Fix-it fics

[mythicmistress]

Like them, dislike them, what would possibly drive you to write one?

In my case, whether or not I'm willing to read/keep reading a fix-it fic depends on what the author decided needed to be fixed.

For example, one type of fix-it that I have very little patience for are the ones that are done expressly for the sake of a romantic coupling, without exploring the other consequences that would arise from the situation being fixed, and especially if there is character bashing involved. Conversely, I love the fix-its that take the consequences of the fix into consideration as much as possible, no matter what the situation being fixed is.

As for what drives me to want to write fix-its, the reasons vary. For the Sly Cooper games in particular, I want to address the things in canon that I felt were not given the weight they deserved or that tend to be glossed over. For other fandoms, the reasons include: having things make more sense, bringing out the missed potential that I see, or changing things that stick out as illogical when put up against established canon.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

one type of fix-it that I have very little patience for are the ones that are done expressly for the sake of a romantic coupling, without exploring the other consequences that would arise from the situation being fixed, and especially if there is character bashing involved.

Oh same. My favorite type tends to be the time travel or time loop ones, because these do tend to explore more than whatever the central thing is. Which is to say, the time travel in particular tends to be fixing an important plot point that leads to some kind of disaster, and the romantic element (if any) is actually the side effect.

[glorious_spoon]

In my case, whether or not I'm willing to read/keep reading a fix-it fic depends on what the author decided needed to be fixed.

Oh, same. I have a few fandoms where I read a lot of fix-it fics simply because canon killed off or disappeared all or most of my favorite characters, and if I want to read fic about them that doesn't take place pre-canon or during a missing scene, it's going to be either AU or fix-it. And I'm generally a hard sell on AU's.

I mean, I read plenty of non-canon ship fic, too, but most of it isn't really a fix-it in the same way.

[tei]

I think I pretty much agree with your conclusions. There isn't a specific genre of plot that I'm always going to read or not read, but... I think the idea of "fix-it" often means that something happened in canon that someone didn't like, so they're merely "fixing" it so that the "right" thing happens, which can, although of course doesn't always, lead to... a kind of two-dimensional approach? Like, if the only purpose of the story is for a specific event to occur or not occur, that just isn't particularly interesting to me. Especially since often the "wrong" thing, that happened in canon, was something bad-- an event that was harmful to characters that the author likes-- and therefore the fix-it is just a story where a bad thing pointedly doesn't happen. And "bad stuff happening" is pretty much the definition of plot, it's what drives emotions and character development, so, no, I don't want to read a story whose only defining feature is a bad thing not happening.

On the other hand, the same concept could be taken and extrapolated to its fullest conclusion-- like OK, that specific bad thing didn't happen, but every action or event has a consequence, and a story built around the consequences of a plot point going the opposite way is going to be a good story.

[hannah]

a kind of two dimensional approach

I see this a lot in my current main reading fandom. Thank you for putting it into such a succinct term.

[sixbeforelunch]

In general I avoid anything tagged 'fix-it' unless it comes rec'd because they are too often author screeds about Everything That is Wrong With Canon.

I actually like fork-in-the-road AU, but those don't come with the same connotations as fix-it fic, and often delve into the ramifications of the change to canon instead of just focusing on making it all better.

The ones I will read are usually the sort that reverse a character death, either with a handwavey, "we were able to save them after all!" or by slightly altering events so that the death never happened. Stuff like stories where Tony manages to survive the end of Endgame, or Data never died in Nemesis.

[cahn]

I like a lot of tragic canons, but I don't like tragedy, so I'm always trying to write fix-its to Fix The Tragedy. But on the other hand, fixing things for one character usually has repercussions for another character, so I usually end up trying to fix things so that all the characters get to live their best lives :P

[rmc28]

I wrote a fix-it once because a character that I found interesting died in a stupid way to motivate the (male, of course) protagonist, so I wrote a canon-compliant way she could have survived.

(then when the DVD came out I discovered that a deleted scene removed all possible wiggle room for her survival, bah)

[castiron]

There are two kinds of fix-it fic I like.

The first is when I feel that the character got a raw deal in canon. For example, Donna Noble in Doctor Who; I love a good fic that gives her a better ending than she got in the show. (And that doesn't necessarily mean a sunshine-and-roses ending; the bittersweet and sad ones work for me too, as long as I still feel better about what happens in the fic than what happened in canon.)

