Understanding Canon · 7:20am Mar 1st, 2015
Canon is an often-controversial subject in fan circles. In some cases, points of contention are legitimate ambiguities. In other cases, it occurs because people can’t agree on what canon actually means. But what is “canon”, and why is it so important?
The idea of “canon” comes from the so-called Biblical canon – that is to say, the books of the Bible (or another religious text) which are considered to be authentic and divinely inspired. In other words, the word of God, writ large on paper.
Wars have been fought over which religious texts are canon and which are not, and God forbid that you accept the wrong books as true, or reject true books as false. Or worse, accept an unauthorized sequel written by some other guy years after the fact as canon.
Of course, according to the Jews, the New Testament is all fanfiction anyway.
Canon, when it comes to a work of fiction, is the material which is, at its heart, true and authentic – that is to say, the material which defines the fictional world described therein. And while fans don’t tend to engage in wars on the same scale as medieval Europe or the Middle East have over what counts as canon, we do seem to like to argue about it an awful lot.
In the simplest case, a work is written entirely by a single author – everything that is in the series is obviously canon, and anything outside of that series is not. However, things get more complicated when multiple creators are involved – does it count if the original staff all leave and are replaced? Is it really part of the same series? Or have those new people perverted the true nature of the show? This is especially salient when the original creator loses their job and there is bad blood with their replacements.
However, things get even worse when you have multiple different lines of canon – that is to say, multiple different works, in different mediums, which potentially contradict each other and which are complicated to keep straight. So what counts, and what doesn’t?
There are five major approaches to multimedia canon:
The Practical Approach
Anything which the target audience is familiar with is canon.
This is a practical definition of canon, and basically means "they can only reference stuff that people are likely to be familiar with as major plot points". If a character shows up in a random book, that character would still need to be "introduced" to the audience as if for the first time when they showed up in the main series. If they were in The Motion Picture (TM), then the writers can assume that the audience is familiar with them because pretty much everyone has seen that. Thus, from this point of view, anything which is viewed by the majority of their audience for a given work is "canon" - so as far as the comics are concerned, the other comics would be canon because they assume that people who read the comics have read all the other comics, but as far as the main show is concerned, if they wanted to use something from the comics, they would have to introduce it as if it were a brand new plot element to the main show, because to the majority of their audience, that background isn't "canon" because they’ve never read the comics.
In reality, all good works of fiction abide by this rule; if an obscure scientific fact is a crucial plot point, then I’d better introduce it somewhere else in the work, because the majority of my audience doesn’t know that it is true, even if it is true in real life. In a work of fiction, this is even more important, because the audience has no real grounding in your world; if a character shows up and everyone seems to recognize them because they showed up in a comic that only 10% of your audience has read, 90% of your audience is going to feel confused by why everyone seems to suddenly recognize this character you’ve never seen before. Thus, this is really more of a practical baseline – no matter what version of canon you adhere to, the bare minimum is this.
Those who hold to this as being the “one true canon” claim that only things which the creator can rely on the target audience being familiar with defines canon. This is the practical reason why rule #2 exists – the primary work is by far the most popular, and as such, while almost everyone who enjoys the auxiliary works enjoys the primary work as well, many people who enjoy the primary work have never consumed any of the auxiliary works. This also means that if your plot hinges on some minor detail from a previous episode, you’d better refresh the audience’s memory about it, because if they all have completely forgotten about that detail, it will still seem like it came out of nowhere to them.
Note that by being a sort of consensus reality, you can end up with situations where the popularity of different works defines what is and is not canon. It also results in situations where each individual line of products relies on the mainline products plus the individual line of products for its definition of canon. This creates multiple related continuities, and in extreme cases can actually lead to separate continuities for separate works. This was seen in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, where there were multiple disparate storylines set in different places in space and time, sometimes describing the same historical events in contradictory ways. Video games and novelizations of movies may have different plots than the movie itself, sometimes in minor ways, sometimes in significant ways.
Purists
Anything in the main series (or in the original medium) is canon.
