History Main / DependingOnTheWriter

Different writers with different ideas and understandings of the work are also the usual culprit of ContinuityDrift.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

* VideoGame/{{Touhou}} fanworks. It's extremely common to see takes on characters that either hew close to the official details, exaggerate them for parody or drama, or blatantly ignore them. Complicated with endless arguments about what is canon and fanon. One doujin can make one character extremely nice, another a complete {{jerkass}}, another an AxeCrazy mass murderer.
* This is just as pronounced, if not more so, in the WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic fandom; different authors will very often have different interpretations of the characters and setting, as expected of fanfic. But it gets ''really'' extreme when it comes to works about the many background characters whose personalities are based primarily in fanon rather than canon. While there is some basic {{fanon}} you can expect to be adhered to for each character (much of which became AscendedFanon over the show's run), there is still more than enough room for stories by different authors to treat characters like [[MemeticBystander Derpy Hooves]] ''very'' differently from each other.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' fanfiction has a few prominent "fan-verses", but the one with most variants is the ''FanFic/ReverseFallsAU'', where Gideon Gleeful and Pacifica Northwest switch places with Dipper and Mabel. Outside the basic foundations of it being a MirrorUniverse, many of the surrounding details change a lot depending on the author's headcanons. Sometimes Pacifica will have a personality similar to canon Mabel's, and sometimes she's a GranolaGirl. The twins' villainous nature varies wildly, going from redeemable antagonists to irredeemable monsters. Sometimes Stan and Ford are pawns of the twins ala Bud Gleeful, and sometimes they’re subtle manipulators. Sometimes Will truly is a wimpy version of Bill being victimized, and sometimes he's the true BigBad playing the long time. Sometimes the story will be tonally in line with the show; other times it will be DarkerAndEdgier or even BloodierAndGorier. Outside that basic morally alignment switch regarding the four kids (and the resulting costume changes), everything else is pretty fair game.

** In some versions, Arachne actually ''is'' that good and wins the weaving contest, with Athena retaliating out of pettiness. In others, Arachne weaves a tapestry that is indeed very good, but Athena (being an immortal goddess) weaves one which is infinitely more beautiful, and Athena punishes Arachne for her hubris by transforming her into a spider. There is another version in which Arachne [[BullyingADragon weaves a tapestry that depicts evil things the gods have done,]] and this is the final insult that drives Athena to turn her into a spider.

* In ''{{Theatre/Oklahoma}}'', Jud Fry can be played as a buffoon lacking intelligence, a possessive and evil man, a slightly insane man or a sympathetic and misunderstood man who struggles with depression. Curly could also be played as an overconfident and cocky braggart who is slightly cowardly or a person who is confident and charming. This mostly depends on the depth of the director.
* In theatrical performances of ''Literature/{{Nibelungenlied}}'', Brunhilde normally has a [[BrawnHilda fat or extremely masculine looking women]] play her, but with a choice of actress, she becomes more attractive.
* There are lots of examples from Creator/WilliamShakespeare. Is {{Theatre/Hamlet}} mad, or just faking it? Does Gertrude drink the poisoned wine deliberately (suggesting a greater understanding of the situation than indicated in the text)? Is Banquo's ghost really there during the feast, or is Theatre/{{Macbeth}} hallucinating? Is [[Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice Shylock]] a truly nasty piece of work, or is he an IneffectualSympatheticVillain? Is [[Theatre/TwelfthNight Antonio]] [[HoYay in love with Sebastian]]? Just how straight is [[Theatre/TheTamingOfTheShrew Kate's]] end-of-play [[ValuesDissonance lecture on wifely submission]] played? And so on ad infinitum. It all depends on the director and the actor.

* This was the downfall (or, rather, show stopper) of UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler in ''Film/TheProducers''.

* The Webcomic/NuzlockeComics involve turning [[AfterActionReport a playthrough of one of the Pokemon games into a comic strip or written story]], and there are a lot of variations on the rules of the challenge itself, as well as the setting and the characters involved. Does the term "Nuzlocke" have any meaning within the world itself? Is it a Self-Imposed Challenge, a curse, or simply an unnamed rule of the world? Can trainers understand what their Pokemon are saying? If so, how? Can only some of their Pokemon communicate with them, via human speech or telepathy, or can all of them speak freely?

** Bruce Banner during his first few films was portrayed as a HurtingHero, struggling to come to grips with his alter ego. In ''Thor: Ragnarok'', he's written as a more nebbish ComedicHero, although waking up from a two-year Hulk coma on an alien planet can partly explain it.

!!Examples