The Problem of Unicorn Epicycles

[Aleh]

So, I recently criticized a Beware of Chicken fanfic (this one) for problems relating to the "Unicorn in the Garden" rule as applied to fanfic.

I later elaborated (on another site, so I'm quoting here), when the author started adding entire multi-paragraph author's notes on the things he was changing in the background. Disregarding some story-specific stuff:

I'm just going to paraphrase what I said over in SB: Why?
 
The "unicorn in the garden rule" is a thing for a reason. You have your premise: Jin attracts Su Ge's attention and stays in the Cloudy Sword Sect as a result.
 
Making the rot worse than it was in canon, changing the backstory with Shen Bu, altering the base cultivation system... just... why? They don't aid the story: they detract from it. You don't need to do any of those things to tell this story. It's just... pointless.

The point is that you're not making your canvas, as you put it. You're borrowing an unused section of Casual's, and that's part of the premise of the story.

Jin, at the start of canon -- and this AU -- is disillusioned with the idea of "seeking the heavens," as you put it. Him coming around to that sort of position isn't the premise -- it's the planned outcome of a character or story arc. It's a destination, not the beginning.

By changing things in the background to contradict canon, you're changing the starting point. You're adding an extra unicorn to the garden, as it were.

This is a problem.

Look to the other AU timelines -- Casualfarmer's, in other words -- to see what I mean. The Dark Meiling timeline changes when Jin never shows up, and thus things start going spectacularly wrong for Meimei, sending her on a vengeance quest. The unicorn there isn't Meimei as a vengeful wandering cultivator -- it's Jin never showing up. Everything else flows from that.

In the SHI timeline, Jin is sent to the SHI instead of the CSS. As a result, he has different experiences, meets different people, goes on different adventures, and eventually adopts a different dao. The unicorn there isn't Jin as a roaming skyship captain -- it's Jin being sent to a different sect. Everything else flows from that.
In the JSYR timeline, Jin decides against going to the Azure Hills and instead settles down somewhere else. This leads to him contracting with a different (and more intact) earth spirit and creating a different sort of "farm" (or ranch). The unicorn there isn't Jin as a rancher. It's Jin settling down somewhere else. Everything else flows from that.

In yours... Su Ge steps in to help Jin, leading to him not staying in the CSS. But then we find out that the situation in the CSS isn't what it was in canon. But then you change the background with Shen Yu and Shen Bu, as well as the overall political situation of the Empire. But then you change the cultivation system itself in ways that contradict canon. So Jin doesn't leave a different sect and situation from canon, leading to him facing problems whose existence contradicts canon, and facing heaven via a different system from the one he abandoned in canon.
Sooner or later, and I'd argue sooner between the two, this stops being a Beware of Chicken fic and simply becomes a fic that's vaguely inspired by Beware of Chicken and is held down by the elements of canon it retains. It's trying to be two different things at once and suffering for it.

Or, to put it a different way, it's chasing two rabbits at the same time, and that's a bad thing.

The reception I got was, in some ways, predictable and rather missed the point. For instance:

Great argument, now tell similar thing to EVERY SINGLE FANFICTION IN THIS EARTH.

The beautiful thing about fanfics is that they aren’t canon and don’t have to follow it 100%.

And, of course, it's still attracting people who think they're goddamned telepaths and can address emotions that I didn't express rather than anything I actually said.

Cope. Seethe, even.

Maybe do some malding while you're at it.

Because this fanfiction that explores the side the verse that the original canon tosses to the wayside, to put frankly, fucks....

But, all that aside, it's got me thinking about my original point... and the general problem of people trying to change some random thing in the setting for the sake of their fanfic.

Namely that any change to the setting might change X, which the author wants, but it'd also logically have impacts other than that -- and the author might not want those. A less-skilled author will run into it head-on and, when it becomes an issue, simply introduce a new change to the setting... adding a new unicorn to their metaphorical garden. Sometimes this can be handled with a degree of grace, but, in the worst-case scenario, this is basically a last-minute ass-pull on the author's part.

The unicorns, in other words, start breeding.

A skilled author, on the other hand, will likely explore the conflict, lampshade the matter, avoid taking the story into a direction where the other impacts matter, adjust how they made the change... or spin the entire concept off into a completely original "thing."

