Not So Random Fandom

Ooh, this one's a toughie.

Pick the best fandom, defend your choice against all comers? Suddenly I'm reminded of the great George Takei, whose comment on the Star Trek versus Star Wars schism is the perfect summation of the subject (I'm paraphrasing): "We must join forces and unite against our common enemy - Twilight!"

It's how I've always been. You're a Yankees fan, and I'm a Phillies fan, why must I hate you? We both love baseball, why can't we just enjoy the game? My husband, who isn't really interested in sports at all, has gradually liked baseball more and more over the years. We go to AAA games, we watch games on TV, we appreciate the awesome plays and cringe at the bad ones. I told him from the get-go that I don't care what team he roots for, he doesn't have to love my Phils if he doesn't want to. As long as I don't scream in his ear again like I did when the Phils lost the 1993 World Series, he's okay with it. (We were long-distance dating while he was at college, and though we both had the game on, I started screaming as soon as they put Wild Thing in. I knew the game was lost. My then-boyfriend was confused - the game wasn't over yet, why was I upset? Then those pitches happened, and he understood. By then his ear hurt so much he didn't really care. He married me anyway, so that's love for you? But I digress.)

When faced with the Hogwart's sorting hat, I'm definitely firmly in Ravenclaw. I love clever over anything else. So, like the entrance of that house's common room, I will go with something well reasoned.

The books that give me a world, or worlds, to play in are my favorites. If there are enough details, structures, cultural / magical rules to give me a framework to insert myself as a character in that world, I'm all in. Star Wars? You bet - as a tween, my first novel was Princess Starlet, a She-Ra meets Princess Leia coming-of-age after the adversity of her planet being blown up, and collecting a crack team of ruffians to go back an reclaim her rightful heritage (never got to that part, her "heritage" was a new asteroid belt...) Luckily that writing will never see the light of day - it's in my will that it be burned, unless I find it first in my many boxes of rememberies and I do the deed myself.

Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series is a particular favorite. And it's such a rich world, with so many countries and characters and cultures, it's so fun to create an extra persona and slip into the long history she and Larry Dixon created. Feeling heroic? Become a Herald! Feeling like you need magical difficulty? Become a Hawkbrother! Feel like solving a tricky problem? Plenty of rulers and bad guys and situations in the history of Valdemar to create a scenario and play it out. The anthologies of fan fic that she's edited and published bear witness that I'm not the only one.

For the same reason, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series is another that I like to dive into. A world where magic and science can coexist, and there's all sorts of tension between native aliens, humans, and a wide gender gap that MZB used to explore her own real-life issues of a woman fantasy writer in a male-dominated field. She also published anthologies that were fan fic, and then created the awesome Sword and Sorceress anthology series to explore women's themes in sci-fi and fantasy to break the mold. She gave Mercedes Lackey her break, and inspired me to start writing my own stories.

Another favorite is the True Game series by Sherri S. Tepper. Nine books, each trilogy highlighting a particular charater's point of view, describing a world where again science meets magic at a crisis point. I know, I know, I really like clever! And the idea of humans codifying something they don't understand into the barely-remembered moved of a chess game on a planet they don't even know they're from, gaming with people's lives, naming each other by the talents they show....that's a unique and complex world to dive into. The combinations of magic characteristics, and how they influence the personality of the character (or is it the other way around?), are sooo fun to play with.

But, shouldn't the very best fandom be the one where you can write stand-alone stories in them? Sure, I've mentioned some above - but, what about the ones you can dream in? The stories where you can have full in-color adventures, and wake with a sense of belonging, and satisfaction, and making a difference? Terry Pratchett's Discworld fits here for me. I grew up desperately wanting to be Granny Weatherwax, and I've never stopped, not even in my dreams. Though I may have turned into Nanny Ogg in real life...oops....

But, where's the dramatic plot twist??? Here it comes.....!!!

Honestly, for me, it's all about the JEWELRY. Every story I write, whether fan fic or my own, has an element of personal adornment somewhere in it. Sometimes it never makes it into the story because it's extraneous or detracts from the overall story, but it's always there, in the back of my mind. It's ALL about the jewelry. The necklace, the earrings, the mage focus, the rings. The whole parure, if I'm really going overboard.

So, the best fandom, hands down: Lord of the Rings. The Silmarils, the Evenstar. Nenya, Varya, Vilya. The Ring of Barahir. The Leaves of Lorien brooches, and of course The One Ring. I fell in love with mithril as a tween, mourned like anything when I realized it didn't really exist, and fell in love all over again when I realized it was titanium.

Jewelry. Lord of the Rings. Mic drop.