step the f up!

there is something fundamentally strange about demanding that transformative fiction function as an exercise in perfect canon replication. fanfic is by definition interested in possibility. it takes characters out of the fixed circumstances of the source material and asks what they might become under different pressures, in different relationships, with different experiences, or simply through a different author’s understanding of them. sometimes the entire premise is “what would have to happen for this character to behave in a way they never did in canon?” and like that is not necessarily a failure of characterization. sometimes that is the characterization. and obviously there are interpretations that feel more or less supported by the text. it is perfectly reasonable to argue that a fic has failed to make a particular choice psychologically convincing. but that is a wholly different argument from treating canon as a list of immutable behaviors and using “they wouldn’t do that” as a supposedly objective veto against any trope you dislike.