Harry Potter periodically eats my soul every summer
Now I know no one on my f-list is a Harry Potter fan, or at least active in the Harry Potter fandom, but I need to post about this so deal with it.
I was first introduced to Harry Potter in the summer of 1999, by my older brother who had in turn been introduced by a friend and so on a so forth. And let me tell you something, it got me good. It was a few weeks before the third Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, came out and I spent those few weeks craving more.
It was such a magical world, not unlike other books that at the time were favorites (like the Narnia series and Alice in Wonderland), but they were the first books that I read as they were coming out, and partly because of that I grew to love them even more. The first time I read the Prisoner of Azkaban was at baseball game. I finished the book before the game was over and I remember begging my mom to let me go home because it was too noisy at the ball game to properly think about what had been happening in the books.
Summer ended and I went back to school telling all my friends about this new series I had read. By the end of the year everyone in my class had read the Harry Potter books and they all had some sort of opinion of them. The next summer came around and I had learned that I was going to be transferring schools the next year. I reread the first three books and read the fourth book. I was all prepared for another year of talking to my classmates about the wonders of Harry Potter.
My new school was one of the schools that had banned Harry Potter from the school library. I was shocked. I had been counting on talking to classmates about Harry Potter but all of sudden that wasn't allowed. I didn't understand the reasoning behind it at all. Harry Potter wasn't allowed in the school library but other books like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe were? How was that fair? So I took to the internet instead, because even mentioning Harry Potter in some teachers hearing at our school was enough to warrant a detention.
Harry Potter flung me into the world of fanfiction. I'd read it before that, there had been some Power Rangers fanfiction I had read when I was really young, but I had never wanted to write fanfiction before Harry Potter. The first fanfiction I ever posted was absolutely horrible. It had no plot, no direction, the characterization was completely off, and I wrote what at the time was a fairly popular pairing, Draco/Ginny. I have since taken that story off of fanfiction.net partially because after a year or two not updating it I got tired of it and partially because when I reread it I cringed in embarrassment.
Eventually, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out in the summer of 2003. Order of Phoenix was the last Harry Potter book I fully enjoyed. Part of this was because after Order of the Phoenix I became involved in shipping wars and prat of it was because by the time Half blood Prince came out I was in High school and I had become a bit of cynic at the time.
I wasn't all that active in the shipping wars or anything. I knew they existed but I was sure that at least one of my ships would end up happening in the end so I never really bothered to look at other shippers points and reasoning. My ships came out of the original pairing I wrote. Many of the Draco/Ginny fanfics of the day had side pairings of Harry/Hermione and Ron/Luna. The very thought of Hermione/Ron never even crossed my mind, besides in Golden trio threesome.
You see Hermione and Ron's relationship reminded me a bit of a relationship I had with this one guy in my class. He thought I was a teacher's pet, I thought he was a class clown, we only ever really talked because our names were right next to each other in the alphabet so he always sat next to me. We would tease each other and fight with each other and we never once went out or anything. Sure we cared about each other because after four/ five years of sitting next to each other in class you're use to them and get a bit worried when their sick and everything but it never went past that.
By this point the movies had started coming out, and my friends and I went to the midnight releases. Sometimes we dressed up, sometimes we didn't, but we had loads of fun every time we went. All of us were big fans of the books and we had fun sitting in the theater pointing out whenever they skipped something or changed something.
When Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince came out I was shocked. To me the Harry Potter I knew had left. In it's place was something that reminded me of a bad fanfiction I had once read. What with all the chest monsters, cheating, "special" lessons, attacking birds, and the like. I really only read the book once. I'm fine with it now and kind of want to reread it because I haven't read it since. What really upset me was the interview that came out afterward. Anyone that was still in Harry Potter fandom at the time knows what I'm talking about. This interview.
Delusional. This word became the Ron/Hermione shippers anthem. It followed Harry/ Hermione shippers everywhere. Years later I told one of my best friends that I was, and still am, a Harry/Hermione shipper and her only question for me was "You're not one of those delusional ones are you?". She is a Harry/Draco shipper and even though she never once stepped foot into the Het side of fandom she still knew the term that was used for us.
Ridiculous. After years of being in fandom I have heard strange theories out there. Crookshanks is actually Dumbledore, Dumbledore is actually Ron come back from the future, Snape is a vampire who secretly feed off of Slytherines, James drugged Lily with love potions to make her marry him, Frank and Alice Longbottom are just faking it and they aren't really crazy. And we're the delusional ones. Wonderful.
Fine I got over it after a while. I was ready for the next book, took solace in the fact that there was no way the next book could be as bad. Man was I wrong. Harry Potter and the Extended Camping Trip Deathly Hallows took the cake in books I disliked. Harry never once stopped to think about a plan to find the Horcroxes, Remus was ridiculed a coward for wanting to help Harry out (even though or maybe even because it meant leaving his wife and kid) during a time of war, Harry manages to kill Voldemort but still keep his hands clean, there was a crapilouge that answered no questions at all. Let's just say I prefer the fanfic versions of this book. But again I've only ever read it once and I should probably give it another try.
So what I meant to convey in this is that I have been in Harry Potter fandom for eleven years now. I've tried to leave it before because some of the shit that goes down in fandom is bat-shit insane, but it never works. Harry Potter helped me mature. I use to judge movies based off books according to the source material and now I know to judge them as completely separate things. I use to care if my ship won out in the end and now I know even if canon says no not gonna happen there will still be fic anyway.
