brightknightie | In the Eye of the Beholder

This anecdote recently came up in conversation with pj1228. It's one of those stories that I keep telling; please excuse me if you've heard it before. I believe it illustrates something revealing.

Once upon a time, when I was a raw newbie to fanfiction, Marcia T. posted a story to fkfic-l in which Nick followed Natalie's urging and went cold-turkey on all blood. He almost starved to death; the story ended with Nick terminating his quest, surrendering his human relationships, and returning entirely to vampire society. I emailed Marcia, praising the tragic story I'd just read. She replied, gracious but bemused, about the triumphant story that she had written.

What makes this funny is that Marcia founded the Dark Knighties, while I'm, you know, me. We didn't know that, then. We did have a great chat, the first of several, about how very differently we interpreted the same stories.

FK is police mystery, historical fiction, vampire fantasy and several other genres all at once, all together. FK fandom is all the factions, 'ships and shades, all together. Stories and discussions are most vibrant when we all play together, marshaling canon and striving to convince each other, across the imaginary lines.