The second is when the story is basically an AU "what changes if this event goes *this* way" fic. Anna_Wing's Conditional Release is arguably a Silmarillion fix-it, but it's also a fascinating AU where new problems crop up.

I haven't completed a fix-it fic yet; I do have my own Donna Noble fix-it on the hard drive, but after mumble years who knows whether I'll ever finish it.

Sometimes I do include fix-it elements in a fic that's about something else, though. In Sherlock, I dislike the way Sally Donovan's treated in canon, so while my fic Not Yet Dead isn't a fix-it (if anything, it's a break-it of ACD canon), I did take the chance to do better by Sally.

[nyctanthes]

Great question!

without exploring the other consequences that would arise from the situation being fixed

Which is why when I write fix-it fic, I don't call it that. I think there's a default, general assumption across fandoms that "fix-it" is synonymous with Happily Ever After, and if your tagged fix-it doesn't provide that, it's tantamount to a bait and switch.

The last massive fix-it I wrote was instead tagged: I love counterfactuals.

[beatrice_otter]

I agree with you completely no not liking the ones for romantic partnerships. I read fixits--only in certain fandoms--for the plot. For example, Star Wars has so many fixits. Star Wars, on the other hand, has very few.

[doranwen]

I'm confused - you wrote Star Wars twice - first saying it had so many fixits and then saying it had very few. Which one was supposed to be another canon, and which one?

[beatrice_otter]

🤦‍♀️
The second one was supposed to be Star Trek.

[doranwen]

Lol, that's what I figured it probably was. Too many "Star" canons. I call it the Star triad (of which I don't like any of the three notable Star fandoms - Star Wars, Star Trek, or Stargate - much to the dismay of most people I encounter).

[beatrice_otter]

I love all three of them, so.

[cuddyclothes]

My Swiss Army Man fic series started because I HATED the ending. In fact, when I rewatch the film, I have to stop it before the ending because I'll cry so hard. It was just so WRONG. I didn't call it "fix-it" fic, even though I guess that's what it is.

[fred_mouse]

I don't get fix-it fics. This is probably because for the majority of fandoms, I'm fannish at the 'read fic' level, having never actually had anything to do with canon. Fix-it fics rarely interrogate the themes, the tropes, anything that interests me.

[doranwen]

I've never really thought about this before. I've read and enjoyed fix-it fics that point out problematic elements of the canon and deal with them honestly, or ones that undo pointless deaths. Actually, I wrote one like that once; I observed that the canon had an interesting brunette being passed over for a less-interesting blonde in a romantic partnership, and the brunette then later died, seemingly just for tragic effect. I was annoyed with that, but what I wrote wasn't really a happy ending either! The guy was still with the blonde at first, and he still died (which he did at the end of the film anyhow) but it gave the brunette more to do? I thought of writing a sequel that would give her a better ending to life but the fandom was nonexistent and no one showed any interest in the first fic so I abandoned the idea. I don't think the fic turned out all bad, though.

But I will admit, I do like fix-its that fix romantic plots to a point. Is that so terrible? Lol. It depends on the romance and what I think of the other characters. Like with Smallville, I think they deliberately made Clark act so stupidly with Chloe for so long and bungle things, when she was the perfect partner for him in a lot of ways. It really felt like that was just because "Clark must end up with Lois" in comics canon, really; otherwise there were quite a few reasons that Chloe was better. When the show feels like it's deliberately contorting itself in the worst soap opera-ish ways to avoid two characters' getting together for real… it's time for fix-it, lol. (But then I quit watching it mid-S4, I was that fed up with it.)

[mythicmistress]

I suppose I was being too harsh when it came to the "romantic plots" aspects, but like you said, it depends on the romance and the characters involved. I can see why someone would get frustrated and go write fix-it fic with that kind of scenario you mentioned, when the canon is tying itself in knots.

[melannen]

I think I tend to like it in cases where basically the entire fandom (or, at least, the majority of the part of it I hang out with) agrees that this needs fixed. Like, I tagged a fair amount of my Les Mis fic as "fixit" because we were all basically writing fic where not everybody died at the end. But I am probably going to hate a Star Wars sequel fixit because I disagree with most of the things the fixit writers think need fixed.

