Fannish expectations

[dysprositos]

The conversation over in oliviacirce's posts about the differences between the Scary Ponies Oh No (commonly referred to as "book fandom", "SF fandom", "con-going fandom", and "those fanboys over there") and the Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh (a.k.a. "media fandom", "LJ fandom", "us fangirls", and "LJ-centered Western media fandom which reads Metafandom") is spawning all sorts of interesting discussion.

There have been all sorts of distinctions made, among them:

• Demographics: mostly white men versus women with a more-proportional white:nonwhite ratio;


• Fanacs: LARPing, collecting, trivia, filk versus fanfic, meta, fanart, fanvids


• Primary location: conventions versus Internet


• Thinking style: linear versus hypertext


• Relationship with the PTB: worshipful with a side of "I'll be one someday" leading to a tendency to side with them, friendly, officially-sanctioned versus neutral or adversarial, resistive to attempts at commercialization, and little interest in becoming a PTB


• Attitude towards fanacs: commercially viable and potentially career-launching versus fun and non-commercial amateur hobby


• Attitude towards canon: love or hate, but don't criticize, only fixable by fanwank, only one canon versus love and hate, criticize even your favorite shows if they deserve to be, fixable by fanfic, multiple canons

(Note that this is about the overall culture, not individuals by any means. There's far too much overlap for this to be at all a useful metric on the individual level.)

These differences lead to larger differences like the Scary Ponies Oh No dismissing activities, like fanfiction, associated with the Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh, often either because it's not being used as a launching point for a career (because the path from consumer to creator is so much a part of Scary Ponies Oh No expectations, if you stop midway, you're not an amateur, you're a failure); because it's perceived as trying to "fix" or, worse, redo canon and is thus an insult to the PTB; because it's a girl thing; or some combination of the preceding.

(Or, just thought of this, the tendency of Scary Ponies Oh No to bring their "squee, not critique" attitude to bear on themselves, so there are a lot of celebrations of fannishness but not so much introspection of what it means to be a Scary Pony Oh No or what needs to be improved or fixed. There tends to be a lot of "what do we do about the graying of fandom" hand-wringing, but also a marked resistance to any kind of change within fandom, without which young people are less likely to be interested. [Have you seen the SFWA website?] And not many discussions of things like sexism, homophobia, racism, and so on within fandom--whenever people do try to bring it up, the reaction of "we're not like that!" or "if we are, it doesn't matter!" or "we are like that and it matters, but there's nothing we can do about it but wait for the Old Guard to die off" is strong. Whereas one of the defining features of the Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh is a tendency toward introspection and self-critique; that's what Metafandom is for, after all: discussions of fandom, like this one.)

One of the points I made was

I think it is also worth noting that (it seems to me that, standard disclaimers apply) Scary Ponies Oh No expect a greater degree of homogeneity of interests outside the obviously fannish. I.e.: cats, computers, chocolate, RenFaire and/or D&D (or GURPS or whatever), a passing familiarity at least with Morris dancing, anti-Microsoft, &c. I'm not really sure what the equivalents for Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh would be; it's my perception that we're (much?) more likely to be liberal or leftist in some way, while Scary Ponies Oh No have a higher degree of libertarianism, and certainly if nothing else Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh fandom as a whole seems to expect anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, &c. sentiment.

to which aamcnamara replied

I think that the Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh also (to a certain degree) are anti-Microsoft--there are definitely expectations, just different ones. Like you, though, I am not certain exactly what those are.

So, lest this question get lost in the larger discussion: what expectations do we (Western media fandom as found on LJ and other journaling services, and united with such communities as Metafandom, Fandom_Wank, Fandom_Secrets, and so on) have of each other that are not related to fandom but that are not expectations we would have for humanity at large?

I'll start, adding to my comment above: I think that we have a tendency to expect each other to have some familiarity (even if only in passing, through reading each other's meta and reaction posts and out-of-fandom fic) with particular source texts that have or had large fandoms, e.g., Xena: Warrior Princess, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel: the Series, Firefly, the Sentinel, the Man From UNCLE, Stargate: Atlantis and Stargate: SG-1, Harry Potter, Doctor Who and Torchwood, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Star Trek, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and more recently Merlin, Supernatural, and Dollhouse. Not necessarily be fannish about, not necessarily have seen the canon for, but at least have heard of it and maybe have some knowledge of what it's about, main character names, &c.

