Choice and Animagus Forms
Lately I've been getting a bunch of reviews on Psychic Serpent, The Time of Good Intentions, The Triangle Prophecy and even The Lost Generation, despite these fics being completed between three and seven years ago. Yesterday alone a reader on fanfiction.net designated me one of their favorite authors and put me on author alert and Psychic Serpent one of his/her favorite stories, plus putting PS on "story alert", which means they'll get an email if I update the story. (Which should have been the first red flag that this reader was a few sandwiches short of a picnic--it's been complete for just under SEVEN YEARS. I also have a notice on my author page that I have no intention of posting again at ff.net, EVER, so author alerts over there won't do anyone much good either.)
This morning the same reader sent me a review for an early chapter of PS:
A person doesn't chose what animal to become as an animagus,they drink a potion to see their inner animal.
:sigh:
Now, I almost, sort of, kind of understand people who confuse movie canon with book canon. ALMOST. I've had plenty of movie-canon people try to tell me that James was a Seeker, not a Chaser (despite the fact that JKR called him a Chaser first, in an interview). Whatever. Until and unless she includes this in the encyclopedia THIS HAS NOT APPEARED DEFINITIVELY IN A CANON BOOK and so my choosing to go with what she said in an interview is a valid choice, especially given how long ago I wrote this and my lack of desire to ret-con PS all over the place; the fic and its sequels (and prequel) are artifacts of that long, dark tea-time of the soul between GoF and OotP, nothing more and nothing less. As much as I love getting new info from JKR I have no plans to incorporate any of it into things I've previously written. That ship has sailed.
But where the hell does this Animagus thing come from? I've also had people tell me that the Animagus form is just something you ARE, deep down, not something you can choose, which is plausible but STILL NOT CANON, not technically. (I have an especially difficult time believing that Rita Skeeter did NOT select her particular Animagus form for its journalistic advantages. And I can SO SEE Sirius Black finding it amusing to choose a black dog for his form, given his name.)
Even the Patronus animal choosing you, rather than the other way around, is not technically canon because we know it can CHANGE, so in a way you CAN choose your Patronus, even if the choosing is kind of subconscious, like Tonks's and Snape's Patronuses being related to who they love.
But what the hell fic-universe is this reader pulling the potion crap out of?
If there's one thing I appreciate even less than someone confusing movie canon with book canon it's confusing SOMEONE ELSE'S FIC CANON with JKR's work, and that even includes my own. If, on the outside chance that the potion idea came from a JKR interview, that is still not something in the books (just like the interview in which she called James a Chaser). I've sometimes let interviews give me ideas or information if I couldn't find something in the books, but I still stuck to the books as the authoritative word. (Hermione's birthday in the PS universe is September 9, for instance, not 19, which she said in an interview.) And, for the reasons stated above, even if she puts the Animagus potion thing in the encyclopedia, I think that could end up being a bit Flint-y.
:sigh again:
This morning the same reader sent me a review for an early chapter of PS:
A person doesn't chose what animal to become as an animagus,they drink a potion to see their inner animal.
:sigh:
Now, I almost, sort of, kind of understand people who confuse movie canon with book canon. ALMOST. I've had plenty of movie-canon people try to tell me that James was a Seeker, not a Chaser (despite the fact that JKR called him a Chaser first, in an interview). Whatever. Until and unless she includes this in the encyclopedia THIS HAS NOT APPEARED DEFINITIVELY IN A CANON BOOK and so my choosing to go with what she said in an interview is a valid choice, especially given how long ago I wrote this and my lack of desire to ret-con PS all over the place; the fic and its sequels (and prequel) are artifacts of that long, dark tea-time of the soul between GoF and OotP, nothing more and nothing less. As much as I love getting new info from JKR I have no plans to incorporate any of it into things I've previously written. That ship has sailed.
But where the hell does this Animagus thing come from? I've also had people tell me that the Animagus form is just something you ARE, deep down, not something you can choose, which is plausible but STILL NOT CANON, not technically. (I have an especially difficult time believing that Rita Skeeter did NOT select her particular Animagus form for its journalistic advantages. And I can SO SEE Sirius Black finding it amusing to choose a black dog for his form, given his name.)
Even the Patronus animal choosing you, rather than the other way around, is not technically canon because we know it can CHANGE, so in a way you CAN choose your Patronus, even if the choosing is kind of subconscious, like Tonks's and Snape's Patronuses being related to who they love.
But what the hell fic-universe is this reader pulling the potion crap out of?
If there's one thing I appreciate even less than someone confusing movie canon with book canon it's confusing SOMEONE ELSE'S FIC CANON with JKR's work, and that even includes my own. If, on the outside chance that the potion idea came from a JKR interview, that is still not something in the books (just like the interview in which she called James a Chaser). I've sometimes let interviews give me ideas or information if I couldn't find something in the books, but I still stuck to the books as the authoritative word. (Hermione's birthday in the PS universe is September 9, for instance, not 19, which she said in an interview.) And, for the reasons stated above, even if she puts the Animagus potion thing in the encyclopedia, I think that could end up being a bit Flint-y.
:sigh again: