Bad fanon that trumps the canon for the far to long

[robkelk]

Ah, right. I had the scene confused with the first time otoko-form Ranma got hit with a table...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Kaze no Ryuu]

On the matter of the Reversal Jewel... true, he WAS a jerk for that. But at the end of that, didn't Ryoga, Mousse, and Kuno put Ranma into the hospital?
Since this is 'slapstick' I'm apparently supposed to find that funny. Oddly, it didn't make me laugh.
(DISCLAIMER: The Internet is a medium for the exchange of ideas. Thoughts and concepts are shared there. It is possible that people who use it may begin thinking about things they never did before. If this idea disgusts, frightens, or revolts you, please refrain from using the Internet in any way, shape, or form.)

[yesilmavi]

cooking competition

which episode was this? Since she can improve over the course of the anime. (or go a different direction according to what viewers want)

My personal cooking experience is that, without any help or direction, i sometimes make mistakes. Mistakes that can make food inedible, just very bad or barely edible.
Since t.v. is generally an exaggeration of real live i'm tending to think more along the lines of Akana's cooking being very bad/ inedible.

[Morganite]

On Akane's cooking... wasn't there an episode where they found a cookbook left behind by their mother, and with it's help and a great deal of
effort Akane was finally able to learn to... boil water?

That's not quite enough to justify how ridiculously bad her cooking is in some fanfics, but still...

-Morgan.

[Florin]

The hell it is. You're forgetting, apparently, that the blow to the head with the table KNOCKED HIM UNCONSCIOUS. A wet towel never knocked me out. I
don't know about where you grew up, but where I'm from, even if a guest does insult you, knocking them out is NOT acceptable behavior.

Except that Genma say's he had it coming. And no one, including Ranma, even really mentions it afterward. So apperently, it IS acceptable
behaviour where they grew up.
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 

[robkelk]

cooking competition

which episode was this?

Not one in my collection, alas, but I know it exists. Maybe Epsilon knows...?

On Akane's cooking... wasn't there an episode where they found a cookbook left behind by their mother, and with it's help and a great deal of effort Akane was finally able to learn to... boil water?

Yep - that's the first OAV, taken straight from a manga story.

I never said Akane's cooking skills were good...

 
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[deadpan29]

Generally, on-line arguments of this sort aren't worth the time and effort involved. Lots of people get their backs up, no one's opinions are changed,
the arguments degenerate into name-calling, etc.

Despite that, I'm going to put my two cents in. My take on Akane was summed up best by Aondehafka, "Akane makes a good friend, but a lousy love
interest." She is, by nature, kind to many of the people she encounters. However, the arranged marriage with Ranma adds an aspect to their relationship
she's just not ready to deal with and sends her insecurities through the roof. That Ranma doesn't seem to have the social skills to hold up his end of
the relationship doesn't help either.

Secondly, not only are there the problems from taking a slapstick comedy seriously, but a lot of this comes from written fanfictions. The kind of slapstick
found in Ranma or the Three Stooges is inherently visual. A written description of these antics tends to drain most of the humor out of them, leaving
senseless violence.
----------
No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Black Aeronaut]

Okay, here's my two yen on the whole Ranma 1/2 fanon thing from what little I've seen (first 3 seasons).

Ranma:

Egotistical and pompous. Personally, I don't think he actually realizes he's being as much of an asshole as he is. Evidence towards this is seen in the
anime's more quiet moments. The guy does have a heart of gold, it's just buried under all egostical programming that daddy dearest filled his head
with. More on that later when I get to Genma. Another thing is that despite the hell people will put him through, Ranma is actually very defensive of those
close to him once things get to the point where someone is being unduly mistreated.

Akane:

God DAMN girl, you got a fowl temper! Okay, let's step back a bit and take a look at the forest here. You got the oldest sister, Kasumi, and you got the
youngest sister, Akane. It is highly inevitable that the younger sister is going to wish that she could be just like her oldest sister, who is extremely
successful by Japanese standards (exceedingly well mannered, beautiful, graceful, good cook, excels at domestic engineering, and has the undivided attention of
the young and successful local doctor). Now, if anything, Akane is equal parts lover *and* fighter. The trouble is that she's let her thing with Kasumi get
to be a complex and she doesn't really realize it. This may not have been such a big deal if she had her mother around to catch it and curtail it, because
obviously Kasumi doesn't notice. Hell, I'd bet Dollars to Yen that Nabiki, being the bitch that she is, even egged her on at an early age (Remeber:
Nabiki doesn't just do things for profit - she also does it for the personal discomfort of others).

SO... Enter Ranma Saotome and it is no small wonder this guy gets under her skin. While we do see her eventually letting go of her vain efforts to try and be
more like Kasumi, Ranma never helps matters anyways by calling her un-cute every chance he gets. I'd crack a table over his head any day of the week if I
were Akane. However, I still think she's got a fowl temper and could use just a bit of anger management.

Oh, and am I the only one who thinks that Akane must be dense as a rock herself to not realize that P-chan is Ryouga? If she thought Ranma was a pervert...

Genma:

Okay, if this were Dragonball Z and Genma were to die, he'd go straight to HFIL (The Home for Infinite Losers). This guy isn't just a loser, he's a
coward and will do anything for a meal. That thing about the man asking for his son in exchange for a meal? The one where Genma stole baby Ranma back? His
initial motive was just to get that one meal. And then, he couldn't leave Ranma behind - the boy was his legacy! Forget the fact that he's an actual
person. Genma's just gotta secure his legacy as the man who raised the next master of Anything Goes. Of course, this motivation does indeed lead to success
in this respect, but that was his sole motivation. This guy is about as selfish as they come - in corporate culture, he'd be that leach you find taking
credit for everyone else's hard work so he could get promoted over everyone else. And as for being a coward... Just look at what happens whenever Haposai
pops up. With a bit of luck and good strategic planning, Ranma can nail the little pervert any day of the week. If Genma would work with his son he could
possibly drive off the old nuisance for good.

Ukyo:

Okay, I don't quite understand *exactly* how this girl's childhood went, but from what little I understand it was just as messed up as Ranma's.
Think about it: her father and Genma were 'best friends' so to speak. If her father was anything like Genma, then it is no wonder why she turns out the
way she does. I have pity for her, but she does need to pull her head out of her ass.

Shampoo:

Wow. What a piece of work! Trained to destroy any and all women who can better her. Trained to take to bed any man who can better her. Such is the mentality of
the Chinese Amazon: a very base instinct-cum-social quirk to ensure that only your children will be the the best. No doubt the old Hag that goes around on a
pogo-stick knows this. I just wonder if Shampoo does herself. I don't know which would be worse for certain: whether she knows or not. Really, I'd bet
if you could get Shampoo's elder out of the picture and force her to behave, she'd eventually pick up on what's wrong with her... Although
she'd probably still want Ranma.

So in closing, I feel that while a lot of the Fannon is bad, the actual characters themselves aren't too much better. I certainly won't be putting
Akane on a pedestal whenever I write about her.

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Here's my own pet peeve not yet mentioned:

The anime is not canon. Period. It's other authors' adaptation of Takahashi's canon, and she probably had little say in what they did to it.

It is, in fact, Ranma fanfiction.

--Sam

"Sidekicks don't kiss!"

[yesilmavi]

My take is somewhat the reverse of that. Both are cannon.

The author (if he/she is alive) generally does have a say in it.

A collaborative effort can produce better results than a single effort. (more mass appeal) Two minds are better than one.

Even written books have editors.

Now the manga is probably also a collaborative effort, but an anime costs more to produce so i'm thinking there is a larger focus on mass appeal.

mass appeal -> more people who watch get to know it.

people who write and read fan fics are percentages of people who know it. (+ people who write read fanfics without general knowledge of cannon)

So for most fanfic writers and readers anime is more cannon than the manga is.

[Acyl]

My pet peeve is the unfortunately common confusion between the words "cannon" and "canon". The
former is something you shoot people with, the latter is the official version of characters and events. One letter makes a big difference!

Heh, sorry, yesilmavi.

That said, I agree with yesilmavi. It's fine to say that the manga is the author's original vision, and the anime gets messed about by a dozen other
writers. That's true.

But while the anime might not be the author's version of the series, it is still an official version - it was legally produced by animation studios and companies in full possession of the rights, with the
author's legal consent if not editorial oversight.

-- Acyl

[Ayiekie]

yesilmavi wrote:

---

My take is somewhat the reverse of that. Both are cannon.

Yes, they are both "a" canon. The anime canon and the manga canon. The difference is that the manga is the original, far more consistent
canon and therefore the one most people use to have a serious discussion on Ranma. People act wildly differently and have completely different abilities in the
anime version of Ranma from episode to episode (Ryouga being one of the most blatant examples, to say nothing of Akane).

The author (if he/she is alive) generally does have a say in it.

No, they generally don't. For instance, both Akira Toriyama and Naoko Takeuchi have noted they were surprised (pleasantly and unpleasantly,
respectively) by things that happened in the animated adaptations of their works. It is certainly true Takahashi had nothing to do with the anime scripts and
that several of them departed completely from the original manga versions or even contradicted them.

A collaborative effort can produce better results than a single effort. (more mass appeal) Two minds are better than one.

You're entitled to your opinion. As a collaborative writer myself, I disagree completely that that is always or even often true.
Writing-by-committee is not usually better than a singular author's vision, and I would certainly say that of the Ranma 1/2 anime.

Now the manga is probably also a collaborative effort, but an anime costs more to produce so i'm thinking there is a larger focus on mass appeal.

The manga wasn't a collaborative effort. It was written and drawn by Rumiko Takahashi. (Of course, it also had editors and background artists,
but so does virtually every manga.)

So for most fanfic writers and readers anime is more cannon than the manga is.

That has not generally been the case in over ten years. Most serious Ranma fanfiction writers have been using the manga only since at least 1997.

[Necratoid]

This has now turned a bit more to the history section of fanon. I can say that Ranma 1/2 the anime was not a direct adaptation... It is an adaptation of a
manga that took in several pieces of fanfition the writers read and incorporated them into the anime. So its not manga > anime> fanfiction > American
adaptation, instead it goes Japanese Manga > Japanese manga fanfiction > Japanese manga > the weird a block of (foreign fanfiction, fantranslations)
> then the English translations of that anime/manga. The Japanese manga was written and the a fanfic was written and they lifted the Kuno family ninja,
Sasuke, is directly from the a fanfiction. Permission was gotten from the fanfic writer to incorporate the charicter into the anime. Great for Random Q.
Fanboy... one more level of adaption decay for Ranma 1/2.

I have to agree that Ranma 1/2 is a series where the anime and manga are alternate timelines. You can't reconsile to the two fully and shouldn't rally
try. Like Slayers Try with the written works... trying will cause Fanboys to declare war on each other. Some series, like Martian Successor Nadesico, people
deny the existance of the manga (people are baffled on how that good an anime came out of that bad a manga, from the little description I've heard of it
(people won't speak of it much)). Some, like Neon Genesis Evangelion, the manga was written after the anime (in that case because of the end of the series
never worked for fans... to the point a decade later they are still trying to resolve the ending in new movies). Yes, in rare cases, notablely the English
version of Those Who Hunt Elves, adaption decay can improve the series... but most don't.

This gets into what I was talking about with adaption decay and derivatives, each step losing some of the last step's qualities. In Ranma 1/2 the
qualities it loses are largely those of charicter developemnt. With each step from the manga a bit more is lost, though the better fanfiction brings it back.
Mousse goes from a guy, post series, that would be one of Ranma's best fiends/rivals... one who attacks Ranma saying that he knows this isn't
Ranma's fault, but he'll have to take him down to get Shampoo... to bad fanon Mousse, who attacks Ranma (usually) blindly screaming about Death and
Ranma being the enemy of all women. Mousse is the forgotten victim of the adaption decay. A character that gains spiffiness between Manga and bad fanon
fanfiction is Kasumi.

One of Ranma and Akane's larger obsticle in their relationship is that everyone is stalking them. If Ranma and Akane get a quiet moment its ruined
anywhere near their family members. Never mind the other suitors, Nabik, Soun, Genma, and Kasumi are always listening at the wall/door, usually with glasses
as sound amplifiers. Its not just the fathers that screw up their relationship. It's not just Nabiki screwing with them. Its Also Kasumi. Who is there
whenever this kind of thing happens... none of this magic, fight stopping, mind altering frown of doom thing from the fanon. Kasumi sits bad and gets front
row tickets. She may not actively screw up the relationship herself, much (like a certain episode one comment), but she doesn't stop it and happily
watches the show rather than stop it. Seriously, Ranma and Akane are trying for their first serious relationship... and if they even try to talk to each other
alone people come in scream and demanding it descend into lime teritory if not lemon... while the peanut gallery records it on video tape and photographs...
for later resale. Leave them alone and they're relationship actually advances... they both may not be ready for marrage, but in the manga canon, give them
a few years (they're 16-17 manga lets say 22-25 they'll be ready). Remember we are talking about mid to late teenagers here... its amazing how often
the bad fanon shippers manage to decide that if they aren't married by 18 they're relationship is doomed. Curious that a goodly large portion of the
bad fanon talks about how stupid Soun and Genma are for pushing them together and then get mad they aren't together... ignoring the extrememly badly
decayed one dimensional, berserker Akane thing.

Anyway, I agree that most manga are written larger by one person, any level of major other person gets a co-writer statis or a thank you in the dedication.
Other people help out, they have to sound it out against someone else for editing and coherence reasons, but its one persons work on the whole. If you
don't think that written work is mostly better with less people... look at the US Congress. The more people that get involved with writing a bill, the
more time a military spending bill ends up with farm subsities, Transportation infrastructure bills end up with a bail out for some energy company that
operates in a state on the otherside of country from where the rest of the bill is effecting, or something even more nonsensical happens....

If Genma would work with his son he could possibly drive off the old nuisance for good.

You do realize we are talking about someone that oni won't possess, because he is so warped it does want to be in his head? Instead they go to California
together and play Godzila. Someone who was gotten completely plastered, tied up in chains, stuck in a barrel with dynamite in large ammounts of dynamite
around him, the dynamite was set off in a cave, the cave sealed with a large rock and spirit wards... and he was left alone in there for around a decade.
After which he got out and decided to go find and heir... now considering that... what exactly are they going to do to the old freak? The problem with Happi
is he doesn't die, goes where he wants and ignores minor things like law and other peoples wants. Short of sealing every girl in a dozen miles of Tokyo in
male cursed form... was are they going to do to him? Genma and Soun fear him for a reason...

[Black Aeronaut]

Happosai is not the invisible tank. He does have his weaknesses and Ranma has shown that he knows how to exploit
them. Prime example being the episode in which he got the boys from the athletics clubs to exchange the contents of their lockers with those of the girls.
Result: Happosai got a very nasty surprise when he finally checked out what he'd stolen. The only thing that saved the pervert was a moment of weakness on
one of the girls' parts. I think it was Akane.

Soun and Genma may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but if I were in their shoes I would certainly defer to Ranma for plotting the vile old man's
demise and do whatever it takes to help him accomplish such a goal.

[yesilmavi]

Other people help out, they have to sound it out against someone else for editing and coherence reasons

I see this also as a collaborative effort.
Editing/ sounding it out adds added value/quality.

There are of course different levels of collaborative effort.
From series like Seinfeild where multiple groups of writers write. (and the best bits/plots get put in the show)
To author and editor.

I've read authors notes saying the have only watched the anime, or only read the manga, or done both and see/are using the anime as their primary source.
Or are using the manga as their primary source.
But a lot of writers do not give this info. (or at least i don't remember them giving this info ) So I'm making an educated guess.

Acyl

[Acyl]

yesilmavi wrote:

---

I've read authors notes saying the have only watched the anime, or only read the manga, or done both and see/are using the anime as their primary source.


Or are using the manga as their primary source.


But a lot of writers do not give this info. (or at least i don't remember them giving this info ) So I'm making an educated guess.

's right. And I think it's hard to complain about folks basing stuff off,
say, the anime rather than manga.

It may not be, creatively speaking, the creator's original vision (whatever it may be)...but it is
what's out there on sale or on TV, it's official in all the ways that matter. While Trek fans might like to insist Star Trek V doesn't exist, the
fact is...well, it does. The movie was made, there's DVDs being sold of it today, there's really no taking it
back in that sense.

Back to the point, though. I'm curious - how many people have actually read the Ranma 1/2 manga? I certain't haven't. I've watched some of the anime - it was on cable a while back. I'd
argue you'd need to be a really big fan to track the manga down...beg, borrow, or purchase it. Most of the people reading (and writing) Ranma fanfiction
probably haven't.

Can you blame folks for that?

-- Acyl

[Black Aeronaut]

I agree with Acyl. I haven't read the manga simply because it's too much of an imposition for me to suddenly go out and acquire -that much- printed
material! Go look it up. That's 36 volumes in the English edition (the Japanese verison has 38). And I don't just mean that it's a financial
imposition. I don't have the time to read all that manga (Bad enough I got a huge pile of Naruto on my hard drive begging to be read) and I have nowhere
to put it! Have any of you guys ever lived on a guided missile destroyer?

The anime is another story. I can rip and encode it to my handy little 250 GB portable hard drive and watch it when I'm not working. Sure, there's as
much content to the anime, if not more, than the manga, but as mentioned, it's more easily repackaged for later enjoyment.

They really oughta look into manga e-books or something. Sheesh.

[Acyl]

Not too long ago, a friend and I were in the manga section of a large Japanese bookstore. And, as we're wont to do, being
fairly loud in our opinions and critique. We were talking about the sheer expense of manga, the trouble in getting an entire series in English, the pace of
releases, and so on.

We were interrupted, though, by a girl who insisted, no, that manga is /easy/ to get. And she couldn't at all grasp where
we were coming from. It transpired that she's really big in the scanlation scene, runs an IRC server, has a few hundred gigs of manga stored
away...basically, y'know, queen of piracy and everything.

And I was totally unable to convince her that...not everyone spends that much time on the 'net. Not everyone spends so
much time downloading stuff. Not everyone is so inclined or able to read stuff for that long on a computer screen - or play such merry hell with copyright
laws. Not everyone has that kinda time, period.

Or even if you are, not everyone's so immersed in that subculture. You gotta realise, this kid (she was 14) ... was talking like everyone should
have access to tons and tons of scanlations. And I'm all 'sorry, I have absolutely no idea where to find this stuff'. To which I got this absolute
look of bewilderment and pity.

Go figure.

-- Acyl

[Epsilon]

Acyl wrote:

---

I'm curious - how many people have actually read the Ranma 1/2
manga? I certain't haven't. I've watched some of the anime - it was on cable a while back. I'd argue you'd need to be a really big
fan to track the manga down...beg, borrow, or purchase it. Most of the people reading (and writing) Ranma fanfiction probably haven't.

Can you blame folks for that?

I won't blame anybody for not reading the manga if their only goal is to read fanfiction. Go for it.

I won't even blame someone for only watching the anime if their goal is to write fanfiction, based on the anime. So long as they don't
start including manga only elements as if the continuties match in the slightest (this especially includes the wedding scenario and pheonix mountain).

I will blame people for not reading the whole manga if they plan on writing fanfictioin based on the manga. It's like writing a civil war novel based soley
off having watched Gone With The Wind and Glory. You are bound to get things incorrect and incomplete. Do your goddamn research. If you base
things off the anime watch the entire anime as well.

I managed to read all of Ranma 1/2 before it had all been officially released. This was by purchasing untranslated tankouban and using translations on the
internet. It wasn't that hard to do. And frankly, if you consider shelling out cash to purchase the Ranma 1/2 manga too much of an expense perhaps you
don't like Ranma 1/2 and thus shouldn't be writing fanfiction for it.

---------------------

Epsilon

[robkelk]

And frankly, if you consider shelling out cash to purchase the Ranma 1/2 manga too much of an expense perhaps you don't like Ranma 1/2 and thus shouldn't be writing fanfiction for it.

Sigfiled. (For Usenet, where there's just too much of that crap nowadays...)

 
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Acyl]

That's a good point, and it goes back to the start of this debate.
By this point, a lot of the fanfiction about Ranma 1/2 is being written by people whose exposure to the series is mostly
secondhand. Which, I agree, is distasteful.

It's not surprising, though, precisely because there's such a great body of Ranma fanfiction and knowledge of the series has become so common...that
somehow people feel they don't need to watch it. That's not a phenomenon confined to Ranma, mind you - the same thing happens for stuff like
Evangelion, or even more recent properties like Naruto and Bleach.

Most folks have an opinion on Naruto and Bleach, for instance, even if they've never read or watched the series.

