Canon is the material in the game. RP is what you do with it.

If you've got people arguing that your RP isn't "respecting canon" and giving you a hard time about it, then it might be time to consider finding a new group of folks to RP with. I've got a WoL non-RP main character, a Voidsent in a Lala's body, a fairy godmother who has the Echo and can also use Flow to teleport wherever she wants in RP (boom! surprise grandma!), a geomancer hiding out in the Conjurer's guild, and a robot Viera made by the Garleans who was found deactivated in Rabanastre and taken to Eorzea by the Ironworks, who got her functioning again.

Are any of the non-WOL ideas "canon" in the story sense! No, of course not! Are they still fun to RP? Heck yeah!