Fandom Round-Up: Sneaks and Mavens
Just various quotes from HP Fandom
Y’know, I’m glad that Harry Potter fansite The Leaky Cauldron is doing well, and I applaud their efforts to find new and interesting ways to let fans worldwide connect with each other.
However, when deciding on a name for their new social networking site, was MyLeaky really the best they could come up with? It sounds like a support site for incontinence sufferers.
~ Michael Hanscom
http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2009/01/30/social-networking-name-fail/
Ms. Anelli claims on www.leakynews.com when she announced the unveiling of this misery, that there were already 75,000 members. Of course she failed to mention that she conscripted greater than 90% of the membership. Oh did I mention that Pay Per Impression Ads generally require that you have a certain amount of web traffic? Did I mention that Harry Potter fandom is bleeding members? Yup that 75,000 looks a lot better than the 100 or so die hards who actually hang around the site.
~ Bluestocking
http://web.me.com/bluestocking_bb/The_Bluestocking_Guide/Book_Reviews/Entries/2009/2/4_Life_is_Stranger_than_Fiction_Part_1_I%E2%80%99ve_been_conscripted.html
What are points?
Well, they're... points! Just like in the Harry Potter books. The house you choose upon signing up is the house for which you earn points when you do anything around Leaky or MyLeaky. Right now the set of actions that earn you points is smaller than it will be in the future.
~ MyLeaky FAQ
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/myleaky/secure/points
Melissa made a tweet about MyLeaky a couple of days back so I decided to check it out. Joined and put myself in Slytherin. It's just a gut thing that makes me go with "I'm a Slytherin." Although there's no denying I have traits that fall under the Ravenclaw category.
So I went about friending the usual people and wasn't very active. . . . Our house had the lowest amount of members and was in fourth place for points. Of course being the way we are, we can't stand to be last place. Nuh uh.
It was figured out that if we keep inviting hella people (there was no limit on amount of invites we could send) we could make tons of points. You got 20 points a pop for invites. After a day or nights work, we were in first place. And it felt good. Slytherins started putting FTC (for the cup) by their display name.
Apparently some of our fellow Slytherins had decided to send insane amounts of invites to themselves, the clever bastards, which helped us get that 1st place spot as well. Downside, of course it was gotten wind of. Points for all that were taken away, not just us though Hufflepuffs points went down a considerable amount too. So we weren't the only ones cheating....not that the Hufflepuffs stuff was brought to attention.
The other houses (Hufflepuff actually hasn't been badmouthing us) can't seem to keep our houses name out of their mouths. And Melissa is amused that already the different houses are behaving as they would if it were Hogwarts.
~ j-net
http://kaonetalzi.blogspot.com/2009/02/myleaky.html
Even if we are hit with a point adjustment (again), we will blow all the other houses out of the way as we climb over their trembling figures.
~ Severed_Lies (FTC!)
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/myleaky/groups/1816
Four Hogwarts alumni were climbing a mountain one day: a Hufflepuff, a Slytherin, a Gryffindor, and a Ravenclaw. Each proclaimed to be the most loyal to their House.
As they climbed higher, they argued as to which one of them was the most loyal of all.
They argued all the way up the mountain, and when they reached the top, the Hufflepuff hurled himself off the mountain, shouting "This is for the Fighting Badgers of Hufflepuff!" as he fell to his doom.
Not wanting to be out done, the Ravenclaw threw himself off the mountain proclaiming, "This is for Rowena Ravenclaw!"
Seeing this, the Slytherin walked over and shouted "This is for the great Salazar Slytherin!" and pushed the Gryffindor off the side of the mountain.
~ Dolemite (FTC) (Slytherin House)
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/myleaky/groups/1558
"I'm just a guy from Grand Rapids doing what I've always done. It's wonderful to connect with so many people who find my work useful. My goal is to lead people back to the novels."
~ Steve Vander Ark
http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/02/fans_excited_about_harry_potte.html
I'm confused. Didn't Steve move to England? I thought he was going to become Brighton's HP maven. I guess he prefered being the guru of Grand Rapids. But I'm not sure about his goal. I mean, as they're the most popular book series in history, does anyone really need to be led back to the novels? Why, it's like carrying coals to Newcastle. (And, no, I won't provide a commentary for that phrase. LOL.)
~ DavidEnglish
http://www.leakylounge.com/Steve-Vander-Ark-s-books-t66218.html&st=110
If you still can't see the alchemy in Harry Potter, you're reading with your eyes closed. To assert that Granger has concocted, out of thin air, the alchemical framework of the series for a "quick buck" is to ignore both the overwhelming evidence in the text and Rowling's own words that alchemy set the magical parameters of her world.
~ Travis Prinzi
http://www.leakylounge.com/Twilight-Series-Stepheni-t64970.html&st=450
travisprinzi, I'm sure you mean well for someone with his own book to peddle, but the alchemical nonsense just doesn't fly. And JG twisting one quote from 1998 out of shape does not provide a solid foundation for a literary theory. Indeed, in context, all JKR said in that interview was that she had read a great many of books about magic --and, yes, alchemy-- when devising the rules of magic for the Potterverse.
Granger's books are nothing more than an elaborate house of cards based more on what he imagines is happening in the books than what actually happens. And it doesn't help that he wears his ignorance of literary theory proudly.
Now, to bring this back to the topic of the thread, if Granger intends to start lecturing on Twilight as if these novels are somehow an allegory of humanity's relationship with God, I think someone ought to alert the wags over at JournalFen as I can see much hilarity will come of it.
~ DavidEnglish
http://www.leakylounge.com/Twilight-Series-Stepheni-t64970.html&st=450
Our local library has a wonderful woman at the helm and she teased me because it took me so long to find the Potter CDs. “Your children would have been able to find them right away.” Because she knows what I write and talk about, she asked me why I needed the audio versions of Goblet and what I was thinking about these days.
I took a deep breath and said I was reading Twilight. After reading this afternoon one self-anointed Potter maven’s disdain for my suggestions here that there is something more than Harlequin Romance in Stephenie Meyer’s books, I half expected her to laugh or do the eyeball-rolling headshake dance.
~ John Granger
http://hogwartsprofessor.com/?p=710#more-710
I clicked on the Leaky Lounge link and NOW I remember why I stopped going there. It was the “self-appointed maven”, who I assume means davidenglish? I have other, less kind words to describe him.
~ Eeyore
http://hogwartsprofessor.com/?p=710#more-710
I just read the David English comment. My, my, has he got his literary undies in a twist. How self-agrandizingly snotty can you get?
~ Arabella Figg
http://hogwartsprofessor.com/?p=710#more-710