One of these days, most likely after I finally see The Star Wars on Friday, I will sit down and do a proper essay about the fact that fanfiction writers in particular are set up to hate every sequel movie ever and it’s their own damn fault but it’s also TOTALLY NATURAL AND OK
Look, guys, a movie comes out. We love the shit out of it. We love it so much that we make up elaborate headcanons about what’s going to happen next, spend hundreds of hours writing thousands of words about those headcanons, and coming up with elaborate theories of mind on all the characters WHO DON’T EVEN HAVE A COMPLETE CANON YET
The problem is, the writers of those sequels are DOING THE SAME THING, sometimes at THE SAME TIME or even BEFORE YOU GOT HERE, I KNOW RIGHT?
You’re getting mad at a fellow fanfic writer for writing YOUR characters OOC because let’s face it, fanfiction gives a sense of ownership and hey, in my opinion it’s a completely LEGIT sense of ownership if you accept that other people own these characters too when they make creative works with them
And it sucks. It’s a lottery. Sometimes this other fan writer nails the characterization as you see it, and sometimes you want click the fuck out of that AO3 fic that got EVERYONE WRONG but you CAN’T because it’s the damn movie theater and they’ve got like a bajillion times more budget than you and I GUESS this is canon now because everyone has read THAT ONE FIC that the whole fandom loves even though it’s WRONG
Basically, in loving what we love we are setting ourselves up for despair over everyone else’s take on it, with very, very few exceptions where we get ridiculously lucky. Throw in the lingering sense of guilt and shame that copyright culture has instilled into fanfic writers over “canon” and “not canon”, “allowed” and “not allowed” so this particular take is even more angering because it’s now a gold standard according to everyone else including that nasty voice at the back of your head.
We are eternally doomed to disappointment, it’s just a fact of what happens when you sit down for the first time and write these characters and love them as if they were your own. So might as well just sit back, grit our teeth, and see what we can relentlessly steal from this latest iteration rather than stressing out about what THOSE BASTARDS did wrong THIS time
