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The Stations of the Canon: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}{{Mechanics of Writing}}
Predominantly a [[Fanfic]] trope.
The inevitable result of a [[For Want of a Nail|Divergence Fic]] or a [[Peggy Sue]] Fic: You move across certain plot points from that point onward. These events tend to be quite fixed, and thus they can, when done poorly, come across as merely crossing over
This trope is named after the [[w:Stations of the Cross|Stations of the Cross]], a traditional set of 14 or 15 iconic scenes from the Passion and crucifixion of [[The Bible|Jesus Christ]] used in some denominations of Christian worship, and which are frequently reinterpreted in various media.
For example, if you have "[[Harry Potter]] raised by someone else" Fan Fic, you must cross over the Stations of The Letter From Hogwarts, The Visit To Diagon Alley, The Trip To Hogwarts, The Sorting Hat, and, depending on how you play things, The Troll, all the way up to The Confrontation With Quirell/
Sometimes (but not always) brings up [[Fridge Logic]] involving [[In Spite of a Nail]]; no matter what changes have already been made in the characters or setting, the plot somehow twists to allow it to cross the Stations. (If the events in question are on a schedule that has nothing to do with what happens to the protagonist, this particular problem does not appear.) At the very worst, the story will be exactly the same as the original just with a few changes in the details.
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Examples should be of works whose fanfic show this tendency, rather than individual fanfics, since this is very much one of [[Sturgeon's Tropes]]. Connected to [[Broad Strokes]] - How broadly the events are painted relates to how many Stations the work bothers crossing.
{{examples|Examples of fandoms whose fanfics show this tendency:}}▼
* If an [[Original Character]] is just starting out on a [[Pokémon (Anime)|Pokémon]] journey, it's almost inevitable that they'll be late to get their starter.▼
{{examples}}
=== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ===
▲* If an [[Original Character]] is just starting out on a [[Pokémon (
* ''[[Naruto]]'': Good luck finding any Divergence fic that does stealing the scroll, the Wave mission, Chuunin exam with any amount of creativity.
** The Wave mission is really the worst offender. There must be around 50000 versions of it and they're all the same.
*** ''[[
*** There's at least one where Naruto "misses the prompt", then gets so paranoid about the team sent "in his place" that he fakes being sick and trails them there in secret.
*** ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20120424132650/http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6557238/1/Better_Left_Unsaid Better Left Unsaid]'' does [[Sincerity Mode|one of the more creative interpretations]]: since Naruto is on Team 10 in this fic, {{spoiler|Chouji calls for Team 10 as reinforcements after Team 7's initial battle with Zabuza}} which leads to a number of noteworthy creative differences in the arc: {{spoiler|Zabuza dies sooner and against ''Asuma'', while Haku survives and parts ways with Naruto as a friend}}; but even more unusually, {{spoiler|''[[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Gato]]'' of all people survives the arc!}} The author actually lampshades in the AN (following the arc's end) that he's tired of writing the Land of Waves mission after only 2 interpretations, because of how hard it is to be flexible with the arc.
* ''[[Ranma
** Alluded to in the opening of Eric Hallstrom's ''[[Ranma and Akane: A Love Story]]'' even as it [[Lampshade Hanging|hangs a lampshade]] on how it's ''avoiding'' the usual opening for a ''Ranma'' fic:
{{quote|Rain. Postcard. Kitchen. Bed. Dojo. Bricks. 'FIANCE'?!' Girl. Panda. Fight. CLONG! GROWF! Knock. Ranma.
Seen it before, yes? In your sleep, behind your back, with your eyes closed, in the rain, right?
...
[[Well, This Is Not That Trope|This story doesn't start like that.]]}}
* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'': Shinji's "reunion" with his father, the battle with the Third Angel, etc. Many have described the EVA canon as one of the most stiff and rigid to bend for fanfic purposes without going to full blown [[Alternate Continuity]].
