One thing that I've learned over the years is to cede possession of a storyline or character arc to the fans if they've come up with something better that they

One thing that I've learned over the years is to cede possession of a storyline or character arc to the fans if they've come up with something better that they cherish. They will continue to build whether you like it or not. In original Minoan or Mycenaean mythology Pan was some terrifying deity that required sacrifices and complex rituals to halt his plagues and dearth of animals. Some fifteen hundred years and two regions later and he was a drunk goat man who liked to shag forest spirits in the dawn light while people cheered him on. Same with the King Arthur legend, where Sir Lancelot literally began as fan fiction who became a core part of the mythos during the shifts originally from heroic honour to stately honour to chivalric honour. In more recent years we've got Scooby-Doo, where Fred has gone from just being the guy who drives the van to being a romance oblivious himbo with a love of engineering but absolutely no skill in it thanks to over fifty years of parodies and copyright skirting fan references influencing the official works. Fanon can and often will supersede canon, to the point where after a generation or two the fanon is woven into the canon. You will never stop this process, so you might as well make a fertile field for the audience's ideas to grow after you've harvested your story.