This is a pretty common definition of canon, and is true of many shows and series. For instance, in the Star Wars universe, the movies are free to contradict anything and everything else (the Expanded Universe, in the form of games, books, TV shows, ect.) and establish new canon and overrule anything else. This is a very simple and clean answer, and is thus very practical. Frequently, this aligns very closely with the practical approach, but it may differ in some respects; if something outside of the original medium becomes sufficiently popular, in the purist approach, it still would not be canon, while in the practical approach, it would be.
Almost all media properties follow this rule in reality; it makes it easy to produce lots of auxiliary material without requiring a whole lot of coordination, and it allows you to not feel like that material is using up good material for the main product. It also makes canon much simpler to keep track of – if it is in the main series, it is canon. Anything else is up for grabs.
The primary risk? Fans of the auxiliary material may get upset when it gets overruled by the main series.
In terms of My Little Pony, this would mean that the episodes of the show are canon. Most would probably also include the movies in the canon, as they are essentially much longer episodes which are frequently shown on the same television network and which are produced by the same people as the episodes, and which were produced in the same medium as the original episodes.
Inclusionists
Everything produced for the fictional world is canon.
The comics, the books, the TV show, the movies, the video games, the trading cards – everything is canon, it all happened in the same universe.
This is a very appealing idea, and is also very simple: if something exists in any reference source, it is clearly canon. This is an obviously practical approach, and in principle, is frequently seen as a good idea – if you have to follow everything to make sense of the fictional universe, then clearly you’re going to buy everything, right?
Not quite.
The first major issue is that most works are not entirely internally consistent – works by different writers who aren’t even directly cooperating with each other may produce contradictory works or have similar events occur to characters who don’t seem to notice the oddity of this having all happened before. This also means that if you create, say, a novelization of a movie, or a video game based on an episode, that you might have two different iterations of the same story – which one is the “real” one? It can require an excessive and unrealistic amount of coordination, or can create plot holes which might be taped over, ignored, or awkwardly explained away. This can be very bad for a series, and can lead to schizophrenic behavior by a character.
The second major issue lies in the fact that it is a pain to keep up with everything, and in reality, most of the audience does not do so. You can rely on everyone (or nearly everyone) to consume the television show and the TV movies, but what about all the comics? The books? The video games? Not everyone consumes every line of product, and if you require people to do so in order to make sense of your universe, you can effectively lock newcomers out of getting into your fictional universe – a problem frequently encountered with comic books, which are frequently very unfriendly to new readers.
As such, even if you believe that everything is canon, you should make sure that your target audience understands what is going on – if you require people to have read all the books, all the comics, watched every episode of the show, and played the video game on the iPad just so they can understand your story, you aren’t going to have a very big audience. If, on the other hand, you introduce these elements to your audience in your story, you can make it work.
Word of God
The beliefs of the show’s creators define what is and is not canon.
What the assumptions that the people who make the show make while they are making the show is canon. If a character is secretly gay and the show itself never mentions it, but the people writing the show say the character is gay, they’re gay. This is so-called “Word of God” – the creator’s statements about their show which don’t appear in the show, but which they consider to be canon. This can range from the very simple to the extremely elaborate, like Tolkien's crazy-detailed history of Middle-Earth.
The downside of this definition of canon is a fewfold. The single largest issue is that creators can and do change their minds; anything which isn't actually in the show is potentially fair game to be changed. This is why a lot of folks don't really like relying on Word of God for canon, because sometimes the creator changes their mind because some other idea seems cooler, or simply because it is hard to keep track of it all. Sometimes the creator answered the question off-hand, and then decides they want to do something else or forgets about the off-hand answer, or wants to make the audience feel better with an interim answer. They may also lie to conceal plot details, or, in the case of the Gravity Falls creators, deliberately create fake leaks in order to mess with the audience. It also relies on a bunch of stuff which may well be private or which would spoil stuff later on in the show if revealed, or simply on people on the show not all being on the same page as regards to various details of the fictional universe they’re working on.
From the standpoint of a fan, collecting all the Word of God and trying to make sense of it all and keep it all organized – and to make sure that it doesn’t get overruled by the show itself – is a major hassle. Some people feel that understanding all of the background material for the show is necessary to produce material for it, while others feel that because this material is not touched on – and in some cases, may never even be referenced by the show – this material is not, in fact, canon, and is fair game. As with all potentially obscure canon, you should introduce the plot element to the audience as though they are not familiar with it.
