That’s right, you are here because you just found the time travel Scottish dramance Outlander on Netflix, and you’ve binged through at least the first season already and you don’t know what to do with all the feelings you are feeling. You don’t know where to go and or what to read or what to watch or how to process it all. Let us soothe you. Sort of.
Outlander is Your Life Now
When I first read Outlander like 10 years ago, I figured I was entering a new world in which I had a perfect book to recommend to all my friends and aunts, and a new book boyfriend to obsess over, and a new fandom to enter! It was exciting. And then I got online and found out that the Outlander fandom was … fairly desolate. There were a couple of forums for book discussion, and there was a little bit of sketchy art, and there was ONE, LITERALLY ONE, fanmade YouTube video that wasn’t horrific. AND THERE WAS NO FANFIC. Cue my tears. My experience with fandoms was one of rich fanworks – authors and artists and admirers all getting together on Twitter and LJ and Tumblr and elsewhere to share and laugh and outdo one another. FANDOM 5EVA.
But the Outlander online fandom was staid. Stately. The Dowager Countess of online spaces. Ladies politely discussing wool wearing and how to make posters for the upcoming Highland Game on Forums For Females. Where were my girls who wanted to read alternate universe fanfic where Jamie is a private school bad boy and Claire’s dad is the boarding school provost who hates him? Where were the artists who had Deviant Art accounts dedicated solely to drawing the dirty bits in perfect moonlit detail? Where was Waterweed1789 on Twitter? WHERE? As Megan reminded us just yesterday, Fandom is Meant to Be Fun!
Well. I had to create this fandom, obviously, from the dirt and with my own breath. I made everyone who I knew was already cool read Outlander, and then talk about it with me ad nauseam here on That’s Normal. And thus, an entire corner of internet fandom was born. Once the show was announced, and Sam Heughan was cast, our little corner became a cornerstone. We almost couldn’t handle the traffic to that Sam Heughan post. Essentially, the cool Outlander fans finally came out of the woodwork and on to the internet. We found our people. And now, that includes you.
What To Read After Binging Outlander on Netflix
If you’re wondering what you need to know and do to be a vibrant part of this amazing fandom, don’t worry. I have the perfect primer for you. We have recaps of every episode (except the first two because I was in a vortex of excitement and didn’t write them) called Top Ten Moments. You can start here with No Way Out, episode 103, and you can laugh about how I started Top Ten Moments as just a quick way to show off things I thought were funny/cute/sexy/smart and they ended up being EXTRA LONG TREATISES ON THINGS before the season was over.
But there is WAY more Outlander coverage to read here on That’s Normal. There are 63 pages of posts in the Outlander tag, and that is easily 12 times more than almost any other topic. We have a lot to say. You can get a good feel for the original excitement and the fangirling and the rest with these gems:
The VERY first Outlander Red Carpet
So, that’s how it began. Where did season one go from there? Other then perennial fights about The Accursed Hair, season one led us to some really fun places. None so beloved as the original Blurtlander, or Things My Husband Says During Outlander. I still get more DMs asking me to bring this series back than I do anything else. Ladies love him. He’s ridiculous.
But there’s more! We found out that the hiatus was *gasp* six months!! Oh, the innocence of yesteryear. But seriously, just imagine that your Netflix went out after episode 6, with Jamie perched in that window and Claire half naked at Jack Randall’s mercy, and you couldn’t get the next episode for … SIX MONTHS. If that sounds torturous, then you get us back in 2014. You get us. And in that six months, we had a lot to say. Amy gave us this awesome Outlander Mixtape. We legit FELL IN LOVE with Tobias Menzies. We are reminded that Sam loves us at PaleyFest. We re-read the books! Eye-gasms. Team Claire. It’s enough to get you through to the second half of season 1. LOL.
What To Watch After Binging Outlander on Netflix
That one is easy. You might be looking for other period piece recommendations. Ok here: Poldark. Turn. The Crown. The White Princess. A Discovery of Witches. But what you really should be watching is: Hangoutlander.
Originally slated as Talking Outlander, Hangoutlander is our recap after show that airs live on YouTube. We get drunk, and we talk about the show. It’s that simple. Love it or hate it, it’s a damn good time. Here’s the first one when my hair was short and I lived somewhere else and my internet was TERRIBLE.
Sometimes, it’s not just an after-show. Sometimes Hangoutlander is a fun time discussing Outlander in the wider literary world. Like our first re-branded Hangoutlander: JAMMF vs Shura where we discussed Jamie Fraser and Alexander from The Bronze Horseman and discussed WHO WAS BETTER. It was very scientific and very important.
If you get to the end of season two of Outlander on Netflix and want to know what the heck to do, and you’ve watched all our season 1 and 2 Hangoutlanders, and you’ve read all our Top Ten Moments, and you’ve read Blurtlander, and you are BEREFT, you can join our Outlander Book Club, In the Waterweeds. Just like Hangoutlander, drunk and ridiculous, but all about the books – and the book season 3 is based on, Voyager.
What to Fandom After Binging Outlander on Netflix
If you want to know more about the FANDOM that you might have missed out on (or if you want to reminisce) then here are some of the good and the bad of the Outlander fandom over the years. There was this awesome hullabaloo about THE RING – honestly, if you weren’t a book reader you would have no idea that this was a major fandom implosion, but it was, and it was GLORIOUS. The Battle Royale about William Shatner. Seriously. It was a thing. Dealing with the Outsplaining crowd. When Richard got cast as Roger and we were like WHAT JUST HAPPENED. So.Many.Euro.Cons. And of course, everyone’s favorite fandom meltdown: The Pique Challenge.
Enjoy one of our fandom breakdowns LIVE on Hangoutlander.
In the ensuing years, the fandom has gotten a little more crazy, so much so that a lot of this just seems adorably quaint. Like those forums of yore that I found and yawned over. I miss those days.
If you’ve gotten this far, you are fully invested, but you don’t have to stop there! There is even more. We have exclusive interviews and even set visits in Scotland. Dive deeper, waterweeds! We are glad to have you.
Have you watched Outlander on Netflix yet? What’s next for you? Check out all our Outlander coverage (all 60+ pages of it) here.
