A/N: So I had a recent reviewer give me the impression that I'm not allowed to write whatever the heck I please. So I wrote this thing that gets progressively more ridiculous towards the end. Hope you enjoy!
A/N #2: No, person-who-PM'd-me, I didn't misspell "cannons". I wrote what I wrote on PURPOSE. LOL
It was an ordinary day in Santa Barbara, when the sun shined and birds chirped and all was perfect. Well, except Henry Spencer's hair. But everything else was perfect.
Shawn Spencer strode into his house on this particular afternoon, back from an afternoon of committing crimes that he would never be convicted for because he solved so many in the process. He opened the door to hear the quiet click-clacking of a keyboard.
"Jules, I'm home," he drawled, and waited a few minutes, disgruntled when he received no answer to this grand entrance. "Juliet," he whined. "Come on. This is the part where you come running to the door to kiss me to boost my ego."
"No time for that, Shawn," she called back. "I have more important things that need to be done."
"But Jules," he complained. "How am I supposed to feel good about myself if you aren't offering me unnecessary attention and contrived affection all the time?"
"You can feel good about yourself by getting a real job," she called from where she was in the dining room. He rolled his eyes and stomped off to find her.
She was sitting at the table, leaning forward and watching her computer screen eagerly. Too eagerly to be doing police work, Shawn thought.
"What are you doing?" he came behind her and leaned forward to see the screen.
"Uh-" she leaned over her screen hurriedly to hide it.
"Fanfiction?" Shawn remarked, with equal tones of interest and bafflement in his voice. "What do you read fanfiction for?"
"Write," she corrected, still blushing. "Writing, Shawn, is much more productive than reading."
"What do you write about? Lemme guess, Criminal Minds." He jumped into the seat next to her.
"Not Criminal Minds, that's way overrated." She rolled her eyes.
"Hmm... The Voice."
"Shawn!" she laughed. "The Voice is a reality show. You can't write fanfiction about that."
"What, then? I give up." He sighed in mock exasperation.
"Um- I write fanfiction about us." She laughed a little. "Our show. Psych."
"We have a show?" He looked impressed.
"Yeah. You and Gus do. And the rest of us are on it, too."
Shawn paused and grinned, admiring the idea of his own T.V. show. "Can I see what you're writing?"
"Uh, I don't think you want to." She closed her laptop and set her coffee mug on top of it. "Yeah, you definitely don't want to read it."
Shawn paused for a minute, utterly confused. He wasn't used to being told "no". Then he grinned in the moment as a brilliant idea came to mind. "What's your username?"
She scoffed. "Like I'd tell you."
"Hmm." He got out his phone and spent a few minutes being unusually silent on his phone. A few minutes later, he said, "Are you 'LassietShipper4Life'?"
She blushed furiously. "How did you know?"
"Has your Facebook profile picture." He shrugged. "What's a Lassiet Shipper anyway?"
"Uh." She squirmed uncomfortably. "A Lassiet shipper is someone who ships me and Carlton.""What, now?" Shawn laughed. Juliet repeated herself.
"You ship yourself with him?" Shawn asked, disgusted. "You can't do that."
"And why not?" Juliet asked, crossing her arms defensively. "They're just stories. My stories, Shawn, and I can write whatever I want."
"Don't be ridiculous, Juliet, of course you can't." Shawn was still scrolling through her stories on his phone. "You have to write what's canon, and that's us. You definitely can't just write whatever pleases you, heaven forbid you offend somebody." He gasped in disbelief when he saw one of her stories. "You killed a female character for a plot point? How dare you! The feminists are going to be all over you for that, Jules."
"Shawn, they're just stories," Juliet said firmly. "A fanfiction writer can write whatever they want to. That's the whole point of fanfiction. Fanfiction writers can ship me and Carlton, or make Gus white, or the Chief German, or Lassiter gay or Buzz Chief of Police." She paused and frowned at that last one. "Well, maybe not that. But the point is, Shawn, everyone is free to write what they want to. Telling someone they can't write something because it's not canon or it might offend someone is like taking away someone's right to free speech. It's just not ethical."
Shawn thought about this for a second. "But writing non-canon isn't ethical either," he said, and Juliet groaned in frustration.
"Not ethical, Shawn?" She raised an eyebrow. "To quote Inigo Montoya, 'You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.' To call non-canon unethical would be to say that anything outside the contrived imagination of the show's sub-par writers is evil."
Shawn blinked. "It is evil."
Juliet sighed and stood up. "Okay, we're done here."