Comments

[dachelle]

One more note re: Libs fandom - I posited that a lot of Libs ficcers are music fans who happened to discover slash fiction, rather than slash fiction fans who happened to discover a band. It's not a perfect theory, but I think it is true for a lot of us and people who wrote/write fic about indie bands in general.

[elspethdixon]

I expect fannish people to be moderate-to-liberal on the social/political spectrum as opposed to conservative. Not necessarily pro-life/feminist/etc., but not a member of Focus on the Family or an avid fan of Rush Limbaugh, either.

Most importantly, though, I expect people in fandom to have an intense emotional investment in at least one book series/show/movie/comic/some form of fictional thing, and in particular an intense emotional investment in one of more the the characters from said source canon. If their major fannish thing is RPF, I expect them to also be fannish about something fictional or to have been in the past (like J2 fans generally also being SPN fans, LotRPS coming out of LotR fandom, Bandom having strong connections to slash fandom as a whole, etc.). I tend to associate strong investment in the world/setting of a canon but not the characters in particular a little more with the Old School SF fandom crowd, and strong investment in the characters with the fanfic crowd (not that people from both crowds aren't interested in both, but I have this impression that the fanfiction/slash/mediafandom crowd are more likely to be character fans before all else).

I expect other slash/het (as opposed to gen) fans to have shipping preferences -- I know there are many people who don't, but every time I run into someone who reads/writes slash or het but doesn't ship, I'm amazed all over again that such people exist. You'd think I'd have learned better by now, but die-hard OTPing is such a vital part of the way I'm fannish about things that I have as hard a time groking people who don't get/like OTPs as I do those people who can't see slashy subtext even when the writers/actors/creators put it there on purpose ("There is no homoerotic subtext in the movie Ben Hur. You're imagining things.")

The intense emotional investment in a canon/characters is the one I really think is the true constant, more than which canon it is -- because as another commenter pointed out, the fandoms common on fandom_secrets don't line up 100% with the fandoms common on metafandom, but the intensity of fannish love and squee/hate remains the same.

edited to add: I actually associate this (criticize even your favorite shows if they deserve to be) pretty much only with the metafandom circles of lj fandom,, which is the only place I've seen it turn up frequently -- the idea that the things one is fannish about ought to be criticized and examined on the basis of race/gender/etc. I'd say that critical reception of a text is the exception, and uncomplicated squee/love/hate based primarily on one's emotional reaction to the storyline/perceived quality (ex: "the Star Wars prequels suck! You have betrayed us, Lucas!" "Frank Quitely's art makes my eyes *bleed*!" "[writer's name here] is a talentless hack!" and so forth) is the pan-fannish rule.

[nike]

I'd add "asexual" to that as well. I keep stumbling across more and more asexuals in fandom ever since I came out as an asexual slasher and metafandom picked it up. :D

Heck, I'd just about add "queer" in general to my expectations, except that's not quite right. "Non-comformative" is better (or it would be if the spellchecker didn't insist it's not a real word). Even the ones that admit to being straight and in a heterosexual relationship get into things society tends to brush aside, like women's sexuality and rights for minorities (GLBT, disabilities, anti-ageism, anti-sizist, feminism, race, religion, etc).

[jonquil]

We've just had it pretty dramatically proven that fandom does *not* get rights for minorities, and racism in particular.

[nike]

I think you're on to something. I mean, just look at this post and it's responses. How many groups are willing to have an intelligent conversation while simultaneously referring to themselves as the Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh and the other group as the Scary Ponies Oh No?

(I missed where we did the naming, but I suspect it was a very fun conversation.)

[badgerbag]

I tend to assume that's more likely for SPONs but maybe both camps!

[vehemently]

It was in oliviacirce's comments (like, the second one, in fact), and actually I would call THAT a fairly big element of Princess culture: we develop and adopt new vocab very quickly, mostly by usage in context. It was hilarious to watch, all the people who came after that comment immediately picking up the arbitrary names and using them in all seriousness, because, what the hell, they worked in the situation.

signed,
fannish drift can give you whiplash

[vehemently]

I feel the need to report that, back in the lamb-white days days of USENET, critical reception did exist. Why, the X-Files had a whole separate newsgroup for it, because it was so unwieldy and abstruse. A fair proportion of the B5 moderated group ended up in in-depth discussions too: in both cases, more on the fact-checking and imagery-gathering and "wait, that makes no sense" side of criticism than on the social-issues side.

