The HMS STFU

Draco is not a bully!

2009-11-19T16:05:00Z

terri_testing made those comments 3 months ago, but they were never posted here, so I decided to share them.

terri_testing
I'm not so sure Draco was truly a bully in canon. Harry meets him, Draco comes off as a spoiled, arrogant brat, ergo Draco = Dudley. Dudley is a bully, so Draco is. But in fact, if we get through the Harry-filter, we don't see Draco hexing people for the fun of it, like James, or testing jinxes on Firsties, like the twins, or attacking people for being weak or unpopular, like her housemates do to Luna. Bullies usually target the weak or unprotected. Who we see Draco attacking are his ENEMIES and rivals, and he almost always starts with verbal provocation; the Gryffindors usually raise wands first.

Think about it: Weasleys are his family's bitter political and apparently personal enemies; he sneered at Ron. He was willing to make nice with Harry until Harry publicly snubbed him again; after that Harry was his declared enemy. He taunted and took things from Neville--but Neville is an Auror's child, and people accused of being DE's, possibly including Draco's dad, were tortured by Aurors. Only after Hermione publicly accuses Draco of buying his way onto the Slytherin team does he start calling throwing the term Mudblood around. We never see Draco target Luna, or other loners, or younger kids, and you'd think Harry would have noticed if he was.

oryx_leucoryx
Regarding Draco: I'd call grabbing Harry's sweets, grabbing Neville's rememberall, attempting to get Harry and Ron caught breaking curfew, cursing Neville (if unprovoked) bullying behavior. Yes, Draco directs those behaviors at sons of political rivals or those siding with said rivals, but neither of the kids did anything to Draco besides look at him the wrong way and not want to side with him.

I doubt Harry would have noticed Draco bullying anyone outside his circle of friends - his year in Gryffindor, the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Weasleys and after the forming of the DA its members as well. Harry hardly knew anyone else. He needed Ginny to introduce Luna to him, he didn't know who Zacharias Smith or Theodore Nott were, nor did he recognize anyone outside these circles among the dead of the battle (and IMO almost all the dead in the first round of fighting were students).

terri_testing
Draco's behavior, as witnessed by Harry, seems better classed as psychological warfare against enemies and rivals. That is, we never see him attack anyone "because they exist" or for the simple joy of humiliating and hurting them, like James and Dudley do: his motives and targets are instrumental, as when he tries to give his Quidditch team an edge by psyching out Ron. This makes him a nasty (and calculating) piece of work, but not a true bully.

The inclusion of Neville as a target made it seem, in book 1, that Draco was a simple bully, because we could easily infer (as Harry did, by his reaction) that Neville was picked because he was an easy target. But we don't see Draco pick any other target by that criteria (and note his behavior towards Harry didn't fluctuate according to whether Harry was popular or shunned by other students), and we now know that Draco had legitimate reason to have a grudge against Neville-the-torturer's-son before he ever met him. (Similarly book 1 invited us to infer that Ron was targeted for being poor--but then we find out that Arthur was a foe with sufficient clout to get Draco's house ransacked.)

As to Harry's noticing things--your general assessment of Harry is spot-on, he's shockingly indifferent to anyone outside his own circle of friends--and enemies. (Which is why I think Arsinoe is wrong to sort him to Hufflepuff, though that House would have been very good for him.) And it's true that, in general "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

But we are talking about the boy "who wanted every detail of Snape's duplicity and infamy, feverishing collecting more reasons to hate him, to swear vengeance.(HBP)" And Harry DID notice Dudley's gang bullying younger children. So although Harry couldn't be bothered to learn the names of most of the kids who subsequently died in his defense, I think he would have noticed if DRACO had been taunting and hexing them in the corridors.

More on Horcruxes

2009-11-19T04:11:39Z

The Harrycrux! (I'm totally imagining a little "Ta-DA!" sound after that. :P )

The part that brought massive lulz was lilithisbitter being all "I know Latin better than JKR, and I will now show it off":

Maybe because it's an imperfect Horcrux versus the deliberate Horcruces (Rowling fails at latin, Horcruces is the proper way to render the plural versus Horcruxes that she wrote it as) that Voldemort put in other objects. It's badly put together and probably borderline falling apart with accidently leaks versus the seeming deliberate evil of the others.

LISTEN UP, LADY. The vast majority of people who read the books will never give a flying hoot about Latin conjugations or Latin pluralizations in the first friggin' place. Also, IMO, "Horcruxes" is a little more euphonious in the HBP and DH than "Horcruces". How do you even say that? "Hor-kroo-ses" and "Hor-kroo-kes" both sound... uh, not so great.

I mean, is there really no end to the number of idiotic little nits these people will pick to try and make themselves look good at the expense of the author who went to all the trouble of creating the fandom they insist on wanking in?

Uh, sorry. *mops up* Lil too much tl;dr there, folks. :)

ETA: OH MY GOD THEY'RE ALL DOING THE STUPID HORCRUCES THING NOW. This is at once headdesk-worthy and at the same time a rather revealing insight into just how bad the groupthink is over there.

Terri_testing's insanity reached new level

2009-11-17T17:59:05Z

Horcrux Side Effects. Apparently, Harry as a Horcrux caused moral degradation of his friends and enemies. Comments are golden, too:

marionros
I don't think you'd have to be magical to be affected by the proximity of a horcrux. Think of the Dursleys. Their fear of Harry, their revulsion of Harry and their wish to try to live as if he wasn't there takes on new dimensions when you realise that Harry is a horcrux and as such draws out negative feelings and responses in people.

oryx_leucoryx
You do realize this makes it harder to figure out whether Hogwarts in general or Hogwarts under Albus causes moral degeneration among its students over time? We have to remove from our considerations all those who were emotionally close to Harry (whether the emotion was positive or negative) and those are the students we know most about. Maybe Luna and Neville retained their moral compasses because they weren't as close to Harry, not because they resisted Hogwarts' (or Albus') influence?

condviramurs/00sevvie
Oh d*mn. You did it again. How could we have missed that for so long? Look at the effect it had on Severus too.

lilithisbitter
Most schools nowadays aren't here to educate, they're here to brainwash. And it's not like they learned magic that was of any use. Pretty magic mostly or watered down, like Potions being an extremely light version of alchemy. And transfiguration, unless they're teaching me how to toss a feather in the air and when it drifts over my opponent, I transfigure it into an one ton weight that crushes him flat, I don't see how it really helps me. Then again, unlike Miss Granger, I'm an actual genius and like most geniuses (unlike how TV and books and movie portray them) I get bored easily and tend to do badly a result. The magic that actually had an impact is locked up or forbidden, meaning if you actually want to become a powerful wizard ala Snape, you generally have to be an autodidact. All of the spells that Harry learned that actually had an impact, he didn't learn in class.

There's something oddly funny about the dark lord wanting to put part of his soul in a bejeweled headband. He just wanted to be a pretty princess, that's all. He was just so much more interesting in the earlier books when he chose to be evil versus the he was doomed to be evil. Evil that has a reason is much more interesting than evil for evil's sake.

The Simplest Riposte Possible To Snapefen Re Lily

2009-11-17T01:00:41Z

I just realized something so obvious it's amazing I missed it before.

The Snapefen over on Snapedom (you all will remember the teal deer that came from 00sevvie regarding this) insist that Snape really honestly meant to save Harry and James too.

It would be a lot more plausible if it wasn't for the clever structuring of what Snape says when JK Rowling wrote the book:

“Everything – everything I heard!” said Snape. “That is why – it is for that reason – he thinks it means Lily Evans!”

Either the Potters were not married by 1980, or Snape couldn't bring himself to let Lily go, by mentally refusing to refer to her married last name.

I vote the latter, and rest my case about who Snape really cared about keeping around at that time. Snapefen who attempt to claim Harry Potter is an illegitimate child will be met with massive lulz.

Fanfiction Hell: Double Feature!

2009-11-16T17:14:37Z

Feature One: Thanks to the Malfoys, by Broomstick Flyer. So you already have some idea how this goes.

