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author_by_nightFor whatever reason I've found myself having a lot of nostalgic conversations lately. So I thought I'd take a tongue-in-cheek look at how Harry Potter fandom has screwed me over for fiction, the internet, and the real world.
1. How werewolves are usually portrayed in films and movies will never seem quite right to me. "They're not shapeshifters by choice!" "That's not a wolf, that's a weird monster thing with a snout. Hmph." Even though those are the more classical interpretations...
2. When there's a gap between books in a series, or a show is on break, I never get people who say "there's nothing to discuss right now, so what's the point?" Nothing to discuss?! Long gaps in the series is the best time! I once went three years!
3. I sometimes come close to calling drama "wank", then stop myself because it means something different to people IRL.
4. When people talk about roleplayers like they're weirdos, I have to bite my lip. Hard. Although many of the people I used to RP with were weird...
5. Maggie Smith will always be McGonagall to me. Dan Radcliffe, however, not so much - between Equus and The Cripple of Inishmann....
6. I can't even talk about the books with people, because I feel like I either geek out to people who read the first two books ten years ago to their kids (and that's all they meant by "I like the books"), or I dumb them down ("I liked that old teacher guy with the purple hat") for people who end up being huge fans like me.
7. When I went to King's Cross in London (not for HP reasons, I literally had a train to catch), I kept thinking (despite my very best offers not to), "how on earth did JKR think they'd manage to have a secret platform here?"
1. How werewolves are usually portrayed in films and movies will never seem quite right to me. "They're not shapeshifters by choice!" "That's not a wolf, that's a weird monster thing with a snout. Hmph." Even though those are the more classical interpretations...
2. When there's a gap between books in a series, or a show is on break, I never get people who say "there's nothing to discuss right now, so what's the point?" Nothing to discuss?! Long gaps in the series is the best time! I once went three years!
3. I sometimes come close to calling drama "wank", then stop myself because it means something different to people IRL.
4. When people talk about roleplayers like they're weirdos, I have to bite my lip. Hard. Although many of the people I used to RP with were weird...
5. Maggie Smith will always be McGonagall to me. Dan Radcliffe, however, not so much - between Equus and The Cripple of Inishmann....
6. I can't even talk about the books with people, because I feel like I either geek out to people who read the first two books ten years ago to their kids (and that's all they meant by "I like the books"), or I dumb them down ("I liked that old teacher guy with the purple hat") for people who end up being huge fans like me.
7. When I went to King's Cross in London (not for HP reasons, I literally had a train to catch), I kept thinking (despite my very best offers not to), "how on earth did JKR think they'd manage to have a secret platform here?"
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Date: 2014-06-02 12:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 08:44 pm (UTC)Yes, I checked...
And yeah, agreed about the security measures.
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Date: 2014-06-02 11:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 04:01 pm (UTC)Also? Very awesome post! ~ivy (of ivy & Gracie) ;)
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Date: 2014-06-02 11:32 pm (UTC)Nice to see you around. :) Glad you liked my post!
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Date: 2014-06-02 04:58 pm (UTC)I feel the same way! Well, at least I married a guy with whom I can discuss the books the way I want to.
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Date: 2014-06-02 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 05:16 pm (UTC)Me too!
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Date: 2014-06-02 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-03 11:23 am (UTC)3. I do sometimes use the term "wank" in real life. Occasionally I say "mental masturbation". I feel like it's kinda self-explanatory, even to people not in fandom? I didn't know the term had originated in the HP fandom, though.
4. I don't understand RP, never have. Even with friends who posted about it, I was always so lost.
7. I was there last week and they have finally finished building the new bit of the station with the revamped platform 9 3/4. Last time I was there, it was a building site and they had moved the platform twice to accommodate the works and it was really rubbish. Now they've even opened a HP shop by platform 9, with much better merchandise than what they sell at HP studios.
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Date: 2014-06-03 11:47 am (UTC)Very true, especially as you get new fans, or old fans who were very young when they read the books in 2007 and are now discovering the internet and fandom. But what I was really getting at was more that in some of the fandoms I've tried to join since, a break between installments means no one wants to talk about anything. Ever. That's such a weird concept to me, because I think that's the best time, but I'm also used to long waiting periods. (Though a lot of these were also show fandoms, the books I like don't really have fandoms, and I think those tend to have a shorter attention spans. So there is that.)
3. I do sometimes use the term "wank" in real life. Occasionally I say "mental masturbation". I feel like it's kinda self-explanatory, even to people not in fandom? I didn't know the term had originated in the HP fandom, though.
I dunno, I did use it once (to describe fandom wank, actually) and the person was so confused as to why I'd brought up masturbation. I have heard it in the sense of mental masturbation on some level, but more as in "that's so hot", more so than "stirring shit." I don't know that Harry Potter fandom is where the term started, although I think fandom_wank did start in the HP fandom. But it's where I first heard it in the dramatic sense.
I don't understand RP, never have. Even with friends who posted about it, I was always so lost.
Not a big deal. :) I just hate when people assume all RPers are, well, the stereotype.
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Date: 2014-06-03 12:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-03 12:45 pm (UTC)And we all have different fan activities. :) I don't really do RPF, though when I was in middle school I technically wrote it without realizing what I was doing. But for me fanfic is more to speculate on stuff, which probably comes from the HP fandom too (since originally I only really got into it because I was impatient for the fifth book - I had no idea I'd still be reading "that stuff" three years later, much less seven), and RPF doesn't seem to factor into that, though I could be wrong. I have contemplated writing things based on famous people though, but nothing that hasn't already been done 500 billion times, so.