[ SECRET POST #242 ]

[shahni.livejournal.com]

⌈ Secret Post #242 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Back to school time! ♥ Please do forgive my early or late posts. ♥ And, er. Have an early today~! 'causeIgottarun!

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 102 secrets from Secret Submission Post #035.
Secrets Not Posted: 0 broken links, 0 not!secrets, 0 not!fandom
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Wednesday, September 5th, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[sevendials.livejournal.com]

1. At the risk of being labeled an elitist, my own fandom has, a serious problem with fans who think they understand the series perfectly courtesy of secondhand knowledge like that. It's a running joke in fandom circles that it sometimes seems like at least a third of people who claim to be 'fans' have no acquaintance with it beyond screenshots, webpages, and other people's fanfiction. Generally speaking, those of us who have firsthand knowledge of the canon can spot fans like this a mile off by the things they produce.

The sad fact of the matter is that a lot of the time the things they produce are riddled with inaccuracies and don't betray any real understanding of what the show was trying to do. I've seen fans in this position try and write fic. It seldom, if ever, works.

I was a fan like that myself for some time, though I never called myself one, and all the secondhand knowledge really did was make me keener on seeing the show (and isn't that really the point of summaries and screencaps? They're not intended to replace seeing the series, just to help people know what they're getting themselves into). I mention this only because my current favorite character is someone who, in all my days going on secondhand knowledge, I did not even notice. I knew everything about him: what he did, how he had got there, what happened to him. I knew all his story arcs. I did not notice him as a character until I watched the show and saw him in action.

It wasn't until I watched the show and really understood the canon, either, that I was able to call out some of the fannish consensus I had been working with as total nonsense. Every fandom I've been in there's been a fair amount of bad fanon flying about the place. The only way for a new fan to tell what's canon fact and what's the product of conjecture, misreading or fangirl favoritism is to go to source. My own favorite character is often portrayed as clumsy, and an orphan. One of those traits is canon. The other is fanon. There's no way to know which is which unless you know the source.

Knowing a series secondhand doesn't make you a lesser fan. What it makes you is considerably less informed than someone who's actually sat down and watched the show. (And, all too often, considerably less fun to talk to.) It's not for me to say how you enjoy a show, but if you've never actually seen it, how do you know that your views on the storyline or characters stand up to even cursory scrutiny from someone who has? I've seen my favorite character slammed as a 'Wolverine reject' by someone who called herself a fan yet freely admitted she hadn't watched the show, simply because of his choice of weapon. That's not an informed reason for disliking a character who has precisely one thing in common with Wolverine - well, two if you count gender.

If that's elitism. I guess that makes me elitist. But if you really like a show, why should it be such a hardship to sit down and watch it?

Not the Secret Poster

[(Anonymous)]

I'm assuming that your fandom is WK.

If it is...man, the fanon surrounding those characters (perhaps especially surrounding Ken, but I'm biased because he was also my favorite, so I read a lot more about him than any of the others) could eat a man alive. I mean, I stopped paying attention around the time Glühen came out, but up until that point I remember it being pretty insane.

And I do think that that was in no small way a result of people not wanting to watch the show (what with the animation and the awesomely ridiculous plotlines) and not having the manga and CDs readily available, but still wanting to write and read about the hot sexy lovin'.

So, yeah, I agree with you. Basing your love of a character off of other people's interpretations of him/her doesn't mean you "love" that character, even if you are popular for your characterization in fanfic/RPs/whatever.

[sparklemagpie.livejournal.com]

Saaaaay, is your fandom Weiss Kreuz? ♥
Man, I miss my terrible VHS fansubs of that series so much. (More for watching Bradley flip Aya over his head like a sack full of pwnage in the human chess episode than anything else really...)

[mojotmonkey.livejournal.com]

...I kind of love how I only had to look at your icon to know which fandom you were referring. The last bits just solidified it.

I'm pretty sure a good 75% of the fandom got into it by reading the works of the 25% who were there already. >_>

[alanahikarichan.livejournal.com]

ILU, you know that, right? *Laughs*

But, seriously, I totally agree with you. <3 While becoming interested in a series, or refreshing your familiarity with it, through other fans is all right-- if you can't be bothered to actually watch/play/read it, you just don't get the whole story.

[hughes]

WORD on this. Though I've never seen Weiss Kreuz, a very similar phenomenon is happening with another fandom I used to love, and honestly, I think it's absolutely ridiculous if people cry elitism at fans who simply ask them to understand the canon first-hand.

[psyienna.livejournal.com]

WK! It was one of my first fandoms and it's sad to hear that the overall quality seems to have degenerated so much. I'm impressed whenever I see someone cobbling the WK lore from the manga, anime, drama CDs, and other sources together into a cohesive whole- good onya!

It's been almost a decade since I fell in love with the series, but their songs are still on my playlist and the WK boys smile at me every night from the wallscroll hung in my living room's place of honor. Some characters will NEVER leave you, no matter how many years pass you by. =^_^=