[ SECRET POST #2978 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2978 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 107 secrets from Secret Submission Post #426.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

07. http://i.imgur.com/kfwPjx0.png

Transcript

[(Anonymous)]

Image: A sweet rainbow shooting over the sky all pretty-like

Text: Sometimes, I think the only use I have for any original canons is that they're needed for FANDOM to exist.

[fingalsanteater]

Hahaha. Yeah. I'm that way with Harry Potter. The fandom trumps the canon and I love all the fic. Same with stuff like Supernatural, which does nothing I want (yes, I'm a bisexual!Dean person), so I turn to AUs. I love that we can take canon and, through a fandom lens, make them sometimes better, sometimes worse and, most of the time, a lot more fun.

[dancing_serpent]

...only to then discover there's barely any fandom there. *sigh* Sad comment brought on by making the mistake of re-watching an old show, re-kindling old love, and finding fandom is pretty much non-existent by now.

[solticisekf]

Nice colours here! All pretty-like, to quote the transcript.
Also, you read too many fanfics, participate in too many fandoms, need to unsubscribe from all your f-list on Tumblr, etc, etc.
Some canons are more enjoyable without fandom. Jane Austen is one of them, for me.

[dreemyweird]

I so can't understand this attitude. For me, fandom holds zero attraction if I'm not fond of the canon. I'd much rather go and read some excellently written original fic (because regardless of what people might say, no contemporary fannish works have come close to the best printed books that are out there; maybe it's because fandom as we know it is a relatively recent phenomenon, but the fact remains).

[(Anonymous)]

I'm the same. The only reason I look for, engage with and invest in the fandom is because I've already become engaged with and invested in the original canon.

I've seen people 'participate' in fandoms who it turns out have never watched/read/whatever the canon it comes from and I don't understand that either. I guess they just want to be in the fandom anyway because... no, I got nothing.

The fandom without the canon is like the hangover without the fun of getting drunk in the first place.

[(Anonymous)]

There's some really awesome fic out there, some of which is better than the canon. Sometimes I've followed a writer across fandoms or even started to watch a show after reading the fic... and then been disappointed by canon.

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen people 'participate' in fandoms who it turns out have never watched/read/whatever the canon it comes from and I don't understand that either. I guess they just want to be in the fandom anyway because... no, I got nothing.

One of my favourite fandom pairings is something I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like in the original canon. Fandom has softened a lot of the ickier dynamics - while leaving enough conflict to be interesting - and added a lot of motivation that's pure fanon, although it makes sense within the confines of the original canon.

...Or so I understand: this is from the point of view of someone who is not familiar with the original canon first-hand :D but has friends in the fandom. I don't participate in the sense of actively writing fic or whatever, but I follow the fan stuff to an extent because I get interested (sometimes) in what my friends are interested in. (Which is just as well, since the friendships would be a lot more boring listening to them all discuss it amongst themselves if I weren't interested.) But the original series is some hundreds of episodes long at this point, and I just don't have time to keep up with it (even if I thought I would enjoy it. Something of which I am by no means convinced).

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt

Don't you want to formulate your own interpretation of the characters and their relationships though, rather than what you know third-hand from other fans? As subjective as a lot of interpretation can be, I'd be worried that I wasn't getting a true or accurate reflection of, well, anything if I hadn't watched/read it for myself. I definitely couldn't form enough of an attachment to read about characters I didn't 'know' in that sense.

I get taking recs and suggestions on what to watch from your friends, but isn't it possible that it's your friends' interpretation that's given you the impression you wouldn't enjoy something, rather than finding out for yourself?

I guess, like the ayrt, I don't understand why you'd fandom the fandom rather than the actual source material. Because you're just fandoming other people's interpretations of something, rather than the thing itself.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

In this particular instance, I'm fairly sure I'm not getting an accurate reflection of canon! I'm also reasonably sure that I don't want one. It just doesn't appeal all that much first-hand. (Of course I can't know for sure and maybe I'd be pleasantly surprised, but I'm fairly confident in my evaluation, from what I've heard from friends and other trusted sources.)

Since I don't really have time to catch up on the (massive) original, it's a moot point... but I've heard enough cautionary tales of the, "From all the hype I heard about [thing], I thought [thing] would be awesome. But now I have [watched, read, whatevered] it for myself, and it sucks! I am so disappoint!" variety,

I have fun enjoying friends' interpretation of the thing in question; even if it's shallow, I'm fine with that.

[ketita]

Same.
I mean yes I like fandom, but I've got to like the canon, and I've got to be invested enough in the canon to really get into fandom. It doesn't even happen to me with every show I like - I consume far more media than I participate in fandoms of.
And I agree that ultimately, I haven't yet encountered fics that are better than the best books I've read. It's rare that a fic *really* stays with me, and even fics that I remember fondly, if I try to come back to them a few years later when I'm no longer quite as in the fandom I find that they fall a bit flat for me (unlike some books, which I read and loved when I was young and still love many years later). (I also more often find in fandom that when I look back at fics several years later, many are a lot less well written than I had remembered).

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt

Very much with you on going back to re-read fics I'd enjoyed and not finding them as good or well-written as I did the first time. I think it's probably because when you first get into any fandom, you pretty much devour everything there is that fits your ship or whatever other preference you might have, and maybe the sheer enthusiasm makes you less critical?

