Show canon, fan canon and head canon, oh my. · 12:01pm Mar 6th, 2013
So let's talk a bit about canon and how it impacts fanfiction. I'm going to assume that everyone has watched all of season 3 by now. If not, stop living under a rock and get watching. There will also be very small spoilers for A Head Full of Clay below, so read on at your own discretion.
I started watching the show around the middle of 2012, so I had the benefit of having two complete seasons ready to go through (and I gobbled those episodes up like they were candy). This also meant that I had a rather clear overview of the story so far, about the world, the characters and how everything had developed. This meant that I did not experience some of the problems fanfic writers (and fans in general) had come across when portraying certain characters such as Luna, who underwent a rather hefty change between her first appearance in the show's pilot episode, and her next appearance during Nightmare Night in season 2. The first writer whose stories I began to read here on Fimfic (Cloudy Skies) had apparently come across that very problem after writing a long adventure fic starring Luna as she appeared in S1, and I am certain many others had similar experiences.
That's just the way canon works, though, and it goes for any piece of fiction, whether it be this fandom or others, whether we're talking about video game franchises, TV shows, comic books, etc. Canon changes, sometimes through organic evolution and world building, other times through ham-fisted retcons (I'm looking at you, Blizzard), and earlier fanfics stand behind as curious testament to what people rolled with prior to whatever big change came along. On top of what we learn from show canon, there is also a massive amount of fan canon, by which I mean fan-created fluff that is generally accepted by the fandom as a whole, such as the existence of certain background ponies like Lyra, Octavia, Vinyl Scratch and Derpy. According to the show's writers and storyboarders, those ponies are usually just called Incidental Background Pony #3 and so on. While there is the occasional subtle nod from the crew - which suggests that they are aware of the fans' love for certain characters - the backgrounds, personalities and relationships of these ponies are created almost solely by the fandom.
There is also head canon, which I see as being the interpretation of individual fans that usually is not applicable to the fandom as a whole. This can include things like the One True Pairing between certain characters, Scootaloo being an orphan, the Wonderbolts being an elite military unit as well as air acrobats, etc. I realize these distinctions between fanon and head canon are perhaps rather crude and far from universal, but work with me here.
Going back to the point I was originally trying to make, I began writing A Head Full of Clay shortly before season 3 rolled out. The season contained a number of very significant episodes that added quite a bit to the canon; we saw the corruption and eventual redemption of Trixie; the creation of a sisterly bond between Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo; a reformed-but-maybe-not-really-reformed Discord. The biggest change was most likely Twilight's ascension to alicornhood (is that even a word?).
This presents a wealth of opportunities, but also a hefty number of issues for fanfiction. Obviously it requires a massive amount of work (and is most likely a wonderful exercise in futility) to retroactively change your fics to correspond with new lore. Like most others, I'm going to continue my fic and wrap it up using the same premise I started with. The story takes place before the events of season 3. No big deal.
The problems, such as they are, arise once you've finished your story (or stories) already in progress, and you set out to start a new one. There is now a lot of new canon to take into consideration. If you follow what is presented to us in the show, Discord is no longer encased in stone, and is in fact using his powers for good (or at least he is being moderately helpful while making passive-aggressive remarks on the side). If you want to make a story about him becoming his malicious former self again, you should also keep in mind how his tenuous friendship with Fluttershy was enough to stop him from causing mischief in the first place, and a sudden relapse should therefore be adequately explained. That is, unless the story takes place prior to that event, or in a setting where things took a different course of action, or the story takes place in a grim pony future far, far away.
Now, most people are probably going to say "Well, duh!" to that. That's what the Alternate Universe tag is for, after all. A lot of fanfiction plays around with this in some form or another. Often, fanfic authors make up their own little continuity when writing stories. They do not even need to be direct sequels or prequels or whatnot, but they all share their own little unique spin on the canon. In fact, saying that there are problems connected to new canon is perhaps making mountains out of molehills.
Where am I going with this? Well, personally I like integrating show canon with my own stuff. In my opinion, they do not necessarily have to clash (unless you are making the aforementioned alternate universe or similar). Some of the other stories I'm planning will likely be tangibly connected to A Head Full of Clay, but will at the same time incorporate the new stuff from season 3. Even if some events might play out a little differently, the overall setting could still be largely the same. Trixie could still mess up Ponyville in a corruption-induced roid rage, Discord could still be turned into a sort-of ally, and Twilight could still become Twilicorn.
That is just my take on things, though. I feel that, where possible, show canon should be worked with and played around with, at least as long as it is possible to still tell a good story with it. If the show's own canon ever becomes so butchered and self-contradictory that it ruins itself by virtue of existing, I'll probably change my mind. I actually have no idea how Twilicorn has been received in fanfiction, so I should probably look that up for starters. My initial guess would be that many still prefer unicorn-Twilight, simply because she's the adorkable geek we like, and frankly, we barely know anything about what her alicornation entails other than getting wings and fancy horseshoes. Supposedly this will change with season 4, but alas, that is still a long way off.
The show writers have confirmed that Twilight will remain adorkable, but with wings.
AND WHAT THE HECK!? I'M SOME KIND OF FIMFICTION GOLD MEMBER SUDDENLY!?