At 11:12 AM 8/22/97 -0700, you wrote:

On Fri, 22 Aug 1997, Andrew Schoonmaker wrote:

Hmmm...  Interestingly enough, about half of the BGC 'fics I've read have
authors who either ignore or deny the canonicality (?) of Bubblegum Crash!
I can't say one way or the other; I haven't seen it.  Does your view of
"rewriting history" insist that the same characters/events show up, or is
it all right to start mid-way through the story and just run however you
want from there?

Then theres always the second season of tenchi. i don't know what happened
with Crash (other than acording to most people i shouldn't watch it =) but
when the entire staff that was doing a show moves on to another projet,
leaving the second season to be picked up by people who are all
certifiable or have been experimenting with their chemistry sets, then you
probably have some justification for discounting the episodes in question.

okay, so maybe i'm exagerating a little, but still, i think there's
something seriously wrong with second season tenchi from what i've seen of
it so far =)

If you are talking about the first and second oav series of Tenchi, then I
think you are on shaky ground in saying there are reasons to question the
canonical quality of certain episodes.  If, however, you are talking about
the oav and tv series of Tenchi, then I think you can be justified in your
useage of the series as an example of the problems of defining what is
canon.  I've always thought of the movie, "Tenchi Muyo in Love", as having
greater connections to the oav than the tv series because of its darker
tone (exemplified in many of the episodes of the oav series) even though
the movie is actually a continuation of the tv storyline....  The Shin
Tenchi muyo series follows in its footsteps (though not too heavily),
deriving a more simplistic storyline than that to which we have been
accustomed.  Then there is the Pretty Sammy series (both oav and tv, which
are both separate storylines) to take into consideration.  Everywhere you
look, Tenchi becomes a headache to develop a simplistic ideal of "canon".
Dirty Pair did this also, with the original 26 episode tv series, the
"Affair at Nolandia" oav, the "Project Eden" movie, the 10 episode oav
series, the "Flight 005 Conspiracy" oav and Dirty Pair Flash series 1, 2
and 3 all providing conflicting ideas and concepts to the DP universe.
Ultimately, there is never a "true" form of canon to any series once it
starts to meander in this fashion.

The solution, when dealing with fanfics, should simply be a matter of
defining which series you are basing your idea upon.  If you want to "mix
and match" characters that appeared in one series but not in another (i.e.
Nagi and Kenohki from the TM tv series being placed in the oav storyline
somewhere) then go ahead....  As long as it works, I have no problem....  :)