Emma Grant

And I may yet regret it, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like I should say something.

I'm not a member of daily_deviant, nor have I ever been invited to be, so this may be considered out of line or ignored altogether. I am, however, a member of this fandom, and I want to add my voice to the others who encourage the mods of that comm to reconsider their stance on this issue. I have watched the comm for around seven months, and I enjoy it. I would hate to see the hard work of everyone involved destroyed.

But at this point, the reality of the situation is that the actions of individuals in that comm (unintentionally, I'm sure) have offended people in a serious way. And whatever has happened since, whatever arguments, accusations, and added offenses have been exchanged, ultimately a person can only be responsible for her own actions and their consequences, intended or unintended.

We all have to eat crow every now and then, and while it's never pleasant, it's usually the right thing to do.

Edit: And just after I posted this and was offline for three hours, the mods made an apology post. Good on them. :-)

Happy Birthday to one Harry Potter, who is 27 today. According to canon, he also ( spoilers )

Almost time to pack for Sectus Prophecy, OMG!

There are three HP fandom podcasts nominated: spinnerscast in the Cultural/Arts category, snapecast in the Entertainment category, and slashcast in the GLBT category. Voting is easy, so please go and support your fandom podcasts! (Click the banner to vote.)





Feel free to pimp!

Yesterday was the Blogathon, and there were several fandomers who spent 24 hours producing fanfic and art for a good cause. You can still sponsor these folks until Tuesday.

sherant drew canon art and sketches (comprehensive post here), along with some middle-of-the-might crack, for the Duck Rescue Network. Sponsor her by clicking here.

wired_lizard wrote a gorgeous Grindeldore fic for The Heifer Project. Sponsor her by clicking here.

weyrdchic and upstart_crow wrote poetry and created jewelry (as basilisk_beads) for The American Association of Suicidology. You can sponsor them by clicking here.

irana wrote ficlets (fannish and original) for NARSAD: The Mental Health Research Association. You can sponsor her by clicking here.

Congratulations to all of them for staying up for 24 hours and raising money for their causes! If you know of others who participated, let me know in a comment and I'll add them to this post.

heidi8 just pointed me to a thread on FA in which fans are angsting about what will happen to the fandom and to fan fiction when the new book comes out. The new book of which they speak? Is OOTP.

This thread was started in February 2003. The funny thing is that many of the comments there could easily have been said by someone on my flist two weeks ago, and probably were. For example:

I think those who enjoy reading fan fics will continue to read them. And those who don't... meh, well thats they're problem. I know this probably sounds odd but I kinda don't want JK to finish the series (don't get me wrong, I eagerly await anything she might throw @ us). But from the fannon perspective it would be much more fun if she didn't, that way everyone could continue to write without the fear/dred of what may come.

This one is really interesting:

My main concern is whether the fannon craze will die down once the new book comes out. I think that hp fanfiction became so popular because books 1, 2, 3, and 4 all came out within almost a year of it's predecessor. When there wasn't a new book we all turned to another outlet, fan fiction. But what if Rowling picks up her pace and starts releasing books every year again? Will this whole culture we've got here waste away?

Were people really worried about that happening? It's almost hard to believe, with two more books to come after OOTP. This one made me smile, because it sounds like something I could have said:

Fan fic, in and of itself, is one big alternate universe. It doesn't matter how good an author gets at mimicing JKR's style, her fan fic is never going to be cannon. The glory of fan fiction is the ability to use a universe as Silly Putty(tm), stretching it, molding it, picking up Sunday comics with it, and making of it whatever your mind comes up with.

That same person goes on to suggest what the future holds:

Years from now, when all 7 books are out, there will even be authors who will specifically write stories set in year 1 or year 5 in a wave of nostalgia. It won't be the same as fic written while the books are coming out because it will be tinged with the knowledge of future events; there will be unconscious foreshadowing. Now is the innocent time.

Interesting, isn't it? The thread is here, if you're interested in reading more.