Some of the participants therein ended up Princesses as we know them now (and on LJ, though none are associated with Metafandom that I know of); and some I think were Scary Ponies testing out the waters (B5 was a particularly Pony-friendly fandom). Quite a few others would not today identify themselves with any flavor of fandom.

So it's not the critical reading itself that has developed as the Princesses have gone LJ; it's the spread of critical reading from one or two areas across the wide spectrum of Princess culture (and onto topics more weighty and political). Or anyway, the spectrum of LJ-based Princess culture.

[nike]

Very true, unfortunately, which is probably why it always surprises me whenever I see it happen. D:

I suspect I equate it with minority rights on my part partly because of the circles I hang in and partly because they've always been the main people pointing out to me what's not right about certain things. I actually realized I was asexual after a fannish friend pointed out a webcomic to me with an asexual-identified character in it. Of course, just because I equate fandom with such doesn't make it necessarily so.

via metafandom

[countess-baltar.livejournal.com]

I've been taught to use the terms the "discourse community" is using. It's easier for this Scary Pony Oh No than trying to start from scratch.

As for the basic assumptions, I would guess generally Scary Ponies Oh No are fans of their preferred "text" first and socialization in fandom comes afterward in contrast to Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh who are attracted to the social organization of fandom first and then choose their preferred fannish "text".

[elspethdixon]

Hmm... I think there's a qualitiative difference between paying critical attention to quality/consistancy/characterization/storytelling and criticism based on idealogy. Lots of fans will cheerfully admit that the thing they're fannish about is, well, not actually very good, but far fewer people want to discuss whether it's problematic/[x]-ist/Wrong.

You don't have to feel guilty for loving something that's riddled with continuity errors, whereas there can be a "enjoying this makes you a bad person!/By judging this I also judge you!" vibe to social/political criticism (ex: the way women often get criticized for reading romance novels: "How can you read something so riddled with sexist and heteronormative gender assumptions? You're a bad feminist/being complicit in your own oppression!")

[dysprositos]

And I agree with the value of working out your small space model and then moving forward. As [info] - personaldachelle says, non-SF-F fandom just doesn't spend as much time thinking and talking about what it's doing. Part of that might be that anime and rockfic people tend to be younger, but that's an initial assumption.

I'd love to see this explored, too. My first thought was "maybe you need some kind of critical mass of fans before you reach introspection stage?" But that can't be right, because anime fandom, at least, is huge. (My impression is "all of Japan!" but that is not correct, any more than all of the U.S. is into American football. It is, I understand, far more culturally acceptable, with commercially published fanfiction and all that, so--critical mass reached, right?) And certainly the fandom I'm used to thinking of as SFF fandom (congoing fandom, literary, book, old school SFF, Scary Ponies Oh No) is old enough if that was the cause, yet I don't see a lot of Sherlock Holmes fandom meta on Metafandom. (But, um, Google finds some, so... maybe age is a factor? Quick! List all various fandom subcultures by age!)

Oh, and to further your Idol RPS knowledge: this icon is a chibi my pal [info] - personalali_wildgoose made of Ryan Seacrest and Simon Cowell. I write Ryan/Simon, when I'm not writing HP, and Rymon is sort of the perennial "old faithful" ship of the fandom, and I ♥ them.

I ship it!

Rockfic is music rpf. When certain "mediafandom" slashers got interested in the Fall Out Boy cluster of bands there was discussion that because they were the ones writing the rpf it was different than all other musician rpf, and should be called something different, mostly bandom. The old school rockfic chicks, the ones who've been writing Who and Beatles and Stones slash since the 70s, were like, "um?"

I see! Slashers are clearly special snowflakes! This would make me Annoyed As All Hell if someone tried to do in my backyard. What, are you too good to be a rockfic writer? BRIAN EPSTEIN DISAPPROVES.

I am really digging that you said that! I admit, I've been sort of roughed up in the past by those assumptions—and I don't think you were making them here, at all.

I have in the past, though. Not online, because until a couple of months ago I was a silent lurker who lurked silently, but--good thing to remember. Adding "fandom is multifaceted and huge, you have never seen all of it" to "friends don't let friends drink and post" and "not everyone is like you" and "if lots of people are reading you wrong, it's probably you, not them" to the list of Useful Internet Knowledge.

[jlh]

BRIAN EPSTEIN DISAPPROVES.

That needs to be an icon, like, yesterday.

Another thing I'd add, because I always need to remind myself of it, is "your friendlist/readinglist is not a random sampling, and therefore not representative of any larger group." I need to put that on a pillow in my office, seriously.

