Shadsie
Sage of Tales
Inspired by a rare venture into a topic in the Timeline thread. There are reasons I rarely go there...
How many of you who do fanworks - fan fiction/comics/anything with a story involved - just decide at some point that this or that little bit of canon is not compatible with the plot you want to do and just go "screw it, I'm ignoring it to have fun!"
Now, generally, I do *really care* about canon, about getting things "true to the spirit" and right - character personalities are a big thing with me (but, honestly, Link is hard to pin down definitively since he's partly player-proxy). I try to get little details right and I will go back and do my research... however, sometimes... particularly in writing for the Zelda series, I find myself not caring with I later find out something about canon that contradicts something in oen of my fanfics, and sometimes, I even knowing and purposefully *throw stuff out.*
This happens with me and the Timeline a lot. So many different people have so many different opinions on it that (everything from the Nintendo execs' every word being law to
"they're untrustworthy and pulling it out their hinies as they go along.") Also, with the OoT manga being pretty much declared as a canon along with the game - (divergent canons?)
Frankly, I've given up "keeping everything straight" in my fanwork. I just find it impossible unless I am writing a stroy set completely within a single game's universe. Whenever I reference other series games or any kind of Timeline issue, I am kind of "okay, I give up, I hope I don't get flamed for this." I haven't had any flames on my Zelda works so far, and that's just great.
Like... I just recalled that in a couple of my stories (most detailed in a horror piece of mine, "Sacred Flesh" ) that I used this whole idea of the OoT timeline "folding in upon itself" and the Link sent back to do MM found himself as "seperate from himself" and, using temporal paradox clause from "Back to the Future" wound up staying in Termina for a number of years and growing up there before returning to Hyrule in order to keep from "running into his other self." The Ocarina of Time suffered a simliar split, created a less-powerful copy. I was using a few ideas from a friend of mine, plus, at the time, I was trying to *make sense* of why people *know* about the "ancient hero" in TP. I felt the need to try to reconcile the AT/CT and it turned out weird. Yeah, yeah, you don't *need* to tell me how non-canon and convoluted this all is - but somehow, it worked well for the story. Or, at least, many people liked the story... I honestly do not care that it's "wrong."
Another doozy of mine would be the novel-length "The Great Desert." Now, that... has a lot of *very purposeful* screwing with canon, *mainly* because it's a story taking place after all the eras of the canon games have passed and I wanted to throw in every reference I could/lots and lots of Zelda gamer fan service. It was basically a matter of "I can worry about what is canon or I can toss in everything including the kitchen sink and have fun" and I *chose* the latter.
So, how much do you try to adhere strictly to canon (or most peoples' ideas on it) and how much do you purposefully throw out, fellow writers?
How many of you who do fanworks - fan fiction/comics/anything with a story involved - just decide at some point that this or that little bit of canon is not compatible with the plot you want to do and just go "screw it, I'm ignoring it to have fun!"
Now, generally, I do *really care* about canon, about getting things "true to the spirit" and right - character personalities are a big thing with me (but, honestly, Link is hard to pin down definitively since he's partly player-proxy). I try to get little details right and I will go back and do my research... however, sometimes... particularly in writing for the Zelda series, I find myself not caring with I later find out something about canon that contradicts something in oen of my fanfics, and sometimes, I even knowing and purposefully *throw stuff out.*
This happens with me and the Timeline a lot. So many different people have so many different opinions on it that (everything from the Nintendo execs' every word being law to
"they're untrustworthy and pulling it out their hinies as they go along.") Also, with the OoT manga being pretty much declared as a canon along with the game - (divergent canons?)
Frankly, I've given up "keeping everything straight" in my fanwork. I just find it impossible unless I am writing a stroy set completely within a single game's universe. Whenever I reference other series games or any kind of Timeline issue, I am kind of "okay, I give up, I hope I don't get flamed for this." I haven't had any flames on my Zelda works so far, and that's just great.
Like... I just recalled that in a couple of my stories (most detailed in a horror piece of mine, "Sacred Flesh" ) that I used this whole idea of the OoT timeline "folding in upon itself" and the Link sent back to do MM found himself as "seperate from himself" and, using temporal paradox clause from "Back to the Future" wound up staying in Termina for a number of years and growing up there before returning to Hyrule in order to keep from "running into his other self." The Ocarina of Time suffered a simliar split, created a less-powerful copy. I was using a few ideas from a friend of mine, plus, at the time, I was trying to *make sense* of why people *know* about the "ancient hero" in TP. I felt the need to try to reconcile the AT/CT and it turned out weird. Yeah, yeah, you don't *need* to tell me how non-canon and convoluted this all is - but somehow, it worked well for the story. Or, at least, many people liked the story... I honestly do not care that it's "wrong."
Another doozy of mine would be the novel-length "The Great Desert." Now, that... has a lot of *very purposeful* screwing with canon, *mainly* because it's a story taking place after all the eras of the canon games have passed and I wanted to throw in every reference I could/lots and lots of Zelda gamer fan service. It was basically a matter of "I can worry about what is canon or I can toss in everything including the kitchen sink and have fun" and I *chose* the latter.
So, how much do you try to adhere strictly to canon (or most peoples' ideas on it) and how much do you purposefully throw out, fellow writers?