I like both as well, although there are exceptions to the rules with both. For example, I cannot stand Draco Malfoy. Therefor, I am not likely to enjoy fanwork depicting him, irregardless if it is canon or fanon.
As for fanon, it depends on what characters and/or relationships are being depicted.
Then again, a truly talented artist (or author, for that matter) can make the most outlandish pairing/scene look beautiful and perfect, while a lousy one cannot even make the most true-to-canon piece seem believable. I have a friend who writes and draws a lot of Snape/Hermione work, and I adore her stuff because it is so well done, even though that pairing does not interest me in the slightest.
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just a random question, whats fanon and canon mean?
If you don't mind a bit of reading, and are interested in the history behind the terms, there are entries on
Wikipedia for both
Canon and
Fanon.
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Fanon would would fan cannon I think, which means it isnt nessesarily true?
Fanon is something that doesn't appear in canon, but is so popular within the fandom that it is practically canon.
To give an example, I love to read a lot of fanfiction about the Marauders when they were at Hogwarts, and the characterization of Lily from author to author (even before DH came out) is strikingly similar, despite the fact that we really don't know a lot about what she was like at that age. Lily's personality in fanfiction is fanon. Something like a piece that features the Harry/Draco pairing is not.
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The term comes from the old days of fandom, and by old I mean the 60s. Star Trek was the first pop-culture fandom that inspired fanfiction and fanart, and one of the most popular 'ships' in that fandom was Kirk/Spock. Kirk[slash]Spock. Which is why the term Slash became synonymous with Gay. ;)
To be specific, the first known piece of slash fanfiction ("A Fragment Out of Time" by Diane Marchant) was published in 1974 in a
Star Trek fanzine and featured a Spock/Kirk pairing.
The term '
slash' generally refers to male/male pairings, while '
femslash' is used for female/female pairings. (Although some fans use 'slash' for both m/m and f/f.) While 'het' is used for male/female ones.
You might also see the terms '
yaoi' and/or '
shounen-ai' used for m/m and '
yuri' and/or '
shoujo-ai' used for f/f art and fiction, particularily in the anime/manga fandom.
I know that some people see non-canon pairings (especially slash pairings) as insulting to the original series, but I don't agree. I think any fan work - het, slash, femslash, whatever - is a work of love by the creator. After all, they would not have made the piece if they were not a fan of the original series.
Besides, we all see the HP series in a slightly different way. We each bring our own experiences and points of view when we read the books, and this is the lens through which we view the stories. One reader may have a certain scene really jump out at her, because it is depicts something she understands and has dealt with in her life, while another reader may barely notice the scene because he does not identify with it.
This is very true of the slash/femslash works as well. There are a lot of GLBT HP fans who identify much more with same-sex pairings than with opposite-sex ones. Since there are no same-sex relationships in canon, we have to resort to fanfiction and fanart in order to translate the books into a form we are familiar with. And with some pairings, there is always the "You can't prove it's
not true" aspect. Prior to book six being published, I honestly thought there was a good chance that Sirius and Remus were more than friends.
We slash/femslash fans are not out to desecrate the HP series at all. We just see things from another point of view. ^_^
~Pia'Sharn
Feb 17 2007, 10:53 PM