Okay, this has been coming for a while, and two posts I saw today have triggered this. I don't think these are unpopular fandom opinions, and I want to put them out there in order to tell people that they aren't alone.

( #1: What's with the anti-motherhood shit? [Spoilers] )

( #2: The first rule of fan fiction is that there are no rules. [No spoilers] )

Spoilers likely in comments.

1. fiona_fawkes is organizing a meet-up for Harry/Draco fen at Prophecy on Friday evening at 6:00. Details and an RSVP poll are HERE.

2. heidi8 is looking for volunteers to help organize a special fandom video to be shown at the Saturday luncheon at Prophecy. Details are here.

3. fiona_fawkes is also organizing a slashers' lunch on Thursday at 2:00. More information HERE.

4. There is a list of slash-oriented Prophecy meet-ups HERE.

One week to go! :-D

( I just watched the first bit of the JKR interview on Today and she was asked... [spoilers] )

A week from tonight, I will be hanging out with folks at Prophecy! ZOMGsoexcited!! :-D

Is anyone organizing a Harry/Draco get-together? I've looked around but can't find anything.

Also, who else is going to the special IMAX screening of OOTP on Thursday night? Can you imagine how awesome it will be to have that whole theater to ourselves? So excited! You can get tickets for that until July 28, btw.

pennswoods emailed me to congratulate slashcast on something I hadn't even known had happened: slashcast has been nominated as one of the Top Ten GLBT Podcasts in the 2007 Podcast Awards!!!

I'm torn between surprise, elation, and trepidation -- I mean, we've always wanted Slashcast to fly under the radar, you know? The idea of slashy HP fic is hard enough for non-fen to swallow without it being out there for the general public to judge. But still, we all work hard on the podcast, and I'm sure I speak for all of the staff when I say that we're flattered and surprised! I have no idea who nominated us, but thank you, whoever you are!

Several other HP podcasts were nominated in the Cultural/Arts category: Spinnerscast and one I've never heard of, Secrets of Harry Potter (which oddly enough is a Catholic-oriented podcast). And of course, the fabulous snapecast was nominated in the Entertainment category! There were no other podcasts in the nominations that were clearly fandom podcasts, so yay HP podcasters!!!

Voting will be July 28 - August 11, and I'll make some reminder posts then, so everyone can go and vote for the HP podcasts.

I'm sure most of you have seen this by now, but if you haven't, go read violet_quill's take on what she might have guessed the plot of DH was based on reading her flist if she hadn't read the book. You will laugh your ass off. Oh, and SPOILERS.

Well, I've finished. I haven't left my house since I got home Friday night (okay, Saturday morning, really), so I feel like I need to get a bit of fresh air. I did shower, at least, and managed to get enough snatches of sleep that I feel fine.

I want to make a big comprehensive post about how I feel about it all, but I think I need some time to digest it. I also want to read everyone else's thoughts, mostly because I feel like I've been horribly isolated, especially today. Not reading my flist during all of this was a lot harder than I thought it would be!

I kept a running commentary as I read each chapter, which contains my reactions to events as I read them and crazy theories as to what I thought was coming. Many of them were laughably wrong, but some of them were right. You can read that here, if you're interested. (Spoilers, obviously.)

I'm off to the grocery store, since I need to eat something other than pizza for dinner. And then I will spend the rest of the evening catching up with my flist!

*hugs everyone*

I'm about 2/3 of the way through the book at the moment. I decided to take my time with it, because there was no reason to rush. Originally I was going to be at Sectus and co-modding a round table with dragon_charmer about the future of Harry/Draco, and so my plan was to read like a fiend to be ready for that. I think that round table has happened by now, and I hope to find a post about what was said in the next couple of days.

But anyway, I woke up this morning and stared at the ceiling for a little while, thinking that this is the last morning I'll wake up not knowing how Harry Potter ends. That's sort of bittersweet, because I always had this crazy fear that something would happen to me and I would never find out how it ended, while at the same time not wanting it to be over. But this is it. Today is the day I will finally know everything. :-P

BTW, I'm writing up my thoughts chapter by chapter as I read here.

