have been unavoidably detained by the world

So it was cast change for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child cast 2 (London) this weekend, and I'm just now catching up on cast change content, cast 3 (London) news, and cast 1 (New York) news and I'm basically an emotional roller coaster disaster of tears.

And somehow I'm supposed to go to work...tomorrow...

There is a moment, in Harry Potter and the Curse Child as I've seen it (original cast London, second cast London, original cast early previews NYC) in which ( spoilers happen! )

This post is making rounds on tumblr right now.

Basically it's arguing that you can enjoy art for what it is without criticizing it.

And I agree, mostly. I think it's pushback against the hyper-critical tumblr culture, which tends to eliminate space for nuance and makes it difficult to disagree with people without actively calling them out for the thing you disagree about them with, even if you don't disagree very strongly. And yeah, it's important to just let people enjoy things. Fandom is an escape, for so many, so often, and sometimes you just want to ESCAPE to your escape.

But also. Also no?

Everything, everything, everything is problematic and flawed. Because everything is created by people, and people are flawed. And it's ok to not want to dwell on the flaws? It's ok to roll in the delight of this thing! you love! and want to squee about!

But also it's not. It's so important, so often, to remember that these things are flawed because to someone else, that flaw is HARMFUL and that flaw is DANGEROUS and that flaw needs to be acknowledged and critiqued or we won't collectively improve, and we won't collectively protect the vulnerable among us. Torchwood wasn't a perfect fandom (HAHAHAHA) but I enjoyed that by the end, we all sort of acknowledged our show had a boatload of problems and we were there ANYWAY. That, to me, was a valuable lesson in how to love something ~*problematic*~. And when I come to Harry Potter, which is so much more sprawling, and so much more influential and so much more powerful, I think it's even more important to acknowledge it's flaws and it's deficiencies. You can still love it, I mean, and you can love it WHILE acknowledging the problems?

I don't know. I'm seeing these posts over and over again from Harry Potter fans, and I all I can think of is Sam, who wrote one of the (still) big, popular Harry Potter stories and is still being discovered by new fans whom he has treated gently and kindly while he firmly reinforces that he's Not in This Fandom Anymore. And when someone asks him why, he answers and he doesn't just say he drifted away. He points to flaws, he exposes them and he leaves that there. This is flawed. That doesn't mean he didn't love it, that doesn't mean he makes fun of the love that all the fandom people keep pouring on it via his fic. But he isn't going to pretend otherwise either.

I don't know. I'm having a thinky time with this fandom, and it's been a bumpy ride.

I MADE A NEW ICON.

Is good? Lol, no, but I needed some sort of Harry Potter icons for my Harry Potter posts. And also blvnk-art does some of the best Harry Potter fanart being made today and I saw this picture and I LOVED IT.

I probably ruined the art with the words because I don't know how to make icons! I was never super into the icon culture on LJ because I refused to pay for the extra icons, but I have made every icon I use (and it SHOWS) so I just smushed this one together.

Also I don't have any free time right now and I totally should not be wasting it on making new icons. OOPS.

This is the last week of the original cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and I have SO MANY FEELINGS I CAN'T. I CAN'T.

Being in a theater (theatre?) fandom is weird and it's an experience I am still trying to wrap my mind around. I mean, it's so different from any fandom I have ever been a part of or that I have ever lurked through before. I once asked fourteenacross about being in the Rent fandom back in the day and it seemed so fascinating and a little mysterious at the time. And now I'm looking at Instagram photos and clutching my chest because I CANNOT HANDLE THESE FEELINGS YOU GUYS. And I’ve memorized the names of actors and I’m praying they come to the US show and it’s so oddly different from any other medium fandom.

It's maybe worse because I'm so far away and I can't be there and cry it out with everyone. I'm counting down the days here and all of my local friends think I'm bonkers.

Anyway, going to lie down and have a lot of feelings right now.

So I did the crazy thing. And now I'm in London, using the free wifi at the National Theatre to pretend to do my final paper.

