First, as far as Lyall is concerned, my impression from the bio was actually not so much that he'd necessarily passed,
Right, I read it that way, too. But the bio also didn't, as I recall, state straight out that Lyall was still alive in the canon years. So it's easy enough for me to go on working with a Remus backstory where his parents died before PoA.
But there's still some things I just don't... like about the backstory, things I never liked in R/T fics and was disappointed to see become canon.
That's interesting -- I almost had the opposite reaction, because the backstory was pretty much in line with the way I've always seen the characters' personalities. My problem was things like, for example, I'd written the scene where Remus found out that Tonks loved him, only it wasn't on the roof of a Death Eater's house. And I'd written the "quiet wedding," but I'd used Molly and Arthur as witnesses rather than the strangers from a wizarding pub in Scotland. That sort of thing.
(That is, if backstory can be considered canon in the same way as the books.) I guess I'm trying to find the middle ground in this case by staying true to the canon universe, but... tweaking things so the story fits better. Does that make sense?
Makes lots of sense. I don't think backstory has the same status as book canon. And, frankly, since we're all writing fanfic for fun, I think ultimately we should get to set whatever rules for ourselves are most conducive to fun!
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Right, I read it that way, too. But the bio also didn't, as I recall, state straight out that Lyall was still alive in the canon years. So it's easy enough for me to go on working with a Remus backstory where his parents died before PoA.
But there's still some things I just don't... like about the backstory, things I never liked in R/T fics and was disappointed to see become canon.
That's interesting -- I almost had the opposite reaction, because the backstory was pretty much in line with the way I've always seen the characters' personalities. My problem was things like, for example, I'd written the scene where Remus found out that Tonks loved him, only it wasn't on the roof of a Death Eater's house. And I'd written the "quiet wedding," but I'd used Molly and Arthur as witnesses rather than the strangers from a wizarding pub in Scotland. That sort of thing.
(That is, if backstory can be considered canon in the same way as the books.) I guess I'm trying to find the middle ground in this case by staying true to the canon universe, but... tweaking things so the story fits better. Does that make sense?
Makes lots of sense. I don't think backstory has the same status as book canon. And, frankly, since we're all writing fanfic for fun, I think ultimately we should get to set whatever rules for ourselves are most conducive to fun!