fandom, jkr and me

[smirkingcat]

so this will be a sort of proclamation post, in which i shall try to explain where i stand in fandom things and what my view on things is...


so to get it started, i guess i have to start with the beginning and tell you how i started out, because that is the only possible way to explain how i got to where i stand.

i first started fanwork back in 2005, it was exclusively in german and it was anime related, at the time i already knew i would major in japanese studies (as i had planned to do since i was 10 and way before i ever heard about anything like anime and stuff) and was obsessed with it back than just as much as i am today (through my anime consumption would not get overly high until 2008 when a friend introduced me to certain things like torrents (｡-_-｡) yes i was completely useless for this long...

fandom related i did a lot in gundam wing, one piece (i am still a firm believer of either zorro/sanji and zorro/hawkeye) and sailor moon (haruka/michiru but of course).
i was happy in those corners and slowly (as i had to adapt to english more and more due to my studies) i also ventured out and searched for english fanfiction- that was like a whole new world, you have nooo clue how big my fandom suddenly got! so big that in fact is was more than a little intimidating

my next change was that due to my studies i came into contact with 'otaku' theory and i did 3 papers on them and interviewed some of them via skype- that was so cool i cant tell you how much i liked talking to these folks and how nice they were to me!
and so i also learned the ins and outs of japanese fandoms and what is what, and those stuck to me even now not being as active in that fandom as i was back then the rules still apply in my mind (this is important as it explains a lot of stuff later on).

2013 marked the change as i first discovered that there is an hp fandom and that i wasn't the only one seeing the UST between harry an draco (/ω＼) yes, back then i was still very naive!

and then i was here and took part in the hp coiner of fandom (and gosh i do like it here- you ppl are amazing!) but there are some things, which, simply because i do come from another coiner, dont sit with me right.

and now i shall try to make it understood, why i so whole heartily ignore them:

1. pottermore
   while jkr put a lot of work into pottermore for me nothing written there will ever be considered cannon,
   in japanese fandoms there is cannon-all that is majorly published and distributed via the old system of publishers be it movies, films, books, audio books
   all the other stuff the not official published work is fannon; _even_ if done by the author!
   and it is not uncommon for the author to produce a small side work to their biggest work for comic-cons etc and it's quite a reward and an achievement to get an independently produced, small work from your fav mangaka or author
   but it's still considered fanon, even if the author says it, BECAUSE not everyone will be able to get that sort of information and while pottermore is on the net, it is also quite difficult to really find information there
   so this cat completely ignorespottermore and sees it more as fanwork from jkr
   


2. the fantastic beast und where to find them movie
   will be ignored by me too, because i simply do not see the reason to not ignore it, and i do not like my timelines fucked afterwards


3. jkr and her "of course that is the way it is, didnt you read that in the book" tweets
   that are annoying as hell especially when it wasnt i the books in the first place namely 2 points that really ticked me off
   
   
   
   1. the "dumledore is gay, it's obvious" - one
      no, it was not obvious since everyone from the wizarding world dressed peculiar and dumbledore is old, so presumable from another time- it makes no sense to deduct anything by the way he dresses, also if it is really that important to have it known she could have put it in the 7th book!
      but that is just her catering to the fans in a way that makes no sense, because in a children's book what does the sexual life of the headmaster really matter? has anyone of us ever really considered the sex lives of our teachers? teachers are to children non-persons, most of them are shocked to see them out of school as kids believe teachers can only exist in school, so really this point makes no sense
   
   
   2. the hermione granger as a black person- controversy!
      and booor this one has me up in arms!
      NO i'm not a racist, in fact i cant care less about the colour of skin, i'm always and will always look at the achievements and the behaviour of a person (just to get that out of the way)
      there are two ppl who make this point way better then i ever can so me is just rambling but tl;dr in this vid explains the reasoning and dicta_contrion finds all the right words in this post
      
      why i am so angry at this is first because i CANT understand what makes a fan from jkr's work go and ask her if is ok (i believe the exact wording is: what she "has to say to that?") with hermione granger being played by a women of colour- really what should she have answered to that question in the first place? no? not really, i considered her white because of the demographic of great britain?
      i think not even an amazing author like she would have been able to live down the reproductions to that
      but after all her art clearly shows she didn't consider hermione to be black and why would she? back in the day blacks where even more of a minority in britain as they are now
      and bushy hair is no reason to assume skin-colour; whites also have the trait for curly, bushy hair and if you are going to say that means they have blacks in their family i have to send my friends your way, as they make that point better then i do, because no they dont, especially because even as it was 'modern' in britain and america to have black slaves that trend never caught on here where i live
      if the black actress was the best at the try outs i'm happy for her and go her great achievement, if she is just there because of her skin-colour and to fill the quota i'm rather sad, but she herself is rather unimportant to me as i will never get a chance to see that play, i'm just pissed at jkr for her never ending need to change things the way it would give her good publicity, even if at this point i understand why she did it
      
