donutsweeper (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
donutsweeper) wrote2013-05-15 02:13 pm
donutsweeper) wrote2013-05-15 02:13 pm
Entry tags:
Creating Canon
(This was originally going to be a MUCH longer post but I've been poking at it for close to five months and decided to trim it up and just throw it together before it languished away before I ever wrote it up.)
I have this weird phobia about creating canon in my fics even if I know it's unlikely whatever I come up with will ever be Jossed (aka later proven incorrect by canon).
What I mean by creating canon is things like names filling a gap of information that may or may not be given in canon, like names, for example. There are a lot of characters that canonically have not been given names of one sort or another. Whoverse's the Doctor, the Master and Jack Harkness (all nicknames/aliases); Grimm's Monroe and Teen Wolf's Sheriff and Stiles Stilinski (none of whom have first names). And then there are character's parents' names, how many moms are mentioned but never named?
Or dates. We know both Tony DiNozzo (NCIS) and Stiles' moms died. We don't know when or how. And probably 90% of characters out there have no specifically mentioned age.
Or events. Was Jack Harkness ever really pregnant? What actually happened in Budapest (Avengers)? Were any of the Magnificent Seven other than Nathan involved in the Civil War (Magnificent Seven, TV)?
Should the producer/writers' intent matter? If someone said in an interview that Gaius was Merlin's uncle, should we take that as fact (Merlin)? What about things that have been accepted as fanon? Does Mycroft continually kidnap John (Sherlock)? Does Thor really like poptarts?
Anyone else have issues with this? Does any of it matter to you as a reader? Have you ever decided on something in your head (like a character's name) which makes it hard to read a fic that has come up with something else?
I have this weird phobia about creating canon in my fics even if I know it's unlikely whatever I come up with will ever be Jossed (aka later proven incorrect by canon).
What I mean by creating canon is things like names filling a gap of information that may or may not be given in canon, like names, for example. There are a lot of characters that canonically have not been given names of one sort or another. Whoverse's the Doctor, the Master and Jack Harkness (all nicknames/aliases); Grimm's Monroe and Teen Wolf's Sheriff and Stiles Stilinski (none of whom have first names). And then there are character's parents' names, how many moms are mentioned but never named?
Or dates. We know both Tony DiNozzo (NCIS) and Stiles' moms died. We don't know when or how. And probably 90% of characters out there have no specifically mentioned age.
Or events. Was Jack Harkness ever really pregnant? What actually happened in Budapest (Avengers)? Were any of the Magnificent Seven other than Nathan involved in the Civil War (Magnificent Seven, TV)?
Should the producer/writers' intent matter? If someone said in an interview that Gaius was Merlin's uncle, should we take that as fact (Merlin)? What about things that have been accepted as fanon? Does Mycroft continually kidnap John (Sherlock)? Does Thor really like poptarts?
Anyone else have issues with this? Does any of it matter to you as a reader? Have you ever decided on something in your head (like a character's name) which makes it hard to read a fic that has come up with something else?
no subject
Specifically for that tidbit, it made sense to me so I took it as canon, especially considering it was mentioned by more than one person in early interviews (Merlin, Gaius and Merlin's mum I think). Perhaps TPTB originally intended it to be canon but changed their minds as it was never mentioned in-series.
Spaceship crew members can be problematical. Voyager started off with a certain crew quota, some of whom died when they ended up in the Delta Quadrant and then added more over the years (Kes, Neelix, Seven etc). Fanfic writers pretty much went haywire adding random characters right, left and centre. Over the years, names were put to more and more people, initially just onscreen, but then later in the books leaving fewer and fewer unknown people to slot in just for the sake of it. I know when I was writing my early Voyager fic, I kept tabs on just who was added and would sometimes mention them in passing if I needed a random character.
I like the way fandom will sometimes anticipate canon (or maybe the writers are just reading fanfic) - in Torchwood, fic writers were calling Ianto's sister Rhiannon long before we were given that name as canon and a certain DI G Lestrade was being called Greg by many people long before Hounds of Baskerville confirmed his name.
For me, it's not that significant. I can quite cheerfully accept something as AU if the names don't match up but I've had practice as both a crossover reader and writer doing that as crossovers by their very nature aren't canonical. I realise that this isn't the case for everyone, maybe I'm just naturally good at handwaving...
no subject
Oh lordy, I never thought about that issue of Voyager. Do you accept the books as canon? I remember reading ST:TNG books way, way back (it was still airing) and finding they contradicted themselves in the canon they created so I decided to ignore them and only consider what aired canon. Intent does matter though sometimes(like Gaius originally being the uncle) so... I dunno.
Very true about Lestrade. It was funny because ACD authors pretty much settled on his name as Giles and BBC as Greg and everyone just happily went along with it.
no subject
I have a weird thing in my own canon - my OC Siannon O'Niall first showed up in the Star Trek: Voyager verse, which is 400 years or so from present day, and there are certain things about her in that era that I'm not particularly happy with now. The plot points are fine, what I intended to happen back then still works (oh, the unfinished wips that languish on my hd) but I think it was the *way* I wrote her and the fics that I'm unhappy with (but not enough to disown them) as I think I've become a better writer. She has a lot more back story now than she did 15 years ago but none of it contradicts the later canon; just because the Whoniverse aspect wasn't mentioned in the earlier written but chronologically later fics doesn't mean it wasn't there - she just didn't mention it. There are things mentioned in the Trek fics as being in the past that won't be dealt with in present day, just because I don't think I can get the ideas to work any more. I'm not the same person as I was in the late 90s and what made sense back then, doesn't any more, some of the time at least.
no subject