This is what I've taken to calling, at least in my head, the Problem of Unicorn Epicycles, after the "Unicorn in the Garden" rule and a rather famous real scientific problem: sooner or later, as a story concept branches out and grows away from the story that inspired it, the concept stops being for a fanfic and simply becomes a story that's vaguely inspired by its "canon" while being held down by the elements of said canon that it retains.

Thoughts?

[drakensis]

Having followed the same story and seen the arguement, my position would be 'what you're observing is accurate but not necessarily a problem'.

A case could be made that any fanfic that isn't written entirely to slot perfectly into the source canon without changing any of the stations of canon is someone writing their own story inspired by source material rather than respecting the canon. I don't think anyone here would argue that seriously, but it could be claimed.

Most AU (and most alternate history stories) work on the principle you're advocating, have a single point of divergence and try to have everything flow from that. That's certainly how most of my AU in fiction works - to use Davion & Davion (Deceased) as an example, other than Hanse's ghost haunting John, things are as they were in canon and only change because of direct and indirect results from that.

But there are plenty of stories that change much more, that are not just diverging but start from significantly different set-ups - look at the 'Game of Thrones but around a modern day coffee shop' sub-genre or whatever it is... okay, maybe don't look at that but it possible to write a story that is based on a canon but makes more than a single change. I am currently doing this with Opalescent Reflections - not only are there two notable and unrelated divergences to set the story off in canon and several more subtle background changes to serve the story, some of them centuries before the start, that nonetheless have left the various characters and general politics untouched when 'really' (whatever that means in context) they should have had effects.

Beware of Cloud pretty clearly started with the intention to be a simple single divergence, but as it's been written the decision has been made to explore background details that weren't relevant to Beware of Chicken and write his own answers, which has left the setting distinct in some ways from how Casualfarmer described them. As long as that's acknowledged and the characters and setting are still recognisable, which I personally find to be the case (you are, of course, entirely within your rights to disagree) I don't think it's a problem.

These differences can build up to the point that that this is no longer the case, and I can think of a few examples of this happening and generating distinct properties - even published ones (the Vorkosigan books by Lois McMasters Bujold had their seeds in a Star Trek fanfic, for example). There's a degree of spectrum to this.

All of this has little to do with the overall quality of any story. There are, I am sure, good and bad examples at every point on that spectrum because, if nothing else, no one starts out good at writing and the fanfic community is littered with everyone's first attempts.

[classicdrogn]

I think the reason that "superficially the same at story start time, but much or most of the setting is different before and after that point" fics have such a mixed bag for quality, is that it's removing the filter on Sturgeon's Law that making only small changes puts in place when you're starting from something that was already in the 10% bucket - it relies greatly on the new author's ability to build all the new material and integrate it with the old. This is most evident in fandoms that got popular long before their settings were fully explored - Naruto fics that started before (or throw out all the stupid shit after) the training trip time skip, or Potterverse stuff from before or immediately after Goblet of Fire, and so on. It's even true for professionally produced material in long running franchises - Star Wars books from before the Thrawn trilogy vs. the SWEU in its final form before being assimilated by the Mouse, or the entire body of FASA Star Fleet Battles lore from before TNG started.

(Or just The Splinter of the Mind's Eye from Star Wars, very obviously written before RotJ and shipping Luke & Leia - and Carrie Fisher said she thought Leia would be a fool to pick Han over Luke in an interview from that time frame too!)


Something's hiding in the bushes of love...

Some fics whose timelines cross like this instead of diverging are really good, or at least a lot of fun - but you have to manage your expectations going into them. They're back in the open cesspool of 90% crap, rather than dipping from a bucket you've already flocculated and filtered to the 10% at least not inherently awful. I haven't gotten around to looking at Beware of Cloud yet to judge for myself.

[Aleh]

Beware of Cloud pretty clearly started with the intention to be a simple single divergence, but as it's been written the decision has been made to explore background details that weren't relevant to Beware of Chicken and write his own answers, which has left the setting distinct in some ways from how Casualfarmer described them. As long as that's acknowledged and the characters and setting are still recognisable, which I personally find to be the case (you are, of course, entirely within your rights to disagree) I don't think it's a problem.

