Bit of Ivory

I should have picked a pen name closer to the beginning of the alphabet. I only got one day on the “recently updated” list on SQ. 3 reviews that really count (’cause while I love you, Jen and Lou, I already know what *you* think of my fic ), though, which I suppose isn’t bad considering I’m almost a complete unknown in the fandom. I suppose I need to write ch. 3 now. Good stuff coming up in ch. 3.

But only after I beta Ancient Prophecy 14. See me being good, Lou?

I slept in today. Which is very weird. I usually hear my roommate getting up and getting ready and leaving, which lets me know it’s time for me to get up, so I don’t usually bother setting up an alarm. This morning I heard her alarm go off at 7:00, and then didn’t hear a thing until I woke up at 9:40. This was bad, because I have class at 10:00. I took a mega quick shower, borrowed my sister’s hairdryer in addition to my own (I held one in each hand and dried both sides of my hair at the same time), and got to class 20 minutes late. I wish my hair wasn’t so infernally greasy and that I could skip the shower and hairdrying when I’m in a hurry, but unfortunately, if I don’t wash it every day I resemble Snape.

Now this looks fun, so I think I’ll answer it:

HP Fandom Meme (gacked from R.J. Anderson, among others):
[Read more →]

I just ordered my graduation announcements and my cap and gown.

Wow.

Lately I’ve been surfing around the net, looking for things on shipping and the HP fandom in general, and I’ve noticed that many people are very critical of the Sugar Quill. They seem to see us as a bunch of pretentious, eliteist, but ultimately stupid freaks. They take issue with the fact that SQ only accepts R/H and, to a lesser extent, H/G fics. We’re exclusionary, they say. We should be more open minded and accepting. After all, we all love Harry Potter, don’t we? Shouldn’t we all revel in our love for JKR’s great creation, ignoring our differences ship-wise?

Well, that’s all well and good. But in thinking about this, I’ve developed a little theory.

When I first entered the HP fandom, I was frankly amazed to discover that there was such a thing as Harry/Hermione fics. I mean, wasn’t it completely obvious from GoF that Ron and Hermione were going to get together? Not only that, but what about Ginny? She’s been in love with Harry for 4 years now, doesn’t she deserve to get what she wants? Anyway, that was my first reaction to H/H shipping. I entered the fandom relatively late (July 2001), so apparently I missed the days when Harry/Hermione people dominated, leading to the creation of the Sugar Quill. SQ was actually the first fic archive I was introduced to– I started reading fanfic at the now-defunct Harry Potter Connection message boards, with a wonderful fic called Harry Potter and the Heir of Slytherin (which is archived in full at Schnoogle, author DrummerGirl). It was done in message board format, and those who were active on the boards were always talking about R.J. Anderson’s then-work-in-progress, If We Survive, the last story in the Darkness & Light trilogy. The links that people gave to this story were at SQ. I waited until IWS was finished, and read it. Eventually, people started talking up After the End as well. Basically, the majority of the fics people on those boards were recommending were archived at SQ. I knew that because of its selective nature, fics at SQ were superior to those at, say ff.net. In my mind, SQ became the epitome of HPfic archives– to be archived at SQ meant that you made it, buddy.

It was only after I had formed this impression of SQ that I started hearing about other archives and other ships– H/H being among them. I felt little to no desire to visit these other archives. They just couldn’t be as good as SQ. When the lack of a parent site (and the finishing of HoS) finally doomed to old HPC message boards to a slow and painful death, I needed to go elsewhere to find my HP fix. I chose the SQ message boards because I knew that there were people like me there, and I’ve been very happy that I did. I’ll venture over to FictionAlley to debate, but for good, engaging discussion of all that is HP, SQ is my home base.

The point of that long ramble? Like takes to like. Ever since we first set foot on the playground in Preschool or Kindergarten, we’ve been looking for people who share our interests. Oh sure, it might be fun sometimes to discuss things with people who have a different point of view, but for the most part, we like to be with people who agree with us. We like to look at things from the same general viewpoint– finding in each other’s ideas nuances that we ourselves did not see or could not see– things that deepen our understanding, not contradict it. And that’s where shipping, at least in the HP fandom, comes in.

Why Shippiness Matters

I have discovered that those who do not see the same ships in canon that I do tend to read the rest of canon differently too. Everything from the humor in JKR’s books to the characterization of certain people (Ron and Draco in particular seem to be very different people to H/H shippers), to House-Elf rights–they see all these things very differently than I do. It very often gets to the point where not even our love of Harry Potter is sufficent common ground. It’s like they’re reading completely different books than I am.

When issues come up that I disagree with, then, I tend to become irritated at the very least, hostile and angry at the most. That’s not what I want from fandom. I didn’t come online to get upset– I came to be surrounded with people who love Harry Potter as much as I do, and in the same wat that I do. To borrow a phrase from a great site of one of my other fandoms, the Republic of Pemberley, I need a “haven in world programmed to misunderstand obsession with things Potter.” I’m sure that most SQ’ers feel the same way.

So we’ll continue to be elitest. We’ll continue to act as though we’re the only ones that are right. We’ll use words like siriusly and ROX and any other in-house lingo that we darn well please. Because we truly believe that we’re right. WE truly believe that our ships are the only ones that have basis in canon. If you disagree with us, that’s great. Ignore us. Make fun of us. We don’t care. We like who we are, and where we are, and we don’t need your approbation.

There. I feel better.

In my irritation at the Netscape channel this afternoon, I forgot to mention something.

