I really liked this essay. And, with the definitions the writer gives, I'd say "mythology" is a good term for the massive tangled web of stories and details and characters that is Transformers.
I love drawing from "canon" to guide my own writing, and can get annoyed if reading something (even if it's something I've written) that seems to contradict the particular source material it's using without enough of a plausible reason why that contradiction takes place. Having said that, I really like playing around with the grey areas, the gaps in the stories, what isn't shown or mentioned in the official versions.
There's a trend in the fandom that I've noticed, being a fairly new-school fan, which is to make every continuity like G1 - characters must have the same personality, history, etc etc, even when, if you look at the other continuities, this clearly isn't the case. One example that I suppose I could talk about at any length is fan portrayals of a character like Starscream. TFA Starscream is very different from G1 Starscream, who is different from TFP Starscream, who is very different from Unicron Trilogy Starscream... yet I still run into TFA fics where Starscream's voice is described as "shrill" or "screechy" (compared to G1? it's a fucking purr XD), or his personality as "cowardly", that he used to be a scientist, etc etc whatever. I get the feeling the person has seen G1 and applied that to all other continuities indiscriminately, because to them only G1 is "canon". There's also the possibility to choose whether you want to include "expanded universe" type stuff as your "canon" - e.g. if I'm writing for Bayverse, do I want to say all the associated Bayverse comics are canon too? As someone who doesn't really have access or knowledge to/of comics, that would be hard for me, so I would tend to stick to the movies themselves...
Basically I expect fan-authors to pay attention to whichever source material they've chosen to base their work on, but at the same time, try not to get too hung up on every single detail. I mean, I'd love for all of my work to be 100% plausible and accurate, but I just don't have the time or access to enough of the "canon" to check every little thing. I've been writing a long TFA fic recently, and I'm sure I've made some mistakes, but between the episodes and the wiki I've done the best I can.
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I love drawing from "canon" to guide my own writing, and can get annoyed if reading something (even if it's something I've written) that seems to contradict the particular source material it's using without enough of a plausible reason why that contradiction takes place. Having said that, I really like playing around with the grey areas, the gaps in the stories, what isn't shown or mentioned in the official versions.
There's a trend in the fandom that I've noticed, being a fairly new-school fan, which is to make every continuity like G1 - characters must have the same personality, history, etc etc, even when, if you look at the other continuities, this clearly isn't the case. One example that I suppose I could talk about at any length is fan portrayals of a character like Starscream. TFA Starscream is very different from G1 Starscream, who is different from TFP Starscream, who is very different from Unicron Trilogy Starscream... yet I still run into TFA fics where Starscream's voice is described as "shrill" or "screechy" (compared to G1? it's a fucking purr XD), or his personality as "cowardly", that he used to be a scientist, etc etc whatever. I get the feeling the person has seen G1 and applied that to all other continuities indiscriminately, because to them only G1 is "canon". There's also the possibility to choose whether you want to include "expanded universe" type stuff as your "canon" - e.g. if I'm writing for Bayverse, do I want to say all the associated Bayverse comics are canon too? As someone who doesn't really have access or knowledge to/of comics, that would be hard for me, so I would tend to stick to the movies themselves...
Basically I expect fan-authors to pay attention to whichever source material they've chosen to base their work on, but at the same time, try not to get too hung up on every single detail. I mean, I'd love for all of my work to be 100% plausible and accurate, but I just don't have the time or access to enough of the "canon" to check every little thing. I've been writing a long TFA fic recently, and I'm sure I've made some mistakes, but between the episodes and the wiki I've done the best I can.
(Sorry for all the edits! :S )