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#I actually am Jonathan Stroud and this is canon
arip8228 · 1 year
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Lucy: And yeah that's why I left home and never intend on going back- wait. Where are you going?
Lockwood: Where did you used to live again? The exact address is fine.
Lucy: LOCKWOOD NO
Lockwood: LOCKWOOD YES
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takaraphoenix · 4 years
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Hey! What are your favorite fantasy/fairytale books, shows and movies?
Well, that is a very broad question. So... let’s structure this and tackle it.
Phoe’s Favorite Fantasy Books!
I don’t read much, so that’s a very short list. Seeing as you’re on my blog, I assume you know I read and loved Percy Jackson and the Olympians so that. However, there are fantasy series that I love way more than that.
For one the Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire, my favorite author who I adore and worship. Takes the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz and goes “but what if she was actually a restistance fighter trying to overthrow a corrupt government under their dictator, the Wizard?”. It’s amazing, I love it. Hardest recommend for the first two books. Been not too big on the third and fourth though, but that’s what happens when these things aren’t born out of being intended as a series but rather just... sequels... happening.
Golden classic that seems silly to even mention but I love these books - Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I. Love. Them. I love Alice, I love the world, I love the fantasy. One of only three books that I personally allow to classify as modern fairy tales (Peter Pan and Wizard of Oz being the other two. I just... I do think that there is a difference between “fairy tale” and just general “fantasy book(s)”, but these three I do think deserve a place in the canon of fairy tale classics). Also, fun fact: my above mentioned favorite author wrote a third installment for this series for the original book’s anniversary, it’s called After Alice. (I own a signed copy. I squealed very loudly when I opened it.)
My favorite fantasy book series though is the Bartimaeus series by Jonathan Stroud. I adore these books. Yes, if taken as a singular book, the first installment of the Wicked Years, which works as a standalone too due to the series’ nature of having sequels instead of being an intended series, takes the crown, however as a whole, coherent series, including all books in the series, no fantasy franchise beats Bartimaeus for me. It is sarcastic, snarky, fun, filled with heart, totally lacking unnecessary forced romance, has a fascinating world, the writing is a great read. I love this series to bits and pieces.
Now, since you specifically said fantasy/fairytale, I’d be a fool not to mention William Joyce’s Guardians of Childhood, the book-series that Rise of the Guardians is... let’s say a sequel to? While not necessarily fairy tales in the traditional sense, having the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Sandman and Santa as its main characters, it does go very much into fairy tale elements. It’s a really fun read, I personally think that Joyce has a delightful and enjoyable style.
So, that’d be the five book series that I’d recommend for fantasy.
Unless you meant actual literal fairy tale books - then I will have to disappoint you, unless you’re German. Because being German, my fairy tale collection is... well... German. I got this one. Mainly, I admit, for the illustrations - Tony Wolf worked on the majority of them and I love his illustrations, he was the author and illustrator of my favorite children’s book series when I was a kid. Which, talking about fantasy, fairy tales and books, I will absolutely also recommend here. Their English name is The Woodland Folk and it is very adorable and also very scaring for small children because fairies die in it. I was very traumatized as a kid but I still loved it a lot.
Phoe’s Favorite Fantasy Movies!
Now, movies are... it depends on what movies you want; live-action or animated. I do feel that those are vastly different categories that set vastly different expectations. And then there’s the overlapping between fantasy and supernatural in many such movies.
Let’s start with live-action, which is going to be a very short list because I am really not huge when it comes to movies - I barely watch any movies and if, then they are animated in 80% of the cases.
Lord of the Rings. Yes, I know, book-people would have filed that in the category above, but look... I am not a huge reader. And the movies have pretty blonde Orlando Bloom. But I do truly love these movies, I try to rewatch them regularly but consider I less see them as a trilogy and more as one 12 hour movie, it’s always quite the time-commitment.
And, with this one I am never quite sure whether to count it as a movie series or as a mini TV series, but the way they were released on TV, they were a movie series - so The 10th Kingdom, which is basically Once Upon a Time before that came out and without the Disney. It’s about the grandson of Snow White ending up in modern day New York and getting the help of a waitress and her dad to take down his evil stepmother, who is trying to take over the 9 fairy tale kingdoms. I love this series so very, very much.
