3 TOTALLY EPIC H/D FICS I HAVEN’T WRITTEN THIS YEAR:

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Epic Fic #1: The One Where Draco Gets Turned Into A Bunny.

BBAW, Hush Hush, & The Epic Harry Potter Meme (PART 1)

Firstly, I want to pre-emptively apologize to all the amazing Book Bloggers whose blogs I did not get to thoroughly peruse before the voting ended for Book Blogger Appreciation Week. It was a combination of poor time management on my part and also failure to realize just how HUGE the list of nominated blogs was, and how much time I would want to spend reading each of them. I was up til something like 3 am last night and I still only managed to really read and rate about half of the entrants. I’m at a disadvantage because most of the blogs I read regularly didn’t nominate themselves, so I had a fun time reading and exploring new bloggers and following them on twitter. Thanks to anyone who sent a vote my way, and especially thanks to everyone who dropped by to check out my post on YA and Rape Culture, which is the real reason I entered to begin with. Good luck to you all!

Secondly, I want to note that Raych at Books I Done Read has an amazing, fully accurate, hysterical take-down/summary of Hush, Hush, that’s worth reading. The WTF MY BRAIN IS BLEEDING factor never gets old with this book, seriously.

And thirdly…

I love this meme so much that I’m putting all the questions together at one time, which I know defeats the purpose–but dude, I seize the moments to talk about Harry Potter, because they are increasingly fleeting in my life. (Even at Infinitus, with all that talking about fandom, we never spent much time talking about the books themselves–except that we all talked about our reactions to reading Book 5, because it was one of those seminal ‘I remember exactly where I was when I finished it’ kind of moments.)

Also I want to say, I’m having a great time reading everyone’s answers. OH, FRIENDS. OH LAST DECADE OF MY LIFE. ♥

Lyrics to the Potterhead filk (shut up I am allowed to be obsessed!)

Lyrics for the previously mentioned filk of “Popular”, aka !–

the obligatory infinitus roundup post (like oh em gee)

okay, so, I wasn’t looking forward to Infinitus cause I didn’t think I’d know anybody, I didn’t really have time to take out of my life to go, I thought all I’d do was wander around hiding out in the canon-based panels geeking out over HP.

Did that happen? No! It did not. And I’m so ridiculously glad, because I had the BEST TIME EVERRRRRRR.

Holy crap. I used to think that people who came to cons just to hang out with their friends and skip out on the programming were missing out, but now i know that i was very naive and foolish, for lo, Sitting By The Pool Drinking Fruity Drinks is the mecca of every fan con, if I only had known!!!!!

I didn’t intend to skip out on so much of the actual programming, and the few panels I did get to see were fantastic. But basically, all we did this whole long weekend was hang out and drink too much and talk about fandom, and lo, it was epic. So epic.

And now for the requisite ‘what-i-did-on-my-summer-vacation’ recap, replete with shameless namedropping, as expected:

Protected: UGH stupid polls *tries again*

T

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DRACO MALFOY!!!!

holy crap you are THIRTY YEARS OLD <3333333

i guess this just proves all boys grow up, even the ones I want so much to stay fifteen and squabbling and kicking Harry under the table in potions labs forever.

by coincidence, i just watched the cheesiest H/D video on earth and it made me ridiculously happy. i do not think there will ever be another pairing that continually, constantly, gets me in the gut the way this one does. It is like, no matter how far I travel or ramble or roam, H/D is always what I see when I turn back home. Or something. OTP forever.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DRACO <3333333333

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eta: shall we have a Draco-centric recs day? LET'S.

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A note on fanfic and cultural capital

Everyone has been amazing about adding to and suggesting clarifications to my post/s on published works of transformative literature/recursive literature. Thank you all so much.

I’ve been having a lot of conversations lately about the value of fanfic. The thing I keep coming back to is that fandom has its own self-generated currency system. This is the concept that seems hardest for people outside of fandom to get, but to me it’s the concept that’s the most vital to understanding why we all love fandom so much, good god.

A fanfic author expresses themselves creatively, and then other fans create currency around that expression, by adding other expressions to it: Reviews. Recs. IM conversations where you paste each other lines from the fic as you read it and giggle a lot. Emails to the author. Requests for sequels. Icons with the author’s fic quoted on it. Fanart. Podfic of the fic. Requests for the author to archive the fic on a beloved archive so everyone there can read it. People following the author’s LJ, or trying to interest the author in other fandoms they love so the author will write fic for them there too. Vids based on the fanfic. Requests for the author to write certain fics or participate in fic challenges. Interest in the author’s appearances at cons. Interest in that author’s opinion about everything under the sun. Memorabilia related to the fanfic. Snail mail. Postcards from across the world. Messages in your inbox that tell you that today, somewhere on the other side of the world, someone you’ve never met read your fanfic, and it made them happy.

