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Reading the Books
| Tropes and genres | |
|---|---|
| Synonym(s) | Watching the Show |
| Related tropes/genres | Harry Potter, Breaking the Fourth Wall, metafic |
| Related articles on Fanlore. | |
This article or section needs expansion. |
Reading the Books is a trope that appears in literary fandoms, where the book characters discover and read the books. It was popularised by Harry Potter fandom.
It is a trope that is not universally loved; some readers associated Characters Reading the Books with badfic.
A less common variation on this is media characters Watching the Show or Movie.
Fan Comments
does anyone else remember that fanfiction trend where the characters in a fandom were somehow able to read the books or watch the movies about them? most of them didn’t have a plot outside of reading/watching their series and they usually were all pretty similar to each other, and they weren’t really that good, but goddamn if they weren’t addictive as hell.[1]
Example Fanworks
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
Harry Potter
- Dramatic Reading series by Srikanth1808 and White_Squirrel (2018-2022)
Percy Jackson
- Hope Is A Delicate Thing by BandKid247 and oh__peachy (2021-2024)
- Reading Percy Jackson series by Lorixjake (2020-2023)
- Baby's first exceptionally bad time by SnufflesThePig (2021-2023)
Sonic the Hedgehog
- Sonic Adventure 2 Special by Mako-chan (early 2000s) - ends with a watch-through of the Final Story of Sonic Adventure 2
Archives & Links
References
- ^ Tumblr post by lady-of-the-spirit, 2018