These differences can build up to the point that that this is no longer the case, and I can think of a few examples of this happening and generating distinct properties - even published ones (the Vorkosigan books by Lois McMasters Bujold had their seeds in a Star Trek fanfic, for example). There's a degree of spectrum to this.

I think the issue with this particular story is more that it's chasing two rabbits, in the sense of the old saying. It's simultaneously trying to be a Beware of Chicken fic while also trying to be its own thing entirely. If this was a simple genre/tonal shift as the result of a different course of actions, that'd be one thing... but it goes beyond that.

The characters we see don't "feel" the same. The changes to the overall setting make it "feel" like a different place. The changes to the Cloudy Sword and its rot make it "feel" like a different sect. The changes to Shen Yu and Shen Bu make the former "feel" like a different character entirely. The... well, as I put it:

Su Ge steps in to help Jin, leading to him not staying in the CSS. But then we find out that the situation in the CSS isn't what it was in canon. But then you change the background with Shen Yu and Shen Bu, as well as the overall political situation of the Empire. But then you change the cultivation system itself in ways that contradict canon. So Jin doesn't leave a different sect and situation from canon, leading to him facing problems whose existence contradicts canon, and facing heaven via a different system from the one he abandoned in canon.

It's not just that differences exist. It's that they push the story more towards being its own "thing."

And, on the flip side, the author's explicit reason for making all of those changes is the idea that the canon setting of Beware of Chicken doesn't really support the sort of story he wants to tell. My issues with this reasoning aside, if that's the case... why bother sticking to the setting at all?

Beware of Cloud isn't a bad story, per se. Hell, I'm still reading it despite some rather dramatic issues with how the author is handling certain things (like Chinese manners; see the first paragraph of Chapter 13, which describes a real issue -- one that I initially pointed out -- being handled completely inappropriately, or at least incompetently, on the Shrouded Mountain's part).

I just don't think that it's really a Beware of Chicken thing anymore. It feels like a story about different characters reacting to a different set of circumstances in a different setting, not like a Beware of Chicken fic.

Some fics whose timelines cross like this instead of diverging are really good, or at least a lot of fun - but you have to manage your expectations going into them. They're back in the open cesspool of 90% crap, rather than dipping from a bucket you've already flocculated and filtered to the 10% at least not inherently awful. I haven't gotten around to looking at Beware of Cloud yet to judge for myself.

One of the examples that kept coming to mind when I was formulating my phrasing of the dilemma was a number of HP fics, and specifically Skysaber's. He just... keeps changing things, usually at the last minute, to keep his balls in the air and keep things escalating. That's where the "ass-pulls" line came in.

On a more meta perspective, think of the development of HP fanon, where entire departments and belief systems are put in to "salvage" aspects of canon from the impacts of other things that fanon has added. Manipulative!Dumbledore's Rube Goldberg plot failures come to mind regarding the impact of that.

[robkelk]

And, on the flip side, the author's explicit reason for making all of those changes is the idea that the canon setting of Beware of Chicken doesn't really support the sort of story he wants to tell. My issues with this reasoning aside, if that's the case... why bother sticking to the setting at all?

Which is a pretty big issue with a lot of fanfic that I've read, pre-Y2K, post-pandemic, and times in between. If you aren't going to create your own setting, then pick a setting that matches the story that you want to tell. You might still tell a "crap" story, but at least you won't be fighting with the setting while doing so.

I keep coming back to Isekai by Moonlight because it's the fic I know the best right now, on account of I'm still writing it. I could have set it in any number of "magical teens" settings with an appropriate title change, but I didn't because those other settings were wrong for the story that I want to tell. Clear Card Captor Isekai would have been too cheerful for my desired story, even considering the presence of Yuna D. Kaito. Puella Magi Isekai Magica would have been too dark, despite how much I like Homura. Harry Potter and the Isekai Student would have been a horrid mess, no matter how many lines I gave Hermione. But Sailor Moon was, to quote Goldilocks, just right.

The setting is as important as the plot and the characters. Don't hobble yourself with a mismatch.

