My two cents on "canon" in fanfiction
So, those of you who follow my sporkings may notice that I'm actually not the biggest stickler for canon there is. Yes I'll complain if I see something that contradicts canon (particularly if it's a character behaving in an OOC way), but it's not my primary focus when I spork or otherwise analyze a fanfic. If the fic is interesting enough (for good or for ill), it's kind of an afterthought. For awhile now, in fact, it's been my impression that after a certain point, if a fic is sufficiently interesting or straight-up crazy it kind-of doesn't matter whether it adheres to canon or not (though I do tend to get annoyed if I see a fic where you could replace the names of the characters and locations with anything and have difficulty noticing).
Case in point: sometime ago I found a Pokemon DPPt fanfic that featured, among other things, Saturn and Jupiter as cousins from England and Canada (respectively); Mars turning Saturn into an Eevee for no reason in the hopes that he can escape from Cyrus, who's now an alcoholic; an autopsy on Hunter J in which they discover that she apparently has had sex and is pregnant for reasons that are (near as I can tell) never adequately explained; and a bit in which Pokemon characters (who may or may not exist in canon) travel to Edinburgh, Scotland, to take on a case with the cast of "CSI: New York." It also contains lines like this:
"I think you guys are panicking," I sighed. "I'm breathing just fine, but I do feel a little sick..." the Charizard roared slightly.
"We should pretend that she's a dragon and take her to a vet," Mac blinked.
"Or pretend she's a mutated orange lizard with wings," Stella shrugged.
Needless to say, the story contradicts canon in far too many ways for anyone to name; but at the end of the day, who cares? I mean, what can you really say to a line like that? "Ha ha, this fic's so bad that it has a Charizard interacting with Mac and Stella from "CSI: New York," in which pokemon don't exist?
Case in point: sometime ago I found a Pokemon DPPt fanfic that featured, among other things, Saturn and Jupiter as cousins from England and Canada (respectively); Mars turning Saturn into an Eevee for no reason in the hopes that he can escape from Cyrus, who's now an alcoholic; an autopsy on Hunter J in which they discover that she apparently has had sex and is pregnant for reasons that are (near as I can tell) never adequately explained; and a bit in which Pokemon characters (who may or may not exist in canon) travel to Edinburgh, Scotland, to take on a case with the cast of "CSI: New York." It also contains lines like this:
"I think you guys are panicking," I sighed. "I'm breathing just fine, but I do feel a little sick..." the Charizard roared slightly.
"We should pretend that she's a dragon and take her to a vet," Mac blinked.
"Or pretend she's a mutated orange lizard with wings," Stella shrugged.
Needless to say, the story contradicts canon in far too many ways for anyone to name; but at the end of the day, who cares? I mean, what can you really say to a line like that? "Ha ha, this fic's so bad that it has a Charizard interacting with Mac and Stella from "CSI: New York," in which pokemon don't exist?