Category:Fictional continuities: Difference between revisions

Fictional continuities are basically individual fictional universes in which characters and stories exist. They can include multiple timelines, parallel universes, and so on, but within the constraints of that world there is some element of continuity -- often the characters; less often species, planets, or others.

Some fictional continuities might be entirely in print (a in Category:Valdemar, but others might span multiple media. For instance, a single movie with action figures; or, a whole series of related works in different media, like novelizations, tv series, books, video games.

Fictional continuities can have internal continuities, alternate continuities, and discontinuities. For instance, a tv series may give different versions of the backstory. Or there may be different versions of a story, as in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie, and the TV series, which are somewhat different; or Battlestar Galactica, the 1978 and 2004 versions. When people distinguish between "canon" and "non-canon" among authorized works, they are determining that some aspects of the fictional continuities are so discontinuitous that they cannot be rationalized into one consistent narrative history. For instance, some people describe the Buffy movie as "non-canon" for the Buffyverse, because it is so inconsistent with the Buffy & Angel TV series and other later works.

Comic books are known for creating new "continuities" for their characters. In one continuity, for instance, there may be character deaths without resurrections, while in another continuity a particular character may never die or may be resurrected. Still, all the comic book continuities can be grouped into super-continuities: All X-Men comics, for instance, have some elements of continuity (usually some characters and some aspects of the backstory/mythology) that are not shared with, for instance, the Buffyverse.