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Well, I shall now stop pretending not to be part of HP, really, because frankly, once one has ogled Tom Felton, if only ever so briefly and guiltily and post-modernistically ironically, one is lost to all hope and may as well give in.
It has been interesting to switch fandoms (a first for me). It's meant leaving a relatively small (as I now realise -- although not nearly as small as some others, I suppose), chaotic real-person, relatively-short-fic, cast-o'-thousands fandom for a fictional-person, highly organised, sub-divided, cast-o'thousands, canon-obsessed fandom.
What has, surprisingly but perhaps not, remained a constant for me is my interest in the marginal and the rare. I realise that this is something that goes through my life in general. My professional interests are also directed at the marginal and the little-known, with the result that my colleagues never know what I am talking about and I spend my days delving into now-obscure 19th-century art periodicals. Monet, Manet, Degas -- who are they? So, in HP, I am strangely veering towards Crabbe, Goyle, the Dursleys, the giant squid, the odd, the weird. (Much as I veered towards the orc-actors and the stuntmen in lotrips.) The reason I gravitate to these fics is that they can, at their best, yield fantastic insights into character. Because the authors turn canon inside out, like a sock, and reveal basic humanity where it wasn't suspected. They make the squicky sexy, and I love that. It seems to me a sort of ethical thing to do, just I always felt in lotrips that fat people should also be having sex, as should short people and non-white people and ugly people. So perhaps it's no coincidence that I switched from one cast-o'-thousands fandom to another: more scope for the marginal and the rare and the weird and downright wonderful.
Which doesn't mean I abjure the pretty. Never have. *g* Just that I also like to redefine the pretty. :-)
One thing that is different about HP to lotrip is the presence of Evil and of Evil Characters. It's a bit like writing Lotr fps (which is what I enjoyed about writing my one and only fps orc fic). You get to explore the complexities of evil, the motivations for it, the guilt, the shades of grey. Not present in canon, of course, but writ large in fanon. (And, as in lotrips, I continue to prefer fanon over canon.) The ingredient of evil is largely missing in rps because it's too incongruous (a bunch of two-bit actors 'evil'? Only in AU, I'm afraid -- which maybe explains why towards the end of my lotrips time I moved into AU increasingly - DP has evil in it) and also (I feel) a little disrespectful. But it's of course a part of being human, and I like its addition in my new fandom.
Now, canon. Canon in lotrips is a messy, contentious, blobby and ultimately irrelevant conglomerate. I never cared for it. (ETA: Well, not true. I suppose I didn't care for it qua canon but I did care for it as a source of droolsome inspiration. Witness the hundreds of Karl, Dom and Orli pics on my hard drive, alas...) The only thing rps canon gives you is physique and a bit of setting. The rest we make up, and that's what I loved: that freedom and irreverence. This is one thing I find more constraining and daunting in HP: the tyranny of canon. Because there it is, black on white on the page (I am happy to say that I continue to ignore movie canon -- except for the odd oglings of actor pics, a residue of rps habits... yeah, right). And unlike the works of J.R.R., I am not overly fond of the oeuvre of J.K.R. So I see no point to canon-obsession. Except there it is, in the fandom. To a highly honed degree. Whole websites and threads are devoted to arcane canon detail (what was the weather on the day that Harry was delivered to Privet Drive as a baby? how much money do the Malfoys have -- a thread started by myself, ack). There are fewer people who don't give a toss about canon.
And I have also discovered that I myself have a more complicated relationship with fps canon than I did with rps canon. I don't like re-reading the books because they are so bad. But I do like steering my way around what I know and remember and glean from adjunct HP sites. It's a funny interstitial steering not only between the lines of canon but between the lines of fanon (for me). I'm finding that reading fanon helps me to sharpen my characters more than re-reading the odd bit of canon.