This time tomorrow I will be queuing for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. (yes, again, yes I know.) Well, you only get to be young and reckless once.

That moment when you are reading an awesome, plotty fanfic that so far fits seamlessly into canon and then-BAM. Left turn to WHAT JUST HAPPENED NO WAIT GO BACK I WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS.

Is there a fanfic flamingo for this moment? Because talk about whiplash.


***

For posterity, and my future self, the fic is Leave Out All The Rest and the title is actually a clue for this moment of OMG WTF, not that I would have seen it at the time.

***

ETA: I just left a comment on a fic posted in 2011. On the one hand, it's easier, because the odds of the author reading it are pretty low, and the odds of a response are even lower, so I can rebuild up internet-stranger-confidence that way!

On the other hand, there is a slight TERRIFYING chance that the author will see it, panic, and will take down all their fic. Don't laugh. It happens. Dead fic links make me SO SAD.

I'm in the middle of writing a post-Cursed Child fic and really, I'm just lovingly crafting a throwaway moment where a random Gryffindor is like "WTF are those two Slytherins doing here?" and when James points out Albus has two Gryffindor siblings the Jerk-indor says "yeah but what about the Malfoy?" And James is confused, because, like, "Um, it's Scorpius. You have Albus, you also have Scorpius. Duh."

This is one of the things I want out of Cursed Child fic. And like, I almost prefer it without Albus and Scorpius dating, or before they're dating. Because that's the kind of family acceptance Harry got very early on in the books and I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I love the found families element of Molly and Arthur just taking Harry into their large and warm family without a second thought (that Harry sees, at least). And it's not like the other kids were toting their own friends into the family that we saw! Harry and Ron were best friends, and Harry was clearly in need of some loving, so the Weasley crew scooped him up. Arthur even made sure to get World Cup tickets for Harry, who never would have even expected them or known what he was missing.* It's not even just Molly and Arthur; Fred and George pick up Harry at the beginning of the second book and they give Harry the Marauder's Map! This was long before Harry and Ginny were dating, so romance wasn't required. The Weasley's are just That Awesome and Welcoming.

*Arthur got a ticket for Hermione too, but I actually think it's safe to assume her parents paid him back. But while we're on that topic, Hermione is a great example of the Weasley's not caring that Hermione has a lovely home life - she's ALSO a best friend, of course she's invited along to everything!

And I want that for Scorpius, who grew up very loved but also very isolated and suddenly picked up this awkward, angry best friend of Albus on day one of Real Life. I want Scorpius who gets invited to every summer and every holiday because, well, Albus is coming, and you can't conceive of one without the other. I want James to bring them both sweets from Hogsmeade and Lily to grab Scorpius for her team in backyard Quidditch and I want everyone to know that when Albus isn't home during holidays he's at Malfoy Manner, where else would he be? Scorpius can't visit all the time, you know.

And it's ok that li'l James and Lily don't have bosom friends, because not everyone has super best friends, that's ok, Harry had two but frankly while Ginny had a bunch of super-close friends but Luna didn't hang out at the Burrow during the summers, you know?

I also understand that it seems like Harry ignored the deep friendship between Albus and Scorpius before Cursed Child, so this has to be happening after Year Four. I do think that James and Lily are both long over it by the time Harry grits his teeth and starts inviting Scorpius 'round for tea every second of every day. If they wanted to see Albus while they were at Hogwarts, they were going to also see Scorpius, so they're both very accustomed to the Albus and Scorpius BFF show. And if Harry could pull his head out of his butt faster, Albus probably wouldn't have been wound so tight at the end of the summer after not being able to see his best friend.

LISTEN I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ON THIS. THIS COULD BE LONGER.

(crossposted to tumblr as an ~experiment~.)

I FINALLY found the corner of Livejournal where all the Harry/Ginny fic writers were hanging out around 2009. And so far, there's been very few "deleted and purged" journals.

Mind you, there has been nothing really updated since 2012. That said, there is SO MUCH FIC, I love everyone in this bar. *rolls around in the fic in sheer delight*