Content Warnings: internalized transphobia, spoilers for Love Me Like You're Real
Love Me Like You're Real (itch.io store page) is a comic by Cynthia Yuan Cheng. Its main character, Terr, keeps having crushes on guys who don't like them back. They find themself inside the world of their favorite fantasy novel and start dating Wujin, their fictional crush. Except it's not really the canon story they're inside, it's their headcanon version of what they want their own and Wujin's lives to be like.
Terr fell in love with Wujin because of the difficulties of his life. He's got a dark past, he fought a war, but most of all, he loved someone who never loved him back. It's that last one that makes him so meaningful to Terr, who's had a long series of romantic disappointments. Before they end up literally in his world, they recognize their own heartbreak in him.
But they don't want to live in the world where he's hurt- they want him to be happy, living peacefully in a beautiful place. "Why do people write fanfic that has nothing to do with canon?" It's because people- not just Terr, but lots of people- get attached to characters when they're hurting, but we don't want them to hurt forever. Canon is just the start of a fictional relationship, it doesn't have to be the sum total of it.