Headcanon
Your own personal explanations for the world is canon.
Whatever your own personal view of what is and is not in the show. This is basically like the Word of God approach, but instead of using the central canon of the creators, you use your own personal explanation for things in the work’s universe. This is known as “headcanon” – an explanation for something which does not appear in the original source material, but which you have created an explanation for. The Descendant is often noted as doing this in his stories, but this happens in essentially every story – our assumptions about the material are, to some extent, inescapable, and all of our stories are fundamentally headcanon for as long as someone is reading a work.
While confined within a given work, this is not a bad thing; if, however, you make the basal assumption that your headcanon is truly canon, you may have just generated an audience of one. If people have to have read your fifty blog posts about your views on the setting to make sense of your stories, you're likely to not have a very big audience. On the other hand, if you introduce the material naturally as a part of the story, this is not a bad thing, and having an internally consistent universe of your own design allows you to tell stories with continuity between them, potentially in an episodic fashion, and can allow you to create your own personal miniature fanbase for said ‘verse.
Note that there is not always a clear line between all of these; some folks will accept all the material as canon, but reject Word of God, while others might reject any material but the mainline series but accept what Word of God says about it.
The most important thing to realize about all of the above definitions of canon is this:
None of these definitions of canon are wrong.
Every single one of them is justifiable. There’s nothing wrong with adhering to any of these definitions of canon. Fighting over what is and is not canon is, ultimately, a waste of time, because ultimately, canon is subjective and everyone should be adhering to the rule set down in the most general form of canon – that if it is likely that your audience doesn’t know something, it is imperative that you introduce it naturally rather than have a crucial plot element come out of nowhere for 90% of your audience. This is the case even if the crucial plot element is true in real life. I know it is tempting to point out that the comics are like poorly written fanfiction and thus are not canon, or that one of the writers for the show said something in an interview at a convention somewhere and therefore it is absolutely true because they said it was the case, but in the end it doesn’t really matter – if the show is well put-together, everything in it will be properly introduced anyway, and if it is poorly put together, why are we watching that tripe anyway?
Note that the arbitrariness of canon also has some strange side effects.
If an idea becomes popular enough, it may effectively become canon within a large portion of the audience, even if it is not in the original source material. This may be material which originated in secondary material, or in extreme cases, this can be something that the fans themselves made up. This is so-called “fanon”, which is to say, material which is considered to be canonical by fans, even though it isn’t. Lyra and Bon Bon being in a relationship with each other is an extreme example of this in the MLP fandom – in most stories, you can simply make the two be lesbian lovers and very few people will bat an eye or complain that you didn’t establish their relationship. Of course they’re lovers. They stand next to each other all the time!
And look how happy Lyra is when Bon Bon shows up.
This can also lead to material which is accepted by some sub-audience but rejected by a larger audience. For instance, if you start a story with two ponies already in a relationship with one another, some portion of your audience may feel that these characters are clearly in love in canon, or simply find that it is very plausible that they could have gotten together off-screen, while other folks will be annoyed by the presence of random non-canonical couples. Someone who is a fan of Applejack and Rainbow Dash being together might be totally fine with them showing up as lovers in the background of another story, while someone who isn’t might find the pairing implausible and think that the person is breaking with canon unnecessarily and pulling them out of the story with something that wasn’t explained very well.
I, personally, adhere to the purist rule for my own personal idea of what is and is not canon. I consider the mainline series to be canon, and I consider the movies to be canon when it is convenient for my story, and ignore them when it is not. My stories are generally written with the idea that only that which shows up on-screen is ultimately canonical, and while I may take Word of God or an idea from a book or comic as a guideline, I don’t consider those to be canon. To some extent, of course, I adhere to the headcanon rule – we all make up our own explanations for the universe – but, with the lone exception of the tragically lost 4th episode of season 4, which apparently never existed, I generally try to stick to the show.
The biggest reason I dislike that episode is because it eliminates a lot of cool story ideas.
Though apparently the show's creators managed to forget that Daring Do was real by the end of the season as well.