Basically, Lucius and Narcissa Polyjuiced themselves into Harry and Hermione, got married in a Muggle ceremony, took pictures, and somehow got Harry and Hermione, naked and knocked out, into the Shrieking Shack. After they wake up, they discover that oh my god they are actually attracted to one another!

Harry finally looked up at her eyes and grumbled under his breath. Hermione smiled as she heard every word he said. She had expected him to be angry and to storm around yelling about what someone had done to him and that Ginny was going to hit the roof, instead he had simply mumbled. “Best sight I ever had in my entire life and she goes and hides it with that parchment.”

Hermione was about to ask him what he wanted to do but one glance downward told her exactly what he wanted to do. ‘Well we are married’ she told herself as she slowly uncovered herself to him.

Nearly two and a half hours later as Harry exploded inside her for the third time Hermione vaguely remembered the contraception charm before she herself was lost to yet another raging out of control orgasm that had her screaming his name yet again.

They both seemed insatiable as they started on their fourth love making session, just thirty minutes later. As she felt him slide slowly and easily inside her, she once again remembered the contraception charm “Harry, I think we might well have more than just a wedding certificate to remind us about today,” she said between gasps as he pushed himself fully inside her.

“Huh?” was his less than intelligent answer.

“Well you have filled me with your seed three times already and neither of us thought of the contraception charm,” she told him as he began to move inside her.

Harry suddenly felt panicked and started to pull away from her, but she had already decided it was to late for that so she wrapped her legs around him and held him buried inside her “Its too late to worry now Harry, please don’t stop, please,” she said as she began to thrust her hips up at him.

Molly and Ginny are, of course, completely hacked off and all of the Weasleys get involved in a huge fight. Still, you have to give a couple of bonus points for the lack of carnage, right?

The last ~900 words of the fic consist of an expository epilogue detailing how perfect the rest of their lives are, how fantastic their son (Godric Neville Potter, no really) is, and how "[t]hey spent a happy 140 years as man and wife, both of them dying within two weeks of each other. They had their ups and downs just like everyone else but in all the time they were together they never went to bed angry, one of them would always compromise on what ever the problem was. They as well as the Grangers never once felt the need or desire to ever return to Britain, living their bigot and racist free lives enjoying their children and grandchildren as well as a large number of great grandchildren being around them."

For our second feature, we have Grace au Malfoys, by Romulus Lupin. It is explicitly inspired by our first feature, but "rabid, zealous and somewhat violent" as well as much, much longer. Instead of the Malfoys dicking around with Harry and Hermione, this time it's Hermione and Ron, and Hermione is super pissed. (NB: the descriptions of naked Hermione are even CREEPIER in this fic.)

This last fact fully engaged his brain and his hearing ratcheted to high gear in time to hear her: “Ronald Bilius Weasley ... what the hell is going on?”

His brain parsed that statement fully and his earlier euphoria flooded all over his mind and body - and he felt a goofy grin break out on his face even as his brain went on vacation in the steamy reverie of his living daydream. With a wide, broad smile, he held up the Daily Prophet with its revealing photo and said, “We're married?”

His eyes wandered down that magnificent body, taking note of the smooth legs (`does she shave her legs?' he wondered) and the slim ankles before travelling to the newspaper to contemplate once again the moving picture - and almost missed the sibilant voice hissing, “And how can we be married, Ronald Weasley?”

His head moved up from its study of the picture in his lap and found himself in a staring contest with Hermione's chest - eyes locked on the light brown nipples that were pointed straight at him, engorged into tight points from the frigid air (not that he realized it) and he mumbled, “Who knows? Who cares? We're married and that's that.”

In the space of a nanosecond, Ron Weasley found himself hanging in mid-air, steel-clawed fingers wrapped around his throat, lifting him up from the bed as his ears were assaulted by a scream to rival Hermione's earlier outburst: “YOU DON'T KNOW? YOU DON'T CARE? WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO ME, RONALD WEASLEY!”

Before he could even squeak in protest, he felt himself flying backward - thrown there by a powerful burst of magic from the enraged witch. He felt himself slamming into the wall - and blinked as he realized that the walls had built-in cushioning and silencing charms. His brain, however, refused to consider that piece of information as his eyes finally locked on Hermione's face and he felt fear: true, gut-wrenching, lose-your-bowels fear clutching at his guts.

Ron then Apparates into the Great Hall somehow and everyone starts throwing hexes, while Hermione stays behind in their suite and flips her shit ("romance and Ronald Weasley were mutually exclusive") and starts doing accidental magic, including sending an accidental Patronus to Harry. Dumbledore goes on about how good it is that now Harry and Hermione will be married to Purebloods, who will keep them from changing the world (since Dumbledore, of course, is all about conservative politics). There's some sort of madness with Molly and Ginny and Arthur and love potions, of course, but Ginny also has a soul-bond with Susan Bones, who acts as Harmonian and Love Potion Theorist Mouthpiece. The Ministry can't do anything about the marriage because of one bizarre, archaic law (also of course), but then there's another bizarre, archaic law (regarding a book that registers soulmates - when it shows Harry and Hermione that Grindledore was canon, they actually jump back and say ew) that fixes it all.

But then! What very few people knew - and of those, Harry was the only one in the wizarding world - was that the Grangers, including their daughter, were practicing naturists. I MISSED YOU, CRAZY NUDISM FICS.

There are blatant hits at anvils and the books ("her life to this point often sounded like fiction - badly written fiction, at that") and he even says things like "Molly had never been shy about her ideas for One Big Happy Weasley Family" and "Ron's pitiful attempt at parseltongue was not only pathetic, it was laughable". One of the things that annoys me the most, though, due to sheer being-wrongness, is:

Only Arthur of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Weasley could wear it and, on his death or disablement, the ring would pass on to Bill, as the presumptive Heir and Head of House.

1) The only place in the books that the phrase "Noble and Most Ancient" pops up is on Sirius's tapestry. It's either just an unofficial thing the Blacks were using to describe themselves, in which case you sound like a prat when you use it in speech and by characters who aren't obsessed with purity of blood and lineages and are modern, or it's the closest the wizarding world gets to official titles, in which case you can't slap it on the Weasleys because we'd know by now if they were aristocracy - you don't stop being it just because you're poor. Either way it's "noble and most ancient", not "most ancient and noble", you idiot.

2) As eldest son, Bill would be the heir apparent - he will automatically inherit. The heir presumptive is an heir who can be displaced by the birth of an heir apparent and is generally a nephew or cousin or brother to the current titleholder. People always get this wrong, and it's so annoying.

The whole reason for all of this is the Malfoys doing something to keep Harry from becoming "Lord Black" (which doesn't actually make sense to me, nor does the use of "Lord and Lady Malfoy" - as far as I'm aware, the title isn't generally the same as the surname unless you're a baronet) because Sirius was able to name him as an heir (it doesn't work that way). Do not even get me started on how they're calling No. 12 the "ancestral Black family manor" or how they had several house elves.

Disclaimer: I'm by no means an expert and most of what I've read has been to do with the 18th and 19th centuries for use in fiction.

Romulus Lupin really wants to get in on the game of Super Awesome Magical Aristocracy, but he needs to do half a smidgen of research if he's going to sound like he has the slightest idea how it works.

Anyway. Color me shocked, and that generally doesn't happen when Weasleys don't get disembowelled or sexually assaulted.

Ron the dumbest red head of any age

2009-11-16T14:36:26Z

Broomstick flyer is doing what seems obligatory for every batshit Harmonian - she is rewriting HBP. The title of the story is stunningly original - Not The Half Blood Prince (7 chapters so far).

Author's Note:

A/Note: Here we go, I’m off on yet another circular rant about the last two books, you can save getting bored by skipping down to the actual story without missing a darn thing, except me Merlinsaprentice once again getting in a tizzy over the way the series rapidly went downhill after GoF leading to it being nigh on impossible to believe it was the same story in the sixth and seventh books and the very strange pairings in the epilogue, placing Hermione the brightest witch of the age with Ron the dumbest red head of any age, and Harry with super Ginny who only ever said about five or six lines in the first five books was in my opinion a total cop out, proving that JKR either only ever intended on writing the one book and ran out of ideas half way through the fifth one, or the publisher used a cheap ghost writer who just happened to forget to read the originals.

