Meta: Canon vs. Fanon: Where does Fanon Come From and Why Does it Refuse to Die?

[catwalksalone]

MJ Panel Mod: wpadmirer

This is where I want to start the discussion.

I started in the X-Files Fandom. When I joined in (after the show had been on 3 years my town finally got the Fox channel), I started reading the fanfic and I kept seeing references to Mulder's behavior patterns that didn't match the show. Eventually I discovered there was a story by Livingoo called OKLAHMOMA that was being used by other fanfics as a "fanon" for Mulder's character. I was fascinated by this.

Essentially the canon of the show had changed because of a widely read and extremely good early genfic in the fandom. It became such a part of the fandom that people who hadn't read it were referencing events in that story because they'd read references to it in other stories, and it had become "canon" to them - not realizing that it was actually fanon.

So my panel discussion will be 1) what instances of "fanon" are you familiar with in your fandom that have changed how people view the characters or the show. 2) Do you know where these started? 3) How pervasive do find this to be in your particular fandom?

I think all of us, as we move through different fandoms will see that this does happen, and so - discuss!

WP

Comments

[icarion.livejournal.com]

Hmm, a difficult question for me to answer actually, cos a lot of this is lost in the mists of time for me! I do recall some instances of fanon in X-Files fandom and Farscape fandom, but I can't quote examples anymore. Farscape had more, IIRC, as it was a much smaller base of regular writers. There were a few long epic fics with big followings that had a huge effect on other fanfic, but sadly, like I say, I can't think of examples off the top of my head.

There was one fic that had a huge effect on me- In the Company of Ghosts was an amazing epic story, which had an incidental effect of reminding me that Aeryn was actually supposed to be the best Prowler pilot in pretty much the entire Peacekeeper army, before her defection. After that came out I'm sure I remember seeing more fics dealing with Aeryn's flying ability.

At any rate, I think that a smaller fandom will tend to have more instances of accepted fanon than a larger one, as more people will read the same stories. Alternatively, the fandom needs to have a couple of extraordinarily good writers that everyone reads, or the idea won't spread far enough to have an effect.