OT: chat about fandoms?

[hazelwillow.livejournal.com]

I've found myself missing this community of late. I've been spending too much time on tumblr and I miss having proper discussions! That said, I've been trying to think of something to discuss, and I'm coming up a bit blank... I really just want to chat, but I don't have a specific QT-related question, so... how is everyone doing? What's your favourite flavour of tea?

Or, we could talk about fandom. Here's some things I've been thinking about:

I love Sounis because I think this is the only fandom I've ever really been in that hasn't in some way or other tainted (not necessarily for the worse, but in some way changed) my experience of the original content. For instance, while I am a huge fan of the Harry Potter books, I always stayed sort of on the edge of that fandom as a teenager because a) it was hard to find the sort of in-depth discussions and theories I enjoyed, and b) a lot of the material was (I think) informed by fanfic and didn't actually match my experience of the books (ex the popularity of Draco, etc). I was an avid consumer of news and whatnot, but I didn't delve into fanart/fanfic much. Since those books have finished, I've kind of bent my rules and delved in more, but I'm still a canon kind of person.

Lately I've been reading more fanfic, and I love love love it. It's so powerful and amazing and fun. But it's still sort of a double-edged sword. It can be incredibly satisfying, especially if there's something I find lacking in the original (this happens a lot more with tv shows, not books so much for me). But it does change my view of the original. Suddenly I have other people's perceptions of the characters and all these other scenarios in my head to contend with, and the danger is that they can supplant my own imagination. Or, maybe they add to it in a positive way. Fanfic is so incredibly fun that I think for me it's often worth it, but when I go back and look at the original, I do feel that a bit of my freshness of mind, when relating to it, has been lost. There are still fandoms I'm incredibly reticent about reading anything, especially non-cannon things in (Harry Potter, still, for me).

So, question. What other fandoms are you in? And do you ever stay out of a fandom because you don't want other people's views of the material getting in the way of your own experience of the story? Or is that just me? :P

Where Sounis and Queens Thief is concerned, I haven't had that problem, probably because the discussion on here is so illuminating. I have a much deeper understanding of the books than I did before, which is absolutely wonderful. I also think it helps that people talk about having different views on the characters and there's no all-pervasive reading of the cannon that gets to be dominant in the discourse? There are some people who still don't like Irene, for instance, or who tend not to re-read one book or another for whatever personal reason. I also think it must have something to do with Megan's magical writing ability, which leaves so much up to the individual imagination but at the same time is so consistent in its hinting that a lot of us come to the same conclusions anyway (and have the same headcannons, as it were). Also, Megan herself is all for people imagining things however they want.


tl;dr fandom: does it supplant your own imagination sometimes? Or just tell me what kind of tea you like.

I like rooibos.