Fan-Canon and Experimental Storytelling

Anything we want, eh? Okay. I'm gonna talk about Kissing in the Rain. The webseries, that is. Not the act of kissing in the rain.*

Kissing in the Rain is a twelve-episode webseries in two parts, produced by Shipwrecked Comedy, and created and directed by one Yulin Kuang. It stars Mary Kate Wiles (from LBD), Sean Persaud, Sinead Persaud, and Sairus Graham.

The premise is simple: two couples keep finding themselves kissing in the rain. The fun part? Both couples are actors, filming scenes from movies where they keep finding themselves kissing in the rain. Then the director yells "Cut!" and we get to see the actors interact with each other.

The first seven episodes follow Lily and James (yes, that's a Harry Potter reference), who hate each other, and the last five follow Audrey and Henry, who are the most adorable dorks ever of all time. An episode is posted every Monday, and a short drabble accompanies each episode.

But here's where it gets really fun.

Yulin, the creator, wanted to create an experiment in how fandom contributes to a story. And so, with the first episode, she initiated a fan-canon experiment. She invited the fans of the show to watch, then write fiction or commentary or headcanons about the characters and post them all to a common tag on Tumblr.

Then, each week, before the new episode airs, she goes through the tag, reads all the posts, and chooses ones to become canon. These get reblogged to the official Tumblr and become part of the reality of the universe.

This project is fascinating to me. And it's not quite as overwhelming as it sounds.

Here are a bunch of links!

Shipwreck on Youtube, where you can find the episodes
Shipwrecked on Tumblr, where you can find the canon elements
The KitR tag on Tumblr, where you can find all the fan contributions
The KitR archivist tag on Tumblr, where you can find weekly summaries of canon info
Yulin's Tumblr




*Personally, I think the act of kissing in the rain is a bit overrated, you know? I mean, I enjoy kissing as much as the next non-asexual person, but I much prefer to do it without getting drenched, if such a thing can be at all avoided.