   
   
   
   


4. the random writing style of words
   i wont follow jkr's way to write stuff, because it makes no sense to me, in my anime fandoms things we assumed are true for that universe, are a fixed part on that universe are of course written like everything else.
   in a world full of magic with ancient history and aurors being always there, it is fair to assume that aurors are common like a policeman - you do not capitalize the policeman, so why would i capitalize the aurors? they are essentially the same and as such should follow the basic english rules, since apparently everything else does: for this universe jkrs made up words are real and existed for a long time, it makes no sense that they get special treatment from a wizards point of view, and therefore i dont understand why i have to follow arbitrary rules and not the common ones



5. and lastly jkr!
   i have great respect for what she achieved as i know now through experience, that it isnt that easy to finish a story and it's impressive that she managed to work on it during depression!
   congrats to that and i applaud you jkr !
   i even admire her good will in giving away so much of her money for good causes! that truly makes her a human to aspire to be, a fantastic role model and just wow on that too!
   however the last few years she still is only playing around with hp, and while i can understand that - it is a fantastic play ground- where is her next book/story/anything not hp related? and i have heard that she did something under a pen name apparently? but truly if i have to go out of my way to find it, it doesnt count because that is my prerogative as a reader
   and her constant need to satisfy everyone also makes her weak in my eyes, so many of the things she changed later on, explained in pottermore or simply said it's always there deserve one answer and one only: "as this is a children's book and we experience it all through harry's eyes i didn't think harry was thinking in such terms neither was i!"
   but no she had to go and cater to everyone destroying any integrity she had in my eyes...
   


so this are my views and my views alone, also i intend no offense to anyone, i just tried to explain where i am at certain things, so that things i do or dont now or in the future will make sense,
thanks for reading

Comments

[nimielle.livejournal.com]

Sadly I don't have time read it all, but without coming from the anime side of things, I've always considered the books canon (except for the epilogue, wtf was that?!). Anything published after is as you said like fanfiction, it's a different interpretation of the source material. I did like almost all of the films and some things might also subconsciously flow into my canon.

That said, the beauty of fandom is that we can decide what we want to do with the source material (the series of books), if I find inspiration in any of the additonal fandom material published by the author, I might include it, or I might now, but like to you, that is not canon and frankly, aren't we ALL writing A/U when we write H/D? I honestly don't mind seeing it as that.

So, no worries, I totally agree with you. :D

[smirkingcat.livejournal.com]

jap i agree it is very nice that we can choose what we want for our stories and our fanworks, and cherry pick what of her ideas fit into our stories, even if it does not always sit right with jkr
and yeah the epilogue... NOPE!
and thanks for your encouragement and agreement ;)

[josephinestone.livejournal.com]

My husband (who interesting was into anime in high school and still watches it some now) has always said pottermore and the like are just JKR's fanworks.

On Dumbledore being gay, I agree and disagree with you on points. I thought it was obvious that they were in love with each other on my first read, but I'm used to picking up on stuff like that. I was disappointed while reading it that she didn't make it canon, but had consoled myself in that it was a children's book and she never do that. Her publishers probably wouldn't let her, so we only got the subtext.

That she later says it as if it's no big deal and acts like she made it clear in the book did make me angry. Because, although it was clear to me, there are tons of books that it's clear (like the whole thing of A Separate Peace and that hazy scene in the Great Gatsby where the guy is messing with his belt/the mc's button and we get this huge time gap for no reason or in The Catcher in the Rye the thing with the professor coming on to Holden.) that they are all completely obvious and denied by most everyone at the same time. The last two examples, I don't know why they added those scenes with or without the subtext. So it is more understandable to me why people dismiss them. The scenes themselves just don't make a lot of sense.

But with Dumbledore/Grindelwald it actually does matter to the story a lot. If we want to look at these as middle grade then maybe the readers would be more attached to their friendship than that Grindelwald was the love of his life, but that's not what book seven is treated as, and we see with many other couples JK use the "this is the person they are in love with" to equal more pain than just a friend. Because by our teenager years and up, we acknowledge that losing the love of your life is a different thing than losing your best friend. So in my mind, it was a huge disservice to her readers to play them off as "just friends" in the canon because it weakens their story. It gives it less emotional impact. In book seven we feel more for Hermione when Ron leaves than we do for Harry and for good reason. Leaving the true nature of Dumbledore and Grindelwald's relationship out of the canon gave us the emotional impact of when Ron left Harry, but without the impact of Ron leaving Hermione.

