Never Been Jossed

The term “Jossed” (jossed, jossing, joss) was named for Joss Whedon, creator of the popular television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly. The term is generally used by fan fiction writers when these shows chose to go in a direction that contradicted the story the fanfiction writer was currently working on. For instance, someone writing fanfiction on how to bring back a character from the dead might be jossed when the actual event happened, in a different way, in seatson six.

Wikipedia

I love the term “Jossed”, but personally, I find it largely redundant.

I’ve always accepted that most of my fanfic will be AU from the moment I put words on a flickering screen. It will be AU because my fan fiction is my fan fiction. The writers of a show, film, book, or comic book are telling their story. I’m not remotely presuming that I can read their minds and predict the way the story is going to go. I write what I’d like to see, or what could happen given certain circumstances or events. If my vision doesn’t tally with theirs, well, why should it? *shrug* Is it in any way bad that I “got it wrong”? I don’t think so.

I’ve never been “Jossed” because I’ve never written anything that I ever expected to tally with past or future events in an expanding canon. I wrote what popped into my head and what I wanted to write. There is canon and then there’s me. That’s just the way it is.

I think that the concept of being Jossed is flawed from the get go because it implies that fanfic is more worthy if it matches canon. I’ve never liked that idea because it is so limiting and flies in the face of all the possibilities that fanfic offers us.

Fan fiction’s intrinsic beauty lies in the fact that it is not canon. It’s worth is greater because it is the original text reflected and refracted into a million pieces by the prism of its audiences loves, hates, beliefs and prejudices.

Placing value in getting it “right” is ultimately self-defeating. The bigger concern should be did I tell a good story? Are my characters in character despite the difference in events from what is now the canon? Have I moved the characters on realistically with my version of events? Is it fun? Does it move me?

If everything we write had to stay in canon we’d have hardly any slash fic and no crack fic. Maybe we would be rid of all those weird fics that seem to have no relation to the original story or characters. It’s a personal thing as to whether you’d consider that good or bad, although personally I’d find it bad because – even though I don’t actually read them – I just love the fact that people out there are writing stories.