Since this has something to do with Harry Potter (as it is the #1 fandom, presently, I believe), I figured I'd post it here. This question extends to books, movies and TV Shows (that have a story and plot): what are your five favorite fandoms and why? You don't have to be a regular of the fandom but what would be the top five you'd be able to discuss and enjoy discussing with people online or off?

Here are mine:

1. Lord of the Rings - the first non-homework related book I read, way way back in the day. Epic struggle, epic diction and a very good cast of characters in the Fellowship. Plus it's the whole legendarium - there's the Silmarillion as a backdrop, the Hobbit as a precursor and a look into Tolkien's world and various other poems and even unfinished stories that bring you full circle. The fact that the world is so big is the reason this gets #1 and Harry Potter doesn't.

Oh and can't forget mainstreaming Dwarves and Elves and pretty much making the entire fantasy genre his own.

2. Harry Potter - Simply put, it's been the most fun to be apart of. I don't discuss any other fandom as much as Harry Potter. Although the last three books haven't sat well with me, the first three are very entertaining and hard to ignore. The movies have sucked but the fanfiction (because there's so much of it) has been a pleasure to read.

3. His Dark Materials - Epic. Lord Asrael - epic. Lyra and Will - epic. This is a fairly big slam towards the church when it comes to story-telling and I love it; if there's one thing I hate in the world, it's that religion and church are lumped in the same thought too often. This book is a big middle-finger raised towards the Church, which I've always loathed.

The author - Phillip Pullman - is a master of the English language and writes circles around J.K. Rowling without trying. Northern Lights, the Subtle Knife and the Amber-Spy Glass rank as the second best trilogy in literature as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't beat Harry Potter because the fandom isn't as large and the sites just aren't as entertaining.

4. 24 - I don't watch much TV outside of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (and the Phoenix Suns and Chelsea games when they're on) but the one thing I always have dialed in for Monday is 24. Jack Bauer is a fucking beast and even though some of the plots are eye-rolling at time, the overall ride of the entire production is amazing. Besides - torturing, killing and a general lack of concern for innocent bystanders? It's everything a DLPer dreams of, I'm sure.

5. Star Wars - Gotta give credit to George Lucas for making millions of dollars off of pretty sweet ideas in lightsabers, massive star cruisers and a vast assortment of aliens. George Lucas has never been a good director nor even a writer of good plots but he has given the opportunity to many, many authors to use his inventions and ideas to create stories that are enjoyable that now make up a vast majority of EU Canon. I also love the games. Knights of the Old Republic is loved by a lot and the storyline is amazing. It's just too bad that both movie trilogies were lacking (although Mace Windu is quite bad ass).

You don't have to go into extensive detail; you can even just give a quick 1-5 or 5-1 list and be done with it. Do share though ^_^.

 

1. Deus Ex: Probably the most entertaining series of games I've ever played. The entire idea of Deus Ex takes the situations we have today, takes the into the future, and places you in it. You have to solve the mysteries, restore society, and make your choices all along the way. It's the freeform of KOTOR, but taken to the extreme.

2. Harry Potter: Enjoyable because of the vast realm of possibilities that can take place. The canon is truthfully sub-par, but the fandom more than makes up for it.

3. Half-Life: I love the vastness and oddness of the Half-Life universe. It also keeps you on the edge of your seat at all times, and you are constantly frustrated by the force that's pulling you around through the G-Man.

4. Star Wars: The games are badass and the fanon can go literally anywhere. What's not to like?

5. Wheel of Time: A massive epic, which has drawn me in just to see the end.

 

Wheel of Time? Really? I couldn't get passed book four. Jesus, it just seemed to take forever to plow through that. It looked like the author was a bit arrogant with how great he was at writing and decided to describe the most insignificant of things.

It was very good until then and I've heard it was supposed to be a trilogy but he decided to cash out. But he's definitely a Tolkien clone and not someone who sets himself apart in the genre. Hard to do but a must to really be remembered.

 

1. Anne McCaffrey books. Despise 99.999% of the fanfiction spawned from her works (I once found a Talent series fanfic that was half decent), but love the genuine article. I got my first copy of Dragonsinger (Harper Hall Trilogy book 1) at age 6, after that I was hooked.

2. (Old) World of Darkness. Vampires, Garou (werewolves), Fae, Mages, Wraiths, Mummies, Nagas, Spirits, Rokea, Bastet.... So much mythology and esoterica wrapped up in the universe to explore and manipulate. I first got introduced to the setting through every goth's "dirty little secret", Vampire the Masquerade back in 2002 (the most boring game in existance unless it's linked into the rest of the WoD). Since then I've read the novels, played the games tabletop and been involved in seven different LARP troupes, and traveled to four conventions (fifth one happens in March).

