Why Write?

The first thing I ever recall writing a was Mario Kart fan fiction.

It was awful, I was eight, but damn it, Mario was determined to make Peach love him and Luigi and Yoshi were going to help.

I think I've always loved reading and writing. I was reading on my own when I was four and my favorite book as a child was "Horton Hears A Who".

Even with my undeniable love for reading and writing, as a kid I wanted to be an archeologist. No sooner did I discover my love for old things did I start reading and writing about them as well.

Then in sixth grade, my teacher loved to make us write. We wrote haiku's, poems that looked musical instruments, I wrote two plays [one was a hilarious adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz" and the other was about three girls who discovered they were royalty], and three short stories [one about a girl involved in a murder, one about a rabbit/archeologist who went to the land down under, and the third about a little known Greek goddess who wasn't appreciate for her talent of growing flowers].

My teacher, for whatever reason it seemed to me at the time, marveled at my stories and was always showing them off to other teachers. One day she came back to me and told me that I had a gift.

I was really proud of myself. At the time I was just happy to have a higher IQ than the rest of my classmates, but me talented?

It wasn't until that moment that I looked at all the things I had written, the fact that my room was cluttered with everything from Anne Frank to Harry Potter and the fact that I had to write that I realized that I wanted to be a writer. That I was good at it, that I loved it and that it was my destiny.

Sixth graders don't usually have epiphanies but I did.

Why do I still write to this very day? Because I have to. I don't talk much. I can't explain myself through interpretive dance. When I do talk it's so low that I have to feel like I'm screaming for people to hear me.

Writing is my only option. I write because it feels good. I write because Horton, Harry Potter, and Anne Frank were my best friends as a kid [and still to this day] and I feel like I'd be doing them a disservice if I didn't use this talent - this passion and put it to good use.

So - that's why I write.

Because I have no other options.

Okay, Twilight, Here's the Deal

It was brought to my attention on my twitter feed that  Harry Potter fans can freak out and go crazy and not be called annoying, but every time a Twilight fan open's their mouth there is always hell to pay on their part.

Now I can't say that I hate Twilight, but I can say that I hate what it's done to us.

I was a 15 year old girl reading Twilight once. I loved Edward and I loved Jacob more and Alice was my favorite. I spent countless hours reading the books, bought them all in hardcover and even own an over sized Twilight t-shirt.

While I was never a big enough fan to go to a midnight release or go super crazy on merchandise, there was a time when I was Twinerd, and so I still see the movies, but leave my books on my bottom shelf where people can't see them.

What makes me detest Twilight now is that it's made people crazy. It has made teenage girls crazy. It has made parents crazy. It has made haters crazy.

We have all gone crazy.

I cannot fathom why you would pick awkward, whiny Kristen Stewart for an MTV movie award over Emma Watson who has grown to be a wonderful actress or why you would pick Robert Pattinson over Johnny Depp for an international award when Johnny Depp's influence as an actor is so much more far reaching.

It doesn't even make sense for New Moon to win over Avatar as movie of the year even if it was mediocre.

Do you understand what I'm saying. Twilight has made us all lose our minds, but. . .

Twilight is not all bad. Give them points for their creative twist on a werewolf and you can't say you're not happy to see Taylor Lautner without his shirt on because he's an Adonis of man.

The reason, at least on my part, that Twilight gets so much crap is because a lot of the fans have just taken it too far.

Do we really need Edward Cullen's mouth on the crotch of our panties? Absolutely not.

Can we really take girls who think the movie "Wolfman" ripped off Jacob Black seriously? No we cannot and we should not.

When you're on Google, if you type in "Is Edward", Google shouldn't want to auto-fill in "Is Edward Cullen real?"

And, despite that silver Volvo you happened to see out the window of your own car, your life probably isn't Twilight.

The reason I think Harry Potter fans never get flamed the way that Twilighters do [with the exception of getting flamed BY Twilighters] is because Twilight fans are just kind of really out there and Harry Potter are kind of, well, rude.

Now, I cringe at the idea of being called rude, but it's true. We can be pretty ruthless when people display general ignorance or when people are [God forbid] Twilight fans.

Let's take one of my favorite people for example, Omegleshit. I laugh at every single post that goes on that site, but there is one post where an unknowing Twilight fan girl says the wrong things about Harry Potter and  gets ripped to pieces over it.

