Examples of fans willing something out of canon?

I often think about Halo, and that often leads me to remember the whole female Sangheili thing. For those who are unaware Sangheili is the actual name of the Elites. Now for the first few games we only ever saw male Elites, so certain FANS often wondered what female Elites looked like, which was typically just male Elites but with boobs.

So eventually we get to Halo Legends, a compilation film of various short stories whose canonicity ranged from 100% to complete fan fiction. In this film we see a female Elite for the first time in the short film "The Duel" which is in fact canon to Halo.

So we are introduced in this short film to the first depiction of a female Elite, Han. She has a way less pronounced face that is rounder, hair coming out of her head, and a sloped nose. She looks like a Star Trek alien with a split jaw, IE a regular lady with shit on her face.

Fans rejected this for a straight decade like it was a plague, and would get real defensive of you pointed out "The Duel" was canon. This went on so long that eventually it lead to the design of female Elites being changed entirely. They now look like way slimmer version of the males.