3. D&D, enough said. Whether it's the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Spell Jammer, or just plain old classic D&D I'll play it, DM it, or just read the new supplements. I've never gotten addicted to WoW or Evercrack because of these last two. I'm a gamer, but there's got to be a richness and story behind it all.

4. Harry Potter. I've read hundreds of fanfics, own the books, and contributed over half a million words to the fandom.

5. Engineering. May not seem like a fandom but you've never met me. I travel around to just look at stuff. I'll take pictures of bridges, work out their max loads, look at how they were built, etc... Theoretically understanding every aspect of how things are made and built will help me design better ones.

 

1.) Lord of the Rings. The depth this fandom has is unreachable. The lore J.R.R. Tolkien created is incredible, simply the fact that he invented languages for his books is amazing. It is also written in a most beautiful english. The movies were epic, so to say and nothing beats Ian McKellens´: "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"

2.) Harry Potter. The same as above, J.K. Rowling created a wonderful, mystical world that captivates you. Though in my opinion Half-blood Prince was a letdown.

3.) Warcraft. I have played Warcraft 2, Warcraft 3 and play World of Warcraft, I have read all books about Warcraft, the World of Warcraft is incredibly well made and has discrete jokes strewn all over it.

4.) Star Wars. "Use the force, Luke", it is just classical, Star Wars has fascinated generations, as it fascinated me, it is probably one of the biggest fandoms in existence, after all there is a religion "Jedi" (though i don´t want to know who is a member there).

5.) Dragon Lance. I have read about all Dragon Lance books, and i can say that most of them are brilliant, the books are very exciting and pulled me through some summers that would have otherwise been spent in boredom

 

You're quite right, but it's one of those things where I must know the ending.

 

In no particular order:

1) Harry Potter - Do I need to restate the reasoning of everyone else?

2) Warhammer - Both 40K and Fantasy have so much material to use, so many possible ideas to take further, its unbelievable. Most of the fics written suck completely, which is a reason why the Black Library is exceedingly picky, but I still love both universes.

3) Anita Blake - Just love the way it incorportates mythology into real life in a mostly believable manner.

4) Star Wars - One of the few fandoms where fanfictions actually get published.

5) Merry Gentry - Same reasoning as Anita Blake.

 

My pick? Easy.

1) Harry Potter
2) Harry Potter
3) Harry Potter
4) Harry Potter
5) Harry Potter

I tried reading other fandoms, Star Wars especially, but nothing seems to work as good as HP.

First off, let's exclude all TV shows and series. I mean, you usually have to sit through 50-60 one-hour episodes of 'canon' before even thinking of moving on to fanfiction. Unless I watch TV shows daily (which I don't), that means LOTS of time spent in downloading & staring at monitor, just to get to the ground zero.

And then even if I do get the grounding in some TV show (Dexter, the Shield), there's always a question of comparing new material with fanfiction. Let's face it, FF is, in most cases, amateurish crap. It can't get even close to the real thing. I'd always rather wait a week for the new episode than plow through pages of poorly written substitute.

Movies are a bit better, but there lies an other problem. Most of the films either lack popularity or depth to produce good fanfiction. Only a few movies have fanfiction following of any significance, the only one of which I ever considered is Star Wars.

The problem with Star Wars is, once again, competition. There are hundreds of licensed book and comic book authors, writing stories within the Star Wars universe. How can some teenage fanfic writer compare to that? If I want more Star Wars, I'd always rather read some of those ultra-cool full-color comic books, than go through some crappy fanfiction.

Finally, the books are the most suitable foundation for fanfiction. They come out rarely, leaving the readers hanging in suspense for years. They can have a well-developed basis for fanfiction, certainly better than any movie can offer. And the canon is easily accessible, for either getting to know it, or for cross-referencing.

My problem here is that I've read a few book series suitable for fanfiction. When I'm not reading HP, I'm usually interested in hard science fiction - which is not exactly suited for fanfiction (although I wouldn't mind to see a HP crossover with Clarke's Ramna). I haven't read any of the other fantasy series you've been talking about. I don't even like fantasy - HP is a sole exception there.

Thus, the only other book series which fandom I ever even considered exploring is LOTR. The problem here is dual:

1) LOTR is fairly closed setting. Several long epilogues had almost completely closed off any possibility of using canon characters for anything except AU.

2) Tolkien's writing style. The series is written in sort of an epic, well-researched, historic narration. Very few people are capable of reproducing such writing. Thus, they either create pale copies of Tolkien's work or write in normal English, which kind of mangles the universe their fanfictions are based on.

Thus, the only fandom which I ever liked and probably ever will like remains HP. And that's no thanks to the quality of the canon books - which is suspect at best. It's precisely because of the MISSED OPPORTUNITIES found in JKR's work that HP fanfiction is so popular. In fact, HP is one of the few settings where fanfictions have a chance of being superior to canon - they only have to fill in the holes and take the opportunities that JKR had left hanging.

