a.k.a. Outlying Canon, Fanon Expanded Universe, Canon Compliant Fanwork
Sometimes when writing a Fanfic, instead of pulling the more common fare of an Alternate Universe Fic, a fan may write a story that is supposed to fit within the borders of, and does not contradict, the official Canon at the time of publication.
A Pseudocanonical Fic presents itself as an in-between episode of the series, with its events taking place between installments of the work or, if the writer is talented, within them but expanded upon or with a detailed perspective. Alternatively, it may be the events as presented expanded upon in light of a twist the author has added that hasn't been either confirmed or denied in canon. Additionally, no irremediable event such as the death of a canonical character will happen in it, because their aim is to write a story that has the fewest chances to ever be contradicted in future official works.
May occur as a potential Fix Fic to explain the rationale behind an Out of Character moment or in other instances to actually justify canon or justify popular fanon within the established canon.
This mostly happens for incomplete series. In some cases the season or arc (or even entire series) in which the fic takes place ends without discrediting the events written by the fans, and these are sometimes adopted by other fans as part of the unseen canon of the series. In rare cases the ideas will be picked up by the series, or even revealed to have been part of the creators' plan and fans just happened to think it up, too.
Compare with Public Domain Canon Welding, which at times can be basically this trope but with Public Domain source material so it can be officially published.
See Also: Canon, Fanon, Original Flavor, Alternate Universe Fic, Fanon Discontinuity, Outdated by Canon, Jossed, Ascended Fanon, Fix Fic, Epileptic Trees, and I Knew It!.
Examples:
- Tomorrow's Romance Dawn: The story takes place between Drum Island and Alabasta for the Past!crew, and between Film Z and Punk Hazard for the 3D2Y!crew.
- Cadet Scrap: The story is an expansion to a scene from Batwoman: Rebirth #1 that explains how the match was organized and gives context to the conversation from that scene, as well as offering connections to other pieces of Batwoman lore, both official and unofficial.
- The Bucky O'Hare Web Series
- Dark Universe: Of Monsters and Men: Despite being something of a Fix Fic and taking liberties with character direction, there is a clear attempt to work within the pre-existing canon established by the Universal Monster movies.
- Switch!: Part I and most of Part 2 occurs in the Three Years Later time-jump in the movie, with Part III and the remainder of Part II occurs during and after the events of the remainder of the movie.
- The Redemption of Gideon Grey
- All the Young Dudes: It's almost entirely canon-compliant, with the exception of some original characters and Remus's backstory. Instead of growing up with two loving parents, his father committed suicide and his mother placed him in a Orphanage of Fear.
- Consequence
- Ginny Weasley and the Heir of Slytherin
- Life Ore Death: The fanfic deals with the Genomorphs by having them faried to Mars. The chapter dealing with this came out well before the Young Justice episode explained what had happened.
- Twelve Moons and a Fortnight: The majority of new details in Twelve Moons and a Fortnight are not incompatible with The Untamed canon, though they are often incompatible with plot points from the original novel.
- Most fics in Adventures of a Line Hopper are written to work within both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who in spite of introducing tons of new lore and intercontinuity relationships.
- darling won't you ease my worried mind: The fic takes place after Moon Knight and Layla's fight against Harrow in Egypt but before the final scene of Episode Six (where Marc and Steven wake up in Steven’s flat) and ignores the implication that the main events of the series were a fantasy created by Marc in a psych ward.
- Inside Man (Holly DB): The story is canon-compliant for Angel season 5, adding in missing scenes and reframing the story so that Spike is working for Buffy as her inside man, spying on both Angel and Wolfram and Hart.
- Light of the World
- Eternal Tails
- From Harvest to the Ark
- Here Be Dragons Series
- Kingdom Hearts: Forgotten Worlds: The fic is intended to work in the story of canon, and takes place between Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance and Kingdom Hearts 3.
- Memories of Infinite's Past: The fic is written to be Infinite's most possible Backstory based on the canon and to fit in the canon as well.
- Puyo Puyo 8
- Request and Receive Saga: Most entries to the series fall into this, being based heavily in support conversations between the characters.
- Tales of the Undiscovered Swords: The fics even take time to interrupt the narrative giving their OCs stock game lines.
- The Progenitor Chronicles
- Undertale Yellow: A major selling point used to market the game was that it effectively serves as a fanmade prequel to Undertale that doesn't explicitly contradict anything from that game, due to primarily using only original characters and locations. Not even Sans and Papyrus appear due to their enigmatic nature in the original game. The only major exception is Flowey's presence, as it's generally thought that he was only created after all the other humans had fallen into the Underground, even though this isn't explicitly stated in Undertale itself.
- Waterworld
- Wilter's Wonderland: Having been written when Chapter 3 was still in production, and releasing less than a week prior to the actual Chapter 3 release, the game's evidently set during its events (as seen from the Green Room background and it taking place in the Dreemurr House Dark World), but is purposefully written to be a diversion the Fun Gang take during its events to avoid contradicting anything. This ended up working mostly well in the end, as the actual Chapter 3 ended up lacking an "abandoned item" secret boss, and contrary to many fan expectations, it never covered the flowers Toriel threw away. The only major assumption this game makes is implying Gaster turned Wilter insane as with the other secret bosses.
- Extra Life: The author deliberately wrote the fic in adherence to the timeline and events of the canon universe so people could headcanon Chiaki as being alive.
- The Bolt Chronicles: Two stories occur during the time period covered by the film, expanding on issues left unexplored in canon and meant to seamlessly fit In-Universe.
- "The Box" is a first-person story, describing in detail Bolt's thoughts and actions while he was being shipped in the title object from Los Angeles to New York, and ending upon his release.
- Set in New York, "The Seer" has a plot which has Mittens meet Kelvin the labradoodle, implied to occur the day before the cat's fateful first encounter with Bolt. It shows the cat at her least repentant regarding her mistreatment of Kelvin's pigeon friends, and the psychic labradoodle saying she will get her comeuppance for this very shortly.
- Codex Equus: Codex Equus is essentially this, with a heavy dose of Worldbuilding and Fix Fic. While it's set in the world of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, it combines various elements from both the entire My Little Pony franchise itself and other media, creating a greatly-expanded universe. It also deconstructs, reconstructs, and subverts certain tropes from canon to make the overall story and setting seem believable.
- Courtney and the Violin of Despair
- I Among Dogs
- Loyalty to Luke
- Miraculous: The Phoenix Rises
- Seeking Sato
- The Duskyverse
- Triptych Continuum