Also The Librarian, which is a fun fantasy relic hunting movie series. But more on that when we get to TV shows, because the trilogy has a tie-in series.
I do realize that actually the majority of movies in my fantasy/supernatural section are... in fact... more supernatural than fantasy. So, pathetically enough, that is... kind of it.
Now, animated movies is harder because I quite literally have a list with 360 animated movies I saw and liked to various degrees of which the majority would qualify as fantasy due to the nature of most Western animated movies. So I’ll try to “best of” as narrow as possible (seeing as I once successfully managed to narrow my favorite animated movies down to 65...). So, a shorter version of that.
Now, when it comes to fairy tales and animated movies, Disney goes without saying so I’m not even going to say it because it’s very obvious, we all know the movies, seeing the tales. I love most of them, especially their princess movies, with one huge exception. So let’s only name-drop Sleeping Beauty because I adore it, and assume you’ve already seen all other Disney animated fantasy and fairy tale movies and move on from that.
I am also morally obligated to say “Barbie movies” here, because they did a ton of fairy tale adaptations too and the majority of them are fantasy - but to keep it brief, here is a link to my ultimate Barbie movie ranking for more individual recommendations from the Barbie canon and let me also only name-drop my favorite - Diamond Castle.
Don Bluth’s Thumbelina, as well as his Anastasia are two absolute must-sees when we’re talking fantasy (and fairy tale in Tumbles’ case).
DreamWorks wise I love and adore Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, The Road to El Dorado and Rise of the Guardians.
Now we’re getting into what I like to think of as “deep dive” territory because they’re not mainstream, they’re not big names. But I still love them.
Naturally have to say Swan Princess (1994) - the first three movies anyway, I ignore those 3D animated chep looking sequels. But the OG trilogy is a very perfect trilogy, I adore it so very much.
Another total classic would be The Last Unicorn (1998).
FernGully (1992) is a beautiful tale about fairies and one of my absolute favorite movies of all time.
A newer entry here would be Epic (2013), which is also about fairies and was written by William Joyce!
And, even if it may sound silly. The original Care Bears movies. The three from the 80s. I love them a lot, I think they’re great fantasy fun, who doesn’t love a Care Bear they are adorable, seriously.
Phoe’s Favorite Fantasy Shows!
And we move on to our last segment of this ask. I like a lot of TV shows, so I will try to keep this to my actual favorites.
My absolute favorite is Relic Hunter, it is and always will be my favorite TV show. Even if it’s cheesy at times and only has three seasons. I love it a lot. It’s... very much as it says on the tin; hot archeologist and her nerdy assistant search for magical relics.
If you like that genre, you have to also watch The Librarians - the tie-in sequel series to the movies. More librarians! More magic! More artifacts! More fun. I really love this and I mourn that they cancelled it.
Naturally Once Upon a Time - fairy tales and fantasy and I just love this TV show. Skip the last season though.
And all-time classic for me is the original Charmed - three witch-sisters discovering magic together. This was... the first ever show I actually... really consumed, with everything around it. I was totally obsessed with this, I love it. Which is why I won’t touch the reboot at all, because there’s “I loved this thing. Now there’s a new version of it! Fun!” but there is also “I loved this thing, as it is, there is no need to make a new one, why are you touching this?” - and this one was so very near and dear to my heart growing up that it is definitely the second category for me.
Definitely gotta mention BBC’s Merlin, even if it’s very, very, very flawed. It’s still fun, the characters are lovable. It has a scary fandom... in that it’s still alive and thriving, even so many years after the show’s end.
Also Grimm, though more supernatural than fantasy, it is a fairy tale show. In a way. It’s dumb but fun, because the Grimms were actually not just scholars, they were monster hunters and now modern day descendants of them are still out there hunting the same Big Bad Wolves (who aren’t all bad). I don’t know, I love it, despite the occasional cringe.
Now, lastly on the fantasy - Galavant. A musical comedy about a knight. Very fairy tale-y. Very hilarious and lovable. Sadly cancelled after two seasons.
There are many, many more fantasy shows I watch(ed), but those would be my favorites. Though I do have to tag on that elements such as vampires and werewolves are something I categorize as supernatural so they wouldn’t find mention here in fantasy (Grimm aside, due to the fairy tale theme).
I... hope I could provide a good recommendation or two!