A few nights ago I was once again checking out some of the huge plot holes and enormous flaws in continuity in the last two books (6 HBP, 7 DH) there are so many, I noticed one that surprised me when I realised that I had previously over looked a really obvious one, how? I don’t know because they now seem such glaringly obvious mistakes.

Ron and Hermione promised at the end of HBP to stay at Privet Drive with Harry. Harry also said he was only going to stay at Privet Drive for a short visit this time. He mentioned nothing about staying until his birthday which would have been a long visit, roughly one and a half - two months. Being as the school closed before the normal end of term it was not a short time at all. Nor did he or the order mention they would be picking him up.

In DH it seems Ron and Hermione not only broke that promise and did not stay at Privet Drive with Harry, they only arrived along with the rest of the order shortly before his birthday. But Harry had also seemingly changed his mind about how long he would stay there and who he would leave with. What happened to beginning the hunt with just the three of them and not telling anyone they were leaving or when? All this happened without having a reason given for the huge change of plan or did JKR make another huge continuity error and forgot how HBP ended. (oh and going to Bills wedding being the reason Harry would stay longer than necessary at his prison at his aunts house doesn’t work for me.)

Or did some other poor quality ghost writer of the last book forget to check? Which would be no big surprise to me as I personally am still not convinced that HBP/DH and the first four books are from the same writer because the settings, characters, and their attitudes are so vastly different from the first four books. I’m not too sure about OoTP. That and the extremely odd change of middle name for one of the two main characters. (Although I am almost certain that Jean as Hermione’s new middle name was a typo error). I mean what kind of author would decide to change a main characters name because they wished to use the same name for a small part player like Umbitch.

Anyway as I read and wrote these thoughts out I was infected by another plot bunny, so with a new idea in my head I started this little story just to see where it leads me too, as of yet I have no complete plot just some vague ideas and just one firm aim, bring Harry and Hermione together without Ron tagging along as things should have been for the last three books. Why would Harry or anyone else for that matter forgive a supposed best friend who treated him the way Ron did in Goblet of Fire. I have asked several young teenage people and none said they would forgive being treated as a liar and cheat, some even admitted they would still be disinclined to forgive even if they were guilty. So I have some drabbles and ideas that I have not explored yet and I intend to meld them together if I can and see what we end up with.

Merlin…

Another A/Note, I highly doubt there will be any Horcrux like things in this tale because I don’t see how a soul or part there of can be split from the body that it is housed in without causing death, as in the AK curse.

The Darkest Creatures are Anti-Gryffindor!

2009-11-15T02:23:39Z

In the comments to the last post by terri_testing lynn_waterfall argues that the Darkest Creatures are classified as such because they are anti-Gryffindor. My favorite comment is the one made by oryx_leucoryx:

Bringing my fascinated disgust to new levels.

But how did Gryffindors get to make the rules? Was there a time when they controlled the Wizengamot or the Wizards' Council (predecessor to the Ministry)? Or did everyone else go along with them because they didn't want unhappy Gryffindors whining and complaining? Or is it that other Houses don't care about the Dark/non-Dark designation but other things such as whether something is legal, harmful in general, detectable etc?

Rowling laid an egg by not making Harry and Hermione a couple!

2009-11-13T10:03:14Z

From What'd make you abandon Harry/Hermione? thread on Portkey:

Polydicta
Well, since the HP biography is just a propaganda exercise to keep the battle-weary, depressed folk of Wizarding Britain a little buoyant, I'll carry on writing about what really happened.

So there!

cakeandmilk

Ha! Never shall I abandon my ship!

They won't end up siblings because they aren't. And I'm pretty sure that if they do end up brother/sister, then JKR wouldn't have written the whole series the way she did and then we Harmonians wouldn't be diagnosed with 'delusional'-ity.

H/Hr is my sanity! Never shall I abandon it! MWAHAHAHAHA!

StarbuckJr

JKR has yet to manage to dissuade me, and it has been, what, years since DH was out? Thing is, i have stopped listening to her, meaning she has lost her chance.

Marcella
JK assuming that she actually didn't write H/Hr or R/Hr but H/Hr/R and that was the revolution they made in WW (And all was well)

Midnghtr72
Might I just say I find it funny, that I abanodned Harry Potter as a series but not H/Hr. If that makes any sense of course.

lovesharry
QUOTE(StarbuckJr @ Sep 28 2009, 01:29 PM)

JKR has yet to manage to dissuade me, and it has been, what, years since DH was out? Thing is, i have stopped listening to her, meaning she has lost her chance.

Hi StarbuckJr!! Glad to see you back on Portkey. It's been awhile since I've read a post from you. Please stay awhile!

Rowling hasn't dissuaded me from shipping H/Hr either. I hear that she has Twitter now, ... personally, I could care less. Truth be told, she's always bothered me to some degree, and then she went all Weasley and THAT really bugged the heck out of me. Like many Harmonians, I couldn't understand how she, of all people, couldn't see H/Hr. Good grief, she wrote it so beautifully well!

It will always be H/Hr for me! Rowling laid an egg by not bringing them together!

Midnghtr72
QUOTE(lovesharry @ Sep 28 2009, 12:18 PM)

It will always be H/Hr for me! Rowling laid an egg by not bringing them together!

Ha! This is hilarious, cause in a way, its like we are her b@stard children. No matter how much she hates us she made us. Oh the irony!

gal-texter
What'd make me abandon H/H? As it turns out, practically nothing. I've abandoned the fandom at some point, but I still like H/Hr.

QUOTE(lovesharry @ Sep 29 2009, 03:18 AM)
Hi StarbuckJr!! Glad to see you back on Portkey. It's been awhile since I've read a post from you. Please stay awhile!

I agree. Good to see you, Dr StarbuckJr!

Polydicta
QUOTE(Midnghtr72 @ Sep 28 2009, 02:59 PM)

Ha! This is hilarious, cause in a way, its like we are her b@stard children. No matter how much she hates us she made us. Oh the irony!

Does this mean I can actually claim to be a half-blood now?

Strangely, having only just invested in the years 6 & 7 books, I've given up trying to read them. The one big spoiler (the epilogue) means that I really don't care what JKR does with the trio any more because I like OUR (Harmony) version better.

It still strikes me that she decided that she wanted a final twist in the plot, and decided in the wrong one. I like the cliche'd hero gets the girl ending. It's traditional and it's what makes a romance a romance.

Hey, what about Cinderella running off and getting a job as a waitress and living with an alcoholic Vernon Dursley? It just doesn't work in the romantic vein, does it?

So, I'm in for the long-haul here.

Marcella
hero gets the girl ending.

But the Hero got the Girl. I understand as "Girl", the one who stayed behind and wait, someone that have no other function in plot than to be the Hero's love interest. If JK was trying to avoid this "cliche" she was saddly mistaken. Hermione has a proper function in the history and was Harry's alchemy partner. She was transformed too. And between her and Harry who was the hero and who was the dansel in distress?

StarbuckJr
Why, i bow to you ladies, gal-texter and lovesharry.

HP could as well as be another "hero gets the girl" story, maybe it is/was in JKR's mind. Personally, for the first five book (how many pages does that make), i thought Hermione was The Girl, and the author was just throwing around temporary girls (and boys) in their respective personal lives to keep it real. To make the characters believable, and human. Just as i was reading Cho parts *knowing* it was going to end, i thought it was the same with Ginny.

Boy, was i disappointed...

Polydicta

I kind of discount Ginny since she's not The Girl, but the archetypal FanGirl.

I always thought of her as an annoying plot element rather than a character in her own right. I still do.

I mean, a pureblood girl who actually writes in a magical diary that answers back? That's not even in the same intellectual league as Mr Ed (but is about as thick as Ron). I don't know, but I wouldn't trust anything that talks back unless I know where it keeps its brains ... and even then I'd be wary. This doesn't speak to me of being an appropriate partner for Harry, who comes over as intelligent if rather poorly motivated academically.