Ack, I just ate a vomit-flavored Bertie Botts bean. It really does taste like vomit, OMG. I can't get the taste out of my mouth, either. :-P

Edit: And I follow it with a sardine one. Blech.

I just got back from a HUGE release party with at least 1500 people, and it was awesome. There were lots of fantastic costumes, dueling, magic displays, wizard rock, and more. I even got to drink some Felix Felices, though it didn't help me get my book early. I got home around 2:00 am, determined to get started reading. And I'm thrilled to say that I never got spoiled, which is awesome!

I'm going to keep a log of my thoughts chapter by chapter as I read, mostly just to have a record for myself. I'll edit this post as I go. Here be SPOILERS, obviously.

( Chapters 1-5 )

( Chapters 6-10 )

( Chapters 11-15 )

( Chapters 16-20 )

( Chapters 21-25 )

( Chapters 26-30 )

( Chapters 31-36 )

( And the Epilogue )

And that's it. Wow. Canon is closed. I need some time to digest that and read what everyone else is thinking. At least I don't have to be afraid of spoilers anymore!

Edit: I didn't read any comments on this post until finishing because I was afraid someone would spoil me, either inadvertently or intentionally. And sadly, I was right about that. :-/

Well, I'm off to preparations for the book release party. See y'all on the other side!

This is a backup for when LJ is down. Feel free to friend, if you like.

Wow, I go offline for 8 hours and all hell breaks loose! Apparently there was a post on lj_biz* that implied that content depicting underage fictional characters having sex was no longer going to be allowed on LJ, because they seem to think it violates US law (where the servers are located). But that isn't true AFAIK. Once again, it looks like the people who run LJ are talking out of their asses and not thinking before pressing post.



There is a post about the case law here. I'm not a lawyer, but the gist of the ruling was that works depicting fictional children in sexual situations (i.e. animation, young-looking adults playing children) are not illegal, since (a) no crime was committed in the production of the material (i.e. it's not a record of actual abuse), and (b) there is no evidence that such material causes children to be victimized by pedophiles. As far as I know, that ruling was about visual depictions and doesn't necessarily cover written fiction. But AFAIK, written fiction doesn't count as pornography and as such isn't illegal. Edit: I forgot about the Red Rose Stories (Wiki link), so that's not completely true, though it's still exceedingly rare.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think LJ has a legal reason to ban any of our fanfic or art; i.e. they aren't violating any US laws by allowing that content to be hosted on their servers, which seems to be the argument they're making. (Photomanips are another issue, and I think there probably are legal grounds for banning explicit ones featuring underaged actors.) I know they can do whatever they want, but I'm not particularly worried. Yet.



*There are apparently DH spoilers in the comments of that post, but the post itself contains no spoilers.



Edit: Oh, and I'm emmagrant01 on JF, IF, and GJ as well. tarie is putting together a directory of everyone's alternate journals. Ever on top of things, she also has hilarious icons about this debacle ready for the downloading. ;-)



Son of Edit: They've just made another post on lj_biz that actually concerns me a bit more. :-/

I'm reposting this from The Leaky Cauldron, because the site has been really slow the last few days. And this is important.

( Send this email to the New York Times to express your outrage that they printed spoilers before DH was released. (NO SPOILERS under the cut) )

I sent mine. Though I left off that "Jo's Army" bit... ;-)

1. I had a Snarry dream last night. Not only was it Snarry, it was chan. And I may have been Harry for part of that dream... *coughs* I woke up thinking I should write a fic based on it, but the more I woke up, the more I realized it was a bit too bizarre to be workable. It would totally be a non-magical AU, and... incredibly smutty. But still. 0_o

2. I've sent out an email with the details of the DH Reading Party I'm having at my house on Saturday. If you were interested in coming but didn't get it, please comment here with an email address, and I'll send it to you.

3. All of you folks on your way to Sectus, HAVE FUN!! I'm jealous. ;-)

ETA: And speaking of Snarry, chaeche has a new Snarry vid with footage from OOTP in it. :-D