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/ret'kon/ retroactive continuity.
The common situation in fiction where a new story "reveals"
things about events in previous stories, usually leaving the
"facts" the same (thus preserving continuity) while completely
changing their interpretation. For example, revealing that a
whole season of "Dallas" was a dream was a retcon.
This term was once thought to have originated on the Usenet
newsgroup news:rec.arts.comics but is now believed to have
been used earlier in comic fandom.
(1994-12-08)