"I am developing a strong dislike for the term "canon"."

Me too, but mostly because I see it used to defend not thinking imaginatively. I like the differences from one GM to the next. Maybe I won't ever use them, but I can still have fun appreciating them. One of my best friends and I have been back and forth in each other's campaigns since D&D in a box; his specialty is low-magic campaigns (regardless of genre or universe) whereas I lean way the other way.

We have fun with the difference; we'll probably never do things "the same".

In the same way, I see any given Dresden campaign as "based on" (okay, if JB was actually the DM, I'd say "in") Harry's universe, and the differences are a source of coolness and interest.

I really like this:

"The answer (as I see it), is because consequences aren't an objective measure of your ability to absorb punishment. They're a narrative measure of your character's ability to affect the plot by deciding where and how much the enemy hurts him. Having a consequence slot taken up with "crushing worry about debt" doesn't mean your character can't suffer three or more physical injuries, it just means that the character doesn't have the protagonist-power to keep the opponent from deciding exactly how much injury they want to inflict via a taken-out result. It's not like the character has lost the ability to defend himself (that's represented by skills), the character just doesn't have as much narrative control in the greater context of the story."

If anyone has read Charles T. Tart, they might be familiar with his concept of Attention-Awareness; it's related to the idea of Gate theory for pain, and the reason you "don't notice" some things when distracted by others.

I guess another way of saying it might be that at some point, when a character has "too much on his plate", one more thing - any one more thing - will be enough to take him out. Consequences are measuring how full the plate is. So to speak.

On the subject of putting information out there to generate the OMG - I should have seen that coming reaction; I recommend "Hamlet's Hit Points" by Robin Laws; it's meant for DMing, but it utilizes analysis of storytelling in a really cool way.

I must still be tired (or maybe it's the combo of Kraken Rum and Ibu that I took for my back pain) because I stared at this for far too long waiting for it to make sense:

"Otherwise, the RAW say that certain things don't have freewill and aren't available as PCs.  If a group agrees that they're fine with someone playing X with a freewill then that's great for that group but that's not the RAW."

That's got to be Rules As Written, right? <insert maniacal and slightly hysterical laughter here> That is the reason I DM, to DEFY the "rules"! (and that's the reason that I game at all).

A PC has the huge/enourmous advantage of having a Player as an active oversoul (bear with me) so that while in the normal course of things John Doe would run FROM trouble, John Doe as roleplayed by PC can overcome his or her normal low refresh to run TOWARD it.

I think anything can become a PC. It's the equivalent of part of the character's soul raising it's hand (and in Wheel of Time parlance) volunteering to become Ta'Verne (no idea how to spell that).

Being lazy - I'm a fan of Wheeler and Rice's "if you like it, steal it" - I just go with Butcher's various comments about black court vamps being "the standard" and pretty common in "the standard" are stories that vamps aren't non-redeemable untill they actually drink blood themselves. So sure, I allow tattoos to work on them in my Dresdenverse.

BTW, I have added a sanity stat to just about every RPG game/verse I've played in since a two-session Call of Cthulu quickie many years ago. Funny what warps us.

On "show, don't tell", if it's not important, give it a quick description and move on.  If it's vitally important, or the POV character happens to be paying very close attention for some reason, go ahead and stuff all the nuances you can into the description.

and it was wisely pointed out:

The failure mode of that is giving away what's going to be important later on and what isn't way too obviously early in the book.

I agree, that's an easy pitfall, which is one reason I think it works better as a style than as a tool, if you can get what I mean.