[batzulger]

A good fanfic diverges or expands on the canon in an interesting way that stays true to its (the fanfic's) inherent conceit of the exact expansion/divergence. Changing the ground rules of the story is about as divergent as you can get and as long as the story is interesting, it should not be an issue. Like taking the Harry Potter series and transforming it from a magical school to a school for techno-thriller spies and assassins changes the entire base concept of the world (magic is real) and changes it to James Bond was real.;

[classicdrogn]

At that point all you're doing is failing to commit to writing original fiction, by using a few names and maybe a few setting mechanics general enough to count more as tropes, from something popular and putting them on your own setting, tour own characters, and your own story. That's just authorial cowardice, and/or the literary equivalent of click-baiting to get people to look at it under the pretense that it's about something they know they like.

[Aleh]

A good fanfic diverges or expands on the canon in an interesting way that stays true to its (the fanfic's) inherent conceit of the exact expansion/divergence. Changing the ground rules of the story is about as divergent as you can get and as long as the story is interesting, it should not be an issue. Like taking the Harry Potter series and transforming it from a magical school to a school for techno-thriller spies and assassins changes the entire base concept of the world (magic is real) and changes it to James Bond was real.;

Sure. I've actually seen that specific premise done reasonably well (although I didn't get into the fic as much as I should have). The thing is... that's all the fic changed. That sort of premise only really works as a fanfic so long as the story and characters are still recognizable.

Or, to put it another way, "Harry Potter as a spy thriller" only works so long as Harry Potter is recognizable as Harry Potter. The "as a spy thriller" bit becomes your unicorn... and you only get one.

At that point all you're doing is failing to commit to writing original fiction, by using a few names and maybe a few setting mechanics general enough to count more as tropes, from something popular and putting them on your own setting, tour own characters, and your own story. That's just authorial cowardice, and/or the literary equivalent of click-baiting to get people to look at it under the pretense that it's about something they know they like.

My initial thought was that you were replying to batzulger above, but then I realized that you could be talking about Beware of Cloud or any of the assorted hypotheticals we brought up as well.

But, that said, I don't really think there's a firm line between when something works better as a fanfic and when its fanfic elements are holding it down. I just think that making deliberate changes to canon can be a slippery slope from an authorial perspective.

[batzulger]

At that point all you're doing is failing to commit to writing original fiction, by using a few names and maybe a few setting mechanics general enough to count more as tropes, from something popular and putting them on your own setting, tour own characters, and your own story. That's just authorial cowardice, and/or the literary equivalent of click-baiting to get people to look at it under the pretense that it's about something they know they like.

I took the very first episode of Buffy, 'Welcome to the Hellmouth' and transmuted the setting from a 90s High School with Vampires to 1940s pulp in a munitions plant with Nazi Atlanteans while trying to keep the characters as canon as possible. Or 'That Bastard Beggar's Horse' which completely replaces the setting, but also keeps the characters close to the originals.

[classicdrogn]

Yes, and that's legit fanfic -- because you changed the setting, but kept the characters. When an author changes everything but keeps some names and generalities, that's when it's a problem, be it fanfic or professional work. Ot's the same reason why I, an absolutely obsessed Transformers fan, loathe the live action movies. If they were just presented as a new property entirely, I'd be all kinds of down for a mecha mashing action explosion-fest, but when you try to tell me that vengeful murderous psycho in red and blue is Optimus Prime, it doesn't matter if you cut Peter Cullen a check to voice act the part.

I've now written and deleted three different rants on the topic of clickbaiting me as a member of the audience with setting- and characters-in-name-only, and don't feel any calmer, so I'm going to have to leave this here for now despite not having properly articulated my point. Just thinking about that or other examples ("BGC" 2040, Disney "Star Wars," Kurtzman's "Star Trek," etc.) makes me so angry.

[robkelk]

... Disney "Star Wars," ...

We laugh so that we do not swear:



Source

[Bob Schroeck]

I have my own thoughts on the topic, which have been a part of my Fanfic Writer's Guide for many years:

15. Don't disguise original fiction as fanfiction.

Some might phrase this as "don't make the characters so unlike
themselves that they're different people with the same names".
Either way you look at it, it's a complete puzzle to me. If
you're writing fanfiction, you're celebrating the source
material. Why choose to change it so completely that it's
unrecognizable? Conversely, if you have a good and compelling
story idea that is so utterly different from the original
setting, why feel constrained to turn it into fanfiction?

