not to pull an “i told you so” but if there’s one theme that imo you should come out of the hamsteak epilogues thinking and asking yourself questions about it’s the value of of the assigned sanctity of “canonicity” with regards to fanwork and how you engage with media
like, i guess to put up a personal example, there are a handful of fire emblem ships that i like that have totally awful support chains, for whatever various reasons. i don’t like these ships for their Officially Sanctioned Canon interactions, but rather the potential of these characters’ personalities and experiences have with each other. i’m allowed to create these alternate interactions outside of canon and that’s like, an okay thing to do
i mean, questions like “what is the essence of a character” don’t have a right answer, but the purpose of the question is more about the process of trying to find an answer than the answer itself. any specific iteration of a character is one whose life has been shaped by an innumerable number of variables that turned out in a specific way. what if those variables had turned out differently? how many variables can you change before that character is no longer recognizable? would they still be the same person at the core? is there even a core?
what i’m saying is that these are great questions to explore and at the end of the day canon is a tool for you to use and to what degree of adherence you want to hold it is up to you and your needs