Snowflake Challenge: Day Twelve
What makes you fannish? And by that we mean, what is it about a tv show/movie/book/band/podcast/etc that takes you from, "Yeah, I like that," to "I need MOAR!!!" Is it a character? A plotline? The pretty? Subtext that’s just screaming to be acknowledged?
In your own space, tell us what it is that gets you to cross that line into fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
I don't really tend to do fandom that way? Fandom is usually not about the canon for me, like, my first steps into online fandom were not motivated because of a source material I really loved; I went looking for fandom because I heard about fanfic and it sounded like an interesting literary thing? Like, for me it was another source of stories, I am pretty sure, and that's still kind of how I do fandom. I'll read in fandoms I don't know if they're writing tropes that are interesting to me or I stumble on a summary that's really intriguing.
Sometimes the fandom will pull me into the canon, and sometimes not. Like, Generation Kill made me watch the source material, which is really great, but the mini-series didn't make me want fic, it just gave me a crush on Alexander Skarsgård and opinions about Nate's face - like, my appreciation of the fandom was enhanced by my having watched the mini-series, but watching the mini-series wouldn't have sent me looking for the fandom, and how I appreciate and interact with the canon and the fandom are different things.
I tend to take on more of a consumer role in fandom, so my motivations for being in a particular fandom tend to be more in line with why you might listen to a CD or watch a particular drama, than having fallen in love with a CD and needing more, or needing to change something somehow.
When I create prompts for things like exchanges that tends to be more motivated by my love of stories in general than a particular canon. I'll go for things that seem interesting to me, or like there's a lot of potential there - like, one of my prompts for a yuletide fandom was zombies, not because I particularly like zombies, but because I felt that fandom/trope match-up had a lot of potential.
When I'm picking yuletide fandoms I've gone with: canons that have really great worlds I'd be interested in seeing more of [Alice (2009)], canons with unrealised ships that I've gotten really invested in [Pasta (TV)], canons with characters I have fallen in love with [Sungkyunkwan Scandal], canons where I'm invested in the creation of fanworks for fanworks' sake [Michael Buble Being Stalked By A Velociraptor (Tumblr)], canons I fell in love with and just want more of [Shakespeare Retold - Much Ado About Nothing]. ...and sometimes canons fall more into one category.
When I'm writing something it's usually for an exchange, and I'll sign up to write canons and characters I'm familiar with and would be comfortable writing in a lot of different ways and reviewing source material a lot, and then I get my recipient's request and just try to make them happy and write where our tastes overlap as much as possible. When I write something outside of an exchange it's a fandom that I'm comfortable writing in and a theme or trope or story that interests me, basically. Usually I'm motivated to write for the sake of writing, but sometimes it's because I've fallen really hard for a particular dynamic [Remus/Sirius] and want to explore that, or, an idea snags me and I start giggling and then there's a line and then there's a story [Someone needs a hero. Someone is holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night.] - it varies.
My fannish engagement isn't really me falling in love with a series of canons, but falling for a series of fandoms and the stories they like to tell, that's what lures me in.
This entry was originally posted at http://kiki-eng.dreamwidth.org/108603.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
In your own space, tell us what it is that gets you to cross that line into fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
I don't really tend to do fandom that way? Fandom is usually not about the canon for me, like, my first steps into online fandom were not motivated because of a source material I really loved; I went looking for fandom because I heard about fanfic and it sounded like an interesting literary thing? Like, for me it was another source of stories, I am pretty sure, and that's still kind of how I do fandom. I'll read in fandoms I don't know if they're writing tropes that are interesting to me or I stumble on a summary that's really intriguing.
Sometimes the fandom will pull me into the canon, and sometimes not. Like, Generation Kill made me watch the source material, which is really great, but the mini-series didn't make me want fic, it just gave me a crush on Alexander Skarsgård and opinions about Nate's face - like, my appreciation of the fandom was enhanced by my having watched the mini-series, but watching the mini-series wouldn't have sent me looking for the fandom, and how I appreciate and interact with the canon and the fandom are different things.
I tend to take on more of a consumer role in fandom, so my motivations for being in a particular fandom tend to be more in line with why you might listen to a CD or watch a particular drama, than having fallen in love with a CD and needing more, or needing to change something somehow.
When I create prompts for things like exchanges that tends to be more motivated by my love of stories in general than a particular canon. I'll go for things that seem interesting to me, or like there's a lot of potential there - like, one of my prompts for a yuletide fandom was zombies, not because I particularly like zombies, but because I felt that fandom/trope match-up had a lot of potential.
When I'm picking yuletide fandoms I've gone with: canons that have really great worlds I'd be interested in seeing more of [Alice (2009)], canons with unrealised ships that I've gotten really invested in [Pasta (TV)], canons with characters I have fallen in love with [Sungkyunkwan Scandal], canons where I'm invested in the creation of fanworks for fanworks' sake [Michael Buble Being Stalked By A Velociraptor (Tumblr)], canons I fell in love with and just want more of [Shakespeare Retold - Much Ado About Nothing]. ...and sometimes canons fall more into one category.
When I'm writing something it's usually for an exchange, and I'll sign up to write canons and characters I'm familiar with and would be comfortable writing in a lot of different ways and reviewing source material a lot, and then I get my recipient's request and just try to make them happy and write where our tastes overlap as much as possible. When I write something outside of an exchange it's a fandom that I'm comfortable writing in and a theme or trope or story that interests me, basically. Usually I'm motivated to write for the sake of writing, but sometimes it's because I've fallen really hard for a particular dynamic [Remus/Sirius] and want to explore that, or, an idea snags me and I start giggling and then there's a line and then there's a story [Someone needs a hero. Someone is holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night.] - it varies.
My fannish engagement isn't really me falling in love with a series of canons, but falling for a series of fandoms and the stories they like to tell, that's what lures me in.
This entry was originally posted at http://kiki-eng.dreamwidth.org/108603.html. Please comment there using OpenID.