In the same light, I can tell you that there is no way that Hermione would tolerate an argumentative, disloyal fool like Ron. Most highly intelligent (and highly motivated) women want caring, intelligent partners.

Of course, in the epilogue to the epilogue, Ron and Ginny probably shuffle off the mortal coil, leaving Harry and Hermione to get together at long last ... Ahhh, my!

hexonjellybeans12

Oh, wow...I never thought about Ginny being a pureblood and writing in a talking diary. Good eye. You're right....Ginny wins the award for having the smallest intellect in the HP universe.

I agree with you wholeheartedly about Ron. I'm convinced that Hermione would take a swing at him at least three times during their marriage. I mean, he tortured her relentlessly in school. Did she think moving in with him and bearing his children would help with that? Ron does have the emotional range of a teaspoon, after all. Ron is neither caring nor intellectual. Who tries to fix their wand with Spell-o tape?! Ugh.

Wank-lite

2009-11-11T22:48:03Z

I just found the Harry/Hermione Facebook page.

It contains the usual nonsense: Rose is Harry's daughter (what about poor Hugo?); still bitching about the "delusional" thing; calling the epilogue the "crapilogue" (seriously? That stopped being clever the second time I heard it.); "it could have gone that way"; the movies will go H/Hr; blah blah blah.

What makes it really special though is that you can put faces to the names. I can't help but think that some of these people are among the usual suspects at Portkey. And, that makes me smile.

ETA: OMG, the photo manips! THE PHOTO MANIPS!

A new ridiculous essay by terri_testing

2009-11-10T15:05:39Z

Dark Magic and the Four Elements

One line results in four entries of Teal Deer

2009-11-09T04:46:02Z

That one line is: Back in about 1980 or so, Snape was called out by Dumbledore over being a lil too obviously interested in making sure only Lily was pulled out of Voldemort's line of fire.

The end result: Snapedom yielded four bloody entries entitled "Love Thine Enemy".

Now THAT, folks, is the most mileage I think any one-liner of a statement has ever gotten.

In skimming the essays I noticed that it is again brought up the question of whether Snape heard the whole prophecy or not. I think the STFU settled that question definitely a while ago but if someone could bring forth the chain of reasoning and re-send it I can amend this as it is germane to sporking of the tl;dr. :)

We do not actually see Severus making the request of Voldemort, so we do not know how he phrased it exactly, but the evidence we do have seems to indicate rather unambiguously that he asked specifically for Lily's life.

Earth logic. I may faint. After all, we have Harry's Dementor-induced memory recollection and the Voldemort-POV memory to make this conclusion.

It is fair to ask whether Dumbledore's statement is speculative in the extreme regarding an 'exchange'. The fact that Snape doesn't actually contest it is uncertain proof that he might have at least countenanced it.

At the end of the first part there is much BAWWWWWing about how Dumbledore is so CROOL. Geez, I might just have to write a "In Defence of Albus Dumbledore" meta at some point if this keeps up.

Asking for the child's life would have been pointless. Voldemort, we are told IIRC, normally did not randomly kill children, so it is a measure of how serious he deemed the threat Harry supposedly posed to him that he was determined to kill him outright. What on earth could a young, talented but poor and otherwise ordinary follower have offered him to convince him to spare the boy?

I grant the absurdity of asking Voldemort, but the dialog between Dumbledore and Snape seems to indicate that Snape did not, at first, extend his altruism beyond Lily when asking Dumbledore to use all his efforts in that regard.

And that is what Snape is being excoriated for: that his first impulse was not to be the bigger man and admit to himself that the past was the past and that as things now stood, he was in way too deep and needed to help the other side as much as possible.

Rather, his first impulse was to think only of Lily. Whatever secret motivation he may have had, it is at the very least possible he considered the likelihood that James Potter might be gotten out of the way without needing to dirty his own hands.

It honestly reads to me like authorial insertion, JKR attempting to paint Severus in the blackest of colors without regard to logic or the actual established facts of her world, more than anything else.

And as usual the "I-know-better-than-JK-Rowling-how-to-write-nyah-nyah" line of reasoning comes into play. *rolls eyes*

If we take interviews as canon, however, one of the three defiances was Lily's refusal to join the Death Eaters - given no corresponding defiance by James alone, this probably slightly tilts the balance against any possibility that she was of less importance to Voldemort and thus safer to ask for/more likely to be spared.

I raised my eyebrows at the interview part. Can anyone verify that this took place? I do know JK Rowling said under exceptional circumstances a Muggleborn might become a Death Eater, but at the time people interpreted this to mean Peter Pettigrew was probably allowed to become one on the strength of his ability to spy on some key enemies of Voldemort.

Dumbledore immediately rounds on him contemptuously, interpreting his answer back at him to mean that he "did not care about the deaths of her husband and child," to which accusation Severus makes no reply. After a moment of silence Severus finally makes his actual (versus an implied) request of Dumbledore: “Hide them all, then [....] Keep her – them – safe. Please.” He asks Dumbledore to protect all of them, stumblingly correcting his instinctive immediate focus on Lily to include the others. He then answers Dumbledore's demand for something "in return" with the word "anything."

EARTH LOGIC AGAIN. My goodness what is this world coming to when the analysis is reasonable?

The rest of it all is the usual Dumbledore bashing and oh no that poor woobie Snape is so put upon and manpuwated and innocent! so I think I'll quit here.

ETA: Oh for God's sake.

Really, I think that in that interview Rowling just misspoke, based on her own hazy recollections of her work (since she apparently never reread any of it, ever)

WILL SPECIOUS SCURRILOUS COMMENTS LIKE THIS NEVER CEASE.

I think it has been settled that JK Rowling does re-read her work, just not in obsessive exhaustive detail like these fen seem to think authors must do.

Also, while I grant that JK Rowling makes mistakes in interviews, to link a statement like that to an aspersion cast on the author is a really low blow.

Harmoanian stories for the grandkids

2009-11-08T09:50:36Z

Copypasta from wank_report:

Broomstick flyer is a fanfic writer who, along with her husband, writes HP fanfic that she like to read to her grandkids.

One of her best works was a fic where Hermione dies and is confronted by the children that she was supposed to have with Harry - and she realises what a shame and waste her life has been, and how terrible her kids with Ron are (Heaven sent).

Something even viler than that: The Potter blood feud

Two weeks later Arthur and Molly Weasley were sitting at the breakfast table when a tremendous shaking began under their feet, quickly the shaking spread to the walls of the Burrow. They were still sitting trying to work out what was happening when the magic holding the odd shaped house together simply vanished. Seconds later they were both lying dead in the rubble of their home.

Hermione Potter standing just outside the Weasley wards placed her wand retrieved from the ruins of the Burrow safely into her holster and apparated to Diagon Alley where she found her husband of just one month standing watching Ron Weasley as he swung gently in the breeze, he hung fastened by his feet to the sign above the Weasley twins shop. He was screaming for help as he tried to stem the flow of blood that was flowing freely from where Harry had removed his manhood.

Upside down he would have just a little longer to live and to regret ever trying to force Hermione Granger to marry him become a slave and give him and his brothers’ children. Inside the shop the Weasleys only remaining twin was already dead, having been subjected to a taste of his own medicine. His death certificate would report the cause of death as ingesting far too many of his own products, including packs of ever dry fireworks that had somehow ignited while in his stomach.

Ginny who had often stood next to Ron encouraging him to take the final step and rape her former friend was bound in thick ropes and lay in the gutter at Harry’s feet. “I thought you might like to deal with this one,” Harry commented as his wife arrived beside him.

Hermione who had suffered years of verbal abuse in the magical world looked up at Ron and with a glare at him and a desire for revenge waved her wand and stripped the now sobbing for mercy Ron of his clothes. “You still want me as a baby factory Weasley? Oh seems you don’t have the tackle any longer what a shame,” she said as she glared at him.

Ginny Weasley died as she choked on her brothers completely amputated genitals that were forced down her throat by Hermione who kept hearing the words the youngest redhead had told her brother repeatedly “Oh just rip her knickers off and shag her, that’ll shut the bitch up.”

