#i find it amusing there is a controversy about a random character in a novel that isn't canon lmao

[lenievi]

Ex Machina informed me that Rand had a daughter, Annie, and while Mr. Bennett is like

Note: Great controversy exists concerning the identity of Annie's father. The Captain's Daughter seems to imply James T. Kirk. However, Christopher L. Bennett has noted that this is, in his opinion, highly unlikely, on the grounds that Kirk would not have a relationship with a member of his crew. As such, his novel Ex Machina identifies the father as "a crewmember". Note that this does not necessarily contradict the possibility of Kirk being the father. (from Memory Beta)

I’m like 👀👀👀👀👀 because !!!! LMAO it just speaks to me, okay

and while I do agree with Bennett’s “Kirk would not have a relationship with a member of his crew” opinion (and it’s the reason why I have trouble writing mckirk because it’s like what would it take for Kirk to have a relationship with a member of his crew) - and would hate if anything like that ever happened on the show/film, current or future or whatever - the possibilities for fanfics 👀

Kirk and Rand sleep with each other after Miri, and then Kirk starts to ignore her and then seduces Lenore a few weeks later, and then she finds out she’s pregnant and leaves Starfleet (I’ve always hc that what happened in Miri changed something between them and that’s why she decided to leave) 

idk how it went in the novel where she was established (it isn’t Ex Machina. Bennett is just using a LOT of stuff from other novels)

unfortunately, the daughter also died from illness at the age of two. But fanfics do not need to go that road.

[glassprism]

I know that there are MANY adaptations of Phantom, some acclaimed, some despised and others controversial. I wanted to ask what are some of your favorite BOOK interpretations of Phantom? Obviously, the original novel is sublime, but what are your opinions of the Susan Kay novel? Is it worth the read? I’ve heard mixed reviews on it and while I want to see a fresh take on the story, I don’t want to ruin Phantom for me. (1/2)

There's also supposedly a new Phantom book series that came out a few months ago, titled. "Nocturne: Guardian of the Opera" that's supposed to be a fresh take on the original story... Always enjoyed your blog! (2/2) 

To be completely honest, I have not read many Phantom novels. Partly because there’s so many, but also partly because I talk so much about it on here that I want to read about something different when I’m offline. I think I’ve only read Leroux’s novel, of course; Susan Kay’s, naturally; a children’s version of the novel, through sheer chance; Phantom of Manhattan, to my eternal regret; and to my great amusement, a novel called No Return, only I read it when it was posted on FanFiction.net.

Leroux is awesome, of course, and you can read about my thoughts on Susan Kay’s take here. Let’s just say “mixed reviews” is correct; plenty of stuff I love in it, but a lot that I hate. That’s a lot of the current fandom’s consensus on it, for which I’m glad, as there was a time when Kay’s novel was lauded as “better than Leroux!” and completely glossing over the more unpleasant aspects of her interpretation. I still say it’s worth the read, if only because it has had a strong influence on the phandom and if you want to understand why certain characters are named or characterized a certain way, reading Kay’s novel is the best way to go.

You can read more about Kate McMullan’s children’s version of The Phantom of the Opera here, but I enjoyed it. Of course, I was only a child myself when I read it, but I liked it then and would probably like it now. It takes the very interesting tack of writing the story entirely from Erik’s point-of-view, from his childhood to the events of the novel, so it’s not just a watered-down rehash of Leroux either. I should try and find a copy of it at some point.

Phantom of Manhattan sucked balls. It’s known now mainly for being a kind of prototype of Love Never Dies and inspiring several of its plot elements, such as Erik moving to Coney Island, him and Christine having sex and a love child, and Christine dying in the end and leaving her son with Erik. But somehow it is worse than LND, from Forsyth’s out-of-the-blue bashing of Leroux for not “writing the characters correctly”, to flat writing style, to the constant perspective hopping done with none of the skill of Leroux, to making Raoul infertile, to Erik and Christine’s “sex scene” that I’m not even going to talk about, to random conversations with gods... it’s awful. Not recommended.

I genuinely can’t believe I read No Return as a fanfic, it amuses me tremendously. You can read more about it here, and the fanfic version was exactly what is described in that link. To be honest, I liked it when I read it, but I was also a newbie teenage phan dead set on romanticizing the Phantom. Looking back on it now, yeah, there were a lot of tropes that were pretty iffy.

As for “ruining Phantom”, for me, that has never been a problem, mainly because I think of every adaptation or fic as its own thing, in its own canon. Whatever they do, whatever their existence, the other works still exist. I am also very much a fan of “make your own canon”, where whatever is “canon” is dependent on what I think not on the arbitrary decisions of their creators. So that’s why the worst fanfic can’t ruin Leroux for me, because it is its own thing and Leroux exists outside of it; LND does not ruin the ALW musical for me, because it is its own thing (with such a wonky timeline and characterizations that it’s very easy to think of as a weird AU and and not a sequel).

And I think if you take that attitude, exploring other versions is a lot less scary. You can apply it to other fandoms too. Game of Thrones does not ruin A Song of Ice and Fire because they are separate adaptations; remakes of horror movies do not ruin the original, because they are separate canons; terrible sequels to great movies do not ruin the original, because I just disregard them as canon. Makes for a much happier me!

(I say, as I attempt in vain to ignore The Rise of Skywalker so I can get my Star Wars love back. Oh well, maybe in another six months.)