Harry Potter and the Noble Order of Canon Fire
I'm reading a thread on FictionAlley about fics and the new book; ie, what will become of the fics after the book is out? Trust the FAP gang to go jumping at shadows. It's not even an exploding dustbin, guys, get a grip. I mean, I guess the main worry is that OoP will 'invalidate' all these fics that are being written now, and all of the older ones...or that nobody will want to read them anymore with the new book out.
...Yeah.
It's a personal choice I suppose, but I can't help thinking that they are being ridiculous again. I know some of the events of my post-OoP work in progress aren't going to happen in canon. I knew that ages ago. That's why I'm writing the bloody thing. And the only reason I want to finish it before the book comes out is so that I can play with my own ideas of what the Order of the Phoenix is, what it does...
I am constantly amazed, and flat out frustrated, by the idea that bounces around HP fandom, that fics can be wrong. Nobody's fic is wrong, for Gods' sakes. I swear. Sometimes I want to beat people with a stick. Or a large picket sign that says "Shut up, it's meant to be like that."
Case in point. Emerald and Ebony. Emerald and Ebony is a year five fic. Why? Because I plotted it that way. And because 'Voldemort's back, now what?' is a hell of a plot device. I knew that it would be contradicted by later books in the series, because it's obvious that with three more books to go, J. K. Rowling couldn't off Voldemort just yet. I, however, had no such restrictions.
Maybe I'm weird to just not give a shit about following canon to the letter. Or maybe it's my fandom origins. My first online fandom was Star Wars. I watched the movies as a kid, the way that you do, pretended I was Princess Leia... read several of the books when I was in junior high, and got hooked again through them. I tried to write fic using all of the book 'canon', but quickly found I'd set myself an impossible task. SW profic canon contradicts itself constantly. (It's worse now, as they're trying to include all the old comic strips and comic books, and crap that was never meant to be part of an overall story...) So I gave up. I still read the books, used what I liked, ignored what I didn't. Sometimes I played in the parts of canon that worked for me, but when there were none of those acceptable bits, I didn't shy away from doing my own thing.
I am, in my own way, fearless. I killed Mara Jade, shipped Luke/Mara before it was as popular as it is now (and have rather run screaming away from it since then...) I have written slash, and NC-17 fic.
So. My post-OoP fic. It's post-seventh year, but I still want it to be what it is. Other fics will come from OoP, I'm sure. This one is something different.
I have realized I'm not going to finish the thing in- *glances at icon* twelve days. But I can finish the outline by then.
As for people thinking there's no room for fic with more canon coming along- *sigh* Doesn't anyone remember Goblet of Fire? A hundred thousand people in the HP fandom went, "Holy shit! Voldemort's back!" and hit the keyboards. Hit them hard. You guys think it's going to be different this time around? With 900 pages of new stuff? With the hints we've gotten about what some of that new stuff entails?
Get real.
...Yeah.
It's a personal choice I suppose, but I can't help thinking that they are being ridiculous again. I know some of the events of my post-OoP work in progress aren't going to happen in canon. I knew that ages ago. That's why I'm writing the bloody thing. And the only reason I want to finish it before the book comes out is so that I can play with my own ideas of what the Order of the Phoenix is, what it does...
I am constantly amazed, and flat out frustrated, by the idea that bounces around HP fandom, that fics can be wrong. Nobody's fic is wrong, for Gods' sakes. I swear. Sometimes I want to beat people with a stick. Or a large picket sign that says "Shut up, it's meant to be like that."
Case in point. Emerald and Ebony. Emerald and Ebony is a year five fic. Why? Because I plotted it that way. And because 'Voldemort's back, now what?' is a hell of a plot device. I knew that it would be contradicted by later books in the series, because it's obvious that with three more books to go, J. K. Rowling couldn't off Voldemort just yet. I, however, had no such restrictions.
Maybe I'm weird to just not give a shit about following canon to the letter. Or maybe it's my fandom origins. My first online fandom was Star Wars. I watched the movies as a kid, the way that you do, pretended I was Princess Leia... read several of the books when I was in junior high, and got hooked again through them. I tried to write fic using all of the book 'canon', but quickly found I'd set myself an impossible task. SW profic canon contradicts itself constantly. (It's worse now, as they're trying to include all the old comic strips and comic books, and crap that was never meant to be part of an overall story...) So I gave up. I still read the books, used what I liked, ignored what I didn't. Sometimes I played in the parts of canon that worked for me, but when there were none of those acceptable bits, I didn't shy away from doing my own thing.
I am, in my own way, fearless. I killed Mara Jade, shipped Luke/Mara before it was as popular as it is now (and have rather run screaming away from it since then...) I have written slash, and NC-17 fic.
So. My post-OoP fic. It's post-seventh year, but I still want it to be what it is. Other fics will come from OoP, I'm sure. This one is something different.
I have realized I'm not going to finish the thing in- *glances at icon* twelve days. But I can finish the outline by then.
As for people thinking there's no room for fic with more canon coming along- *sigh* Doesn't anyone remember Goblet of Fire? A hundred thousand people in the HP fandom went, "Holy shit! Voldemort's back!" and hit the keyboards. Hit them hard. You guys think it's going to be different this time around? With 900 pages of new stuff? With the hints we've gotten about what some of that new stuff entails?
Get real.