Bet the grandkids will love that.

In a reply to a review to this very story, she writes:

Note to smedman, First I would like to say thanks for your highly intelligent review. Second I dont recall asking you to read this story, if you read my profile you will see that I write for my grandchildren, who it seems are far more intelligent and are able to express their likes and dislikes without being insulting, at least they dont resort to the sort of rubbish you posted as a review.
which means that her grandkids have read this very story. With her blessings.

Snape is not a mean teacher!1!!eleventy-one!!1

2009-11-08T08:27:09Z

Snape and His Fears. The original post is more or less okay, but there is a lot of insanity in the comments, especially about the incident with Hermione's teeth.

In Which Dumbledore Is Supposedly Omnipotent and Self-Aggrandizing...

2009-11-05T05:15:47Z

I give you The Dog that Didn’t Get Exonerated in the Night in which the usual Manip!Dumbledore paradigm is once again trotted out for display. For bonus lulz, marionros got good and wound up and blasted a few screeds about how that horrible fucktard Harry Potter is NEVER WRONG AT ALL NO SIR THE BOOKS NEVER SHOWED THIS (never mind that, uh, we do indeed read that in the "big reveal" scenes at the end of the books, that the gaps in Harry's (and therefore our) knowledge are filled in); she also doesn't seem to grasp the concept of a POV character who introduces us to the world in which he or she inhabits.

As seems to be par for the course, trying to find ways to prove that the Death Eaters weren't really all THAT bad and such, we get this bald-faced assertion:

So Grindlewald was the Dark Lord of his time, and Voldemort did a bid to the title a couple of decades later. Bagged it too (although I still don't get why everybody was so afraid of him. All that talk of 'he did great things.. Terrible, but great' and what do we get? A few murders of muggles and old women! A two-bit muggle crook can do better than that! The DE's would faint at seeing 'Silence of the Lambs'!).

*coughBULLSHITcough*

Voldemort did a hell of a lot more than "A few murders of muggles and old women", Ms Ros. He founded a terrorist organization devoted to overthrowing the lawfully constituted government of his nation. He counselled the commission of murder, torture, vandalism and property destruction by the members of his organization. Every action proved that power for its own sake no matter how convoluted the pathway was his basic justification. Else why greedily snatch at all elements of immortality? Even though he had his Horcruxes he wanted a Philosopher's Stone and had no compunction about drinking Unicorn blood.

But hey, why let the books speak for themselves when you can make stuff up? Example by means of this detour:

Sirius loathes Snape and calls him 'Greasy Git'. Harry loathes Snape and calls him 'Greasy Git'. We might assume that Neville also loathes Snape, but as far as I know, he never referred to him as 'Greasy Git'. Just because Neville loathes Snape but doesn't call him Greasy Git doesn't mean that those who do call him Greasy Git don't loathe him.

It's amazing how these fen can make it all about Snape amid meta about Dumbledore. The making stuff up is that the words 'greasy' and 'git' never occur together once in the books. Chew on that, Ms Ros, and quit substituting fanon for logical analysis.

Then The Corruption of the House System in which terri_testing takes a little sideswipe or three at James by insinuating he didn't respect his mother, and then goes on to basically portray Dumbledore in a manipulative light again. The actual logistical underpinnings of her assertions seem quite weak. How would, as she claims, a mass Obliviate work on twenty some thousand people? (Since that is, in effect, what she's proposing as the reason why nobody remembers what House Dumbledore happened to be in; she says (paraphrased) 'the spell works on books and memories')

My spork is in storage at the moment so I can't do more than take a few feeble stabs at these meta-pieces which probably have grains of truth, but which seem to be built on a helluva lot of speculation and more than a bit of fanon.

ETA:

Oh for chrissakes mary_j_59 came along and managed to bring in some of that ridiculous Four Elements of Nature theory as well as demonstrate just how badly she excels at Missing The Point.

Her comment is here and I'll be over in my corner of the universe, karate headdesking at the ridiculousness of her ability to ignore what the Sorting Hat and Dumbledore both said about Slytherin traits.

Son of ETA: I noticed a segment of the LJ comments over there segued into some very revealing comments made by the Snapefen. My JournalFen entry regarding what I saw is linked.

Harmoanian Indoctrination: It Exists

2009-11-01T06:29:48Z

PSA: Snippets taken from the wank report.

Old Portkey had a forum, and on this forum they had a thread. And with a self-righteous bleat here and some srs bsns there, the Harmoanians had their say.

PJLikesAUfanfic: I even got little one trained to say 'ron is icky and yucky and mean to Hermione' and she is so adorable when she says it too. At school they play the HP movies *1 and 2 only since the movies 3 & 4 and up would scare little kids in her Special Needs class* sometimes and she stands up and points at the TV and says it in the middle of her class and her teachers smile and nod and give her a sticker. I guess they have read the books too and know which couple is the right choice rather than the 'easier' choice.

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS I DON'T EVEN-- *stares*

I think my face looks like that dog that's trying to comprehend the sheer level of stupid up close he's witnessing.

What kind of person uses their children to validate their world of batshit? I mean, that's just a million degrees of Fucking Creepy, in my book.

I don't even want to try and wade through the rest of it but I imagine some of you will be more than ready to take out your sporks and apply some deserved ego reduction to these folks.

Meanwhile, I'll be over here. *karate headdesks*

ETA:

I want to point out that this icon from littleshebear is so very appropriate.

"100 Reasons to ship Draco/Ginny"

2009-10-29T20:41:01Z

(Sorry if this has been posted before :P)

I was curious about why people at Portkey have Draco/Ginny as one of their "official" ships, so I went looking for their D/G forums, and found this list.

I've selected the most lulzy reasons out of the lot to avoid the tl;dr.

- It's like Romeo and Juliet, without the crappy ending.

- It's about time the Dragon gets his fair maiden (Draco meaning 'Dragon' & Ginevra meaning fair/beauty)

- The colors green (Slytherin) and red (Gryffindor) remind us of Christmas.

- Because we also get the chance to see lots of hilarious Blaise and Pansy.

- because you would have to be mad not to ship them

- Because Slytherins and Gryffindors going together is helping house unity.

- because Blaise & Pansy were born to make Draco and Ginny be together, no matter what it takes.

- Because D/G fic invairably has a huge quality increase from D/Hr and H/D fic.

- Because H/G and Dransy are too predictable!

- There's so many different types of people that support it -- Harmonian and Heron, In-Canon Toad Flamer and In-Canon Chocolateer, people who like OOC Blaise & Pansy and people who don't...

- Because Draco's wit comes out best when paired with a Weasley. (It's a FACT!)

- I think D/G are good together because it makes ron really angry and keeps him busy going afer Draco and keeps him away from Hermione. Anything to keep ron away from Hermione is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

- The thought of D/G having lots of pink haired kids is a cute idea *you know white hair mixed with red gives you pink! dang been watching too much anime lately*

- I like the dynamic that the fanfic writers for the D/G ship have for their stories, they way they have Draco and Ginny play off eachother is really interesting and makes for a good read.... as long as they are all still fully H/Hr compliant so I can read them of course.

- Because we're the CC ship least affiliated with the whole plagiarism scandal.

- Cause they're kids would look hot!

Of course, they didn't make it to a hundred. I'm guessing their brains exploded in the process.

Also, I love how most of their reasons have nothing to do with the ship itself. Way to prove the "awesomeness" of D/G...

*backs away from Portkey singing You give my ship a bad name*

Social Experiment!

2009-10-25T16:42:47Z

Over on LJ in Fandom Secrets, last night's post provided us with this secret and its ensuing comments.

A completely harmless secret that is in NO WAY poking the bear (the part calling people idiots is especially non-confrontational). As soon as I read it last night, I wanted to almost call troll, but I let it slide because I felt things really could turn interesting with it. When I checked back this morning, I was right...

People answer the OP's question ("What is it about Harry and Hermione that pisses you guys off so much?"), and you get all sorts of responses, from the rational explanations to the kneejerk, to the "BECAUSE THEY'RE ANNOYING", to the H/Hr shippers adding their two cents.