** Well, the Angels keep coming, on a preexisting schedule and with preexisting forms (the later ones evolve slightly to deal with prior ones' defeats, but that can't kick in until later). What else is going to happen? The only one that really averts this is ''[[
** Even the official rebooted continuity, ''[[Rebuild of Evangelion]]'', hardly changes anything from the first six episodes - ''Evangelion 1.0/1.01/1.11'' goes through the stations at a rapid pace, but still every one of them, with the only changes being some new and different [[Foreshadowing]]. Then the second movie comes along and everything goes completely and totally [[Off the Rails]] as far as the plot goes.
*** Even so, the second movie still keeps a number of major points. A lot of angels are skipped, but Unit 02 still appears high in the air spinning about, Unit 03 still does
* Done often with
* ''[[Bubblegum Crisis]]'': Irene Chang {{spoiler|dies ([[Fix Fic|or not]])}}, [[Storming the Castle]] to kill Brian J. Mason, etc.
* Oh, ''[[
* ''[[
** No matter who the familiar is they will '''have''' to go to town to buy a sword. Even if they honestly have no reason to just so that they can buy Derflinger. Writers like having the sword around even if the familiar might end up never using it in combat.
*** [[Unfamiliar
* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', what are we going to do with you? Many [[Original Character
* ''[[
* ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'' has about twelve episodes, each with at least one important event happening in each of them. It's almost impossible for a [[Fix Fic]] to not go along the plotted line until it starts making its changes.
=== [[Literature]] ===
* ''[[Harry Potter]]'': As described above.
** It was [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Harry Potter and
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' gives us Frodo inheriting the Ring, running from Nazgul, meeting Strider, the Council of Elrond (Even if a [[Sailor Earth|Tenth Walker]] [[Mary Sue]] has skipped over the previous bits, we invariably get the "and you have my X" lines.) Caradhras, the Mines, Boromir's betrayal, etc.
* The [[Circle of Magic]] books invite this by starring a [[Four-Temperament Ensemble]] who all followed the same general template to begin
* Discussed in the RPG rulebook for ''[[The Dresden Files]]''. In one section about what to do with the eponymous wizarding PI, it mentions that whatever you decide to do with him, there are some defining events of the setting that need to be taken into
* ''[[The Hunger Games]]'' fanfictions have the Reaping, the family good-byes, training, forming alliances, the chariot entrances, the interviews, and the start of the Games themselves. Fanfics that are told in the first person, present tense, also tend to include [[As You Know|exposition on what the Games are]], what tesserae are, etc., just in case the reader has forgotten.
=== [[Live-Action TV]] ===
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''. Buffy's arrival, meeting Angel, "Prophecy Girl", Angel losing his soul, etc. No matter how much is changed, the mayor will seldom show his hand in season one.
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* ''[[Ace Attorney]]'': For whatever reason, a [[Fix Fic]] generally only changes one of the Canon Stations: the DL-6 case, the SL-9 case, Diego {{spoiler|going into a coma}}, Mia {{spoiler|getting killed by Redd White}}, and the real perpetrators of each of the cases.
* ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' is a criminal offender of this trope, to the point where every minor game event gets its own station, and few authors manage to get past the first five.
** While ''[[Brave New World (
* In general, any alternate universe based on a videogame will include an encounter with every boss (or every boss with a name), in order. If it was a series, it will tend to cover these games in series. This happens no matter how far diverged the fic's universe is from the game's universe.
* The ''[[Mega Man (
* The [[Self-Insert Fic]] ''[[
* In ''[[Til the Sun Grows Cold
* In ''[[The Sims]]'' fanfiction, Bella will always go missing and many times she will be revealed to be in Strangetown all along.
* Endemic in the ''[[Undertale]]'' fandom, as the most popular kind of fanwork are [[Alternate Universe Fic]]s that more often than not consist in retellings of the game with some perspective change or some cosmetic change.
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]:'' Early on there's Katara and Sokka crashing their canoe, unfreezing Aang, Zuko (or AU equivalent person) arriving in his warship, and then the Water Tribe kids rescuing Aang from said warship. In the Season 2 Ba Sing Se arc, there's typically some variation of Toph learning metalbending, Katara stumbling across Zuko and his uncle in the Jasmine Dragon, Katara and Zuko being imprisoned in the crystal caverns, Azula's temptation of Zuko, {{spoiler|Aang being killed by Azula's lightning strike and Katara subsequently reviving him with the Spirit Oasis water}}, and the fall of Ba Sing Se. Season 3 features less of these stations overall, but there will usually be some variation on {{spoiler|the Lion-Turtle appearing, Aang energybending Ozai, and Zuko becoming Fire Lord}}.