It's also just a matter of experience -- I remember feeling hugely intimidated by some fics from my early fandoms, only to go back a few years later with a lot more reading and writing under my belt and wondering what had impressed me so much.

But yeah, I don't really have fics that stay with me either, certainly not in the same emotional way as some books. Or even the true canon of whichever fandom it is, really. Don't get me wrong, I've really enjoyed some fics, but I guess I'll always see them as an adjunct to the actual canon so they'll never quite trump that for me. My attachment is to canon, be it before I even venture into the fandom, or after I've left that fandom and stopped reading/writing in it, I'll still love the canon itself.

[ketita]

Agreed. I think part of it has to do with the emotional investment. You're so into the characters that the fics can bypass the critical parts of your brain more easily, and the enthusiasm makes it all good.

I've also come to that realization - there are some authors I used to look up to so much, and now it's amazing to realize that I write as well if not better than they do.

See, you're reminding me of this idiotic argument I got into on another group, where somebody was claiming that NOBODY is ever into fandom for the canon, all people want is archetypes they can tell their own stories about. My stance was no, while maybe some people are like that there are plenty of others who like fandoms for a specific canon, and care about canon more than fanon at the end of the day.
She told me I suffer from "false consciousness" and that I'm wrong.

The conversation didn't really go anywhere intelligent.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

That's definitely been the case for me. I don't really care or seek out any specific quality of fic, I just want to see the characters I've come to love from canon in whatever scenario I'm craving at that point.

Yep, exactly that. I remember the first fandom I actually wrote for (...wow, probably about 15 years ago now), there were a couple of writers who everyone gushed over. And their stuff was so different to the things I'd been reading up until that point that I gushed too. A few years (and a LOT of writing, critiquing, critical thinking and especially a shitton of reading) later, they just read like the sort of pretentious "I've swallowed a thesaurus and now feel the need to regurgitate it on the page for you!" writing that I back-button like hell away from these days. At the time though, both the writers and their audience were pretty young and we all probably thought that's what "Good" writing was supposed to be.

LOL, yeah, no. I write my own original fic for archetypes I can tell my own stories about. Bending someone else's already-formed characters to fit that need seems like a terribly unsatisfying way of achieving it to me. I'm in fandom because I want more of the canon, and more of the stuff canon won't/can't explore, but I still don't ever divorce those characters from their original canon. I see fanworks as out-takes or extra scenes from canon. As "this is what might happen when the credits roll" or "this is what happened before the credits started." Even when it comes to AUs, because the only reason AUs 'work' is because you have a pre-existing knowledge of how these characters act in their own universe, and the fun of AUs is seeing how that would play out against another backdrop.

tl;dr, canon's always at the core for me, even when I'm subverting it, because otherwise there'd be nothing to subvert. I can't understand anyone who'd get into fandoms without at least having canon as a frame of reference, whether you objectively like it or not.

[ketita]

You are me, I swear.

Same for me regarding AUs - if it's too far from canon I just lose interest, because they don't feel like the characters for me. What makes an AU interesting imo is the interaction between the AU and canon. If that doesn't exist, I don't really get into it (hence my massive lack of interest in all the coffee shop AUs, say. I'm also very picky about my fantasy staying fantasy of some sort).

The only fandom I ever got mildly into without knowing the canon was way back in the heyday of Gundam Wing. I read a bunch of fics, and then searched out the source material. Which I loved, and then couldn't read a single fic ever again because I had no idea how they got from a series all about politicking to... whatever it was the fandom was going on about.

For me if anything writing fanfics allows me to try writing types of characters I wouldn't necessarily have come up with on my own. Rather than push them into the squares I like, I try to figure them out, and I think it has helped me over the years find more character voices and write more diverse types.

[(Anonymous)]

"False consciousness"? Oh good grief.

[(Anonymous)]

Pretty much. I'm in fandom for m/m ship fic of characters I find attractive, and when I'm reading original fiction...it's basically m/f ship fic.

No regrets, I pretty much only like romance. :)

[tasogare_n_hime]

I can kinda understand that. I love the canon of all my fandoms, otherwise I wouldn't be in those fandoms at all, but a lot of absolute favorite things are fan stuff.

[(Anonymous)]

You and 95% of my fandom. *sigh*

(Everyone is entitled to love what they love, so please don't take this as a reproach! Sometimes I just wish I could find someone to squee over the original canon with.)

OP

[(Anonymous)]

OP here. (No time to go through and make individual responses, sorry! Thanks everyone for all the input.)

A lot of comments seem to assume that by "fandom", I meant primarily the fanfic.

Really, what I enjoy most about fandom is the meta. (Good fanfic can fall under the heading of "meta" at times, certainly, but not always.)

I do love some original canons, but even then being able to appreciate others' reactions to them just makes an already great thing that bit better. (Well, usually.) On the other hand there are fandoms - the huge sprawling ones mainly (Harry Potter was mentioned above, that's a good example) - where I love watching the overwhelming fan response, all the different theories and interpretations and wank and general passion being poured into love for a work, even when I don't care much/at all about the canon stuff itself.

...FandomSecrets is all about the stuff I love :) reading the secrets and comments can be thoroughly fascinating even when I have absolutely no clue about the original source beyond what's written right here.