while they did live happily ever after

but I just finished rewatching most of Book One: Water (we skipped "The Great Divide" and "The Northern Air Temple" on purpose, and idk what happened to "The Fortuneteller" but it somehow became a casualty of our fast-forward button), and I just thought I would share a few things.

(Also Quark linked me to a massive Bleach meta post and I felt like meta-ing.)

(disclaimer: Quark I do not know if you will like this meta.)

( how I came to love ATLA, and Zutara, and fandom )


( I have heard people say they hate Katara and I cannot comprehend their feelings )


( Zutara is our fandom's love )

feel free to lovefest about any/everything in the comments.

introducing hp_revisited, a HP reread community.

should be fun. Go forth and join...mateys!

(omg talking like a blackguard of the seas is tougher than I thought it would be.)h

because I need to get offline. But it's coming later tonight probz, so, uh, WARNING DOUBLE POST? I dunno.

This is just a short one to say ONOEZ, CHRIS COLUMBUS IS DIRECTING THE PERCY JACKSON FILM. Which I guess I should've known, but anyway, point is, as much as I want to be excited, I am now feeling v. cautious, because his adaptations of HP were painfully faithful (except when they weren't, which was only more glaringly obvious because they had sucked just about everything else away--srsly the only reason to rewatch the first two films are a. baby!DannyDannyR [oh God his interviews are making me love him, the jerk] and b. the adult cast) and not that interesting, cinematically speaking. One thing I remember most about HP5 and especially saw in HP6 is how they're movies that are also movies, and take advantage of the medium. Case in point: the first two movies are not icon-able. OotP and HBP most definitely are.

(I spent a great deal of HBP going "plz to be going back and remaking the first films, Mr. Yates!)

But anyway, Percy Jackson teaser trailer, what what!

(or, Things That Are Better Than The ATLA Teaser Trailer.)

(subtitled: Today Is Not That Day)

Every.  Time.

Every time I think, "Oh, I'll see if there's anything new that's worth reading in the HP section of fanfiction.net."

Every time I foolishly wander over to look.

And EVERY DAMN TIME I COME ACROSS A DRAMIONE FIC.

(edit:  Disclaimer:  This is what I found, just on the first page of HP fanfiction in general.  It's titled "Waiting for You" and the summary reads “This might come as a shock to you, but I’m going to say it anyway.” He took a big breathe and then exhaled. “I want you to marry me.”  Clearly I still have a lesson to learn about clicking on stories with typos in the summaries, but still.  It was just an innocent, curious click! /edit)

PEOPLE.  GET OVER YOURSELVES.  AND STOP PUTTING THEM TOGETHER.
I mean, you don't even have the slash thing going for you ("but I slash everything that moves together!"  well, fine, you're still insane, but at least there's a name for it.  "Even Worf/Spot?"  NO.  GET YOUR SICKO MIND AWAY FROM THE INTERNET).  You're just...putting together two characters...who have less than any chemistry.  Or a chance.  You're worse than the Harmonians.  I mean, honestly.  Geeze. 

Okay, I ship Draco/Ginny, which may not be canon either, but at least it hasn't been completely anhiliated by canon.  I don't think it would ever happen, but there's the slightest possibility that maybe it might happen.  Plus, Ginny's character is fieryredheadtemper+Harrythinksshe'shot, so there's a lot more speculation there.

But Hermione?  Hermione and Draco?  It's like trying to write a fic in which Ron is not only accepting that Ginny and Draco get together, but where he's also downright excited because hey, he always wanted Draco for a brother!  Do you see my point?  IT'S JUST NOT POSSIBLE.  (Unless you're an idiot and managed to completely misinterpret the books which, hey, if you're shipping Dramione, there's a chance of that happening.)

I mean, I'll sort of put up with the Harmonians, because they're just enslaved delusional clinging onto some idea that hey, when you first start reading the books, if you somehow missed the Ron/Hermione chemistry, you might think the hero would get the main girl, and it's happened elsewhere, so maybe if you somehow missed the anvils it could happen.  I still disagree with them, but there's toleration, and of course, the dreaded pity.  (I don't pity the ones who left the series because they felt JKR betrayed them, though.  Leave the series because Hermione went wacko in HBP, not because the author had a plan in mind that disagreed with yours.)

But Dramionians?  They just look "OH PROTAGONIST AND ANTAGONIST THAT ALWAYS WORKS OUT" except it just doesn't.  There is nowhere, in all of the books, the slightest hint of proof that Hermione and Draco would ever get along.  And not just romantically; platonically, they're not suited for each other.  Hermione looks down on Draco because he's a bully and Draco looks down on Hermione because she's a Mudblood.  Seeing as she's not going to be able to change that, it would require drastic character change on Draco's part for them even to be able to approach each other.  I mean, Hermione's been dealing with bullies her whole life; she's a smart kid who gets ostracized because of her zeal.  She is never going to warm to Draco until he stops being such a jackass.  And while that might happen, it's not going to be for a long time, and by then she'll have married Ron.  Because they do have chemistry, and they are friends, and while he might be a prat she is attracted to him and thus they are together.

I generally like to think of myself as not a shiphater, but I manage that by avoiding other people's ships.  I mean, I ship some weird things, mostly for experimental writing value (or really hot smex good authors), and so I try to be open-minded to other people's ideas.  And many of my ships are not canon, because I do like things that explore different characters--but the exploration must have some canonical basis.  I ship Zuko and Katara because hey, you start with their canon characters, you build on it, and you could end up with a relationship--based on who they are as people.  Same with Kakasaku--they might not be together in canon, but once she growns up, you can take Kakashi the genius Copy Ninja and Sakura the really smart nurse, and throw them in a room together, and they'll talk, and maybe something could blossom.

If you threw Hermione and Draco in a room together, Draco would end up petrified on the floor, unless he's miraculously able to cast Avada Kedavra on her first (no, I don't think he'd have qualms about killing her, like he did about Dumbledore--well, maybe, but certainly not about Cruciating her).  Maybe, maybe, if I were to find a really good author who wrote a post-Hogwarts fic, started out with a canonical treatment of the characters, made them grow in believable ways, and then brought them together, I would respect it.

But while Draco and Hermione are at Hogwarts--and I can say this now especially since we have six books out about their time there together--there is no chance in hell that they would ever get together.  Ever.  Period.  And that goes beyond the fact that we have documentation of what was going on during those six years, and thus it's a pretty safe bet nothing happened.  It goes down to how they've interacted, and more importantly, who they are as characters.

Wow.  I ranted on about that a lot longer than I intended to.  Recently I've discovered that I can still discuss Harry Potter at great lengths without even having to gear myself up for it.  It must be more deeply ingrained on my brain than I realized.

*wanders off to find some Snape/Narcissa*

my phone works again.

I'm listening to the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack and wishing I could rewrite the story...and then I remembered a couple of years back to when I had this idea in my mind to write a Ginny/Draco fanfiction that was a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story.  I wasn't ever going to say it was a retelling, I was just going to write it and see what people got out of it.

the premise was this:

*is late to meet a friend for Starbucks, but feels better about herself*