-- Acyl

[Ayiekie]

blackaeronaut wrote:

---

Soun and Genma may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but if I were in their shoes I would certainly defer to Ranma for plotting the vile old man's
demise and do whatever it takes to help him accomplish such a goal.

Umm... Ranma wouldn't kill Happousai even if he had the chance. He has in fact tried to save his life. He's not the sort of person who kills people
because they annoy and try to grope him. He's more like a... what's the word... oh, yeah... "hero". ;p
And short of killing him, nothing
is likely to make Happousai go away. He does whatever he pleases.

[Necratoid]

Quick easy fix for you... http://www.onemanga.com/ which has fan translations of loads of series.... like Naruto, Berserk, Air Gear, and Bleach. Its a
non download sight and you click through it on the picture and can navigate from menus by chapter and page. Personally, my policy and my brother's is that
we support the series that are worth buying. With Ranma, I never bought the Manga do to not seeing it on sale for cheep enough, read through the second half
in fan translations. I did however, buy the first 3 seasons for full early tape prices (and DVDs of most of the movies and the OVA)... my brother downloaded
the later series and referred to it this way 'The first three seasons are gold... the rest of them though....'. Anytime you see 'edited'
versions avoid then and look for the uncut. Escaflowne... just Escaflone, is why. Poor Dance of the Curse.

---

Now that the discussion has made a circle lets go into the reasons for people writing fanfiction in the first place. After all if people didn't write
fanfiction we couldn't have fanfiction fanon, let alone bad fanfiction fanon, outside of message boards, on a large scale anyway. The internet is the
MAJOR cause of fanfictio, at least the stuff anyone ever sees. Because random people, in random places that would be unlikely ever meet otherwise, can
communicate with each other nearly instintaniously. Lots of groups of scattered people with the same intrest are able to find each other.

For instance, after Gundam Wing was shown in English, it was beseiged by Yaoi Fangirl's fanfics... apparently because Relena Peacecraft was just so
annoying that they all swore off women altogether. So annoying that she had this effect on people that had never seen or heard of her. According to the Yaoi
Fangirls. Granted they also thing all hot guys should be in love with only each other (and sometimes the Fangirls themselves)... that doing such a thing would
remove virtually all hot guys from the gene pool, is beyond them. Perhaps the most self defeating group out there.

People tend to write fanfiction for series they think need improvement, so any series that there is nothing else to say after reading/writing it will have a
huge drop in the expected volume of fanfiction. The series that there is huge volumes of fanfiction for are the ones that have the most people that like the
series, but think that features can be improved upon. This may mean anything after a certain episode is edited from existance, a character croaks or survives.

Lets go with some points that come to mind from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy Summers is dug up before they go and resurrect her... therefore the series
loses large volumes of angst. Willow doesn't decide that she suddenly likes girls now. Dawn didn't exist. The series ended with Buffy dieing after
jumping off the tower. Xander stakes Angulus the first time he manifests. Xander wore a more better costume. Or say... the major ascended into a giant Goomba
and Andrew kills it by jumping off the roof of the school onto his head, so they have all that C4 around to greet Glory with.

Now there are several bits of fanon that come from secondary sources that are actually fourth or ninth steps removed. For instance the bad fanon 'Ranma
doesn't fight girls.... ever. He'll die first. Now he may not like to fight girls (given the way his life gets more complicated each time...), but he
fights Shampoo on the log, Kodachi in the ring and several other girls throughout the series. That this fanon makes Shampoo/Kodachi impossible as chariacters
is ignored.

Just for the sake of discusion, any willing to state other series with bad fanon bits from fanfiction? What those bits are?

[Disruptor]

Harry Potter-Severus Snape is a good person and is looking out for Harry's best interests.

DC Universe-Batman can beat anyone. Oh wait, that isn't it bad fanon. That's bad canon
--------------------
Tom Mathews aka Disruptor

[yesilmavi]

'Improvement' of the canon is only part of writing fanfiction i think.
If an author solves all the 'problems' without introducing new ones the story either finishes or gets boring.
Going into a different direction with the story or the possibility of doing that can inspire authors to write stories. Agree with you there.
 Some authors notes clearly state that they thought about an idea that would work in a certain canon world.
(With possibly interpreting the canon world)
---edit---

Xander wore a more better costume

I think that most of these stories were insertion points for some of these ideas.