Thoughts on adding things to canon

[regshoe]

(Aww, look at that brambling on the right there! They are very pretty and wintry birds, and it complements the robin on the left beautifully.)

Anyway, snowflake_challenge #4 is to 'add something to your fandom's canon', and this is my post for it.

My OTP kiss. There, done!

...But apart from that, I was struggling to come up with a clear answer for this challenge. Perhaps because it's so open-ended and there are so many different things one could do—and indeed many things I already have done, as quite a few of my fics are missing scenes or otherwise canon-compatible. Most of what I've written for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is 'extra bits of Raven King folklore/backstory', for instance; my favourite of my own 'extra things' fics in Flight of the Heron fandom are Such a Stranger, which expands on Mr Fosdyke's character and life, and Thy Kingdom's Pearl, which develops Aunt Margaret's backstory.

But it occurs to me that there are really two different things this challenge could mean. The sort of fannish filling-in of gaps that those fics do is a fun and rewarding thing to do in fandom; but that's different from wishing that canon itself had done something it didn't (although one can of course write fic about things one wishes had been in canon!). I had fun writing those fics, but I think JSMN as a canon has the right amount of Raven King backstory and folklore in it, and FotH tells us just as much about Mr Fosdyke and Aunt Margaret as it needs to do to tell the story it's telling. In fact I can't think of anything I would add to FotH, the canon, if I could; it's really a very economical, well-constructed story. As for my other canons, hmm... I think JSMN could have benefited from having at least one explicitly queer character (I think it's almost canon for Emma and arguably Drawlight, and it's pleasingly easy to read most of the main characters as ace if one wants to, but the book doesn't really do anything with it).

So there are some thoughts!

Comments

[james]

These are all good thoughts!

[regshoe]

Thank you!

[theseatheseatheopensea]

"My OTP kiss. There, done!"

XD An excellent addition, always!

[regshoe]

:D Always, although it is of course sometimes more complicated than that, e.g. if one half of the OTP dies in canon. Fanfic can fix many things!

[luzula]

I think FotH should have had Ewen and Keith huddling for warmth under a plaid while Keith has confused pining thoughts. : D There is a reason that is the very first thing I wrote for the canon! It's such a missed opportunity, and Broster might very well have written it.

[regshoe]

Hee! Although I am happy to let fic supply the huddling-for-warmth, that is an excellent idea—you're right that it could have fitted into canon :D