Re: via metafandom

[dysprositos]

Interesting! I do think I assume Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh are all either fannish butterflies or fans of fandom in general. All those "fandom is my fandom" or "vidding is my fandom" or "meta is my fandom". Even though I know better, because every time Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh pick a new Huge Fandom to congregate in, Metafandom gets filled up with posts from fannish, um, non-butterflies, trees perhaps? who are all rooted in the previous Huge Fandom and won't follow everyone to the next, because they are not serially monogamous! Fandom is for life! for them.

Plus by now I have the habit of watching a movie or show for the first time and, if I feel the fannish love starting, I look up fanfiction recs for the fandom or ship I'm interested in. (This gets really frustrating for old movies. Where is the Bedknobs and Broomsticks love? Not even so much as one Harry Potter crossover where the children end up at Hogwarts? Come on! I may be known to utter the phrase "you have failed me for the last time, fandom" darkly at unfruitful Google search pages.)

Then again, I see a lot of "fandom is my fandom" with Scary Ponies Oh No as well. A lot of cons are somewhat or completely fandom-non-specific; filkers don't segregate by preferred text (that I know of, but then there's a lot I don't know of); and the expressions of Scary Ponies Oh No fannish pride, Fans Are Slans, mock the mundanes, &c., seem to be fannish-socialization first, preferred-text second.

Of course, I just asked for expectations and assumptions; whether or not these are in any way an accurate reflection of anything is another question entirely. ;-)

[jlh]

If their major fannish thing is RPF, I expect them to also be fannish about something fictional or to have been in the past (like J2 fans generally also being SPN fans, LotRPS coming out of LotR fandom, Bandom having strong connections to slash fandom as a whole, etc.).

That's really interesting, because one of the things I've noticed with assumptions about RPF is that actor-rpf or perhaps bandom—the rpf that is closely connected to fpf fandoms—is the majority of rpf. I don't find that to be true, at all. I'm not sure that the politifandom/fakenews people are necessarily linked in, and I find the rockfic people to be much further out. Idolslash/SYTYCD seems to be a first fandom for a lot of folks, and if anything, they're likely to go into the kinds of fandoms that are new and not tied to SF-F, like Gossip Girl or The Office or HIMYM. I see a growing group of relatively young people who write fanfic as a matter of course while being fannish about any thing, not as part of being a certain kind of SF-F fan. The one place they might have been was main HP fandom, but they saw HP as a teen book, a mystery book, but not primarily a fantasy book—not unlike Twilight.

That said, coming out of HP fandom and all that "feral fandom" criticism, I've been much more aware of the differences between the fandoms I've been involved with and main SF-F fandom (whether old school or new), and as the assumptions that all things fannish are the same slide away, I'm more interested in the similarities, because I think there are many.

[dysprositos]

It is really hard to find a picture of Brian Epstein looking disapproving.



(I'll upload a version that is actually, um, icon size once I get access to the PSP-capable computer again.)

Another thing I'd add, because I always need to remind myself of it, is "your friendlist/readinglist is not a random sampling, and therefore not representative of any larger group."

This is true Internet wisdom! Also, "if you have already tried to indicate that you wish to end the conversation because it is bad for your blood pressure, it is O.K. to simply stop responding." Because, really, best way to stop being in a conversation? Stop talking. Hard to remember, but really very useful.

[dysprositos]

That's really interesting, because one of the things I've noticed with assumptions about RPF is that actor-rpf or perhaps bandom—the rpf that is closely connected to fpf fandoms—is the majority of rpf.

Yeah, I think Pretty Princess Monsters Blargh people tend to think of things like J2 and other show/network-centric RPF, plus bandom, when thinking of RPF. I know I do, which is stupid, because, as you point out, Fake News can/tends to involve RL people as well as character!people, and obviously politifandom (is that what it's called? I tend to think of it as "stories where Rahm Emanuel is awesome rather than sadface", but then I haven't read any since before inauguration) and reality television fanfiction of all kinds.

The Metafandom Selection Effect strikes again!

That said, coming out of HP fandom and all that "feral fandom" criticism,

Argh worst meme ever Y/N? Right before "Snapefen are crazy because they all think they're married to Snape on the astral plane!" It was one woman, people. She did not represent the mainstream. *refuses to say things disparaging furries as a result of HP and Snape fandom disparagement*

(It wouldn't be so bad if I was, oh, I don't know, Cassandra Cla(i)re. I don't like seeing the whole fandom get tarred with the same brush just because her circle of friends and enemies was wanky. I'LL JUST BE OVER HERE LISTENING TO SNAPECAST AND READING REALLY OLD HP4GU POSTS OKAY.)