People who recognize you at cons and want to hug you. People who want to read your original fiction. People who call you one of their favorite authors, and mean “favorite authors in a universe of literature, not just fanfic.” (Which I know, because that’s how I feel about my favorite fanfic authors.)

Personally, I think that the ultimate terrifying nature of fandom, for a lot of people, is that it functions as a thriving creative community entirely free from capitalist systems of value. It challenges the idea that to be a successful writer is to receive profit from writing, and that that profit is money.

Last week, Dr. Catherine Tosenberger, who is totally one of my personal heroes (like you meet in fandom), taught a high school class on the culture of Harry Potter. You guys, it was amazing. I saw the syllabus. It had, like, days devoted to Sorting, Potions, Charms, & Transfiguration, and covered everything from censorship of the books to Wizard Rock. DDD And the most amazing part for me is that there was a whole day devoted to fanfic, and one of the required texts was a fanfic that I had written. I cannot even tell you how much of an honor that is. There are no words in my vocabulary for it.

I’m pretty much convinced that I could write original fiction my whole life, and the likelihood of it ever being used as anyone’s curriculum in a high school course would be slim to miniscule to impossible. That’s because the way we value and talk about original works is based on certain rules of engagement with stories: they have to prove themselves through certain cultural channels as being worthy of further study; they have to be bestsellers or win awards or become critically acclaimed or be an Oprah Book of the Month. Not to mention the hardest channel of all: first they have to get published.

But fandom is actively subverting those rules of engagement right and left, and it is creating whole new systems of value, the kind that allows certain fanfics to be read by literally tens of thousands of readers; the kind that allows a fanfic writer like Sam Storyteller to successfully self-publish his original fiction and forge an instant and loyal audience; the kind that allows an increasing number of fanartists to include fan work in their professional portfolios; the kind that allows entire degrees to be created around the study of fan culture and fan capital. The kind that allows a random fic writer like me to have their work taken seriously and discussed in an academic setting.

The argument against this kind of subversion goes something like, “well yes, but it’s all because of Jo Rowling; without her the fandom culture wouldn’t have existed to begin with.” Absolutely true; but without us, the culture of Harry Potter wouldn’t have existed at all.

People who argue against fanfic assume that some kind of theft is involved, that we’re devaluing someone else’s property. The truth is that the moment we started creating our own culture around canon source materials, we began expanding the value of that canon, and adding to its net worth.

It’s just harder to see, because the things we’re adding can’t be measured using money.

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Recs + Help Haiti + H/D Holidays + fic blather

A.
syllic‘s thread is a steal, folks. She’s offering to write a fic of a minimum of 10,000 words in multiple fandoms. If you’ve read her writing you know what an opportunity this is. Go! OUTBID ME.

Other things I’m bidding on:
alestar‘s $5 drabble thread omg if you don’t take shameless advantage of this you are crazy.
spaggel‘s art thread, watch out, I am coming up behind you!
nickel_curry‘s art thread, which right now sajf;kldjf i am the only bidder and I PLAN TO KILL AND MAIM ANYONE WHO OUTBIDS ME OKAY, i am going to have Holmesian Theatre!!!!!
I’m also bidding for a Whip It Ruthless/Maven fic, which sprat has signed on to do, but if anyone else wanted to jump in to offer, well, that would basically be joy.

Reminder:
I’m offering a Tarot/Numerology reading here. Current bid $30.
I’m also offering a 3,000-5,000 word fic here. Fandoms include Hikago, H/D, Death Note, Sherlock Holmes, lots of others. Current bid is $120.

B.
There’s still a few more hours to read the fics before the big reveal! Go and enjoy! For the record, here’s my list of recs for the challenge in no particular order:

C. About my own fic, I want to say before the reveals (pretty sure mine has a flashing neon sign saying “AJA WROTE THIS” embedded in the page somewhere anyway) that I’ve rarely been so…deeply gratified by a challenge experience. Writing the fic was exhausting and difficult to a degree I have rarely experienced. I started out feeling drained of all inspiration and like I’d never write another H/D or HP fic again; by the time I had written the last word I felt like I’d just dragged myself through hell (with clubfive right there with me all the way, oh my god <3). Only I didn't feel drained anymore. I felt renewed.

After reveals, the reader response will shift ever so slightly into that place where you feel like you know what to expect from either the fic or from me--and the fic will either meet those expectations or it won't. So before reveals, it's important for me to say, to the readers who over the last three weeks came to my fic with no expectations whatsoever, your responses have meant so very much to me. Thank you.

(And if you want to guess which fic I wrote, all correct guesses get a drabble, or 5 questions asked me about any of my fics!)

<3