Anonymous: "the shippers, the essays, the superiority complex..."

cupricanka: the lack of Ron :(

lovedforaday: The Ron and Ginny hate, the arrogance, the JKR bashing, elevating Hermione from sidekick to goddess, the shit essays...

Anonymous: Mostly, it's the fangirls who would argue that it was going to be canon, when it very obviously wasn't. Ship whatever oddity you want, just don't be delusional about it.

threnody: "What is it about Harry and Hermione that pisses you guys off so much?"

Their crazy-ass fans, that's what. Tenacious little fuckers who refuse to take no for an answer despite the complete and utter lack of canon to back up their ship, interviews saying they were wrong, and Harry out and out saying she was like a sister and it had always been that way. The proper response to this is not 'blow a gasket and call JKR an idiot who doesn't know jack', it's 'accept it and move on'. Even if you want to plug your fingers in your ears and read fanfic, don't go on about how the background was all laid out in the story and then the tables were turned at the last minute.

THAT is what makes normally sane 'live and let live' types go from 0 to frothing in no time flat.

And yes, I had kinda hoped that Harry would end up with Ginny. I was honestly shocked to hell and back when it actually happened, though. It's not like there was groundwork put in for it except for Ginny getting slightly more face time as they got older, which is to be expected (11 year old boys are not going to notice much about their friend's kid sister. 15 year olds in the middle of a sekrit war with limited agemates are going to be talking to that kid sister more than they would any outsider). It WOULD be shocking for Harry to end up with Hermione, because they are much, much closer and there would have been *something* to give us hints. Y'know, like there was with Ron and Hermione from the fourth book onward. And I'm ambivalent toward that ship. I don't particularly like Ron *or* Hermione, so I don't care either way who they ended up with.

ainu laire: I'd have to say the reason there is so much hate likely really reached a high point when some famous Harmonian started rewriting Book 6 to suit her needs... completely denounced JKR, etc etc... just got a bad wrap from there...

And it goes on like that. People throwing in their opinions, people who claim to be indifferent and wondering why people are still on about this...and, of course, the H/Hr'ers, the H/Hr supporters, and the "people can ship whatever they want!" show up to defend the fort:

greenhera: I'd like to know, too.

It's always the same argument: the shippers, "omg they're like brother and sister", they have no chemistry blah blah blah. What irritates me is that if the tables were turned, the OBHWF shippers would have had a small number gone insane if their ships weren't canon or JKR blasted them.

EVERY pairing has its crazy shippers...unfortunately, the small number of H/Hr crazies were brought to the spotlight because of the interview.

Who did JKR blast exactly? Did I miss an interview? More of putting Emerson's comments on her, I take it? And "if the tables were turned", I'm going to go ahead and say not as many people would have shipped R/Hr. They would have still existed, of course, but some people simply enjoy the author's choices and go with them. I know I shipped them because it was the direction JKR was going in and she gave me concrete reasons to ship them. She backed them up by showing us their growing attraction and I agreed with idea, so I jumped on board. So, no, I wouldn't have gone batshit had then not been canon because...I wouldn't have shipped them to begin with. I probably would have seen what ship she was giving us and made my decision accordingly.

sistermagpie: I managed to completely miss all the crazy Harmonian shippers in my years in HP fandom. I don't ship it, but the people I know who do are all completely normal and not delusional at all. ::shrug::

There's a few comments just like this. The "I never even knew the crazy existed...." to which I can only say that someone barely scraped the surface of this fandom (and I'm a little jealous of a world without the crazy...). I cannot even talk about Neville's grandmother's vulture hat without shipping SOMEHOW being brought up by someone, someone then criticizing JKR's choices, and then the "WELL IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN!" turning up.

We even get some apparent Slytherfen showing up! In response to someone claiming how H/Hr doesn't make sense because Harry sees her like a sister:

haloandthorns: Ah, see, Harry's line in the Deathly Hallows about Hermione being more like a sister read more like a slap in the face to me, and I don't even really ship Harry/Hermione.

I just didn't like the fact that JKR's such a bitch to her fans, especially to anyone who's a fan of her "bad boys" because they're obviously irredeemable, there's no shades of gray in this world, and they are evil, evil, evil.

It's why I got rid of all of my books. I was disgusted with the way she treats her fans.

When asked what he/she is talking about with this, "no shades of gray" comment, he/she responds:

haloandthorns: ...I just gave up on the series because I didn't like the shady morality. It's all steeped in her Calvinism that some people are just born good, and that no matter what shit they do, they can get away with it. She kept banging on about unity all throughout the books, only to have the school fractured between the Slytherins vs. everyone else. Not everyone in Slytherin is inherently evil, as Ron states in the first book, it just isn't possible, especially since only a small portion of the Slytherins have parents who are Death Eaters or who even support the movement. I mean, come on, not one Slytherin joins the fight at the end?

Then again, if the entire school had persecuted me as downright evil without even attempting to get to know me, then yeah, I'd say "fuck you", too and just leave.

We only need some Snape wives for Bingo....

OH, BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

The secret's OP finally turns up with her/his~*OMG SOCIAL EXPERIMENT*~ claims:

I’d like to thank you guys for proving me right. Apparently, two years after the series ended and despite numerous claims (on both sides) that we were all past the wank, we cannot seem to have an intelligent discussion on the romance in Harry Potter.

Some highlights from your comments (Yes, I read all of them):
Apparently, H/Hr shippers *beg* for wank with their batshit crazy-ness. Can you blame Harry and Hermione shippers for writing essays on why their pairing belonged together?(Which a great many of you cited as why you hated them) When R/Hr and H/G shippers did the exact same thing?

If Harry and Hermione shippers are batshit crazy, then so are Ron and Hermione shippers and Harry and Ginny shippers. Both sides thought that they were going to be ~*canon*~ and acted as such. There were assholes on BOTH sides.

One thing I’d like to point out, though, is that H/R and H/G shippers seemed to act “holier-than-thou” at many points during this “intelligent” discussion. As if they had never bitched about JKR, or never bashed. Yes, it’s annoying when H/Hr shippers do it, and it’s annoying when you do it as well.

I'm not denying that there aren't some Batshit!H/Hr shippers out there. I'd be lying as I know there are. However, you'd also be lying to say that there aren't any crazyass R/Hr or H/G fans out there. Why does H/Hr get such a bad rap when there are batshit crazies on BOTH SIDES?

Lastly, I’d like to thank the person who gave me an honest answer: “because it is fun to argue when you know you’re right.”

I enjoy how the only "honest" answer is that it's because it's fun to argue. Clearly, that's the only explanation. Or rather, it's the only explanation the OP allows themselves to accept. For me, one of the anonymous replies to this comment comes a little closer:

No, both sides didn't "think" they'd be canon....one side thought, the other side knew. THAT'S THE POINT THAT H/HR SHIPPERS DON'T GET.

There's lots more bickering and arguing and idiots on both sides, but there's wank galore...as there always is.

In which terri_testing casts scorn upon Albus Dumbledore

2009-10-25T06:35:47Z

I give you, first of all, The Secret Riddle: Albus's Collusion in Tom's Dirty Secret.

One of her little gems here is to create an apparent "contradiction" in two of Dumbledore's statements:

Who else realized the dread Lord Voldemort to be the former brilliant, charming Tom Riddle? Well, we have two statements by Albus on this, and they are diametrically opposed—in fact, incompatible. In HBP, Dumbledore stated, “I have not been able to find many memories of Riddle at Hogwarts…. Few who knew him then are prepared to talk about him: they are too terrified. What I know, I found out after he had left Hogwarts, after much painstaking effort, after tracing those few who could be tricked into speaking….”

Yet in CoS, Dumbledore had explained to the Weasleys, “Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle…. He disappeared… underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations that when he resurfaced as Lord Voldemort, he was barely recognizable. Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here.”

Well, Albus, which is it?

She's being disingenuous, and starting with the usual Snapefen premise of going OH THOSE HORRIBLE GRYFFINDORS YOU CAN'T BELIEVE THEM AT ALL.

