changeling | Fandomness. (Reply)

velvetrain just wrote this great article about the Harry Potter fandom. I was going to leave her a note, but then it started to sound too much like an essay, so I'll write it here.

Her basic hypothesis is that the HP fandom is where the true fans reside, and that anyone not participating in the online fandom isn't really a fan. This sounds harsh, but you should read the whole thing. It makes sense.

I'd never thought of it in that way before, but I agree. Fandom does so much more than just create a lot of fic (mostly badly written) about the same stock characters. The fandom is best when there are variants on a theme, endless improvisations on the same leitmotifs and characters. I like and respect

cairnsy not just because she writes awesome fics (which she does), but because of the rants and essays she writes on the characters. It's thanks to her that I respect Percy as much as I do; he's no longer a boring background character, but one of the most tragic characters in the series.

I'm sorry, I'm sure I had other stuff to say, but it's just melted away (like an ice cube on a summer's day)

In other fandom news, Cassie has just written her wrapup of the CoS US premiere. It's filarious. I had immense difficulty not laughing out loud in the computer rooms at uni.

skylark wrote this post about rabid shippers. I must say that's not for me. I have a few preferred ships, but I find no joy in telling other people their ships are bad/wrong/not canon/whatever. I'll read pretty much any fic, no matter the ship (although I must say het doesn't generally float my boat, and also tends to be badly written - the major reason I shy away), but I'll lose interest if it's written badly. Although I consider Sirius/Remus to be practically canon, it won't stop me reading Sirius/Snape or Remus/Snape (I'm sure I've read at least one well done version of the latter).

Oh, and Jason Isaacs (in that film clip which has subsequently vanished from Counting Down) has finally convinced me that Lucius Malfoy can be sexy and (gasp!) an interesting character. I can't wait til CoS.