A good example of this would be the acclaimed "Ranma 1/2" fic
"Ten", by "Richard E" (http://ten.waxwolf.com/). This is an
amazing story demonstrating outstanding literary skill ... but
it has absolutely *no* reason to be a "Ranma" fic. None of
the "Ranma" characters really act like him- or herself here,
their the backgrounds are all so radically different that it's
hard to justify it even as an "elseworld", and there's really
nothing here that anchors the story to the "canon" Ranma
world. (Just as one example: Ryoga as a crippled,
intellectual scientist. Huh?)

Another good example would be "Rendezvous With Fate" by iCe
(found at http://www.fanfiction.net/s/67364/1/), also a
"Ranma" fic. Here Akane is the twenty-something widow of
Ryoga; her mind/soul is sent back in time to Edo-period Japan,
where she finds herself occupying the body of Kodachi,
estranged wife of Ranma Saotome, a high-ranking warrior in the
service of Happosai and twin brother of Nabiki... It's an
extraordinary story, well-written and engrossing, but once
again, the characters and settings are so vastly divorced from
"Ranma 1/2" canon that there is no real reason for it to be a
"Ranma" fanfic.

If you're writing something so thoroughly altered, you might
as well take that last step, use new names, and call it
original fiction.

Who knows? Maybe you'll find an editor who'll buy it. It's
happened before -- as "50 Shades of Grey" (which started out
as a "Twilight" fic, if you didn't know) and the "Vorkosigan
Saga" by Lois McMaster Bujold (which has its roots in a "Star
Trek" fanfic) amply demonstrate.

[Aleh]

I have my own thoughts on the topic, which have been a part of my Fanfic Writer's Guide for many years:

That's essentially the issue I was looking at, yes.

But, well, I'm more thinking of the creative process. There's some tipping point -- sort of vague and ambiguous -- when you're writing what starts out as a fanfic where it starts becoming something original, and you have to decide whether you're going to go with the fanfic you'd originally planned or to break it off.

Otherwise, you're just chasing two rabbits... or adding more unicorns to your "worldbuilding" to salvage how canon could still have happened despite all of it.

A lot of Manipulative!Dumbledore fics fall prey to that, now that I think of it. I mean, with House Potter being a noble house with a seat on the Wizengamot that's ready for Harry to claim if only he knew about it and helpful goblins ready to give him his family's magical signet ring if only he asked...

[batzulger]

Yes, and that's legit fanfic -- because you changed the setting, but kept the characters. When an author changes everything but keeps some names and generalities, that's when it's a problem, be it fanfic or professional work. Ot's the same reason why I, an absolutely obsessed Transformers fan, loathe the live action movies. If they were just presented as a new property entirely, I'd be all kinds of down for a mecha mashing action explosion-fest, but when you try to tell me that vengeful murderous psycho in red and blue is Optimus Prime, it doesn't matter if you cut Peter Cullen a check to voice act the part.

I've now written and deleted three different rants on the topic of clickbaiting me as a member of the audience with setting- and characters-in-name-only, and don't feel any calmer, so I'm going to have to leave this here for now despite not having properly articulated my point. Just thinking about that or other examples ("BGC" 2040, Disney "Star Wars," Kurtzman's "Star Trek," etc.) makes me so angry.

What? BGC 2040 was absolutely fantastic. Better than the original, which was also great, but 2040 was so much better especially how they handled Pris. Also, Rogue One is the second-best Star Wars movie, and Kurtzman's Star Trek is the best Trek stuff since TOS.

[classicdrogn]

Well, you're free to have your own opinion. I'll agree that if it was allowed to be its own thing 2040 would have been fine, and even NuTrek/STD would be tolerable, or at least easily forgettable, if they were just ripoffs. That just underlines the problem being that they were fundamentally new works tied to the names of things that came before for the sake of marketing.

[batzulger]

Anything that removes the stink of TNG/DS9 is a lot more than tolerable.