I also think there can be two different perspectives for fix-it? One of them is that canon did this thing *badly*, and one of them is that we don't contest that canon did it better, but we want to redo it, fluffier. It's like, Doylist fixing (I am going to fix canon) versus Watsonian fixing (I am going to fix these people's lives). I am much less pickier about ones being written from the second POV (partly because they are much less likely to wander into bashing territory.)

Very few of the les mis AUs were claiming that Hugo killing everyone was an inappropriate writing choice, but we had canon if we wanted grinding tragedy, we wanted fic that let them live!

Also one reason I avoid time-travel fixit AUs is that is seems like the great majority of them don't change canon *enough*. Fic that just regurgitates large parts of canon with minor changes is generally boring to me anyway, but also if you change a major thing (or even a relatively minor thing with big repercussions for a character) then that really *ought* to ripple out widely and make huge changes elsewhere, and it seems like fixit writers don't always do that work. And seeing those changes ripple out is what I'm interested in.

[beradan]

I think most of the fix-it fic I read that's explicitly labeled as fix-it fic involves characters not dying, although with Marvel fics at least there's a good number that either straight up ignore the plots of several recent movies or attempt to incorporate what the author believes a more sensible or in-character version of those plots would be. I don't generally read fic where the *only* thing they're fixing is plot, but it's not an automatic no, either.

[polarissruler]

I can't write proper fix-its. I really try, I swear, but I just follow the law from Puella Magi: "Whenever we pray for someone's happiness, someone else must be cursed in exchange." I just feel like if I fix even one little thing, I must add more drama and angst and threats to compensate it...

But I've never thought that the last part counts as a fix-it. For me it always meant fixing only bad endings and so on. Maybe I should have checked it better...

About reading, I love fix-its! Especially when a character death is fixed and when it involves time travel.

[fabrisse]

My magnum opus (over 200,000 words) can be viewed as a fix-it fic in the Kingsman universe, so I guess I'm in favor of them. My problem is that what I see needing to be fixed is often not what the rest of the fandom thinks needs to be fixed.

[gibbles]

Oh boyse if I had my way I'd probably churn out fix-its for half the fandoms I've been a part of. Not that the way things go in canon is ever "wrong" persay, but I tend to have a very active imagination when watching/consuming longer-form content and when certain things resolve in ways that don't feel satisfying to me I start thinking of everything I would like to happen instead...which, yes, is often a bit of baseless self-serving fluff, but I accept that, lol. I think that's probably a huge issue I see in a lot of my writing, that I always want everything to go well for the characters, and that makes for a boring story. But yknow, that's why I write fic and not anything I'm trying to sell. It's okay if it's just pointless fluff :)

[silveradept]

Fix-its work better if the audience agrees that the thing needs fixing, or is at least able to provide a good enough justification to the audience for its own existence.

As I found out when writing a fix-it to address what I saw as wildly out-of-character behavior for the purpose of plot, only to have self-assured people smugly tell me that the canon said I was wrong. (The reality is the canon of that particular character wobbles back and forth between what the canon says and what I thought.)

So I enjoy fix-its in the same way that I enjoy any other story, mostly on whether it coheres internally, but I am an outlier, I suspect, to the clashing forces of "canon is dead and wrong" and "canon is Supreme, there will be no (serious) deviations."

[hannah]

For me, it depends on the scope and scale of the fix-it, and how much emotional continuity the source fandom has. My main reading fandoms these days are Buffy and the MCU, and for all of Buffy's "we're making it up as we go along, please don't look too hard at the plot device" approach, it's got tremendously solid emotional continuity throughout. More importantly, for all his faults, the buck stopoed with Whedon. It was his show, the whole way through. He might not have always known what he was doing, but he knew that at the end of the day, it was all on his shoulders.

By contrast, the MCU keeps pivoting and shifting around, passed off as a relay race baton between different directors and writers, with the relay race course changed by the executive producers based on external market forces and audience demand for assorted characters.

As such, someone saying "nuh-uh" to a decision in Buffy is something I usually meet with incredulity - What are you trying to accomplish here? what's your end goal, just making everything nice and tidy? Why does this need any tidying up? You're just moving stuff around without putting anything away.

Whereas if they're doing it with the MCU, I can better understand the impulse - trying to examine what the movies would've done if the directors were allowed to commit to the characters instead of merchandising sales and international markets.

As for scope and scale, if it's a short story that comes right out and says "this is a piece of fluff meant to entertain and amuse in a few thousand words" then I don't really mind, because it's exactly what it says on the tin.