As far as my actual stories are concerned, I usually try and stick to the practical rule – whatever my audience is familiar with is canon, and I’ll use whatever made-up ideas to slot in wherever I want if it isn’t defined by canon. If a story is better if Luna and Celestia were born unicorns, then that’s how it happened. If it requires that they were created as alicorns by a benevolent creator, then that’s how it happened. If it requires that they’re the direct descendants of all six of the founders of Equestria, some of them twice, that’s how it happened.
Sorry, no link on the last one. Yet.
Did Rainbow Dash give Fluttershy a peck on the nose in the season 2 finale? No, unless I want to ship them or otherwise make a big deal out of it.
Was Applejack flirting with Rarity in The Crystal Empire?
You can’t take it away from me, you heathens!
As far as I’m concerned, as a writer, if it makes for a better story, it is fair game. But you aren't wrong if you make a different decision.
Just make sure that, when you do, that you get your audience on board with you.
Now go read the story that made me write this. 
To the Sun
Slice of LifeLuna and Twilight devise a spell to go back in time and view the dream that inspired Celestia to become an alicorn.
It's not what they expected.
So much this.
Of course! Why didn't we see the solution sooner? We just need a council of three randomly selected young girls who have seen the show, but aren't huge fans, and anytime there is a question about canon, you just ask them about it.
This was clear and concise. Will be saving this for future reference and educational purposes if I need to explain fandom canon to someone.
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And we'd lock them up in a small room, and expose them to nothing but pony all day.
And we'd call it Omelas.
Thank you! I'm glad it is a useful resource.
Burn the heretic! Oh wait, never mind, I pretty much agree with everything you said.
It seems like it would be too easy to become lost in the haze of alternate universes that comprise the various media of MLP, now. For some, it also seems far too easy to become rabidly dogmatic about a specific view of canon, which takes a bit of the fun out of it for me.
I prefer to be remain flexible about it, even while I try to maintain an eye towards the show as primary canon. Let's face it: suspension of disbelief is already built in to the fandom by its nature. If a well-written story bends the rules a little (in our individual point of view), it should be given the opportunity for 'redemption' rather than immediately being 'burned at the stake' for a perceived heresy.
A useful analysis. I think you can sum up my attitude with: "What makes a good story?"
If I have to trample over canon to write a cool idea, then I'll probably put that idea aside, or see if I can adapt it for regular fiction. If it requires me to squint a little and blur the lines between what is and isn't canon, then hell yes, I'm going to go for it.
In the end, we are not here to set the boundaries between what is and isn't canon in a cartoon show about magical horses. We are here to read stories. And so long as those stories are written with love and care and creativity, I'm happy.
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Pretty much. If you aren't going to use the characters/setting of the show, what's the point of writing it as a fanfic?
On the other hand, bending stuff can be totally worth it.
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Yeah, pretty much. Can't please everyone all the time, but some people are going to be satisfied by stuff I don't like.
There is another source: headcanon from the production staff. From that side, LyraBon is obviously implied, for example, and Derpy is Derpy.
I'm an inclusionist whenever possible, and while I occasionally include production staff headcanon, I don't include author headcanon (sorry Lauren, I still love you!). Obviously the show takes precedence, but that hasn't needed to be an issue yet since there aren't many discontinuities.
And while I admit there's a lot of appeal of this:
cdn-images.9cloud.us/283/4fb54d3a3098c92847d250709c88c44a_681989903.640x0.png
...I still prefer:
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/325/676/ecb.png
...and:
2.bp.blogspot.com/-g_A9fDN-fp4/Up0jqaYloCI/AAAAAAAAQkc/0vchepi82Gg/s640/9d5.png
But then again, why choose?
derpicdn.net/img/2013/3/30/282900/medium.png
It doesn't get more canon than that.
You monoamorists are so silly.
As always, Google Image Search for larger quality copies.
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Oh, if you don't know, Google search for images often requires a two-layer approach. Search once, then search on a different image from a different domain. Because image search is not very accurate.
