will still occur.

On a tangent, in my experience, the closure of a canon has the opposite effect (at least, on me as a writer) that I expected: it actually makes it more difficult to ignore the whole of the canon. In part, I think that this is because in XF at least, there was always the chance that canon would contradict itself -- more than a chance, really. Look at Jeffrey Spender -- we all spent seasons and seasons believing that he was dead, and then he came back at the last possible moment. I find it hard to imagine starting a story now which would diverge from canon at Two Fathers/One Son, for instance, although that's the point at which I think the mytharc more or less fell apart -- I still have no idea what the hell that whole Biogenesis arc was about. I like the idea of a story which diverges from canon at a fixed point, and ignores everything after it but I can't seem to write one. I don't feel the same pressure with Alias -- there are a set of stories which I still think of as open, like Lectio Difficilior (which I might go back to someday) although it breaks off from show canon at the end of S2. But my attitude toward Alias canon is much less bitter than it is toward X-Files canon – I think I’m probably engaged in a vicious struggle with canon, sometimes, when it comes to XF. I need to make it work, even though the sensible thing really is to take a couple deep breaths and back the hell off.

The point, I think, is that there's a difference between stories in which the author denies that acanonical event took place, and stories in which an author decides to try to fix a canonical event (usually something she doesn't like); in addition, an author can simply choose to set a story earlier than the current timeline. Each of these is doing something rather different with regard to canon, I think. And I have a distinct weakness for fix-it stories.

Comments

[kerlin.livejournal.com]

There could be another dimension to these types of stories given the age of watching TV on DVD. New fans to a show who've only seen the first season or two can write as if the rest of the canon doesn't exist for them, if they've chosen to remain unspoiled. I know I did that when I discovered CSI - I wrote set in earlier seasons because that's where I was in my viewing, with no idea of what would happen later.

[vaznetti]

Yes, that makes sense -- although I think I'd tend to put those stories in the same category as stories written during the early seasons of the first run of the show.

Did it bother you at all that you might be writing stuff that was contradicted by later canon?

[kerlin.livejournal.com]

It didn't bother me, not really. I knew from fandom chatter that a lot of things they would be doing with Sara's character were not what my own perceptions would have been. At the same time, a lot of what I was writing was either a) easily slotted into canon or b) a departure from canon. Most of what I wasn't including was simply backstory that we hadn't learned about yet.

[fourteenlines.livejournal.com]

In spite of the spectacular ways in which JJ Abrams has jumped the shark with Alias, it is nothing when compared to the convoluted mess that was XF canon by the time Season 9 concluded. I think (without, obviously, presuming to actually know *g*) that this might be part of the reason that you have trouble with XF and not Alias. Alias is easier because the knots are simpler to unravel; XF is harder because once you decide to ignore canon for a story, you have to decide just how far you're willing to go.

That's not to say that Alias won't eventually plumb the same depths XF did WRT incomprehensible canon, but they haven't gotten there yet. *g* (Though I should note that I've stopped watching Alias, and am mostly satisfied with my decision to do so.)

[vaznetti]

My loathing for Chris Carter frightens me, and I have a pretty high tolerance for loathing. But I find it odd that no matter how much I'd like to pretend that nothing of the last three seasons or so ever happened, I can't quite bring myself to do so. That's why I suggested I'm in this weirdly competitive relationship with the canon, which is a ridiculous for a fanfic writer.

I'm rather glad I kept watching Alias, actually -- last season worked for me.

[rez-lo.livejournal.com]

this weirdly competitive relationship with the canon

OMG yes, in the "I will make this work if it kills me" sense. It's horribly twisted but I just can't seem to get away from it. The take-out-menu approach in which the writer only selectively acknowledges canon doesn't click for me as a reader or writer. Extrapolating is good; excising, not so much.

(I've been seeing S5 spoilers for Alias and I am definitely watching, if only to laugh. I missed most of last season, though. I don't--quite--loathe JJ Abrams but I also don't quite like the knot in my belly when I think of how I used to love the show. Maybe it's a first-fandom thing?)

[vaznetti]

I haven't seen many detailed spoilers, but what I've seen might hold my interest. I fear shows with babies, though. It's like the kiss of death or something.

OMG yes, in the "I will make this work if it kills me" sense. It's horribly twisted but I just can't seem to get away from it.

Yes. That's it exactly. "This will make sense! It will! I will make it make sense!"

[vaznetti]

Like you, the "Ignore this ..." stories that pick and choose what to accept bug me.

I think it's because it seems to disregard the integrity of the characters, and to a lesser extent of the fictional universe. In addition, I'm never entirely sure what criteria the author is using to accept or reject points of canon.

My reading patterns and writing patterns are somewhat different -- I'm not exactly monofannish, but most of my writing will be in a singel fandom, with crossovers. As a reader, however, sometimes I develop an interest in another fandom, at which point I'll go back and read anything that catches my eye, no matter how old.

[abelladonna.livejournal.com]

I have always thought that XF had it's own rules, canon wise. I mean, sure, shows like Buffy or Angel or HP or whatever, have probably each got their own canon "issues", things that don't make sense, or that were contradicted in CANON. But XF has so many of those cases that I'm willing to cut XF writers more slack. I mean, hell, the mytharc of the show didn't make sense past Two Fathers/One Son, so I'm far more willing to overlook people ignoring or fixing various parts of canon. (Except, if it's post Tunguska/Terma, I REFUSE to read Krycek with two arms. It's one thing if someone writes a "Krycek makes a deal with the aliens to regrow his arm" thing, but if writers just want me to ignore that one thing in T/T- I'm not willing to.)

