swatkat

First, an apology and a clarification: when I mentioned people you cannot talk to in my previous post, I was not referring to anyone in my flist. It was a post that has been building for a while, as I watch more and more people in my flist talk about their reluctance to voice their opinions because they fear wank. Talking, for me, is an important part of being fannish, and I can't imagine what would happen to me if you guys stopped talking to me and arguing with me over details. I am no one to tell other fen how to deal with wank, but I wanted to share my experience and say that laughter, for me, has always been a more effective way of dealing with wank than silence, both online and IRL. I'm sorry if any of you felt I was referring to you, personally. I really did not mean it that way.

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Today has been a good day to be a fan. First, I booked tickets for HBP on Saturday (Saturday because I wanted to watch it with the family before I leave on Sunday evening :[) in IMAX! I can't wait!

Second, I have watched up to Leverage 1.05. It's adorable and I hearts; it and I can't decide which character I love more. I have a complaint, though - I have discovered some excellent Alec/Eliot and Eliot/Nate and Alec/Eliot/Parker out there, but where are the REST of the pairings? Where is the Sophie/Eliot (tell me I'm not the only person who sees the potential) and the Parker/Eliot and the Nate/Sophie and the Sophie/Parker and the Nate/Father Paul (shutup) and and and...

Recs would be welcome, by the way.

And third, I watched the ST movie today, again in giant screen! It was awesome and I loved it! More importantly, so did the Sister, who knows even less Trek canon than I do - she loved it so much that she vows to *force* her friends to watch the movie. Now that is an achievement (the awesome experience ended on a slightly sour note when she slipped and fell and injured her already troublesome tailbone; one hopes it's not much, but she's still going to get that X-ray done).

Less than a week left for HP 7. I'm excited. I don't have words to express how excited I am. How nervous. There's this feeling of dread, butterflies in my stomach every time I think about what will happen. Because nothing will be the same after this.

I had no intention of reading Harry Potter the first time I heard about it. A book about witches and wizards? Silly. For children. That's what I thought.

Then I picked it up out of curiosity, a few years later, in a tiny bookstore in a train station. I picked it up and I read the first chapter of the very first book, 'The Boy Who Lived.' And nothing has been the same ever since.

JKR has written about this chapter afterwards. Says some of the writing makes her cringe, and I don't know, maybe it should. But to me – it's perfect as it is, one of the most magical things I've ever read. The cat reading the map and Professor Dumbledore with his half-moon glasses. Hagrid in a motorbike and wizards celebrating everywhere. Petunia Dursley waking up one fine morning to find the Boy Who Lived at her doorstep. It's perfect. It's magical. There is no other word for it. I read it and my world changed.

I picked up the next book, and the snake whispering at the background, "Rip! Tear! Kill!" made me shiver. Azkaban left me breathless and overwhelmed and in love with everyone and everything about this 'verse. I read GoF, and Cedric died, and I knew I had to read more. I had to read something, anything.

So I came online and googled Harry Potter fansites. And then I discovered ff.net. I discovered fandom, and nothing was the same after that.

Harry Potter gave me fandom. You know what that means, right? Harry Potter gave me *fandom*. I'm here with you and I'm talking to you because I picked up Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone that day in the train station.

And now here we are, waiting with bated breath for what happens next, what happens in the *end*.

Fandom will be different after this. Canon will be closed. Our endless fascination with the 'war' scenario will have to be dealt with in a different way, now that JKR will give us her version of the war. Things will change and fandom will change and I don't want them to change. Except that I do.

Does that even make sense?

I don't care if JKR, in someone else's opinion, is a hack who can't string two sentences together. She wrote Harry Potter. And no matter how much the hype is, no matter how much money mediahouses spend on this, it takes a little more than a hack to have the so many people in love with her world and her characters. I hope, someday, I can write as badly as she does.

And maybe some day, years later, our grandchildren will discover the Potter books in our bookshelves, as I discovered The Fellowship of the Ring in my grandfather's bookshelf. And we will tell them, 'We were there when it happened. We were a part of the story.'

To Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. *raises glass*