Anyway, just for fun, here is insanely-large Rarijack.
mlpforums.com/uploads/post_images/img-2918980-2-applejack_and_rarity___love_at_high_sea_by_alex4nder02-d551ymr.png
My goodness, that confused me! I thought "the story that made me write this" meant "go read the story that made me write To the Sun", rather than "the story that made me post this blog entry". I kept re-reading the blog entry looking for the secret link to your inspiration for To the Sun.
Unrelated to MLP, the important question is did Han shoot first? (Though, I guess it could be related if one debates which version of Derpy in "The Last Roundup" is canon).
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On it.
I generally opt for a blend of the first and fourth approaches, with the important caveat that I reserve the right to ignore canon if it came to light after I started the story. (Often the case, since I procrastinate like a... eh, I'll finish that simile later.) Also, if changing a few details better serves the story, I will, and I'll be sure to mention those changes.
This was a well-wrought blog with a very important message. Thank you for it, TD.
Wow, this was much shorter and less filled with swear words than whenever I see this sort of thing in comic book forums.
While ultimately true, it's important to note two contexts that make one more usable than the others:
If you're writing a story in an established universe, you do need to consider what the audience will likely already expect and be aware of. These are two separate concepts but ultimately thinking about them serves the same purpose: not confusing the audience. This is similar, but not the same as, deciding what is and isn't canon. If your story hinges on Fluttershy still being a secret fruit vampire, you may feel it's obviously canon but still decide to remind the audience about that.
The second consideration is that some fandoms do have generally accepted definitions of what is and is not canon: the Star Trek fandom almost always goes by Paramount's rule: what happened on film is canon, everything else is not. This is really only a rule for people writing official properties, but even fan discussions generally agree on this: you expect people to have watched all the episodes, but you wouldn't expect anyone to have read all the novels.
(This is actually one of my problems with the Harry Potter fandom: they tend to consider Word of God canon, which means if you don't stalk Ms. Rowling you're likely to miss important stuff. I feel it stifles creativity because most what-if scenarios have already bee shot down by a throw-away question at a press event.)
If you're using a definition that's notably different that what most of a fandom uses, expect to have to explain yourself (and defend your definition) regularly: people will simply not care about your sources if they're not normally canon in that fandom.
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Yes.
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You're welcome!
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Yeah, it is a lot of fun to come up with your own stuff to fill in the gaps, and, frankly, having to rely on people's Tweets or interviews or whatever is a bit ridiculous.
4126926 I personally go by the Headcanon theory, using the show as the "base" canon, and occasionally borrowing from the subjective canon of the comics (example: the Chrysalis Arc in the comics- non canon. the Mirror Universe Arc- canon. Cassie the Kelpie- Canon, but she's actually a Morgen who was raised by Kelpies)
from these, I built an extensive world
2839945 For canon "purists" and "inclusionists" that question is a nightmare. But if you're "word of god" or "practical" the answer becomes obvious. And if you're a "headcanonist" the answer is the same as it always is - whatever I think.
Good points all around. Two things I thought of while reading:
1) What you can expect audiences to be familiar with depends on the type of story. TV sitcoms are, ideally, always intelligible to a first-time viewer, so they may "introduce" obvious stuff that even people who are only watching for the second time would know about (but subtly, like having a husband kissing his wife before introducing a plot that depends on their relationship but doesn't have them sharing the screen); something like a limited-series comic book in its own standalone continuity can afford to have total lockout from the second issue on, because it's essentially a single story published serially. There is a high correlation between stuff that has the spread of material to make thinking about this necessary (EU books and comics, reboots, sheer volume of canon material) and stuff that generates geek discussions like "what is canon?" (Friendship is Magic, Star Wars).
2) Word of God and expanded universe works, ideally, perform a similar role in regards to the central continuity, in terms of not being necessary but still expanding our understanding. You're right that it's impractical to make them necessary for understanding the main continuity, but when used well they can still add to it (Dumbledore being gay says a lot about his history, for instance).
As for the comment debate that prompted this post: fanfiction by necessity goes beyond show canon, sometimes in ways that don't present any contradiction (here's what my OCs are up to in Appleoosa! Here's a story that could be an episode but doesn't alter the status quo noticeably! Here's what's happening to the background ponies in that one scene!) but sometimes in ways that aren't strictly breaks from canon yet clearly don't fit the show (here's Pinkie Pie as a serial killer!) or only contradict the show after writing (here's Twilight, decades in the future, as a lonely unicorn!) or even break from the show in a broadly-accepted way (what S04E04? Everybody knows that episode was lost.)