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theplatinthehat · 4 years
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*nails my piece of paper to Philip Pullman’s front door*
So, I made a joke earlier today about writing up my grievances with the world-building of the His Dark Materials trilogy. I genuinely didn’t think anyone would be interested enough to ask me about this. But someone did, so I’ve abandoned the actual jobs I needed to do today and went away to cobble together this post to summarise My Thoughts (and no-one was more surprised than I to find that there were more than two).
Let me say that these are my thoughts and opinions on this particular canon of work. I don’t judge anyone who likes them (hell, I love the idea of daemons and I certainly think there are some interesting concepts explored in the series) and you are more than welcome to disagree with me on any (or all) of the points that I outline below. And you’re certainly allowed to acknowledge that there are issues with a text and still find enjoyment from them. I’m not looking to Cancel anyone – I just have questions and I’m prepared to shout them into the void.
If anyone does reblog this, I ask that you don’t tag it with #hisdarkmaterials or #hdm, because that’s unfair on the people who are using those tags to curate a positive fandom experience.
Caveat to all of this – I haven’t read the books, but I have watched the current BBC/HBO series in great depth. I’m also writing a fanfic called The Shadow Mandate set in the world of His Dark Materials and that has required me to do extensive research and engage with multiple sources about the world. It’s as a direct result of this research that much of these questions and critiques have arisen. I am planning to read the books soon though (mainly so I can roast them more thoroughly)
Don’t send this to Philip Pullman (or Philman, as I will probably refer to him from here on out). 1 – he isn’t going to care what I say (he’ll just say it’s a metaphor and to not read too much into it or something equally as infuriating) and 2 – I don’t care what he says.
Now all that boring stuff is done, let’s get to it. I’m putting this all under the cut so the poor folk who want nothing to do with this can ignore at their leisure.
This will possibly get a bit tongue in cheek in places – just a warning
One Church to Rule Them All, One Faith to Bind Them
So, one of my main questions about the world of His Dark Materials is the Magisterium and the Holy Church. And that question is “How?”
Overlooking the fact that this was probably a conscious decision by Philman to Make A Point, I still have questions behind this behemoth of an institution. Based on my research, I’m of the understanding that Lyra’s world parted from our own when John Calvin became the Pope, and transferred the seat of Papal power to Geneva. After Calvin’s death, the Magisterium was formed and they consolidated power from there.
In my mind, this just doesn’t work. Because it makes it sound like Calvin was the only person standing between the Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformation. Whilst he had a big role in the Reformation, he just wasn’t the only person working for reforms (I mean – Luther? Hello? He had 95 problems, and Indulgences were all of them). You could probably argue with me on this, as he was a significant figurehead of the Reformation, but there were so many people working for change in Europe at the time that I would have thought that someone else would have taken that place (you can read more here).
The lack of denominations also doesn’t really sit with me because if there’s one thing I know about Christians, it’s that we love to argue over teeny-tiny details and build whole new ways of worshipping around them. The fact that the Magisterium doesn’t just tear itself apart is, to be honest, quite surprising. And, you know, the Eastern Orthodox tradition was already a thing at the time… (here’s a brief overview of the East-West Schism of 1054)
I’d also like to point out that Papal power was dominant in Western civilization. That leaves a lot of the world for the Magisterium to then suddenly gain power of. Or did Philman conveniently forget that Judaism (although the Jewish people had suffered significant persecution in Europe by this time), Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism (and many others) were all already very well-established religions in other parts of the world that I doubt would have taken too kindly to the Magisterium’s political advances. This idea of a religion having such a heavy-handed control over the whole world just seems a bit too far-fetched for me to believe.
However, I have to acknowledge that I say this as a white, Western Christian – perhaps people genuinely feel that is the case.
I do know that the witches are mentioned at having their own religion, but I can’t really find any information about it, so I can’t really compare them. It could well be that other religions and faith practices are mentioned in the books themselves, but I’m struggling to find them (do the shamans count? I’m not sure). Perhaps this is just me, but one religion consuming the whole world (or, at least, the vast majority of it) doesn’t strike me as particularly plausible.
