Snark's SECOND Law of Fanfic (formerly the First)

[athelind]

From FurryMUCK, this morning:

normanrafferty tries to remember the review he read of 'Torchwood'. "I think it said, 'Is it possible for something to be new material and fan-fiction at the same time?'"

Oh, you betcha. Let's codify this, in fact:

Snark's First Second Law of Fanfic (a.k.a. "Running the Asylum"):
A sufficiently established franchise is indistinguishable from fanfic.

When a fictional franchise has lasted long enough to induct its fandom into the ranks of its professional creators, the distinction between Canon and Fan Fic erodes. The new wave of creators start sneaking Fanon into official sources. Ret Cons abound. Writers will revisit old stories, instilling far more self-indulgent detail into the retellings than ever appeared in the original.

In short, the Inmates are Running The Asylum.

Sometimes, this can bring fresh, new life to the franchise. Other times, the same kind of in-fighting that erupts in fannish circles will play out between creative teams -- but now, the factions are all armed with Canon.

Comments

[shdragon.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't Star Wars be like this as well? There's a pile and a half of books for SW that are all supposedly "official" as well. Plus those animated shorts that happened between two of the prequels.

Though I guess it would be harder to say since Star Wars isn't an ongoing thing, so there can't be any "new" and "definitely official" stuff that could possibly refer back to any "fan" stuff to bump it up to "possibly official"

[athelind.livejournal.com]

It happens to ANY sufficiently established franchise.

Star Wars is an EXCELLENT example, really. For quite a while now, I've harbored the suspicion that it is popular not so much for the stories that Lucas decided to tell, but for the stories that COULD be told in the wider setting.

Certainly, I've read about Star Wars RPG campaigns that sounded FAR better than Episodes 1-3.