[dysprositos]

Anyway, I've gone way off the original topic and into a more specific discussion of my fandom

It's interesting! ;-)

The idea of limiting the original discussion to expectations in Metafandom-centric (not sure how to put that) fandom(s) was to capture the culture that exclusiveness creates and homogenizes. Less contact between FPF and Libertines fandom --> less shared culture, was the assumption.

Not that the fandom I'm familiar with is the One True Fannish Way or anything, but more like, at least we're all walking on the same stretch of road, so it makes a bit more sense to give each other directions and discuss road quality with each other rather than with the travelers on a different road entirely, even if we're all going to the same place. (Um. That metaphor kinda got out of hand. Am I making any sense?)

But expectations and assumptions for other fandoms is also interesting! For instance, I now know what bands and genres I need to become familiar with if I ever must impersonate a Libertines fan! (Also *cough* I now know there is a band called "the Libertines". *has no music knowledge--no, seriously, the Who is aptly named for me*)

[dachelle]

Hey, our fandom even made it into the Guardian! I got into Libs fandom just after that article was written - my first fic was written in September 2006. I think it's sort of funny that indie RPS fandom seems to have been forgotten about or viewed as "dead," because for a while I think it was the big music RPS fandom on LiveJournal. And now I wonder if part of the reason for that is that the people writing in it largely didn't fit the model of the Metafandom fan, and then when bandom came along it brought in a lot of Metafandom types.

Hee, I can't imagine in what situation you'd need to impersonate a Libs fan, although I think I'm on record at immigration in the U.K. as being a Pete Doherty fan, which may create its own set of issues when I fly there on Thursday. The band as such doesn't exist anymore (please visit Wikipedia for a condensed version of the sordid soap opera tale), although Peter and Carl and Gary played together recently and they've hinted at a reunion next year. Well, Carl's hinted. Peter's said flat-out that it's happening. Should it happen, I will be on the first plane over (Peter's not allowed in the U.S., sadly, so I must travel to see him, which I've done twice now).

After I commented here I was trying to think of what sort of things we all have in common in our fandom, and it's hard! Libs fans are a very diverse bunch. I mean, I came out of Buffy fandom, and my beta is a big Buffy fan, but I have another friend in the fandom who'd never seen the show. It is a fandom heavily populated by people from the U.K., so points of reference do tend to be U.K.-centric. I also find that for many of the older participants in the fandom it's their first fandom or at least the first in which they've been actively engaged in producing and reading fic, while the younger ones are more likely to have at least read fic for some fandom before. A brief survey on my journal reveals previous involvement in Harry Potter, X-Files, and bandom, and I also have a lot of friends in the fandom who I would say were heavily involved in band fandoms (Manic Street Preachers is a common one), including participating in online forums/messageboards, but not in any sort of fic fandoms for those bands. Also, I would say the older fandom members are more likely to be involved in writing in other ways. In fact, a group of Libs slash ladies is involved with putting together an online literary magazine, which I'm sure they won't mind me pimping here. It's really good. http://vagabondagepress.com/

Oh, and we're pretty much all lefty-liberal types. If anyone went to the Love Music Hate Racism Carnival in London last year, chances are you gave a donation to a volunteer who's involved in Libs fandom.

[vehemently]

You'd be surprised. "Criticism" like mistake-noticing and "criticism" like social analysis elide together as often as not. I think that, 10 years ago, the cultures I participated in did not have the groundswell of people and tools to discuss race issues as LJ-Princesses do now; but that was a function of avoidance of a specific topic, not of a lack of interest in social criticism. (I remember spending many, many words on other topics in a social-analysis way, especially sexism and sexuality.)

I would say that LJ-Princesses have developed over time the willingness to be much more openly confrontational of a fannish object's social defects; whereas the older communities I describe tended to be resigned or ironic in their observations of same. I don't think that's a difference in analysis, however, but a difference in audiencing, tactics, and intent among the analyzers. Also, I mean, that development has been very gradual and recent: maybe three years, maybe four.

(Pardon me, I must go shake my cane and some children on my lawn.)

[bibliofile]

I expect that fans, whatever their position on choice, have put thought into that position. I see far fewer fans with knee-jerk positions on abortion and other issues that are also important to me. I don't necessarily expect to agree with them, but I do expect to be able to discuss those issues.