I hate to use the high school thing, but honestly? How many people in your high school did you know outside of your grade/form/year cohort? Me, I could name maybe five people offhand. Even within my grade I only maybe really knew a few people; the rest were acquaintances whose names I knew, but not much more. I couldn't have told you who was the creeper who felt up girls at parties. I couldn't have told you who was the guy with the crazy cakes attraction to weird weaponry.

So if, years later, one of the folks I might have known in high school changed his name and became a killer, I would have had to be explicitly told of that connection, especially if I didn't remember his or her facial appearance very well. And that's not even taking into account deliberate physical changes, which Voldemort did undertake.

So there really isn't any contradiction. In a small wizarding world the chances of (1) people satisfying the above criteria of having intimately been acquainted with Tom Riddle well enough to know of his little pet name for himself, and (2) still being alive and accessible to Dumbledore umpteen years later are pretty damn small.

I'd say maybe ten people at most.

So it's no wonder that (a) those who are still alive (like oh, say, Slughorn), and (b) remembered young Tom back then would have reluctantly profferred information while the remainder of those who might have known Tom Riddle (like Hagrid) were missing a key piece of information: they were not in his intimate inner circle of Slytherins and never knew of his private name for himself.

There's probably more holes to poke in that argumentation.

On to the next entry; I provide for you A response to Marionros's speculations on Lucius in CoS. Never mind the fact that taking marionros seriously at all is a bit odd.

But that doesn't stop terri_testing from doing a little more Dumbledore bashing (ONLY SLYTHERINS CAN TRULY EXPLAIN OTHER SLYTHERINS is the unstated subtext it seems). She also does the usual ooh-I-can-copy-The-Red-Hen's-style (and even mentions Jodel/Red Hen so there's some double lulz there), which kind of ruins the meta. It's too bad since it actiually is an interesting explanation for what it takes to make a house-elf want to disobey his/her master.

I suppose har articles aren't too facepalm-worthy at the moment, but I think this picture is a fine riposte to terri_testing. :P

ETA:

Even more pompous bullshit here: Accessory after the Fact: Albus and the Invention of Lord Voldemort and oh look for the lulz she has another Pride and Prejudice reference with, of course, that Mr. Darcy featuring prominently. God I could just roll my eyes forever at this. (and ooh look, oryx_leucoryx fails by referring to a fan fic by duj as 'proof' of whatever point she was making.)

ETA2:

marionros won't shut up about narcissism. Please excuse me while I facepalm.

Jayne1955 Strikes Again...

2009-10-23T00:52:04Z

Whoever that mouse is on the wank report, they deserve a medal for wading through this crap.

Seems Jayne1955 decided to share her thoughts on ~~yaoi~~ that fucktard Harry Potter over on FAP.

She's in fine form acting like a clone of the Snapefen with her ability to interrogate the text from the batshit perspective and spew a ton of blather about the books.

Apparently there is wank in the rest of the thread too but I'm kind of iffy about poking through all that. :O

ETA:

I did look at the first page, and this defence of Harry Potter by zzz Epans is quite endearing in its simplicity:

I just don't understand it. He's so sweet, he's brave, he's cares so much about everyone...I mean, he even risked his life to save Malfoy! He's had a horrible life, he grew up way too fast, but he doesn't let that turn him into a bad person. I just really don't get it...

Psst, zzz Epans? Don't let marionros hear you say that. XD

ETA 2:

It has since been noted that Darth Gojira has been unutterably rude and condescending towards zzz Epans and others.

Classy. Too bad Twilight hasn't drawn away all the people who ingest crazy cakes on a cracker for a living.

Ginny Weasley Just Can't Catch a Break...

2009-10-20T01:22:00Z

PSA: Grabbed this one off the Wank Report as well.

I'm just agog at the sheer venomous viciousness with which these ... people? (assuming they are, and not just horrible facsimiles thereof) ... are venting on the vivacious Ginny Weasley.

Let's start off with this thread on Portkey. Most of the text is pasted unexpurgated from the wank report, but my commentary is in italics.

Scout : I hate ginny frickin weasley.

She's a fake, cruel, ugly fangirl who knows nothing about the real Harry, and did everything she possibly could to keep Hermione away from Harry.

Midnghtr72 : She is just a cruel little piece of work, with an amazing bat bogey hex that is so amazing people fall in love wit her for it. Really, can't we just get rid of this girl and add more Luna?

Add me onto that list...

thewall28304 : I think it's safe to say we all can't stand Ginny,because her character turned out to be a Jezebel and still won "the boy who lived".

And for a change, Ron Weasley gets a few lumps of his own.

thewall28304 : Most guys I know like yourself can't stand Ron and for a lot of good reasons. I don't understand why any female reader thinks Ron is a sweet person,when he spent most of the series acting like a jerk to Hermione.

Back to the outpouring of hate for Ginny with a small side of Ron-hate also...

lovesharry : MY most hated HP character is clearly Ginny. I cannot abide her and it isn't because she ended up with Harry, even though she doesn't deserve to be with him. As a Harmonian Harry and Hermione belong together. Ginny, quite frankly, be d@mned! She should have died instead of her brother, George!!!

Like I said, I HATE Ginny!

I dislike Ron immensely and it is obvious to me that he doesn't deserve Hermione. What WAS Rowling thinking?!!!

The anon poster on the wank report commented that he/she thought the below was particularly made of special. (I suspect special batshit wankery, personally.)

cakeandmilk :
*Enters a room where she finds Ginny Weasley*
*Approaches Ginny Weasley and gently takes her hands and looks her in the eye*

c&m: Oh my dear Gin-gin, why do you have to exist? You are a mere hindrance to H/Hr. Don't you know that? I mean Cho was wise enough to realize this and she stood back. But you! Are you not clever enough?! Or maybe you do realize that and you just wanted to be a villain against true happy ending??

*Ginny looks at c&m with wide tearful eyes*

*c&m brutally slaps Ginny* SLAP!

c&m: That's for being such a loser of a friend to Hermione, Ms. "Oh-don't-start-acting-as-though-you-understand-Quidditch!"

c&m: Harry doesn't love you! Never will! He loves Hermione! Are you Hermione? NO! You're Ginny bloody Weasley! So, leave them alone!

c&m: and you know what? Maybe you could actually be of use to everyone by being with dear old Draco. Now, that's what I call punishment and reward for you. *wink*

*c&m leaves the room gleefully leaving a stupefied Ginny behind*

Whew! That felt wonderful. So, there. Who says I'm brutal?

Good God. D: JK Rowling should make an announcement about this sheer fucked-up behavior about fictional characters.

PJlikesAUfanfic : Obviously I hate *paints target on forehead of said rodent* the most with super!gingin a close second.

cakeandmilk : Sweet, can I be the sniper? Screw Ginny. She can be hexed by Bellatrix for all I care. Or perhaps thrown off the Astronomy tower by Pansy. May her character suffer many foul and horrible Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Bean and may God have mercy on her soul.

Okay, I'm officially leaning away from the monitor now. Like, "ha-ha, I hope you're not anywhere near where I live because I'm allergic to this particular brand of batshit."

Scout : It's like Molly birthed the idiot and the fangirl, but let ignorant, ill-mannered, moronic, and incredibly stupid apes raise them.

Oh no wait, that was Molly. Sorry.

PJlikesAUfanfic : mad molly, wonwon, & gingin are all poster children of why too much pureblood inbreeding is not a good thing.

PJlikesAUfanfic : ( responding to Midnghtr72's sniping comment )
Yeah, of course you can. I think I'll join you.That makes me feel better now. I needed the cheering up after the week and weekend and Monday I've just had.

The OP says there's more of this crazy cakes on a cracker but I'm just like WTF I don't ever want to see this again. This picture says it all.

My face is going to be frozen in the D: shape for a while now. *facepalms*

Wank on, Harmoanians!

2009-10-14T02:20:49Z

PSA: I grabbed this off the wank report. Have inserted my own commentary throughout.