Sorry, lots of feelings about the whole "it's obvious" and it was just in the same way that Hermione/Ron and Harry/Ginny were from the beginning, but they all got their kiss in the end so that none of us could deny it - would it have been so hard to have one of those characters that told Harry about Dumbledore's youth to just say since it was so obvious?

Her random capitalization is really annoying.

It's not an accident that so many great writers were depressed or alcoholics. I personally don't see depression as a hindrance to writing but something the fuels it. Although, I realise it is different for everyone - it's pretty common for people with depression to write a lot. As I become less and less depressed, I've had to learn how to be productive. When depressed sitting alone in my room writing is all I ever want to do. As I'm coming out of that, I want to go out and spend time with my family and friends and do things. Where I used to have that desire once a month or so, I now have it almost every day. I'm trying to turn my writing into a work schedule, so that I can get it down and work and improve. Where before it was the opposite - my life was the schedule because I didn't want to take part in it.

JK Rowling has been writing stories since she was nine years old when to university for literature so studied this and had various jobs where she wrote. That she wrote a successful children's novel isn't surprising in the least.

[smirkingcat.livejournal.com]

1. WOW thanks for so many thought food
and go your hubby for liking animes- did he see one punch? if not say i highly advertise it, and the next season is supposed to be out this summer, and he may have to just laugh through the first 3 episodes but it gets interesting very fast very soon!

as for the dumbledore is gay thing- i presume that you have read a lot of books where the "homosexual lifestyle" was only hinted? and maybe at first even checked out some reviews to that or researched it a little to notice?
because i did not do that, and i did not pick upon the gay thing in the catcher in the ray before i went and did research on it either, i simply do not read books with the interest to this subtext, as i really do not care bout whom ppl sleep with, weather in reading nor in real life
and for me nothing is more important than a real friendship- my hard blow was not ron leaving hermione but ron distrusting harry in goblet of fire and ron snapping at harry and leaving the trio
i do not believe in eternal and very important first love (that may actually be a cultural thing, as marring your high -school sweetheart is NOT the done thing, and it wasnt so in the past here either)but friendship has a very high value here and i value it even beyond that: i would betray my lover in a heartbeat for my best friend!
so it was a blow to me, more then any lover relationship ever could have made
but that ist the thing as you say: "would it have been so hard to have one of those characters that told Harry about Dumbledore's youth to just say since it was so obvious?"
if she really wanted it known why didnt she do that?
and i get that it is a child's book and that she has some guidelines that she has to respect, but with all the death and killing, she totally would have been able to put in a reference and make it a lovers relationship if she wanted to
and even through now that i know that, i still do not see it that way simply because of my value system

thank you! it is annoying to and to mee the random capitalization also pulls you out of the books- now with all the fanfiction i have read i dont mind it any more and just ignore it *shrugs*

and *hugs* its amazing to hear that you are happy enjoying life! and take a part in it! that is just fantastic

and while it may not be surprising, the impact it had and that she has done it is still an achievement, that she made a living out of writing and chose to go that way and risk so much to become a writer for me takes nothing away from that achievement, because the end product is still WITH all it flaws and we all know there are so MANY of them a really nice read and a great entertainment for kids and adults alike (and here she really saved the bookmarked, like it was hard to get a book before hers hit the shelves now all of our book shops are stable once again *lucky me*)

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad that tremendous ramble was helpful for you!

It makes loads of sense that things about a fandom would seem strange after coming from another. I find it really interesting as a larger phenomenon, and can also see where the things you mention would be upsetting.

Most of all, even though it takes some adjusting to, I'm glad to hear that you're feeling less depressed! ♥

[smirkingcat.livejournal.com]

that is not a ramble it is all the right words in all the right places ;) i could never have put that down! so thank YOU for the hard work

yeah, i thought after 2 years i really would get used to "how stuff is done here" but nope i simply cant because the first set of rules was here before, and while i can accept others doing it their way, i like to do it mine because comfort zone- everyone is free to do how they like and i like how many awesome works are created that way !

i think that last comment is meant for jo?
but me is fine too ;) and very happy just not very productive atm LOL my mojo machine might be dis difunctioning but well i shall give it some rest and see what will happen later on

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Oh damn, I'm sorry!! I was scrolling up and and down to reply and you're absolutely right, got confused between your post and Jo's. But I'm glad you're very happy! That's excellent! And think giving the mojo machine a rest is a good idea. Sometimes I think it's one of the most necessary parts of the process. <3

[smirkingcat.livejournal.com]

all good no worries!
and and yes atm all is good in cat land, as far as i am concerned
the no time for anything thing- might get on my nerves a few days down through LOL
and yes apparently my mojo machine just needs a time down and unwind, so i agree it is a very necessary process! to make the ideas flow again- thanks for pointing that out to me, i was getting worried