There are less than 24 hours until Potterdammerung, and I find that I... really can't summon up much enthusiasm. I don't even have a copy pre-ordered (which, considerng that HP used to be my major fandom back in '02, is kind of sad. I mean, I pre-ordered a copy of Thor #1, and bought my tickets to the premiere of PotC: AWE three days in advance, but I didn't reserve a copy of the final HP book).

I figure I'll pick up a copy some time next week, after the bookstores have stopped being insane, and limit my LJ reading to comicstore_news until then.

It will be nice to see how it all ends, but after OotP, the magic was gone. Rowling!canon for HP now feels kind of like main storyline DC -- interesting in a vague kind of way, but mostly notable for enabling Fic/Bruce Timm & Paul Dini's Toonverse to exist.

The unfolding of the Wankiad (in a sentence: nearly all wank in HP fandom from 2003 on seems to have been caused by one sockpuppet-mongering fan) has been a source of minor fascination to me over the past couple of days, in part because HP fandom in 2001-2002 was what introduced me to fandom. Accidentally stumbling across FictionAlley my freshman year of college was how I learned that fanfic existed.

Yet, somehow, I managed to avoid ever realising how massive a streak of batshit crazy there was running through HP fandom. Maybe because I'm terminally socially inept and oblivious, maybe because I mostly hung out in Remus/Sirius circles (HMS Wolfstar 4eva!) and had little interest in H/D or the R/Hr vs. H/Hr ship wars, maybe because I played such a minor role in fandom that no bnf ever had much to do with me. Or maybe because, by the summer of '03, I had left HP fandom in favor of PotC, not because of wank, but because OotP left me increasingly disatisfied with the direction canon was going.

Therefore, you can imagine my glee when, in perusing other posts on bad_penny, I found a link to wank on Snape/Hermione writer Riley's fic Pawn to Queen. Not only because I've now learned that the dislike and distaste for that fic that's been simmering in my psyche for four years (Riley had issues of the misandrous sort, and I had issues with her issues) was shared by others, but because melannen summed the whole affaire up thusly:

"Why's the smut gone?"
"One, because it's a vile fic, and turned even the most respectable men into complete pussies; two, the political agenda was over a thousand feet high. An entire contingent of fangirls was looking out for it; do you think there's the slightest chance they won't wank it?"
"But why's the smut gone?"
--melannen

Yay for people on my flist being cool without my knowledge. I think the best bit was the political agenda being a thousand feet high, because, as best as I can recall, it kind of was.

Car issues update: (see previous flocked post re: car breaking down).

( To wait and consult one's parents before getting transmission repaired, or not to wait? )

There’s been a lot of discussion going around about the parallels between Purebloods and anti-mugglism in Harry Potter, and Nazis, the KKK, and racism. I feel all smart now, having essentially gotten in on the ground floor of this kerfluffle by posting about it a couple of weeks ago.

Granted, that was just me and a couple of people on my flist, but, see? We were all precognitive and stuff ^_^.

Anyway, as I read the debate and people’s comments, it occurs to me that everyone is taking this whole thing very personally. And by “personally,” I don’t mean “interpreting any dissenting opinion as an attack against them,” though people are doing that, too. I mean “conflating Rowling’s wizarding world with their own personal experiences of prejudice.”

( Because the Wizard world isn't the American South, even though I think it would be cool if it were )

This one's a companion to the other sonnet I wrote about a week ago.

( I have one thought, and that one thought is thee )

Writing R/S drabbles after coming home from the races is getting to be a tradition. This is a Mid-Ohio sequel to the Daytona drabble here.

Consider it a shout out to CLS, the only other fanfic writer to give Sirius Black's bike a make, model, and name.

( somewhere in the Mid-Ohio infield )

I'm on an iambic roll today--in Advanced Creative Writing, I finished the Sirius-POV companion to the Remus poem (yet another ghetto sonnet--even more ghetto, since this doesn't have any rhyme scheme at all and is simply blank verse). I may end up having to turn it in tomorrow, since, thanks to our one-submission-long packet this week, Prof. Tretheway has told us to submit three things this week. Or I could submit the ghetto-sonnet about how much I dislike writting haiku (told y'all I was on an iambic roll). Anyway, here's the Sirius sonnet:

( There was a time, once, when I did not know/ That one, deep, ice cold straight in the North Sea/ Was really a salt-water River Styx )