==
=== [[Comic Books]] ===
* Superheroes tend to have their origins retold over and over again (sometimes in completely alternate realities), but certain plot points ''must'' be hit. E.g., [[Batman|"I shall become a bat!"]], [[X-Men|Professor X getting crippled]], [[Hellboy]] joining the BPRD, etc.
* When [[John Byrne]] rebooted Superman in the 1980s, the first issue began with his parents on doomed Krypton. Later, Byrne commented that this was dumb of him; he should have let the readers learn the details at the same time as Clark, since all the readers knew the basics already. I.e., Byrne stuck to the Stations too closely, in his own opinion.
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** ''Speeding Bullets'' is one of the worst offenders in this<ref>We're only talking about passing the Station of the Canon here, not quality-- by most accounts, Speeding Bullets was actually pretty good.</ref> - If [[Superman|Kal-El]] was raised by the Waynes instead of the Kents, ''Lex Luthor would be the Joker''!
** ''Darkest Knight'' was worse by several measures. After Wayne becomes a Green Lantern, Sinestro starts wearing a purple trenchcoat and hat ''for no reason whatsoever.''
** ''[[Superman
=== [[Literature]] ===
* This is what the transmigrated Shen Yuan has to deal in-universe within ''The Scum Villain Self-Saving System''. Because he is living in the body of Shen Quingqiu, one of the villains from the in-universe web novel ''Proud Immortal Demon Way'', Shen Yuan is forced to get with the stations of the original canon's plot, which include relieving the infamous scene where the original Shen Quinqiu kicked down the protagonist Luo Binghe towards an abyss to literal hell, even if ''he'' spent several years building a more positive relationship with the protagonist than the original character and thus lacking its motivation. Shen Yuan even uses one of the canon stations to leave the main plot {{Spoiler|by faking his death and transferring his soul to another body}}. Of course, when the System forces him to get back to the main story, the cumulative effect of all the small acts Shen Yuan did on his attempt to avoid the original goods' gruesome ending has now [[Off the Rails|utterly derailed the original plot]], leaving him completely lost on what to do next.
* Endemic on the [[Trapped in Another World|Isekai subgenre]] of "Girl Trapped in the last [[Otome Game]] she played/shoujo web novel she read as a Noble Villainess or as a Cannon Fodder character". Invariably, all the heroines will try to stick with the in-universe stations of the canon or use them for their benefit, with variable amounts of success.
* Du Ze from ''The Reader and Protagonist Definitely Have to Be in True Love'' is transmigrated into a particular station of the canon of the ongoing web novel he was reading, and being a loyal reader he takes consolation in that he knows how the plot is going to be, as the events he is dragged to initially following the plot (and he eventually do save himself due to his plot knowledge). Unfortunately, he attached himself to the main hero of the story, who has fixated romantically into Du Ze and, being both a porter of a rather spectacular plot armor and somewhat yandere, ends derailing the plot repeatedly whenever the poor Du Ze's life ends threatened.
=== [[Toys]] ===
* ''[[Transformers]]'' will ''always'' find themselves on Earth at some point, no matter the continuity or how improbable it seems. Megatron and Optimus Prime ''will'' have a showdown, lines from [[Transformers:
** And probably come back to life, usually with an upgrade. Also, Bumblebee is always younger/smaller and Starscream is always, well, [[The Starscream]].
=== [[Video Games]] ===
* Virtually every [[Game Mod]] ever made. In this case, it's primarily because they edit the existing game. This is common for example with ''[[Super Mario World (
* ''[[Super Robot Wars K]]'' sure feels this way. Instead of combining and reimagining the various stories like other games in the franchise do, most chapters feel basically like "this episode or arc from a series, with scenes copy-pasted and everything", heroes barely interacting and such.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Bad Writing Index]]
[[Category:Sturgeons Tropes]]▼
[[Category:Fanfic Tropes]]
[[Category:The Stations
[[Category:Fandom Tic]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stations of the Canon, The}}
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