 

IP82 just summed up my thoughts on this subject in 4000 words ^_^

I've tried a few fandoms, hell I even tried the Simpsons, but Harry Potter is the largest, and most interesting to me.

While the fandom may have died down considerably, there are a still a few things to keep me interested (see DLP)

EDIT: Lol, forgot about Naruto, my number 2 I guess.

 

1. Harry Potter- need no explanation
2. Naruto- Recently been trying to find new ones that seem promising but no luck so far.
3. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya- huh... finally found out where all those .gif images I've been seeing have come from.
4. .hack the first four games and to a lesser extent /GU-I've actually been apart of that fandom for quite a while. I always liked the idea of putting on a headset and opening your eyes to a virtual world. Except without the falling into a coma thing. Thats bad.
5. Lord of the Rings-Like Bio thats this is the first non-homework related book that I've read. Except I had to reread it a few times because my eyes tended to glaze over when I read it. Dont know why that happened.

 

There is an Odyssey fandom!? Is it any good? It takes special kind of knowledge and forethought to write hard SF literature like that.

 

1) Harry Potter

2) Naruto

3) Lord of the Rings

4) Star Wars

5) Bleach

 

1. Ranma 1/2. Like Sree said, the sheer amount of ridiculous and awkward situations in that is mind boggling and hilarious at the same time. I like the anime as much as the manga 'cause hearing Kunou say 'It is a cute little dolly' makes me rofl. Plus, the Hiryu Shoten Ha rocks.

2.Harry Potter. This WOULD be number one, but when you compare the fandom to Ranma, count the size and tally the retards, well, enough said.

3. Suzumiya Haruhi. The anime and novels both rock, but that's not the reason it's here. It's here because I've got about 300 plot bunnies in summary format sitting on my HD from watching it. I Can pretty much guarantee my first published work will be a fic for this, because I need to get it out of my head.

4. Zelda. I know, I know, nerdorific, but still. It's here because even though the fandom and fiction isn't that large, when you find one worthwhile, it's freaking EPIC. Seriously, someone made a Diablo2/ff8 cross with this and it worked awesomely.

5. A tough one, but it's Probably Star Wars. I loved the movies, I read some the published fan books, I read the fanfiction. It rocks.

 

Naruto

Harry Potter

Star Wars to a degree

There aren't any good fics out but I am a major fan of Hellsing.

And I don't have a fifth one. =/

 

Harry Potter of course, although these days I've been reading a lot more of Naruto.

Used to read Digimon when it was all the rage maybe 4 or 5 years back, and those were the first works that I actually put out, surprisingly. But these days it's been replaced by teen Titans and Justice League, although those only have a certain number of plots to explore, in the fics I've read anyways.

Been reading some Smallville and Star Wars as well.

I wasn't aware that there were any Haruhi fics bouncing around, but now that I've been notified, I'll go looking because I'm a big fan of the anime and manga.

The most LOTR I've dipped into reaches into crossovers, usually with the HP universe, although many of them are poorly done, I just don't know enough about LOTR to attempt to write one myself.

 

I'm assuming that by "fandom", we're referring to specific areas that would support fanfiction - but the problem is availability and quality.

1) Harry Potter - this world is so open, and has so much possibility, with characters that truly inspire fiercely passionate opinions.

2) Ranma ½ - my absolutely favorite manga and anime series, this is what started me on fanfiction. I've probably read nearly 10,000 stories or so, and even written a few myself. Plus, due to the sheer amount out there, I've discovered some simply brilliant fanfiction. Just like HP, the problems with the series only create possibilities.

3) Oh my goddess - this anime series is another of my favorites, because it combines engineering, mythology, and sheer craziness. I'm always surprised by what the author comes up with next.

4) Dark Elf series by R A Salvatore - this series has essentially 0% good fanfics, but I still am a huge fan of it; the potential is there, but there just isn't anything good yet.

5) Tenchi Muyo - another comedy based anime series with fantasy/sci-fi elements.

Unfortunately, there aren't really many other GOOD fandoms out there. If DragonLance had good fanfiction, that would be different.

-J

 

1. Stargate - I love the series, it's just so... intriguing, I guess would be the world. There's also so many possibilities; what to do about the Ori? What happened to the Furlings?

2. Harry Potter - Why would I be here if this wasn't one of my favourites?

3. Buffy - Authors can completely 'fix' canon in a few easy minutes. Especially the last two series'. (Bleh.)

4. Crossovers between any combination of the above. Again, the possibilities are endless.

5. Artemis Fowl - if only there was a bigger fan base for it...


The only reason LOTR isn't there is because of the fact I couldn't really get into it. (And the fact I read it over about two months - completely forgot about the plot)