Well. What does the person mean by 'to hell with canon', I guess. :-? Context :D Or rather, is this the author's attitude or merely the subversiveness/direction/nature of the story. Because that goes into the AU caveat, where I'd say you have to actually understand what you're subverting before you... subvert it, or something.
Doesn't some fanfic start out with 'what if canon did THIS instead' rather than 'to hell with it'? It's just an attitude of attentiveness rather than disregard, that's all I meant. Like, to me I suppose not paying attention + not caring (and therefore not paying attention) produce illogical/amorphous crap... so perhaps I'm projecting...? I didn't mean to say you have to do what the canon 'wants' to produce good fic, or care about the canon's goals or even keep the actual events in line, just that if you don't flagrantly care what really happened, how can you comment on it intelligently? Y'know?
It's like talking about politics without watching the news closely. You'll just sound stupid and/or deluded and off in your own little world, that's what I meant. The more you know, the more you use it, the more you can manipulate it to produce something on that basis, or something, it just seems logical to me :>
A lot of the fics I like are stylized and weird (intellislashy) and a lot are just embarrassing to me now, but the ones that stick with me are the ones who really did something meaningful with the characters, I guess, the ones who really built on real things instead of building on air. The whole story then seems more solid to me, like it's taking place in 'real time'. And with that Gundam Wing doujin, it's as simple as actually placing the story in the context of series timeline rather than 'make-believe' timeline X. I mean, by definition this doujin isn't really part of GW canon, clearly, but it's a more vivid reflection of that universe, and the characters seem more... there somehow, just because of this small thing like placing it on an exact canon location in a specific context. It allows all the rest of canon to provide something like illusory depth without the doujin having to work for it, which seems like one of the major strengths of fanwork in general, no? :>
Besides, I was only talking about people who're explicitly 'to hell with canon' in terms of proclaiming it openly, not just where you could interpret their work that way on 'some level' :D We're talking about author's attitudes and that reflecting on their theoretical works, though, which is always iffy; like, it's not as if caring = good writing-- talent = good writing, and caring + working at it helps, right. But if you don't care about your material, how likely are you to really pay attention to the nitty gritty of the characters that really makes something shine? That was mostly where I was coming from.
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Date: 2007-09-09 03:54 am (UTC)Doesn't some fanfic start out with 'what if canon did THIS instead' rather than 'to hell with it'? It's just an attitude of attentiveness rather than disregard, that's all I meant. Like, to me I suppose not paying attention + not caring (and therefore not paying attention) produce illogical/amorphous crap... so perhaps I'm projecting...? I didn't mean to say you have to do what the canon 'wants' to produce good fic, or care about the canon's goals or even keep the actual events in line, just that if you don't flagrantly care what really happened, how can you comment on it intelligently? Y'know?
It's like talking about politics without watching the news closely. You'll just sound stupid and/or deluded and off in your own little world, that's what I meant. The more you know, the more you use it, the more you can manipulate it to produce something on that basis, or something, it just seems logical to me :>
A lot of the fics I like are stylized and weird (intellislashy) and a lot are just embarrassing to me now, but the ones that stick with me are the ones who really did something meaningful with the characters, I guess, the ones who really built on real things instead of building on air. The whole story then seems more solid to me, like it's taking place in 'real time'. And with that Gundam Wing doujin, it's as simple as actually placing the story in the context of series timeline rather than 'make-believe' timeline X. I mean, by definition this doujin isn't really part of GW canon, clearly, but it's a more vivid reflection of that universe, and the characters seem more... there somehow, just because of this small thing like placing it on an exact canon location in a specific context. It allows all the rest of canon to provide something like illusory depth without the doujin having to work for it, which seems like one of the major strengths of fanwork in general, no? :>
Besides, I was only talking about people who're explicitly 'to hell with canon' in terms of proclaiming it openly, not just where you could interpret their work that way on 'some level' :D We're talking about author's attitudes and that reflecting on their theoretical works, though, which is always iffy; like, it's not as if caring = good writing-- talent = good writing, and caring + working at it helps, right. But if you don't care about your material, how likely are you to really pay attention to the nitty gritty of the characters that really makes something shine? That was mostly where I was coming from.