don’t give us Silverflint, Blint or Thomasflint reunion or (insert another not yet sailing ship - Thomasflint is of course valid but reunion is another thing) and don’t say afterwards that one of them happened off screen, can’t we just accept that it, in fact, never happened then?
I mean, this is not our work of art. We’re fortunate to be able to enjoy this masterpiece others have created by watching, discussing, fantazising and make fanfics of it. It’s just awesome.
So why can’t it stay there? Let the fanfics be what they are: an adult version of playing where we keep our own wishes and hopes that didn’t came true, separate from the actual show.
If Blint doesn’t happen on screen - it didn’t happen at all.
If Silverflint doesn’t happen on screen - it didn’t happen at all.
Unless the authors say it happened off screen, it didn’t happen no matter how much we think we’ve seen. Because it’s not our work. Period.
That also means that anything that goes outside what the authors show us - or later tell us happened - is au. It doesn’t matter how much we want for our favourite ship to set sails, how much we put in glances, tones of voices, shallow touches or words that, with a hell of a lot good will, could be taken for something else.
It’s important to respect another person’s work. It’s Steinberg’s and Levine’s creation, we’re only borrowing it and that’s why it doesn’t matter if Gunnbones, Silverflint or Blint happens in our imaginations if it doesn’t happen on screen. ALL THREE SHIPS ARE EQUALLY NON-CANON unless they actually happen on screen.
Whatever we write in our fanfics that doesn’t happen in the show, is AU, not canon and just our imaginations. And that’s just fine!
I’ve not written fanfics for very long, but I’ve made up my own stories in my head since I was a kid, using characters from books and movies and sometimes real people from school or maybe rock bands. But it’s always been very important for me to keep in mind that my fantasies have nothing to do with reality.
To tie our hopes and wishes for some specific characters so tight to the actual show/book/movie in fan fiction, seem to me as a road to both disappointment, limitiation and just less artistic freedom in general.
We can’t control another person’s work of art and they can’t control our imagination. That we can share these stories we’re using other peoples creations to do, without being forced to hide them from copyright laws, that we can borrow another person’s characters and universe to play our game of imagination, is something we should be so damn grateful for.
To create is to imagine and imagination has no other bounderies than our different levels of capability to imagine set for us. And staying close or not to canon still doesn’t matter if we add things to the stories that are not confirmed in the original work.
If Gunnbones, Silverflint and Blint don’t happen in the show - then all our relationship stories about them are:
1.) Not canon compliant.
2.) Out of character in at least some ways.
3.) Alternate Universe in one form or another.
4.) No more real than other relationships that didn’t happen.
Point is, I personally feel it would be so painful if I had to rely on what the show gives me, to write fanfics. We all have different taste when it comes to what we like to read and write, that’s not the problem. No, the problem is when we can’t let go of control of the original work to a point when we want to pretend that what we’re given from the authors isn’t really happening.
When we can’t just accept that the things we may have read between the lines, really wasn’t there. That scares me a little, because it’s both rude to the authors who’s work we’re allowed to play with, and it’s also limiting to ourselves.
Fanfics have different meaning for us all, but I assume that one thing we all have in common, is that we’re reading and writing it because it’s something that makes us happy. Which is just as it should. We’re doing this, to quote Captain Flint, “because it feels good”, and that’s enough.
Any ship that doesn’t set sail in the show, any romantic interests, sexual urges or sexual orientations that aren’t showed on screen or confirmed later by the authors, is just a product of our own imagination and simply out of character, canon divergent and alternate universe. To pretend it’s not, is to limit ourselves and make us less creative.
And to be honest, is it really so shameful to just admit how fun it is to make relationships and porn out of characters we think are hot? I highly doubt that. I bet that if Billy Bones had been toothless, Flint fat, Silver bald and Vane had a micropenis, the number of fics written about them would be far less, even if their gay ships had been canon.