And, hell, that made no sense, did it?

(And, DAMMIT! I took down my "my fandom has blood on it's hand" icon. I suck.)

[vaznetti]

But you have Krycek and Marita, so you win at icons!

I think that the end of the show made me less certain about the contradictions in XF canon -- as if the last word should also be the most authoritative. But certainly, up to that point there were a range of points on which authors could pick and choose (like whether to believe anything CSM says, for instance, or what happened to Samantha).

I'm totally with you on the two arm issues. If I see "Oh, and Krycek has two arms here," I hit the delete key.

[cofax7]

I am somewhat resistent to the idea of "fix-it" stories. Or, well, no, I'm resistant to the name "fix-it". As if the only way anyone responds to canonical event is to repair it, as if canon were broken somehow.

This is not to say there isn't a certain amount of that kind of story: people who don't like an episode that ends with the characters on the outs -- Never Again, for instance -- and who bring them back together. I find stories driven by straightforward dissatisfaction with canon don't often please me. But there's also the kind of story where, well, the writer just wants to go a different direction.

When I wrote Written on a Thumbnail, I wrote it not because I thought the show's resolution of the twinning arc in Farscape was wrong. In fact, the twinning arc ended in very much the way I'd expected it would: in tragedy. But I wondered what would have happened if it hadn't ended that way, if the two Johns had met up again, and what the repercussions would have been.

I don't consider that story a "fix-it" story. It's not written in opposition to canon, but in parallel. I'm not resisting Kemper, O'Bannon, and Manning's choice about what to do with the storyline; I'm just examining another possibility.

The one straightforward fix-it story I can think of that worked for me was Fialka's Reflections in a Stolen I, which was written to resolve the uncertainties around Aeryn's characterization in the first two-thirds of Season 4. But it was written in full knowledge that it was going to be jossed within 48 hours of posting, as a possible alternative.

I dunno. Like I said, I tend not to like fix-it stories: it implies that the ficwriter privileges her own views of the show above the writers of the canon. And even though I may bitch about the quality fo the writing of a show (SG-1, anyone?), I think, when it comes to fic, I have an obligation to set my personal feelings aside and work with the canon, rather than in opposition to it. Subvert it, sure, but don't pretend it didn't happen at all.

I don't know if that makes any sense.

[vaznetti]

This makes sense to me the first time I read it, but now I'm less certain. This may be nothing more than an issue of taste (with a side order of relation to the producers of canon content).

Some shows please me in such a way that I have no desire to write about them; Angel and Buffy are the two best examples here. I watched both shows from beginning to end, but have never written fanfic about them. (OK, I have a crossover, and the start of a Willow story on a hard drive somewhere, but that's not much.) Some shows please me in such a way that I want to write about them -- a character or situation catches my eye, and that's it. Generally, that's where I see a hole to fill that I don't think the show's writers are going to fill.

I didn't mean to suggest that all fanfic which departs from canon is "fix-it" -- sometimes, as you say, one just wants to explore a set of different possibilities. But I do find that (because of the ways I watch shows and the characters and issues that interest me) eventually my interests are going to come into conflict with the interests of the shows producers, and although I prefer not to ignore canon entirely (see above to abelladona re: the arm issue), I do sometimes need to... change it. Make it different.

I think we actually have completely different ideas about the relationship between the fan and the show's producers. I don't necessarily feel a great deal of respect for the people who make the shows about which I'm fannish. Especially the shows I write about most.

[azarsuerte.livejournal.com]

I think for my own purposes, I tend to use and/or ignore canon as it fits the requirements of the story. But unless it's a story I started before that particular bit of canon was "jossed," I'll always label it as "slightly AU." Because to me, *any* departure from canon is a 'what if.' My Anya in the Just Desserts series is recognizable, but she's *not* the same person we saw towards the end of S7 of Buffy, and that was half the point of the story. I think the only time a non-canon fic of that nature would really bug me is if it had never-lost-his-arm Krycek still behaving like one-armed Krycek, because that would make no sense.

[spican.livejournal.com]

I'm all on board with your particular problems with regard to XF and Krycek canon (and I find I make much the same finicky distinctions you do). As a ficwriter my relationship with XF canon is so contrary and fucked up that had it and I been a couple, we'd have been in therapy. Sigh.

I'm with you on the character development bit, especially -- that what the character has done and had done to him in canon adds to the core of who he is, and if you take one of those bits away then you're dealing with a different beast entirely. But it's even more complicated -- I feel that if I ignore a particularly painful bit of canon for convenience, then I'm letting the character down. Like if a friend or a kid were hurt and I chirped, "Oh pooh, it didn't happen! We'll pretend all is fine! Chin up!"

I'm talking about Krycek's arm here, of course. But that's also why I can't make my Jeffrey/K/Ma triangle fic set in the never-never-land after RatB work, no matter how much I adore that dynamic in fics that were written straight after as post-eps. I *know* poor Jeffrey's lying in the X-Files office, shot in the face (not to mention all that happened later), and he deserves better than us ignoring it.

And on a more cheerful note, I think I got back from vacation the same time you did. Hope yours was good, too!