This seems to be the major reason why there's a lot of disagreement over what sort of stories necessitate an "Alternate Universe" tag. Personally, between the amount the show is willing to play with its own premises (how many commenters would have insisted on an "Alternate Universe" tag if you'd published a fic with additional alicorns and said they weren't divine in 2011? Especially before "Hearth's Warming Eve" made it clear that the sisters' power is within the mortal realm) and the inherent AU-ness of any fanfic, it takes a lot for me to expect an "Alternate Universe" tag -- you have to not just contradict canon, but upset the basic expectations of the show (have Twilight die in a flying chariot crash in the first episode and Lyra become the bearer of Magic before the fic even begins, for instance). So ultimately that's more-or-less in line with your practical/purist approach.
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Actually, I've got a follow-up comment on this (you know you love my text-walls, TD). I said the AU tag would be necessary for a fic where "Twilight die[s] in a flying chariot crash in the first episode and Lyra become[s] the bearer of Magic before the fic even begins," but the italicized bit is clearly hyperbole -- you'd want the tag with or without that detail. However, the AU tag means different things for those two different versions of the story.
If you want to write a Lyra story, but you decide it works better if she is and always has been the bearer of Magic, you might write your bearer-Lyra fic with that synopsis as the backstory, and from those new assumptions write a fanfic that works like any other, but with your new background taking over the role of canon. In this case the AU tag is like a content warning; it says "hey, check your assumptions, I have to revise some of them for this story". If, however, the the story is about Twilight dieing and the ensuing deviation from canon, the AU tag is more like a genre -- the alteration of the universe is the story, and not just an assumption about the story.
This is really more of a continuum than a dichotomy, of course, but I think it says something about why people use the tag, or ask for it to be added. People who complain about its absence usually seem to want it as more of a warning -- "hey, look out, I'm saying something different from canon sources here!" You're sort of implicitly saying that this warning is superfluous when deviating from canon sources other than the show, which I agree with -- you have to be familiar with the show to even wind up here, but seeking out other things is its own pursuit. I mostly don't care about that because I want to have my assumptions about the show challenged (although of course it's cheating to blatantly ignore obvious canon stuff and then act like that should have impact), so I care more about the AU tag when it's functioning as more of a genre marker, where it's unlikely to be forgotten.
This might be clearer with examples, so [url=https://www.fimfiction.net/stories?tags[]=g%3Aalternate_universe&order=date_added&bookshelf=540844]I'll draw from my Tracking shelf*.
AU-as-genre: "Never a Rainbow", "Five Things That Never Happened to Twilight Sparkle" -- these are what I think of when I think "alternate universe".
AU-as-content-warning: Austraeoh, Its' a Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door -- I didn't realize these had that tag before sorting my Tracking shelf by it, and with Dangerous Business (which was uploaded recently, years after it was first written) I suspect it was added because show-canon jossed it. I really should have seen it coming with Austraeoh, though, but the story is still based on the Rainbow Dash we know and love in a situation that just has deviation from canon as a prerequisite, rather than being the point of the story. Like I said, it's a continuum. Also, I haven't even finished the first story, but I suspect it's ultimately going to square up with at least S2 canon.
Splitting the difference: "Darkest Before Dawn" -- The split point happens before the story starts, but is still the sole driving force of the story. One of my favorites in the genre.
*Oh, so FiMFic's URLs are incompatible with FiMFic's BBCode? Real nice. Not even the first time I've had this problem, but this time I can't fix it -- I just broke the tag with a [i][/i] instead.
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This is a good explanation for the AU tag, really, and it is interesting that it is used both ways. And I agree on Darkest Before Dawn.
Though I think my favorite is Trust, even if it has been thoroughly Jossed.
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This is not true. Unless you count things like pony avatars on forums, my first exposure to FIM was this site. Granted, people like me are a tiny minority, but it can happen. Unless you're writing a crossover fic, this possibility can be safely ignored. But if you are writing a crossover fic, especially a crossover with a work with a relatively large fandom, consider including explanations for any bit of canon that is critical to your plot and not evident from the tvtropes page on FIM.
