I have kind of a meta fandom question, and this seems like the right place for me to ask it. So, the Twilight fans (the actual fans of the series, not those of us who read it for comedy): to me they seem like they're several levels of deeper fan-crazy than other fandoms. Is this because I wasn't paying close attention to the HP and LotR fandoms? Or are the TwiFans really that barking mad? I ask because of news stories like this one. [link]

"Almost everyone has a "Twilight" story: the teen who dropped his library card, only to discover Twilighters had found it and kept it; the cheerleader who has out-of-town mothers stop her on the street offering cash for her uniform; the Quileute native, who heads to LaPush to chop wood and sees giddy teenagers snatching up driftwood as souvenirs."

Is it just because there's a real city mentioned in the books that they can flock to? Am I just naive?

Is it just because there's a real city mentioned in the books that they can flock to? Am I just naive?

I think that's part of it, Jilli. Whenever there's something real they can grasp onto, I think it gives them an even more tangible sense of it belonging to them (or of them belonging to it).

I know there's plenty of deep craxy in the other literary fandoms-- Laurell K. and J.R. Ward and Sherry Kenyon, but really, the only other place I've consistently seen this level of deep fandom and the weird sense of entitlement is in some of the music fandoms.

I'm fairly sure it's no crazier than other fandoms. It's just in ascendancy right now.

Maybe a little. Because Homicide fans liked to drink at the Waterfront but I've never been mugged for my Cafe Hon T-shirt. Maybe if it said "Bodymore, Murderland"

Uh, some Lord of the Rings fans believed that Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan were in a relationship, but were forced to hide it, but gave out secret signals in interviews and stuff.

Some Harry Potter fans are convinced they're married to Severus Snape on the astral plane.

I'd go with Dana on that. Also, part of the craxy is its romantic sensibility, something that hits a chord with the teen set (if not only the teen set); so you get a certain kind of response you might not get in a different fandom.

Barb, I've gotten that kind of reader-letter too, and after boggling a bit I just had to ignore it. It's a certain type of reader-entitlement that assumes that the writer is merely there to produce for the reader, and the reader gets to dictate what that is. While not all of your friend's readers may love the direction she's going, thankfully only a few of them also have the gall to tell the writers what to do.

Well, that's a lot of crazy, too. Maybe Twilight-crazy seems crazier cause I can't imagine being into it. That last book seriously grossed me out.

Uh, some Lord of the Rings fans believed that Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan were in a relationship, but were forced to hide it, but gave out secret signals in interviews and stuff.

Some Harry Potter fans are convinced they're married to Severus Snape on the astral plane.

... Okay, fair points. I guess I'm just currently weirded out by the idea of fans offering to buy someone's clothing or stealing their library card just because "souvenirs" of the town the book is set in.

Oh, they're all bugfuck. Some of them are possibly the same bugfucks.

And maybe the difference is, if somebody DID tell me, "It's crazy, being really obsessed with a city you've never been to because of TV."(Because I know it is.) I could say "Yeah," without being offended.