I just know that on the one hand, I scoff at canon and get irritated with canon-mongers but on the other hand, I scour canon for evidence; I follow canon discussions avidly and even intervene (!); I get annoyed with uncanonical characters and plots -- but maybe these latter are simply bad!fic..? Hard to tell, sometime, because, after all, the crux of fanfic is still its relationship to some form of canon. That's what drives it, both in terms of the pleasures of reading and of writing.
The main thing that lured me into HP is the quality of the fic, though. There are a lot of fics so there's a lot of crap but there are also some absolutely mindblowing fics, including the best I've read, ever. This is also a daunting fact, because it daunts my own writing (some of you will know that I'm working on a long Draco epic, paired with one fanon icon and with one weird and wonderful oodity but I won't yet reveal). And many of the fics are loooong. They are novel-length! Which is great for immersive pleasure but hell on my printer (because, as some of you also know, I print out nearly everything to read).
On the other hand, writing the long epic and its associated torments and obsessions remind me of the time I was struggling with my Karl/Dom epic, so is maybe not HP-specific but me-specific, when I throw myself into something long and mary-sueish. Except I flatter myself at having got slightly better at identifying my Sue early and working with pov accordingly.
It's also odd being a newbie and a non-writer in a fandom. When I discovered lotrips, I almost at once started writing and posting, so I was always an Author and people Knew Me. But I also thought I had to rely on fic for people to like me so (what with the year's counselling and all) I may be slightly over that and can accept that people may wish to interact with me, even without the entrance ticket of a good fic. But still, it's funny not to be an Author, or rather, a sort of closet-author.
And then there's the whole new community of people. Sometimes I run across someone I know, and that's always really good fun. But there are a lot of new faces (faces...?) and new usernames and people who've never heard of Duck Taylor. It takes a while to sort the wheat from the chaff, the ones I get on with from the ones who're not really my type, the girls from the women.
More recs coming up soon, btw. I've read some really good stuff in the last few days, all overshadowed by Julad's jewel, though. :-)
Hm. To lj-cut or not to lj-cut? Nah, will take a leaf out of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thamiris's book and ponge this onto LJ as is. *gg*
It has been interesting to switch fandoms (a first for me). It's meant leaving a relatively small (as I now realise -- although not nearly as small as some others, I suppose), chaotic real-person, relatively-short-fic, cast-o'-thousands fandom for a fictional-person, highly organised, sub-divided, cast-o'thousands, canon-obsessed fandom.
What has, surprisingly but perhaps not, remained a constant for me is my interest in the marginal and the rare. I realise that this is something that goes through my life in general. My professional interests are also directed at the marginal and the little-known, with the result that my colleagues never know what I am talking about and I spend my days delving into now-obscure 19th-century art periodicals. Monet, Manet, Degas -- who are they? So, in HP, I am strangely veering towards Crabbe, Goyle, the Dursleys, the giant squid, the odd, the weird. (Much as I veered towards the orc-actors and the stuntmen in lotrips.) The reason I gravitate to these fics is that they can, at their best, yield fantastic insights into character. Because the authors turn canon inside out, like a sock, and reveal basic humanity where it wasn't suspected. They make the squicky sexy, and I love that. It seems to me a sort of ethical thing to do, just I always felt in lotrips that fat people should also be having sex, as should short people and non-white people and ugly people. So perhaps it's no coincidence that I switched from one cast-o'-thousands fandom to another: more scope for the marginal and the rare and the weird and downright wonderful.
Which doesn't mean I abjure the pretty. Never have. *g* Just that I also like to redefine the pretty. :-)
One thing that is different about HP to lotrip is the presence of Evil and of Evil Characters. It's a bit like writing Lotr fps (which is what I enjoyed about writing my one and only fps orc fic). You get to explore the complexities of evil, the motivations for it, the guilt, the shades of grey. Not present in canon, of course, but writ large in fanon. (And, as in lotrips, I continue to prefer fanon over canon.) The ingredient of evil is largely missing in rps because it's too incongruous (a bunch of two-bit actors 'evil'? Only in AU, I'm afraid -- which maybe explains why towards the end of my lotrips time I moved into AU increasingly - DP has evil in it) and also (I feel) a little disrespectful. But it's of course a part of being human, and I like its addition in my new fandom.