2841968
Out of curiosity, how did you end up here?
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By way of crossover fics. Specifically, I had been re-reading the Dresden Files books in anticipation of the release of the next book, but I mistimed it rather badly (I didn't have much free time when I started, so I figured it would take months...I forgot how those books tended to make time (out of what would have been sleep)). So I went looking for
literary methadoneDresden fics. I wasn't really part of the Dresden community at that time, so I went to the tropes fanfic recs page. At some point I got down to the crossovers, and I decided that I was willing to tolerate ponies for more Dresden. The feature box (which was at the top of every page back then) had some stories that looked interesting, so I put them in tabs to check out later. Some of those proved interesting, so I read them...and found more in the feature box while I was reading them, so I read those...and, well, I'm sure you can guess. A week or two in, the number of tabs was overwhelming and I signed up to get a proper read later list (and tracking). At some point I figured that I should maybe go watch the show that all these stories were based on.2842162
Man, I knew ponies were cute, I didn't realize they were addictive.
Ah, well. Interesting way to get in.
I got in the standard way - a friend hooked me up. The first hit's free, you know.
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Arguably, "Trust" might be the rare case of a fic that would benefit from the tag's removal: it fits with (a very cynical interpretation of) canon (assuming a lot of history-rewriting on Celestia's part), and the AU tag seems to have helped mislead people to the spurious changeling interpretation.
And as for the dual uses of the tag: they're thoroughly intermingled, so I think the real difference is in what readers get out of it.
2841968
That was definitely an oversimplification on my part, and I'm sorry if it sounded too dismissive of unusual situations like yours (more power to ya, I say). I actually follow a writer who admits to not being very familiar with the canon material, so I do know that it's possible to engage with the site anyway, but I simplified for brevity and clarity regarding what I was actually trying to say, which is that the basic canon about the show -- the main characters are the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, Twilight studied with Celestia, Sweetie Belle is Rarity's sister, that sort of thing -- is usually unnecessary and redundant to spend a lot of exposition on. I've read fics that try to introduce the reader to the characters and setting in a way suitable for readers who've never even heard of MLP before, and it's just annoying. Think of my example of a sitcom that needs to be understandable to someone who's never watched it before. Even in that case they dispense with it as efficiently and unobtrusively as possible, even if they have to rely on a cheesy theme tune or a familiar family structure.
However, now that I'm saying this, I realize I've failed to disambiguate between writing that's annoying because the exposition is misplaced and writing that's annoying because the exposition is simply bad. It's generally accepted that exposition that's too blunt is just lame regardless of why it's there. That said, I do think that exposition that's redundant is a special flavor of annoying, probably in part because there's no need to suffer through any exposition-incurred clumsiness if you already know what's being exposed.
I have to admit I hadn't even considered the case of crossovers, though. I usually avoid crossovers with stories I'm not familiar with because I assume fanfiction is going to build on all the canon involved, but in the one case where I both honestly missed the tag and didn't have pre-existing familiarity with the crossed-over character it stood on its own just fine. Personally I wouldn't expect that from an author, but you're right that it's an edge case worth considering -- especially since I never even thought of someone from another fandom voluntarily coming here without liking MLP first! (Glad we caught you.)
A footnote, since I thought about this and even opened a relevant episode but never slotted it in: "redundant" exposition gets a lot more necessary as you get more specific. For instance, it's totally possible to make a Chekhov's gun too subtle and wind up with 90% of your audience going "where did that come from?" instead of the desired "I didn't expect that to return, but it makes perfect sense!" I opened a random episode hoping to see how FiM handled basic exposition like the different characters, etc.... but it ended up being "Filli Vanilli", which relies on a very specific plot point from three seasons ago, in a show meant to be watched incompletely and out of order by small children. Flashbacks might be a bit cheesy, but I can't call this one unnecessary. As for fic, I had to rewatch parts of "Sweet and Elite" and "The Best Night Ever" while reading The Flight of the Alicorn. I can't say that story would be improved by better exposition, though, especially since it's so organically integrated with those episodes, but I suppose that's a sign that I'm pretty anti-"Last Time On".