I was first introduced to Harry Potter in the summer of 1999, by my older brother who had in turn been introduced by a friend and so on a so forth. And let me tell you something, it got me good. It was a few weeks before the third Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, came out and I spent those few weeks craving more.
It was such a magical world, not unlike other books that at the time were favorites (like the Narnia series and Alice in Wonderland), but they were the first books that I read as they were coming out, and partly because of that I grew to love them even more. The first time I read the Prisoner of Azkaban was at baseball game. I finished the book before the game was over and I remember begging my mom to let me go home because it was too noisy at the ball game to properly think about what had been happening in the books.
Summer ended and I went back to school telling all my friends about this new series I had read. By the end of the year everyone in my class had read the Harry Potter books and they all had some sort of opinion of them. The next summer came around and I had learned that I was going to be transferring schools the next year. I reread the first three books and read the fourth book. I was all prepared for another year of talking to my classmates about the wonders of Harry Potter.
My new school was one of the schools that had banned Harry Potter from the school library. I was shocked. I had been counting on talking to classmates about Harry Potter but all of sudden that wasn't allowed. I didn't understand the reasoning behind it at all. Harry Potter wasn't allowed in the school library but other books like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe were? How was that fair? So I took to the internet instead, because even mentioning Harry Potter in some teachers hearing at our school was enough to warrant a detention.
Harry Potter flung me into the world of fanfiction. I'd read it before that, there had been some Power Rangers fanfiction I had read when I was really young, but I had never wanted to write fanfiction before Harry Potter. The first fanfiction I ever posted was absolutely horrible. It had no plot, no direction, the characterization was completely off, and I wrote what at the time was a fairly popular pairing, Draco/Ginny. I have since taken that story off of fanfiction.net partially because after a year or two not updating it I got tired of it and partially because when I reread it I cringed in embarrassment.
Eventually, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out in the summer of 2003. Order of Phoenix was the last Harry Potter book I fully enjoyed. Part of this was because after Order of the Phoenix I became involved in shipping wars and prat of it was because by the time Half blood Prince came out I was in High school and I had become a bit of cynic at the time.
I wasn't all that active in the shipping wars or anything. I knew they existed but I was sure that at least one of my ships would end up happening in the end so I never really bothered to look at other shippers points and reasoning. My ships came out of the original pairing I wrote. Many of the Draco/Ginny fanfics of the day had side pairings of Harry/Hermione and Ron/Luna. The very thought of Hermione/Ron never even crossed my mind, besides in Golden trio threesome.
You see Hermione and Ron's relationship reminded me a bit of a relationship I had with this one guy in my class. He thought I was a teacher's pet, I thought he was a class clown, we only ever really talked because our names were right next to each other in the alphabet so he always sat next to me. We would tease each other and fight with each other and we never once went out or anything. Sure we cared about each other because after four/ five years of sitting next to each other in class you're use to them and get a bit worried when their sick and everything but it never went past that.
By this point the movies had started coming out, and my friends and I went to the midnight releases. Sometimes we dressed up, sometimes we didn't, but we had loads of fun every time we went. All of us were big fans of the books and we had fun sitting in the theater pointing out whenever they skipped something or changed something.
When Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince came out I was shocked. To me the Harry Potter I knew had left. In it's place was something that reminded me of a bad fanfiction I had once read. What with all the chest monsters, cheating, "special" lessons, attacking birds, and the like. I really only read the book once. I'm fine with it now and kind of want to reread it because I haven't read it since. What really upset me was the interview that came out afterward. Anyone that was still in Harry Potter fandom at the time knows what I'm talking about. This interview.
Delusional. This word became the Ron/Hermione shippers anthem. It followed Harry/ Hermione shippers everywhere. Years later I told one of my best friends that I was, and still am, a Harry/Hermione shipper and her only question for me was "You're not one of those delusional ones are you?". She is a Harry/Draco shipper and even though she never once stepped foot into the Het side of fandom she still knew the term that was used for us.
Ridiculous. After years of being in fandom I have heard strange theories out there. Crookshanks is actually Dumbledore, Dumbledore is actually Ron come back from the future, Snape is a vampire who secretly feed off of Slytherines, James drugged Lily with love potions to make her marry him, Frank and Alice Longbottom are just faking it and they aren't really crazy. And we're the delusional ones. Wonderful.
Fine I got over it after a while. I was ready for the next book, took solace in the fact that there was no way the next book could be as bad. Man was I wrong. Harry Potter and the Extended Camping Trip Deathly Hallows took the cake in books I disliked. Harry never once stopped to think about a plan to find the Horcroxes, Remus was ridiculed a coward for wanting to help Harry out (even though or maybe even because it meant leaving his wife and kid) during a time of war, Harry manages to kill Voldemort but still keep his hands clean, there was a crapilouge that answered no questions at all. Let's just say I prefer the fanfic versions of this book. But again I've only ever read it once and I should probably give it another try.
So what I meant to convey in this is that I have been in Harry Potter fandom for eleven years now. I've tried to leave it before because some of the shit that goes down in fandom is bat-shit insane, but it never works. Harry Potter helped me mature. I use to judge movies based off books according to the source material and now I know to judge them as completely separate things. I use to care if my ship won out in the end and now I know even if canon says no not gonna happen there will still be fic anyway.