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[40cakes]

The Poll function wouldn't let me write as much as I wanted, so I pose this question to y'all in basic form:

What's worse?

1. This listing of pretty much every pairing imaginable in the HP universe, involving characters who have/will never meet, characters who have never appeared and were mentioned by name only, beastiality, incest, and silly pairing names.

2. This account posted by a non-child (agewise, anyway), ranting and raving that she had to wait a few more minutes for her non-special HBP book because she lost the costume contest to a child. Also, the fact that almost everyone who comments gives a resounding "Hear, hear!" and not a resounding "What fuck wrong you?"

And I started writing this just as prettykate came in and said, "Man, am I sick of hearing about Harry Potter on my friendslist."

Comments

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I saw that bit about the costume contest on childfree, and it was unimaginably selfish.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I'm still astonished by all the love her post is getting on cf_hardcore. I know they're supposed to be the 'hardcore' people but it's just a book.

It landed on fandom_wank and the person who posted it is shocked, shocked that the comments didn't go the way s/he thought they would.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

It's shit like this that makes me ashamed to belong to childfree. I can understand - maybe - being bothered by putting a lot of effort into a costume and not getting recognized, but the sheer whininess of the OP is unreal. Of course the child's going to win the contest! Little kids dressed up are cute; adult attention whores dressed up are pathetic.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

And I love that she knew she had the best costume there and totally would have won if it hadn't gone to a kid. Yeah, I bet your glaring at all the kids and acting ilke you were the best thing since sliced bread helped your chances a lot too.

It's hard to be a parent and read this stuff sometimes. I have a lot of sane, thoughtful childfree friends like yourself so I know it's just one fuckwit, but it still makes me want to stab somebody.

In the eye.

With their own wand. XD

[jaina.livejournal.com]

The bias against children really shows--even if it is 100% certain that the OP deserved to win the contest (and we have only her word for it) how is it the child's fault that the bookseller gave her the prize? Or the mother's?!

the listing

[wangch61.livejournal.com]

its just sad....when i was out on friday night...i saw adults...in bars....with a harrypotter book in hand......like they just got off the line of the blessed to get the book first.

America has officially been punk'd

[sarahtheboring.livejournal.com]

wow. I vote for 2 simply because immaturity trumps ignorance in my book - some people just don't realize how pointless some of this stuff is, and I feel sorry for them rather than hate them. Also it's about fiction rather than RL, and flipping out IRL trumps internet lunacy in my book too.

Also, the "I HATE BEING IGNORED I WILL KEY YOUR CAR AND CRY IN PUBLIC PAY ATTENTION TO ME WHY DIDN'T BILLY LIKE ME IN SEVENTH GRADE WHY GOD WHYYYYYYYYYY" part near the end was absolutely awesome.

[ladyofthesea.livejournal.com]

I share prettykate's regards toward Potter mania. I'm ready to tell my friends list to STFU. :p

The sad thing is that I am serious.

[prettykate.livejournal.com]

YEAH! I only read books with PICTURES and WORD BALLOONS!

Oh! and MENUS.

Re: The sad thing is that I am serious.

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

Hey, there are pictures in Harry Potter! Sort of.

Re: The sad thing is that I am serious.

[prettykate.livejournal.com]

The word/picture ratio is waaaay off.

Re: The sad thing is that I am serious.

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

Okay true. But sometimes they have pretty fonts!

Re: The sad thing is that I am serious.

[ladyofthesea.livejournal.com]

Long live pictures, word balloons and menus!

I'm glad the books have inspired people to read but I fail to see the appeal of them. I mean, there's nothing new it has that other fantasies don't. Imagine if I said that in a Potter community- I'd have people throwing OMG HOW CAN U NOT LIEK HARRY POTTER???????????!!!!

Re: The sad thing is that I am serious.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

The HP books are a good story, real page-turners. I've enjoyed reading them, and I've enjoyed being part of the HP phenomenon.

But.

I am something of a fantasy connoisseur, and while HP IS a lot of fun, I would not rank it up there with the sheer beauty of books like Guy Gavriel Kay's A Song for Arbonne or Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. There's a lot better fantasy out there than HP; it happens to be a fad right now, and the books ARE well-written and are deserving of praise. Whether they deserve such slavish devotion is debatable.

Re: The sad thing is that I am serious.

[ladyofthesea.livejournal.com]

I'd hope the stories were well-written, heh. You have to admit it's a rarity in books published today, particularly if it has a strong story to back up the hype. I have nothing but respect for the author and I'm glad she can make a living off her craft; it's the crazed fans that turned me off from it.

Re: The sad thing is that I am serious.

[jaina.livejournal.com]

At our midnight party, they had a raffle and one of the top prizes was a copy of a fantasy book by...someone not JKR, I don't actually remember. It'd be nice to think that HP could be a gateway to fantasy for a few people. Better than none!

It was there?

[sarahtheboring.livejournal.com]

They're there and they're not bad. That's all it is for me, really. A big "why not?".

I had someone snarking on my friendslist about "How can you read this instead of good fantasy!?", too, but... I don't. Life is long; I'll read the really good books, and books that moderately entertain me, and books that I don't enjoy but want to give a chance because they might turn out better by the end, and books that are kind of lame except for one thing that's really cool, like not-too-great cake with awesome icing.

It's not like you are never, ever allowed to read another fantasy book ever again once you pick up one of these. That assumption irks me a bit. People have guilty pleasures in TV/movies and that's okay, but it's not okay to read books that aren't Big And Important. Not really fair, IMO.

So yeah. "Why not" about covers it.

Re: It was there?

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I read certain books again just to remind myself how bad books can be, like anything by Anne Bishop, and especially Patricia Kennealy-Morrison's Blackmantle.

[lalieth.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on that. I considered filtering some people out since all it's gonna be is HP for a while.

Naw, I'm just kidding. It is annoying though. But I'm a very patient person. This too shall pass.

[robinterrae.livejournal.com]

I go with 2, because I'm currently in a fandom that went overboard with 'ship names.

Besides, 2 shows just how batshit crazy some people can be.

[auburngrl.livejournal.com]

hmmm, i think my vote is that 2 is worse - this person is an adult, and, as much as i love it and took my little sister to a party and enjoyed it and read book 6 all the way home on the plane....um, pssst....these books aren't real.

plus, its just wrong to be this upset at a little kid when one is an adult. yipes.

[lalieth.livejournal.com]

As to your question, I think the second one is worse because it's something that occured out there in the world among real people, whereas the first one is just something that took place in the surreal internet world of fandom wank.

Plus, I'm used to all the pairing insanity in anime fandoms.

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

The list reminds me of my Pokemon days, when you had ships like "Gary and his right hand" (I believe that one was wankshipping, but anyway it did have a name.) And that was a list where nothing made it on unless it had at least six "supporters."

I have to vote for the second one. While I'd like to give the person a pass for ranting on a hardcore list where presumably the point is ranting, they seem dead serious about being extremely pissed off over this and the fact that they'll "remember it forever" and that's just too much.