#fuck canon

LIVE

Fuck canon, all my homies hate canon

Mon, 21 Jun 2021 21:28:42

So, my friend wrote a fanfic for The Walking Dead. A kind of retelling of events, but with one very specific change to one of the main characters. And even though I haven’t seen the show, she wanted me to read it and tell her my opinion.
And, look, I haven’t seen the show, but my friend is the type of person that calls you after an episode that was either especially great, or especially upsetting, to rant to you about it. We all have that friend.
Anyway, due to those conversations, I knew that there were things and scenes and character developments in the show she didn’t like, that she wished had gone differently.
So, when I read her fic, I was pretty surprised that she kept those things in. And, I guess I don’t have to tell anyone who has watched The Walking Dead, that this is a pretty gruesome, devastating, depressing show at times.
And, again, I knew that my friend hadn’t liked a lot of the things that happened in the show.
So when I asked her why she wrote it like this, she kinda shrugged and said: “Well, it’s how it happened in canon.”
When I then told her that, okay, if you want to keep things like they happened in canon, that’s fine. But, you know you don’t have to, right?
She looked at me like she was a little lost in that moment. Probably how I look when I can’t find my fucking shoes, every morning!
We talked for a long while after that, and I can’t possibly repeat our conversation verbatim (my memory has never been and will never be that good).
But let me check off the highlights here.
- Canon is important, but it doesn’t have to matter. A Tv series, movie, book, comic, video game, whatever you want, is the doorway into a world full of characters and circumstances that you get to discover and fall in love with. However, the feelings you develop for these characters, are your own. Canon has no hold over those.
- Canon, (unless you are reading or seeing a documentary), itself is fiction. It is a fantasy dreamed up by one or more individuals, and brought to life in different forms of media. It’s makers (writers, actors, producers, etc) do deserve our respect and gratitude. But that does not mean you have to adhere to their vision completely, or at all.
- Canon can give you characters and worlds you adore. It can give you deeply intricate and developed nuances for both of those. And it can lead those characters and worlds in directions you don’t want to see them take. And you don’t have to be okay with that.
- Fanfiction is a way for fans to feel closer to their beloved characters and worlds. It can shine the light on things that aren’t focused on in canon, and can develop characters and relationships that canon doesn’t explore.
- Fanfiction is a way for fans to live and breathe and share their love for these characters and worlds with others. It can be a welcome handshake, or a long embrace. Or sometimes just an easy smile. It can give you a sense of camaraderie and belonging. It can be a plot point explored, or a dynamic exploited, or a different route taken. It can be that constant, burning question, that every fan has at some point in time, in the back of their mind: What if?
- What if that character did that? What if that hadn’t happened? What if things were different?
- Canon is for everyone, but fanfiction is for you and you alone. It is your creative outlet. It is every piece and plotbunny you ever dreamed of. It is your passion given life in the written word. You are the King and the Queen and the God of your story. In your fanfiction, these characters and these worlds are yours. And you should use them, to tell the story you want to tell.
- Fanfiction is self-indulgent. Each and every one. It is supposed to be. Because TV-series and books and movies and everything else is for entertainment and profit. But fanfiction is for you.
So you are the one who calls the shots in your fanfiction. If you want to follow the canon story line, with only some minor differences or added dialog, then that is what you do.
But if you don’t want that. If what happened in canon doesn’t sit well with you. If you wished it had gone differently. If you wished you could change it. Then you can. Then that is what you do.
It is your desire. Your passion. Your story. It is your effort put into writing it down, fleshing out plot, developing characters and relationships.
And you do it for you, because it makes you happy.
My friend wasn’t happy with canon. And she wasn’t really happy with her story. After our talk, she scrapped it. Started anew, went back to the beginning, got things rolling, and then completely derailed from canon. She has texted me about all the changes she has done, and still wants to do. All the things that will be different, and the things that now won’t work anymore the way they did in canon, and how she has to find ways around that, or think of something completely different from it now.
And this story probably isn’t gonna be some kind of master piece when she is done. From what I can tell, it gets a little out of character at times, and some of her resolutions in the plot seem a little too easy and perfect, and not at all in line with the general tone of the show.
But you know what? It doesn’t matter one fucking bit. Because I can hear her enthusiasm and joy for her story in every text and every phone call. Writing this story makes her happy. She is the goddess of her story, she calls the shots, and she made canon her little bitch.
Canon is for everyone, but fanfiction is for you.