(This of course does not mean that they won't have knee-jerk reactions on OTHER topics!)

Re: via metafandom

[bibliofile]

Or would you say, instead, that the PPMB tend to put the community first and the text second? Because I'm thinking that the SPON may put the text (with "text" to include fannish culture/history) ahead of the community itself: Knowledge of the text is key to being a part of the community. PPMB see the community itself as primary.

Hmmm. [goes off to think some more & post in own journal]

Re: via metafandom

[dysprositos]

Knowledge of the text is key to being a part of the community. PPMB see the community itself as primary.

Now this, I can get behind.

Love your screen name!

[jlh]

Full disclosure: I was very close friends with Cassie at the time—more real life friends than fandom friends, as we live in the same city—but for mysterious reasons (I think mostly having to do with my being neither hugely popular nor particularly wanky) my name (Clio) was never connected to most of the wank. (I was also very close personal friends with msscribe.) But yes, things got very crazy up in there, and stayed crazy for a while. Though I don't think it was all of that, that really lead to the feral fandom claims.

Interesting that you were in Snape fandom, as I think that was the fandom that was the most interconnected to traditional SF-F fandom, while the rest of fandom (especially the H/D slashers, etc) were coming more out of anime fandom, or were in their first fandom. Snape fandom always seemed very separate from the rest of what was going on.

[dysprositos]

Full disclosure: I was very close friends with Cassie at the time—more real life friends than fandom friends, as we live in the same city—but for mysterious reasons (I think mostly having to do with my being neither hugely popular nor particularly wanky) my name (Clio) was never connected to most of the wank. (I was also very close personal friends with msscribe.) But yes, things got very crazy up in there, and stayed crazy for a while. Though I don't think it was all of that, that really lead to the feral fandom claims.

Wow! So the two of us have had almost polar opposite experiences with HP wank of that era--I wasn't in fandom, so I'm stuck reading reports, and you were right up close to it all. Did you get hit with a "May you live in interesting times" curse? o.O

Anyway, yeah, I think those were the years that convinced everyone that all of HP fandom was a huge wankfest (and what do you expect, with a Tower named for Gryffindor involved? /obligatory Gryff dig) which is ridiculous, because it's too damn huge to be homogeneous in any way.

Interesting that you were in Snape fandom, as I think that was the fandom that was the most interconnected to traditional SF-F fandom, while the rest of fandom (especially the H/D slashers, etc) were coming more out of anime fandom, or were in their first fandom. Snape fandom always seemed very separate from the rest of what was going on.

I don't know about fandom overlap particularly, but yeah, Snape fandom was rather separated from everything else. Mostly because the average person reading the Harry Potter series tended to get the message of "Slytherins: ugly and evil, except for Draco, who is pretty and evil; Snape is an especially ugly git who may still uncomprehensibly be working for good; yay Marauders and Fred and George, isn't Sirius Black hawt?!" Which, um, was a radically different reading from the ones we had, which tended to go more "Dumbledore is a git who oppresses the Slytherins and lets them get bullied TO DEATH, no wonder they all turn out to hate everyone else, it's a survival mechanism to keep them from getting killed by the Weasley twins or Potter; even the best of the Marauders is a coward and an enabler; isn't Severus Snape conflicted and interesting?!"

It was always a shock reading discussions in other fora on topics like "Was Severus Snape born wicked, or was he raised that way?" (answer: he was born wicked, and grew worse) and "Snape's Worst Memory: did he totally have it coming and just got put in his place, or were the Marauders just having a bit of harmless fun?" I'd be sputtering things like "but--it was sexual assault" and "Rowling didn't even show the whole scene, if she thinks it's bad enough to fade-to-black it's awful!" The fact that Rowling thought attraction to Draco was "bad boy syndrome" when the worst things he did paled in comparison to the Trio's worst things, and she herself has this huge crush on Sirius Black--!

*cough* Anyway, yeah, separate, largely incompatible in mindset. I can still type out my favorite authors on LJ in a flash, get to Snapecast or the Snapedom (in hindsight, a bit more iffy of a name than I realized) comm pretty quickly, but I will stare at you blankly if you ask for pretty much any other kind of HP fanfiction but one that recognizes that Slytherin isn't all that bad. Or stories without Snape in them. Umm...Lust Over Pendle? Copperbadge's HP fic? Maya had a bunch of H/D and Hufflepuff fic? I could find some crossovers I liked....

Advantage of huge fandom: insularity within subfandoms.