Nerd nerd nerd
There is some pretty interesting discussion going on over at Sandford Police concerning Nicholas's characterization, and what is based on canon and what isn't. I encourage everyone to read it (including all the comments) first. I have more to say, but I realized my comment was not so much about Nicholas than about me and my feelings about using fanon to inform your characterization. I decided to go ahead and post it here and welcome comments.
I wanted to add a new comment just to put my two cents in about something. While I love (truly) everyone's interpretations of Nicholas, for the purposes of a fact sheet, there needs to be a clean line between canon and what is interpreted from canon.
For example, whether you believe Nicholas was born in 1971 or 1975, the only facts we know are: 1. he wanted to be Kermit the Frog in the summer of 1979; and 2. he graduated from college in 1993. What you or I choose to interpret from that is what adds wonderful spicy flavor to our stories, but neither of these can be used together to form more than a hypothesis about Nicholas.
Mine includes life-long experience working with children that leads me to believe it is highly probable an eight or nine year-old can see a movie and wish to be one of the characters. Someone else's experiences lead them to believe he couldn't have been older than 4 at the time, regardless of when he graduated from college. Neither of these theories should have any impact on a list of canonical details about Nicholas, but are important solely as we establish our own personal back-stories.
Another interesting aside from this is what we deem to be more important canonically, but I won't get into that. I am not saying zeddish won't be able to make the needed distinction when putting it all together, but I have seen other fandoms implode when accepted fanon becomes as important as canon and someone dares to post a story with their own unique interpretations.
Normally I wouldn't do this, because I am all for everyone coming to their own conclusions and just appreciate there are so many to choose from, but I am responding specifically to this in the OP:
And while we're at it, what's fandom established for him? We all tend to go off of our own little time lines and made-up events, but what out there is universal, or near universal?
And I suppose I'm just not a fan of Universal Fanon and I think the variety of comments here shows HF doesn't need it to thrive. And while I can be a total canon nerd when it comes to the details, I also want everyone to feel free to have Nicholas be as horticulturally inclined or not according to their own wishes. Whether or not I agree is irrelevant. If the story is good, I'm still there.
I wanted to add a new comment just to put my two cents in about something. While I love (truly) everyone's interpretations of Nicholas, for the purposes of a fact sheet, there needs to be a clean line between canon and what is interpreted from canon.
For example, whether you believe Nicholas was born in 1971 or 1975, the only facts we know are: 1. he wanted to be Kermit the Frog in the summer of 1979; and 2. he graduated from college in 1993. What you or I choose to interpret from that is what adds wonderful spicy flavor to our stories, but neither of these can be used together to form more than a hypothesis about Nicholas.
Mine includes life-long experience working with children that leads me to believe it is highly probable an eight or nine year-old can see a movie and wish to be one of the characters. Someone else's experiences lead them to believe he couldn't have been older than 4 at the time, regardless of when he graduated from college. Neither of these theories should have any impact on a list of canonical details about Nicholas, but are important solely as we establish our own personal back-stories.
Another interesting aside from this is what we deem to be more important canonically, but I won't get into that. I am not saying zeddish won't be able to make the needed distinction when putting it all together, but I have seen other fandoms implode when accepted fanon becomes as important as canon and someone dares to post a story with their own unique interpretations.
Normally I wouldn't do this, because I am all for everyone coming to their own conclusions and just appreciate there are so many to choose from, but I am responding specifically to this in the OP:
And while we're at it, what's fandom established for him? We all tend to go off of our own little time lines and made-up events, but what out there is universal, or near universal?
And I suppose I'm just not a fan of Universal Fanon and I think the variety of comments here shows HF doesn't need it to thrive. And while I can be a total canon nerd when it comes to the details, I also want everyone to feel free to have Nicholas be as horticulturally inclined or not according to their own wishes. Whether or not I agree is irrelevant. If the story is good, I'm still there.