I think the key to fanon for me is that they're the non-canon bits that are mentioned in passing -- as character notes, mood-setting, backstory, or the like. To beat Nutty's example of "Dear Boy" into the ground, Angel raping Dru is so strongly implied that in my mind it's canon that they just couldn't show onscreen. A story in which Dru rather unaccountably turned to Darla for comfort and Darla gave her a tender and sisterly footrub would be (bad)fic, and ten such stories would be drearily derivative badfic that the first fic author would be quite right to be cranky about. However, it's not until there are a whole assload of stories about completely unrelated plots that reference Darla's footrub skills as a way of demonstrating her hidden tender side, that I call fanon.

No such thing as "both fanon and canon".

I've been enjoying the The Msscribe Story way more than I should. It's the (allegedly) true story of the rise and fall of a Harry Potter BNF. Weird stuff.

It's astonishing, isn't it? Did you read the most recent developments, with Heidi8's 'apology' and Angua9's astonishment at the discovery that the email she sent to Heidi 2 years ago, full of evidence indicating that Msscribe was the Becky Sharpe of fandom, had been shown around to others and then ignored? Angua9 has posted the email text in her LJ.

It's like watching a car crash.

And what I'm getting out of it is that fandom is like High School. Inasmuchas there's all this frenzied politics and people having pashes over the Queen B figures, and wanting to be part of their coterie, and getting pissed off about X being friends with Y, and all that shit. And meanwhile I'm sitting oblivious somewhere, reading, while all the crazy dramas are going on nextdoor.

Yep. Just like High School.

It's like watching a car crash.

At first, it was like watching a car crash for me. But then I kept reading, and it became like... remembering the massive pile-ups on the fannish highway, and I was on the edge of it not knowing that people I liked were in some of those crumpled cars.

Everything makes so much more sense now.

I popped over to read msscribe's LJ, and it's a weird sensation when you've convinced yourself someone's a liar--all the funny things she posted about her life (and some were hysterical) looked suspicious.

I did that the other day, ita. It made me hate the internets for a while. And tracking down the story of one of the secondary players (I think sapphsmum or something like that) made it worse.

Oh dear. I think I'm a terrrrible person. I started reading that account this morning and I just got hooked. And didn't go to college. But it's just fascinating. From the outside, anyway. Being anywhere in the actual orbit of the thing must be horrific. The only part of it I'd ever vaguely heard of was the fadom scruples bit.

Jars, you played ditched ditch digging school to read HP Fanwank?

The only part I'd heard of was the Cassandra Cla(i)re issue which was really just an aside in this tale. Actually, I hadn't remembered the details of that one correctly, but had conflated it with CousinJean's offer to write fan fic for cash.

Jars, you played ditched ditch digging school to read HP Fanwank?

Well, yes. Hence me being a terrible person. And seeing as how it's nearly three here, I really should head in and do some actual work.

And I think a friend who was vaguely involved in HP fandom told me about the Cassandra Claire thing, but I didn't know any of the names.

I remember Fandom Scruples; I remember feeling particularly guilty/flattered/guilty/odd about the fact that AJ Hall, who was NOT on the list of Wicked And Nasty Fanfic Writers initially (as LoP didn't contain the Big Hot Sex) got added to it because she recommended my story (which DID contain Big Hot Sex) in her LJ. And yet I didn't get added to the list, despite having written the fic that got her blacklisted. It was a weird feeling.

Little did I suspect that the whole Fandom Scruples thing was but a teeny tiny fraction of a whole big ass crazy conspiracy.

Bonkers.