 Beast from the East
This is probably my most serious critique of the series, and one that’s actually been the most nightmarish for me to deal with in my own expanded world-building of Lyra’s world for The Shadow Mandate. This is an issue that has been discussed at length Marek Oziewicz in the paper ‘Representations of Eastern Europe in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Jonathan Stroud’s The Bartimaeus Trilogy, and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series’ – which I highly recommend you read!
(And it dunks on Ms R*wling too – what a treat!).
I’ll do a little summary for those of you who haven’t got the time to read a whole paper:
The His Dark Materials trilogy is told from a very British point of view (understandable, the author is a white British man)
Britain is a positive and exciting place, where all the characters are individuals with the capacity for good or evil
The general geographical sense of the world-building is that the further East you go (in Europe) that the less ties the people have to the Holy Church and the more barbaric they are – see the Tartars and their ‘Breathless One’ practices
The Eastern European races are frequently described with qualities such as “cruelty, pitilessness, barbarism, fierceness, physical and emotional instability” (Oziewicz, p. 8)
A lot of nationalist stereotypes surround the peoples of these races/countries
I mean, the treatment of the Tartars (which is a living, breathing ethnolinguistic group) as a whole is pretty disturbing. They’re described to be like a ‘warmongering race of xenophobic genocidal humans who want to conquer the whole of the Earth’ (Quote) - compare that to the complexity of the characters from the West. Oziewicz notes that the Tartars are somewhat akin to the Imperial Guard of Star Wars, as their helmets have ‘no eyes – or at least you couldn’t see any eyes behind the snow slits’ (Northern Lights, p. 289). As far as I can tell, they’re pretty much just tarred with one brush – made particularly plain by the fact that all Tartars seem to have identical wolf/husky daemons – unless that was a requirement when the Magisterium put the job posting on Indeed.
So, a whole nation of people has been reduced to a single archetype – one that plays on existing prejudices in British culture. That just feels like extremely lazy world-building to me – I don’t know a single country or ethnic population that could accurately be described as one archetype.
I also feel that a lot of other countries in the world are written off with sweeping generalisations – or just kinda lumped together? So, a lot of my research has involved me looking at the canonical list of Globetrotter Maps, and a whole bunch of countries tend to get lumped together – particularly, I’ve noticed, the South American countries. It does this really intriguing and complex world a major disservice. As I said, this is something that I’ve had to grapple with for my own work – and I hope that I’ve done enough work so as to begin to dissemble what Philman started.
 A new and exciting way to get around the ‘G’ slur
For those of you who are unaware (although, you’re on Tumblr – how could you possibly not be aware?) the G-slur is considered to be a pejorative description of the Romani ethnic group, associated with idleness and itinerancy. It comes from the mistaken European belief that the Romani people came from Egypt (they aren’t). You can read more about that here and here.
Philman decided to name his ethnic group known for travelling and trading as they go ‘Gyptians’. I won’t insult your intelligence by explaining any further.
Should I let this slide with the explanation that the term is so pervasive in Britain that it’s actually a legal term? Perhaps, but I’m not going to.
 Kill Bill God
My only issue with this is that if Philman wants to kill God, he should kill… God. Not some angel with a superiority complex. But seeing how badly some people took it, I can understand why he didn’t. I still think he’s a coward.
 Sex, Dust and Dragons
I have a whole other bone to pick with Philman about his obsession with sex in children’s literature, but that’s not what you’re here to talk about. No, you came to hear about His Dark Materials.
It’s established in the world that Dust doesn’t settle on children because they don’t have experience – they are too innocent. Based on the research I’ve done, and the language used in both the film and the mini-series is this maturation from childhood to adulthood is though protosexual experiences e.g. kissing. And this is what Mary Malone’s role as ‘the serpent’ is – she’s the one that make Lyra think about her sexuality for the first time:
As Mary said that, Lyra felt something strange happen to her body. She found a stirring at the roots of her hair: she found herself breathing faster. She had never been on a roller-coaster, or anything like one, but if she had, she would have recognised the sensations in her breast: they were exciting and frightening at the same time, and she had not the slightest idea why. The sensation continued, and deepened, and changed, as more parts of her body found themselves affected too. She felt as if she had been handed the key to a great house she hadn't known was there, a house that was somehow inside her, and as she turned the key, deep in the darkness of the building she felt other doors opening too, and lights coming on. She sat trembling, hugging her knees, hardly daring to breathe, as Mary went on...