Now, canon. Canon in lotrips is a messy, contentious, blobby and ultimately irrelevant conglomerate. I never cared for it. (ETA: Well, not true. I suppose I didn't care for it qua canon but I did care for it as a source of droolsome inspiration. Witness the hundreds of Karl, Dom and Orli pics on my hard drive, alas...) The only thing rps canon gives you is physique and a bit of setting. The rest we make up, and that's what I loved: that freedom and irreverence. This is one thing I find more constraining and daunting in HP: the tyranny of canon. Because there it is, black on white on the page (I am happy to say that I continue to ignore movie canon -- except for the odd oglings of actor pics, a residue of rps habits... yeah, right). And unlike the works of J.R.R., I am not overly fond of the oeuvre of J.K.R. So I see no point to canon-obsession. Except there it is, in the fandom. To a highly honed degree. Whole websites and threads are devoted to arcane canon detail (what was the weather on the day that Harry was delivered to Privet Drive as a baby? how much money do the Malfoys have -- a thread started by myself, ack). There are fewer people who don't give a toss about canon.
And I have also discovered that I myself have a more complicated relationship with fps canon than I did with rps canon. I don't like re-reading the books because they are so bad. But I do like steering my way around what I know and remember and glean from adjunct HP sites. It's a funny interstitial steering not only between the lines of canon but between the lines of fanon (for me). I'm finding that reading fanon helps me to sharpen my characters more than re-reading the odd bit of canon.
I just know that on the one hand, I scoff at canon and get irritated with canon-mongers but on the other hand, I scour canon for evidence; I follow canon discussions avidly and even intervene (!); I get annoyed with uncanonical characters and plots -- but maybe these latter are simply bad!fic..? Hard to tell, sometime, because, after all, the crux of fanfic is still its relationship to some form of canon. That's what drives it, both in terms of the pleasures of reading and of writing.
The main thing that lured me into HP is the quality of the fic, though. There are a lot of fics so there's a lot of crap but there are also some absolutely mindblowing fics, including the best I've read, ever. This is also a daunting fact, because it daunts my own writing (some of you will know that I'm working on a long Draco epic, paired with one fanon icon and with one weird and wonderful oodity but I won't yet reveal). And many of the fics are loooong. They are novel-length! Which is great for immersive pleasure but hell on my printer (because, as some of you also know, I print out nearly everything to read).
On the other hand, writing the long epic and its associated torments and obsessions remind me of the time I was struggling with my Karl/Dom epic, so is maybe not HP-specific but me-specific, when I throw myself into something long and mary-sueish. Except I flatter myself at having got slightly better at identifying my Sue early and working with pov accordingly.
It's also odd being a newbie and a non-writer in a fandom. When I discovered lotrips, I almost at once started writing and posting, so I was always an Author and people Knew Me. But I also thought I had to rely on fic for people to like me so (what with the year's counselling and all) I may be slightly over that and can accept that people may wish to interact with me, even without the entrance ticket of a good fic. But still, it's funny not to be an Author, or rather, a sort of closet-author.
And then there's the whole new community of people. Sometimes I run across someone I know, and that's always really good fun. But there are a lot of new faces (faces...?) and new usernames and people who've never heard of Duck Taylor. It takes a while to sort the wheat from the chaff, the ones I get on with from the ones who're not really my type, the girls from the women.
More recs coming up soon, btw. I've read some really good stuff in the last few days, all overshadowed by Julad's jewel, though. :-)
Hm. To lj-cut or not to lj-cut? Nah, will take a leaf out of
thamiris's book and ponge this onto LJ as is. *gg*