osprey_archer | 30 Days of Fandom Meme: Day 13

13 – Do you prefer canon or fanon when you write? Has writing fanfic for a fandom changed the way you see some or even all of the original source material?

Canon, generally. And a lot of the fandoms I’ve written fics for are so small that they don’t really have any established fanon, at least as far as I know.

And yeah, there have been a few times when writing fic has changed my view of a fandom or a character within a fandom. Trying to write Pushing Daisies fic from Chuck’s point of view sort of soured me on Ned/Chuck, because in her POV it’s hard to see why she would stay with him. Sure, he’s adorkable, but he’s deadly to her. Better to get far away and see the world like she always wanted.

On a slightly lesser scale, writing fic for Garrow’s Law gave me a grudging liking for Silvester and his strangely asymmetrical relationship with Garrow. Garrow sees Silvester as his nemesis, the symbol of everything unjust about the law in 18th century London. Silvester sees Garrow as his worthy opponent and therefore as a potential friend. Even though Silvester is an entitled asshole and I don’t actually want him to win Garrow’s friendship, at least not without getting a personality transplant first, this realization made me feel kind of bad for him. I almost always feel for characters with unrequited feelings - either romantic or friendship - even if they really don’t deserve it.

Also in the process of writing Reciprocity I have become rather terrified of Coulson and SHIELD (new SHIELD in particular, but also old SHIELD), but that might have happened anyway just from watching Coulson’s unacknowledged descent into darkness on the show.