Marzipan, The Amber Spyglass
(That’s such a long quote)
It’s then made explicitly clear that it’s the intimacy of Lyra and Will’s relationship, and the touching of one another’s daemons, that causes Pan and Kirjava to settle in their true forms.
Andrew Lloyd Webber was right – love really does change everything.
Here’s where things get a little bit petty.
So, if Dust begins to settle on children once they’ve had their first ‘sexual awakening’ – what about those people who don’t ever experience that? Because, believe it or not, asexual people have existed for a very long time. If they don’t experience this, then would their daemons settle? What are the implications of this? Are asexual people remaining in the ‘childlike innocence of the Garden of Eden’? (Quote)
Asexual fans of His Dark Materials, I pass this question to you – do you lack a soul because you’ve never experienced sexual desire? Is sex truly instrumental on the road to maturation? I’d love to hear your thoughts, and what you’d do if your daemon never settled. Would you let them shift into a dragon? I know I would if I were in that position.
This issue, to me, is massively indicative of the prevalent attitudes towards the asexual community. There is a tendency for media products to portray a-spec people as immature because they don’t experience sexual attraction – which is just not true. The ace community has said many times that they feel that this attitude infantilizes their orientation, and it’s a view that needs to be challenged. Check out this source for more information on the microagressions faced by this community – section six is particularly relevant. Asexuals are mature – despite this lack of ‘experience’ that Philman seems to think all people need to have in order to become free-thinkers. This just isn’t true. I don’t understand why society seems to believe this theory, but with its prevalence in media it’s not too difficult to see why this view pervades.
Anyway, the only reason I’m so petty about this particular aspect is that I’m so bored of reading stories where sex and romance are the most important thing. I think heresy is a much more interesting sin than sex, so that’s what The Shadow Mandate will be about once I’ve finished it.
I also have some more minor world-building issues both in HDM and the later Book of the Dust trilogy including, but not limited to:
Why is it New Denmark? The Dutch were quite famous for reaching America – New Amsterdam being the original name for New York. Admittedly I’m only cross about this because I got mixed up in my own world-building.
There’s even more ‘othering’ of non-British races – particularly the Skraelings who are analogous to the Inuit people (but possibly a term for all Native-American peoples) who carry out ‘barbaric’ practices such as trepanning
Witches can’t forgive men that turn them down. Well I don’t have much of a problem with this as such, but it just makes me think of that quote about fairies from Peter Pan – “Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time.”
The treatment of Pantalaimon by Lyra in subsequent adventures
Malcolm Polstead needs to leave Lyra tf alone
 I appreciate that this is a very long and whingy list about things that I don’t like, so congrats on making it this far! I’d love to give you something – perhaps your time back – but alas, my powers only extend so far. I appreciate that the His Dark Materials books are well-loved and that most people would probably disagree with what I’ve said – I just have lots of questions and Philman doesn’t have as many answers as I would like. But then again, should I really read this much into the work of a writer who seems willing and capable to ignore the personality of their protagonist for a whole book? I don’t know. But I do know, that axolotl daemons would require a lot of work.
(I have beef with Philman – thank you for humouring me)
Leave your hatemail in my inbox <3
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thesmartbluebox · 4 years
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! :D 1, 2, 10, 14, 17, 20, 27, and 29?
Yo, you really went for “distract them as much as I can!” Thank you :DD
1: Do you/would you like to write professionally?
Yes. (And also since I am a grad student working on literature I think that almost qualifies as doing it professionally. But like I’d like to write fiction preferably, tho academic text is fine too :D)
2: Which author has influenced you the most?
Oh no, I don’t know??? I think Lev Grossman and Jonathan Stroud are both very much what I aspire to be as a writer. Terry Pratchett will probably be up there with them once I have read more than one of his books.
10: What’s your favorite trope?
I’m going to copy you and say demonic possession. But actually more accurately body sharing/mindmelt. Those are very *chef’s kiss*.
14: Do you have a go-to AU?
Uhh... Canon divergence? Like I’m more of a canon-verse kinda person.
17: What’s more draining: writing smut, fluff or angst?
Depends on the day. ATM it’s gotta be smut because I’m still stuck at that one scene in that one fic and UGH
20: If you could ‘unkill’ any character from any story, who would it be?