This morning my roommate, Jen, and I were in our Social Dance class, learning the Viennese waltz. Just your normal, everyday social dance class. We’d learned a new step and were just about to try it with music. Our teacher, Jason, turned it on. In the first few notes, I was going “it isn’t–it couldn’t be!” The next few notes confirmed it, though.

We were dancing to Hedwig’s Theme.

After cracking up with each other across the ballroom, Jen and I really enjoyed that dance.

Hedwig’s Theme makes a very good Viennese waltz, incidentally.

And her husband, of course, on the birth of their new baby boy– David Gordon Rowling Murray.

So I “sold out.” My Live Journal is now. . . well, live. I’m going to take Angua’s advice and double post everything (except this little tidbit, there’s already a similar comment over there). So Leslie, Teri, Wolf, and everyone who is now looking down on me for going over to the Dark Side, you can all act like it doesn’t even exist. This is the only link I’m going to put on this blog, and all you’ll notice is that I now have an icon when I post on RJA’s journal. Based on my experience with the thing so far, Blogger is ever so much easier to use. I don’t much like the exclusivity of LJ, and it has very limited options for us free users as to layout. If it wasn’t for the help this will give me with planning the shipper debate with Angua, I wouldn’t have ever done it.

Hey, it’s not like I’m turning H/H or D/G or anything like that. Now *that* would be selling out.

So I’m listening to “It’s a Hard-Knock Life” on the Netscape Showtunes channel, and it’s really irritating me. I’ve decided that I really don’t like kids in Broadway shows. The kids are all belting so loud they can barely make the notes, and the result is not all that attractive. If the kids would only sing like normal kids, I wouldn’t mind it. But they all sound like they’re 25 or so, with these awful fake vibratos. I wonder if there’s ever been a study done on child Broadway stars and whether they can sing at all after they hit 50. Because the sounds I’m hearing are simply not healthy. There’s no way they’re not injuring their voices singing like that.

The song’s over. Now on to the overture from West Side Story. If the Netscape Showtunes channel has a fault, it’s a bias toward Stephen Sondheim. In the last 20 minutes, I’ve heard 4 Sondheim songs. That’s overkill, if you ask me. Give me some Gershwin next, please.

I got an e-mail today from my very first college roommate, Becky. She’s engaged! Getting married on July 23 in the Houston temple. I wonder if I could take a side trip to Texas after Nimbus so I can go to her reception. I doubt it, but it sure would be fun. Becky and I were only together for a semester, but we got along really well, and I miss her a lot. It’d be great to see her again. Hmm. I’ll have to think about that one.

GAH!! Alright, someone needs to tell Netscape that if they’re going to play The Music Man, DON’T play that awful Matthew Broderick thing.

I think I’m going to throw up.

So last night, my roommate and I went to Macaroni Grill for dinner, mostly to celebrate the fact that I actually have money to spend on such frivolous things. We spent the night brainstorming for her fic (and made a major breakthrough, I might add), and when we were waiting for the waiter to box up our leftovers, we started writing on the table.

Now, Macaroni Grill, for those who don’t know, puts down a piece of butcher paper on each table, with a couple of crayons. The waiter writes his name on your table, and you spend the night resisting the urge to doodle. When we finally gave in, we started writing stuff like “Ron Weasley loves Hermione Granger” and “Harry + Ginny” and “Go Gryffindor!” and “Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus” and “Snape is a greasy slimeball” and “Twitchy little ferret, aren’t you Malfoy?”

Oh, no. We’re not obsessed. Not at all.

In other news, I may be getting a Live Journal. My only reason for doing so is that I now comment on so many *other* people’s LJ’s that I’m getting heartily sick of being “anonymous.” Other than that, I don’t know what I’m going to do with the thing, since I really like my blog better. It would be stupid to split up my entries, and even stupider to double post them. So I really have no idea what content, if any, will get posted there. Maybe I’ll use it exclusively for online quizzes and Friday Fives, and use this for more important things.

I always said I would never sell out as far as LJ’s are concerned, but. . .*sigh* It was inevitable, I suppose.

Today’s Friday Five looked pretty good, and I can’t think of anything else to blog at the moment, so:

1. If you had the chance to meet someone you’ve never met, from the past or present, who would it be?

I have to choose just one? I can’t. It’s a tie between Joseph Smith, Jane Austen and J.K. Rowling.

2. If you had to live in a different century, past or future, which would it be?

Hmm. I’d probably pick early 19th century– 1810-1840ish. Either that or the 22nd century. Things will be really nice by then, if we don’t blow ourselves up.

3. If you had to move anywhere else on Earth, where would it be?

Either England or Prince Edward Island.

4. If you had to be a fictional character, who would it be?

Ummm. . .Ginny Weasley. Or Elizabeth Bennet. One of the two.

5. If you had to live with having someone else’s face as your own for the rest of your life, whose would it be?

I’d take Audrey Hepburn’s face over mine any time. Of course, I’d need her body too.

Gosh, I couldn’t think of just one answer, could I?

Looky here!

I love it. It’s pretty and mysterious and very, very cool. I remember looking at the cover of GoF back before it came out, and I hated it. My first impression was “Ew. Harry’s ugly.” I like it more now, of course, but my first impression was less than ideal. But this one is awesome. Harry looks older, wiser, more mature– and very capable.

As soon as I get home, it’s going on my desktop.

Of course, now I’m even more excited. Are you sure it’s not June yet?