With SPN, I feel like... hm. I feel like one can really work with a myth in the same way the show does. It seems to me that most of the time, if it's something that has a lot of different ways to be interpreted, they'll pick one and expand on it however seems to fit the story. Like with Bloody Mary; there's dozens of different versions of that, and the hookman too, and everyone will tell you a different version. The show picked one basic idea about both and then expanded on it. So really IMO, playing fast and loose isn't a bad thing at all, so long as you're within the boundaries of the basic idea.
Hmmm. I guess it depends how comfortable you are with handwaving stuff. If I read a fic that didn't seem "right" according to what I've read and learned previously, I'm very unlikely to bring it up to the author, but I'll most likely feel (at least a vague) dissatisfaction with the story.
In "Escape Artistry" (which I have to reformat because ff.net decided they were just going to screw up their old stories, so my section breaks no longer work), I needed an explanation for Wonder Woman's bondage-related curse. Yes, it refers to the Hercules thing, with Amazons in chains, but I don't think it's ever been explicitly stated Why It Was That Way in Golden Age.
So I brought in Omphale, for whom Hercules was forced to spin, gave her Amazon blood, and made the curse Zeus's revenge on her by proxy. Depends on how fast and loose you play. My feeling is you're free as anything to mess around on the fringes.
Generally speaking, I think a fic should, if possible, be slightly better researched than the show is. Some of the mythological research in SPN is abysmal, and I think we should do better. But I think research that is a lot better than canon, or contradicts it, is jarring.
I also think a lot of shows leave permission to make shit up and claim that the original myths misunderstood something - Anya's view on what Santa Claus is, for instance, is clearly not most people's *g* but the show addresses that. So if you want to tweak something, do tweak it, but if it's a clear violation of earlier myths, you could always have the characters exposite that the myths are wrong.
A legend is a legend; folklore passed along by oral tradition is, by its very nature, flexible. There is no one "right" way to sing a folk ballad, etc. This is true even when it's written down. And even if you think its right, you never know, you could be wrong--see Vampires, John Winchester's Understanding Thereof. =)
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But I'm totally guilty of making stuff up myself.
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In "Escape Artistry" (which I have to reformat because ff.net decided they were just going to screw up their old stories, so my section breaks no longer work), I needed an explanation for Wonder Woman's bondage-related curse. Yes, it refers to the Hercules thing, with Amazons in chains, but I don't think it's ever been explicitly stated Why It Was That Way in Golden Age.
So I brought in Omphale, for whom Hercules was forced to spin, gave her Amazon blood, and made the curse Zeus's revenge on her by proxy. Depends on how fast and loose you play. My feeling is you're free as anything to mess around on the fringes.
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I also think a lot of shows leave permission to make shit up and claim that the original myths misunderstood something - Anya's view on what Santa Claus is, for instance, is clearly not most people's *g* but the show addresses that. So if you want to tweak something, do tweak it, but if it's a clear violation of earlier myths, you could always have the characters exposite that the myths are wrong.
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