"But Jules," he called, dancing after her as she stalked towards the front door. "But Juliet, I have to show you the light. Come with me and I can show you the magic of canon, the whole world that awaits you within restraints on creative writing." He chose that moment to break out into a rousing chorus of Disney music. "A whole new woooooorld..."
Juliet slammed the door in his face and marched down to her car. She climbed in on the driver's side and locked the doors.
"Anyway, Jules, where were we?" Juliet screamed when Shawn crawled up into the passenger's seat from the back. "Right. Non-canon is evil. I'm thinking about writing a book about it. It can be like the bible for fanfiction writers. Or maybe I'll write an awareness booklet. Non-canon- Not even once!" He waved his hands in front of him.
Juliet slammed the unlock button and shoved his door open. "OUT. Now."
"But Jules," he whined. "You can't just leave me alone. We're a couple, you and me."
"Not any more." Juliet shoved him and he tumbled out onto the asphalt. "I'm breaking up with you."
"But where are you going?" he whined, sticking his foot in the door as she tried to shut it.
"I'm going to propose to Lassiter," she said decisively, trying to shut the door again. He wormed his way back into the car and shut it behind him.
"You can't propose to Lassiter," he argued.
"And why the heck not?" she shouted.
"Because- because you're a girl," he tried.
"Oh, come on, Shawn." She rolled her eyes. "Could you really see Lassiter mustering up enough courage to propose to me? In 'canon'-" she made airquotes around the word "canon" -"could you really ever see him proposing to me?"
"No," Shawn said defiantly, "because you two aren't canon. We are. I propose to you in the season finale!"
"Well, you can take your canon and throw it out the back window," she snapped, and slammed her foot on the pedal. "I'm going to propose to him because I want to, just like I write Lassiet fanfiction because I want to. Like I kill characters because it's necessary to my plot, and because I want to. Like I write snarky retort stories to reviewers because I want to."
"But Juliet," he whined. "The whole world's going to implode if we don't stay together!"
"Because we're canon?" she said flatly.
"Yes," he said soothingly. "You're getting it now. You see, you can't just go making up things that aren't canon. There would be riots, Jules! The viewers would get confused between what's canon and what's not, and heaven forbid they get attached to a certain pairing or storyline that isn't canon! They would start petitioning the writers and everything."
"Well, don't worry about that," Juliet said flatly. "Our show was cancelled two weeks ago. You don't have to deal with riots, I promise."
"C-c-cancelled?" Shawn shuddered and flopped backwards. "Aaah, my world is imploding! I'm dying, Juliet, and the world's dying with me! Dying, dying, dead and dying-"
"Good." Juliet slammed her vehicle into park and opened the door. "I'm going to go propose to my best friend. Have fun dying." She hopped out of her car and marched toward the building.
She ran up the steps and through the doors, where she found Lassiter at his desk, on his phone.
"Carlton?" she said breathlessly, not able to find the words in the moment. "I, uh, have a question for you."
"Just a minute, O'Hara." He waved a hand dismissively. "I'm busy taking a call from the President. Come back later."
"Carlton, it's really important," she pleaded. He raised an eyebrow.
"More important than nuclear bomb attacks?"
"Yes," she said earnestly.
"Hold on just a minute, Mr. President," he said into the phone, and pressed the hold button. "Yes? It better be important."
"Uh-" She blushed and then, without hesitating, dropped to her knees. "Carlton, will you marry me?"
"Um." He smiled awkwardly. "I must say I am flattered, but can I get back to you after I finish talking to the President?"
"Carlton, please?" she begged.
"Okay, fine." He stood up and took a step towards her. "Yes, Juliet, I will marry you."
She sprung to her feet and was about to kiss him when she heard a shout behind them. "NOOOOO! Don't say yes, Lassie, don't say yes! It's not canon!"
"Spencer, what the heck are you on about?" Lassiter asked flatly.
"You can't marry her! You're not canon! You never were! I proposed to Juliet in the season finale and that is that!" Shawn started jumping up and down like some sort of demented rabbit.
"I can marry her if I want to," Lassiter said firmly, and leaned in to kiss Juliet.
"NOOO! The world will implode!" Shawn screamed.
They kissed. It was the best moment of Juliet's life, and also the last, because none of them had heard the President shouting from the other end of the line to say that the nuclear bombs had been released and they needed to take shelter. The world blew up. Lassiter and Juliet died happy and Shawn died screaming, and all was well with the world because the world didn't exist any longer.
