A question on fandom familiarity

[leethet]

I just read a remark from someone saying they'd read and enjoyed an MFU fanfic despite knowing nothing about the show, and it got me thinking ... how?  Why? WTF? *G*

Then it occurred to me, if you read a fanfic about a show you know nothing about, you're really reading original fic, aren't you? For your purposes, it's all new, there's no "canon" (that you know about) to compare the story or characters to, there's only the writer's skill at telling a story. It's original fic.

I assume this reader read the fic because they knew the writer from another fandom and trusted their work (because I can't imagine why anyone would bother, otherwise). But I'm interested in people's thoughts on this. Is it weird to read in a fandom you know nothing about? Would you do it? If so ... why? Because it's an author you trust from elsewhere? But ... isn't it still, basically, reading original fic? So why?

Any thoughts are welcome here. This is really weird to me. :)

Comments

[graculus.livejournal.com]

Lack of knowledge about the show, which meant I wasn't actually repelled by reading fic based in it (unlike some equally productive fandoms) + the fact that there's a shedload of fic out there and it was at a time when I was basically only reading SG-1 (I think) and that fandom was small and I'd pretty much tapped it out.

I'm not much of one for crossovers, mostly because in my experience the writer knows one of the fandoms way better than the other and it's unbalanced, so I couldn't be led astray that way anything like as easily...

[leethet.livejournal.com]

That's weird to me. :) Your lack of familiarity led you into reading the fanfic? Did you go to authors you trusted from other fandoms?

[graculus.livejournal.com]

I knew the basic premise of the show in question but didn't know enough to actively dislike it (in other words, unlike some fandoms I hadn't suffered from people lecturing me about how I must get into the fandom in question, or how it was the greatest thing since sliced bread).

I don't think there were really authors I knew from elsewhere because my view of fandom was pretty limited to SG-1 (and UNCLE, to a much lesser extent because it tends to have more single fandom peeps in it)...

[leethet.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean - people insisting you're going to like something when you haven't heard anything that tempts you can be very irritating. :)

So the premise itself interested you?