Also, you've read the qntm guy's fiction? I've never gotten into that, and I haven't even kept up with the blog in shamefully long, but How to destroy the Earth is an internet classic as well as an important What If precursor. Also, as long as I'm stalking your userpage: if you still haven't read Contraptionology!, do so now. It's probably the best story on the site.
2842952
Well, there's a reason I specified the tvtropes page. Those are easy to find, fairly well known, and provide accessible rundowns (compared to a fandom specific wiki, which will usually go into much more detail but lack the big picture). It's reasonable to assume that if it's on the tropes page, it's fair to skip the exposition, even to readers from the other fandom.
Amusingly enough, I read it yesterday. And then I forgot to update my profile. It was fun, but I think I prefer the Cadance of Cloudsdale series. As far as qntm goes, I recommend Ra. Ra is big, but I think it's worth the read. But if you don't feel like a long read, at least check out the stories in the "precursor work" section. One thing about Sam's large works: go through the comments. It may be too late to join in on the guessing games, but it's still enjoyable to see what people were thinking as it unfolded.
2843016
You're totally right about everything except the comparative quality of Contraptionology! and Cadance of Cloudsdale. But I've got a soft spot for Contraptionology! as my second-ever ponyfic.
One thing important to remember regarding Daring Do, is episode order has never been chronological order. The first season is really bad about this, but there are other things that at least make sense to me. Like for instance Luna eclipsed could easily have been a season 1 episode, it even has Twilight writing the letter. It's much kinder if it's only been a couple months since the summer solstice because if it's been a year and some months surely someone would have not just noticed, but said something about it. Yes it's obvious it means she recovered pretty fast, but I'm not sure anypony even mentions the change in appearance in the episode, so the show sure doesn't contradict that as possible. In fact most of season two and three can go either before or after the wedding, as long as you place them after Lesson Zero, and all the crystal empire stuff, including it's introduction obviously, after the wedding. For example it might make way more sense if reforming Discord was right after the wedding, and the Crystal Empire shows up a little latter. Before the wedding right after the events of It's About Time would also be a fairly logical reason for Celestia to suddenly try something that risky.
Finally a little bit about headcannon and AUs, in my series of fics which I started after season one, I wanted Dash to have this Indaia Jones expy as a parent. The first version was a brown stallion with hair six shades of grey. But because I'm slow we got Daring Do before I published, and instantly changed it, even though I had to lose most of that episode, but for AU magic reasons I won't explain Dash couldn't break a wing easily as an adult anyway, so it wasn't a big deal. This led to all sorts of fun things, including Fluttershy being responsible for defeating Auizotal for good by turning his cat minions against him. Eventually I may get arround to finishing a story where Twi is actually a far bigger of Daring's scholastic works, and stopped reading the series before Dash showed up because she heard very bad things about the series introducing a child character.
Word of God: the headcanon of the creators.
2839881
"Headcanon from producers" be Word Of God. Unless you mean something like what they allow to leak through.
2849180
That would be a totally different show, where Celestia is a Queen, the White Tail Woods has a native population of pony-napping deer, and Twilight doesn't have wings. So you can call it canon, I guess, but it's not a very rich canon because the creator says so little.
2845053
Second ponyfic read? Or written? And where is this thing and should it be soft still?
2849382
Read; here's the story, here's the short you should read first. All by the inimitable and amazing Skywriter.
2849527
Hmm. Perhaps this is why I already follow this pony.
Thanks!
2849371
Hm. I'll try to clarify. When a work's creators tell us what their headcanon is, that's called Word of God. Simple, no? (Deceptively so, even?)
2850409
TD even mentioned it in the article.
Oh, yes I know that.
2849180
Oh, I meant production staff, not producers. Like, the staff. The storyboarders and writers and their intent behind what they do (and that does leak out).
Best. Pun. Ever.
2853022
I was very proud of myself when I came up with it, though I'm not sure that I didn't subconsciously steal it from somewhere.
2842162
So Chengar Qordath got you into this site too, huh?
2886867 I think it was psychicscubadiver first, actually.