while they did live happily ever after

I think I begin to understand why poets write love poems and lovers write letters and how they seem to contain such ridiculous effusions because in reality they are honest effusions and love is silly but true.

that is not why I am making this post.

I am making this post because this morning I went to morning prayer at church, and the priest read the homily from today's Office of Readings, and I wanted to post it here for people to see. If Holy Thursday is Christ in the Garden and Good Friday is Christ on the Cross, then Holy Saturday is Christ in the tomb, and that always struck me as a sad empty thing--the Lord is no longer on earth but nor is he in heaven; he descended to the dead.

And then he read this homily to us, and I realized that even in our earthly emptiness, for one day there is joy in hell:

From an ancient homily on Holy Saturday
The Lord descends into hell

( Something strange is happening here. )

GOD DAMNIT ARTEMIS.

That pretty sums up my feelings about the whole book, as penguinkye will testify.  I loved it, obviously.  It was a lot like the last one in terms of last-minute wait-what-the-hell-oh-God-no-you-can't-be-serious plot twists (and not too last minute, I mean I could physically see how much more of the book there was to go, but geeze).  It is an incredible, fun, fast-paced novel, just like all the others, and the characters...the characters...

GOD DAMNIT ARTEMIS

the characters are, as usual, awesome.  I love the Artemis Fowl books because they're well-written (the occasional comma splice, but you get used to it), incredibly funny (including potty humor which, at this point, has become funny because of sheer character connection), and guaranteed to take you for a fun ride.  I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend going to the library and getting them and reading them.  Or, heck, buying them.

Also, I still want to know where Eoin Colfer gets all this time to travel and stuff.  rowana, if you ever meet him again, ask him for me, okay?  Or...wait...*scurries off to website*

See, I bought The Time Paradox right after it came out.  I paid $17.99 for this book.  I never buy books wholeprice unless I have a giftcard to (damnit, I did have a giftcard to burn, I just now realize) burn, but I love Artemis Fowl THAT MUCH.  A brief listing of my affections for them:

Artemis Fowl is love.  Just pure, twelve-year-old genius vs. fairy love.
Artemis Fowl:  The Arctic Incident is CRAZY TIMES IN SIBERIA love.  Also Holly is pretty in a black-widow kind of way.
Artemis Fowl:  The Eternity Code was, for the longest time, the last book, and it is such a satisfying last book too, which says a lot for it.  (Also I got it while waiting for Goblet of Fire to come out.)
Artemis Fowl:  Opal Deception was the surprise, the HOMG WHAT NEW BOOK?  It is not as good as the previous three, because Eoin Colfer (who is the author, btws) had a bit of trouble with the two different kinds of Artemises he had.  I have only read it once (versus multiple times on all the others).
Artemis Fowl:  Lost Colony is HOMG SUPERFANTASTIC OMG LOVE.  I was a bit wary of getting it after the disappointment of Opal Deception, but in this one, Artemis is back in all his glory.  I LOVE this novel.

Which leads me to Artemis Fowl:  The Time Paradox
( cut for spooooooooooooooooooooilers )

Oh f-list.  Oh my dear, dear f-list.





Secondly...oh come on, all of you know what I'm about to talk about...




Thirdly, for just a few things I thought were weird...



And I think that was it, which brings us to...

She posted this hilarious snippet of a Naruto fic she's working on, and so I'm going to post a snippet of an Avatar fic that I had forgotten I was writing until I found it last night in my English notebook.  I'll post exactly what I have, and then you can tell me if I should keep going, I suppose.  I'm a little apprehensive now, though, because I'm afraid that if I were to actually finish it and post it in the next few days, I would get all sorts of "oh no this is what really happens" comments, even if I said PLEASE DON'T SPOIL ME, and so I might never finish it.  Plus it'll be AU very soon, and that puts a damper on my desire to finish it.

Oh well...

Meh.  *wanders off to write Earth King/Mai NaNo*

(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*