So apparently, over on Portkey, a thread has been created: Most Disappointing Scene in Book 7, What scene was the hardest for you to read?

Well, heaven forbid it be about Hedwig dying (I was shocked, TBH) or Harry finding out he had to die. Oh no, it has to be about the shipping!

pink.drea: 'Hermione and Harry's lack of communication and "need" of Ron'
That was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of character. I mean Ron and Hermione only started being friends because of Harry and throughout the series there were many times were Harry & Hermione worked perfectly fine together without Ron.
That was as forced as Harry/Ginny in HBP

I guess a guy and a girl can't be just friends at all. Not at all. As angakkuq has pointed out in some previous meta, Ron has been included by JK Rowling as the heart of a trio. Just as a three-legged stool stands very poorly on just two legs, so too have Harry, Ron and Hermione found that they don't get along as well without all three of them to complement each other.

Midnghtr72: Don't you just love the fact, that JKR had to completely destroy Harry and Hermione's friendship just to make OBHWF sail? Honestly its completely awful.

I detect large quantities of butthurt in this sector, Captain.

pink.drea: Totally, I mean if OBHWF was her intention from the beginning she should have had at least written the story accordingly to it. But, I guess Harry and Hermione's love and strengh as characters went beyond her imagination, which is weird since she created the story but still, it's the only way it makes sense (at least to me).

Well, aren't you just the leet literary critic there, pinky. You have a lot of nerve assuming you know more than JK Rowling does about her desired plot structure and evolution of the characters.

scout: Everything from the first chapter to the crapilogue that had the idiot, the bicycle, or molly in it.
All that was disappointing to me.

Stay classy, Harmoanians. You just keep on thinking it's perfectly fine to cast aspersions on a female like that.

In fact, here's a good jumping-off point for some meta, because what drives me nuts is how these people are adopting societal leftovers regarding how women can't feel free to date several people in succession and not be termed loose or easy.

So the question is: Why do Harmoanians bring these attitudes to fiction? Why is Hermione the only "strong woman" in the series who is permitted equality with males?

We can answer the first question by saying that there is an analogy to how Snapefen have been essentially backed into the untenable and unpalatable (at least to any sensible person, but considering terri_testing and marionros, well - who knows what sensible is for them?) corner of having to rationalize not just Snape's appalling behavior to Harry, Neville and others, but the Dursleys' appalling behavior towards Harry.

Harmoanians must find any way, no matter how unsavory, to ensure that Ginny's status vis-a-vis Harry is demeaned and degraded. So Ginny can't be a feisty, independent woman whose love of Quidditch and her shared experience of possession by Voldemort provides a common ground between Harry and her. She must be a horrid woman of 'loose morals' and unprincipled behavior who stops at nothing to 'ensnare' Harry in her clutches.

Enter the love potion and 'bicycle' tropes, and answering the second question in terms of whose love for whom is allowed to happen. Only Hermione is allowed to be an equal to Harry, because she's so very smart and intelligent, and Ginny must, perforce, not be smart, intelligent or in any way comparable to Hermione.

This paves the way for Harry to 'come to his senses'. As the Harmoanians see it, only the love between Harry and Hermione is pure and noble enough to qualify for their interpretation of why Dumbledore has repeatedly banged on about love being one of the most important aspects of magic not-commonly-understood in the series, since it enters into the prophecy spoken by Trelawney all those years ago.

[ Aside: Dumbledore may not understand the exact nature of why Lily's sacrifice protected Harry in that particular situation, but he does understand its implications; the willingness of someone to put all they are on the line against an enemy for the protection of someone else they love very much can create profound results. Enter his reluctant use of the Dursleys as the continuation of the protective mechanism Lily's death wrought. ]

But as the Deathly Hallows book has shown, Harry's own protective love is not entirely of the romantic kind, which shoots to pieces the Harmoanian premise. It is different; it is his love of his friends and for Hogwarts (which represented the only true home he'd ever known) that protects them even beyond his death and return. Yes, he thought of Ginny too, but that thought was not to the exclusion of all the other people he knew.

So to answer the Harmoanians' interpretation, romantic love alone is not enough. It is too narrowly focussed to suit the requirement of protection. After all, consider the kind of love that repelled Voldemort's possession of Harry: it was his love for Sirius (as well as, in hindsight of DH, his acceptance of death), clearly a non-romantic one, that helped expel Voldemort from his mind. The movie of OotP made this even more explicit: Harry specifically underlines that Voldemort has cut himself off from all the common bonds of humanity and this weakens him in a way he will never understand.

It is also clear that Harmoanians, in the pursuit of 'pure love' have completely discarded all these overarching themes of love in an increasingly shrill pursuit of validation of their Only True Ship, even to the point of retreating into ever more convoluted attempts to explain why Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson validate Harry/Hermione.

In the end the Harmoanians remind me of those ancient Greeks who insisted mathematical theory alone was enough to interpret the world, because it was the purest representation of nature while actually going out and seeing what really goes on in nature is messy and profane.

---

Credit for various ideas and concepts in this meta is hereby given to all STFU-ians who have elucidated them in prior discussions over Harmoanian wank. I have added my own, but as apocryphally reported to have been said by Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein, "If I see far, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants".

Snapefen are doing a HP meme

2009-10-08T14:33:23Z

"Sum Harry Potter characters up with one word".

This one by mary_j_59.

And this one by her friend anne_arthur.

Dearest Anons

2009-10-06T17:11:23Z

Specifically, theorclair, CallMeBeat, and SimpleFaith -

You three have been shining examples of mice by signing your names and not trolling. Providing you are eighteen years of age or older (which you ought to be to be commenting here anyway), if you leave your email address - don't worry, they're screened - and preferred name in a comment I will get you three accounts.

ETA: After multiple years of creating accounts, it just hit me that "important registration information has been emailed ... containing further instructions" quite possibly/probably means that the password I give you will be sent, in which case you don't have to give me a password and I don't have to arduously write an email. If it doesn't, comment here and I'll tell it to you/send it to you.

Marionros the Internet Psychologist strikes again

2009-10-06T12:30:45Z

terri_testing wrote Second Chance - a fanfic that explaines what "really" happened to Ariana (canon explanation is, of couse, wrong). Snapefen in the comments decided that Dumbledore was in Slytherin or Ravenclaw, not Gryffindor, and terri_testing made an obligatory comment about evil Marauders. Then marionros arrived and gave us something very special. At first she tried to justify pureblood prejudice. Later she made several tl;dr comments, where she diagnosed Dumbledore, Harry, Hermione and JKR herself as narcissists and Snape as the victim of narcissist (scroll down to see those comments), and concluded all that with "my issues, let me show you them":

Y'know, my eldest sister is a narcissist. She's never seen the inside of a psychologist or psychiatrist's office, but when I came across the term, fifteen years ago, the description was so eerily spot-on, I decided to read everything about narcissism that I could lay my hand on.
I used to call my sister a 'walking black hole'; whatever love you threw at her, it was never enough. I'm not getting into detail, but surviving the clutches of a narcissist is difficult and it always leaves scars.
***
It just struck me that one of the reasons why I'm so immersed into Potter fandom when I hate those ruddy books, might be because, as the sister - and victim - of a narcissist, I'm subconsiously pulled to characters who remind me of my childhood. Who needs therapy, eh? Fandom is just as good and much cheaper. lol!

Shine on, crazy diamond.

In Praise of Ron Weasley

2009-10-05T03:45:16Z

Because the fellow needs some defending after seeing what some of the Internet trolls are getting up to over R/Hr and so on.

First off, this is a Ron-POV fic I came across which presents him as an ordinary, level-headed person. Mind, it's humorous as hell, but still, it doesn't present him as a complete blockhead: Harry's Little Army of Psychos

Second off, I dug up zoepaleologa's entry in which she writes a stirring defence of Ron.

Come one, come all - present your fic (or fic you've seen) and meta which shows Ron as a gentleman and ~~scholar~~ good friend to Harry and Hermione. :)

ETA: Modified some sentences to clarify that the fic I saw isn't mine, but was one of the first that came to mind when I wrote this entry.