Nathaniel !!! It’s been how many months since I re-read Bartimaeus and I’m still having feels.
27: coffee shop AU or florist AU?
Coffee shop.
29: 20s AU or 50s AU?
Honestly I have no idea. I don’t do history and I don’t do AUs. I like 50s aesthetics better tho, so maybe that? 
Writing/Reading asks
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skullandcarlyle · 7 years
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I don't know if you know this but Jonathan Stroud ships George with Flo Bones.
 First off, hi there! You probably had no idea this would let loose a whole essay on authorship, ownership, fans and fanfic, but here we are!  I’m really passionate about the interactions between all those things, and talking about them and the way I specifically interact with them.
I’ll just start off by saying that I actually am aware that Stroud has implied that George and Flo are/might be in the future, interested in each other or compatible, etc.  I can see that.  They’re opposites in a lot of ways–George is very into research aspects of the Problem, about finding out what’s caused it.  Flo is much more focused on, you know, making a living.  But they’re both witty, canny, and kind of a mess, and I can see why he’s hinted that.  I can totally imagine there being George/Flo in teg, and that’s perfectly fine with me.  
I’m betting you read my George/Lockwood mini fic series, or have seen some of the Holly/Flo stuff I’ve reblogged. (If anyone’s interested, my fic is up on AO3 here. It’s set before Lucy joins l&c and it’s super cute.) I totally do ship Georgewood and Flolly! (And lots of other combos, which involve the people in said ships, with other people) But one of the awesome things about fandom, one of my favorite things about fandom, is our ability to play in a sandbox someone else’s made.  As a fan, I don’t feel an obligation to only engage in the source material in the way the author may have intended.  I tend to write a lot of things that align pretty closely with canon, because one of my favorite parts of fanfic is making a story feel as real as possible–such that the reader could imagine that it’s part of the source material, or an add-on, or something.  That’s mostly based on my preferences, because that’s the type of fic that I like to read.  But that doesn’t mean it has to be exactly canon-compliant, because I’m not the owner of the material, and what I write has no obligation to align with canon.  I’m the owner of my fics, the actual words that I put in the orders, but I cannot make that claim about the characters, or the source material in any way, and that means that I get to bend the rules! Sweet! 
I think about my interactions with canon and the author of a given work like this: The author created canon.  The author of the canon material ultimately writes what happens, and that’s what ends up being what I base my fan interactions on.  As a fan, writing and drawing for fun and not trying to claim any kind of authorship of the canon, I don’t have any control over the author.  The author is not beholden to me in any way, and gets to do whatever they want with the characters they created.  But just because they decide to pick one possibility in a story, doesn’t mean I also have to pick that possibility.  Jonathan Stroud has referenced that he likes Flo and George.  That’s totally fine! I’m not trying to dispute that. (Sidenote: If you want to get detailed, it’s actually not canon: it’s more of a word-of-god type of info, pseudo-canon? but that’s not super relevant to this discussion) . But I, personally, enjoy imagining, and writing about what if George and Lockwood had a romantic past.
If you really want to get into it, as someone who identifies as queer, one of the particular ways I enjoy engaging with fandom is by thinking, what if we didn’t assume all the characters are straight?  What if they weren’t? Lockwood can be bi, maybe George is gay, maybe Holly and Flo are totally destined to be soulmates, in my head.  And as a fan, I get to imagine that, and write fic about it!  I’m not trying to change canon, I’m just taking the characters, and imagining ways they might be just a little different, or filling in gaps or interpreting things in ways that the author or other readers might not, because it’s fun, and when I don’t see a whole lot of representation in most media, it’s fun and fulfilling to write my own.
Every fan interacts with source materials and canon a little differently.  Some people only want to engage with canon, and things that are exactly canon-compliant.  Some people don’t really care about canon, and just really like the characters.  A lot of people do a combination, or engage in some other way.  That’s one of the awesome parts of being a fan! They’re all different forms of showing our love for the characters and stories we love.  
Sidenote: If you’re interested, you can read a ton about the history of fanfic, and fandom, in the book Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World, by Anne Jamison and Lev Grossman. I checked it out from my local library! There are also tons of really quality essays other people have written on the subject, much more intelligently than I have, that are pretty interesting if you want to learn more about fan culture and the history of fandom.
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