In Defense of Fanon, or, Whose Sandbox is it Anyway?

[thevixenne]

My friend Stefanie writes Devil May Cry fan fiction.  Devil May Cry is based on a computer game  I have never played and knew very little about.  She asked me to beta read some of her stories, which I did, with the codicil that I didn't know much about the world and its characters, so really the only duty I could perform was that of human spell and

Comments

[thevixenne]

Thank you for reading it. To be perfectly honest, a lot of what I'm writing here should be common sense, whether one is a part of a fan-fic community or not. The bottom line is not everyone is going to like everything, but we should RESPECT each other's vision, whether it meshes with ours our not. To be frank, the canon police have done more harm than good, in spite of their intentions to give fan-fic credibility in the larger world. Interestingly enough, I've heard of university courses in which fan-fic, including slash, is often discussed as part of a larger social context.

[mooms]

This is indeed an interesting and well-argued piece and I agree with all the points you make. Thank you for putting them so elegantly and succinctly.

[thevixenne]

Thank you for enjoying it. There's a reason behind why I wrote it, but as I started putting the essay together, there were aspects that I'd thought of but had never really verbalized. The truth is whether we like it or not, fan fiction will always be treated like most other genre fiction by the snobs. And you know what, that's fine because hell, we don't write it for them anyway. We might as well have fun and be outrageous and not worry about all the little details.

Re: 2: The following is a continued Public Service Announcement from Jewish MPD Tetsu:

[thevixenne]

Thank you for your interesting response, though a great deal of it left me quite puzzled and I would much prefer for you to speak plainly as I have

Who could see that old Marsh would come to add foul shapes to my dreams?

[blackgeep]

Thank you for your interesting response, though a great deal of it left me quite puzzled and I would much prefer for you to speak plainly as I have.
How can I hope to make you see my way? Hear me dad, I've gone mad. Why I must travel down to Y'hanthlei, very far from the home I love...

what I speak of, and what I believe you and so many others fail to comprehend, is what I consider to be the freedom to write fan-fiction unbound by the limiting and oftentimes subjective rules of "canon".As I tried to point out earlier, canon = reality. Bending canon or disregarding parts of canon results in bending or disregarding parts of reality. If reality/canon says "In 1999, Ken had facial hair." then it would be ignoring reality to set your fic in 1999 and have a clean shaven Ken all year. on the other hand, setting it on a fresh shaven day, but alluding that previously there was a beard, or that soon the facial hair would grow into a lovely goatee over the course of the story, is sticking with canon reality, but still being allowed to be

...lovestruck now I stand with him, watching wholesome dreams grow dim.

[blackgeep]

If an author pens a work of fanfiction and chooses, for whatever reason NOT to call it an AU, that should be up to them, and the reader--already aware through the use of disclaimers
You mean disclaimers like "AU?"

--knows that said work is fiction.Yes, we are all aware that fanfiction is fiction. We are aware that in every story, the extant canon can be changed in the course of the story. But the base canon sould always be the same in a non-AU story. That is why we differentiate Canon and AU. let me say this: There is nothing wrong with AU. And also

Let's take a deep breath here

[thevixenne]

Wow, this thing has grown exponentially, hasn't it