Now, I won't lie - it was hilarious, but, just as most hilarious things are, it was really, really rude too. Like, the girl had no idea that she was going to get laid into like that.

And, Harry Potter fans making fun of My Life is Twilight, ahem, yeah, the internet isn't the best place to keep your dirty little secrets.

And, as far as creepy, inappropriate merchandise goes, I hope no one has forgotten about the whole vibrating broom incident [which was still, accidentally hilarious].

Twilight may be shallow and be about stalker, sparkly, creepy vampires and helpless, whiny girls, and there may be an insane amount of fans of it who are just way too into it, but they're still people.

Creepy and weird people, but people none the less.

Besides, not all Twilight fans are like that. In fact, I'm friends with plenty of people in real life who love Twilight  and they are neither creepy nor weird - at least not in respect to Twilight anyway.

And, keep in mind Harry Potter fans may not put pictures of Harry Potter in underwear we have some of the creepy and weirdest fan fiction ever. Don't deny it. I've read it.

Example: Indian Jones and Tom Riddle Jr. Butt sex ensues.

So Harry Potter fans - let's tone down our superiority complexes and try to love each other, okay? And Twinerds, try to either tone down the crazy or just keep it to yourself.

Fare thee well,
April

[Picture credit to Omegleshit.tumblr.com]

Trolls and Ignorance - Harry Potter Style

Have you ever done something and then felt totally bad about it? Like in the heat of the moment, someone says something to you that's outrageous and stupid and you put them in their place Hermione Granger style. But after you've put them in their place you kind of feel like, "oh, maybe that wasn't so nice?" What if it turns out that the person your laid into was genuinely as ignorant as they seemed to be and they weren't at all trying to be rude or disrespectful or a troll?

Here's the story. I write Harry Potter fan fiction day in and day out. I have a group of 20 or so loyal readers who review all the time and are just generally made of love and sunshine. I love those guys. Occasionally I'll get a person who takes their life too seriously who'll be like "YOU'RE INACCURATE!" and I'll be like, it's a story about Harry having a twin sister - accuracy is out the window. And it won't be like something like "That person died and you didn't kill them off!" or "That person is in the wrong house!" it's something stupid like "Boys aren't allowed in the girls dorms!" and I'll be like *face palm*. I ignore those people or politely tell them that it's AU and that it doesn't matter and they'll respectfully back off but today...

Today, I was checking my e-mail and found I had a review from a name I didn't recognize. New readers are the best but this reader spewed off something about how [in my story mind you] Harry shouldn't have been a girl and that Draco should hook up with Snape and that Snape should have a baby.

I was offended. I've been writing fan fiction since I was 14 years old and no one had ever said something so outright ridiculous to me in all these [5] years. This person hadn't even READ my story and that was obvious from their review.

So, I laid into them, Hermione Granger style with the ol' "Honestly, don't you read" line and proceeded to tell this reviewer that they obviously hadn't read my story, that Snape and Draco offended me almost as much as the idea of Mpreg did and not to review unless they had something constructive and nice to say.

The way I said it to them wasn't so much that it was HARSH, but more that it was condescending. So, after I sent it I immediately began to think - was I out of line with what I said to them?

I looked at the stories that this reviewer had written and, let me be blunt - they were awful. It wasn't even that they were all slash [because I enjoy a good slash now and again] or even that they were MPreg [Snape/Voldemort Mpreg at the at *shutter*]. They were just bad. I mean check out this excerpt:

"draco hated harry cuz he was a gryffindor mudblood lover, but harry was soo hot."

There are literally, six sentences after that and the story is over and they all sound just like that.

The fact that there are 7 other stories [though most of them longer than 7 sentences] just like this leads me to believe that this person could very well be a troll. But you never know.

What if it's just some poor, innocent, 13 year old who was giving me their honest and truthful opinion and I totally just spat back in their face? What if they actually were being sincere and I called them a troll? I mean, I'll totally feel like a jackass, but at the same time it's like, how can you honestly think that what you said or what you write is. . . I mean, I don't want to compare it to My Immortal [the worst fan fiction of all time] but it's a slippery slope.

On a lesser note, last night I was on the internet when I happened upon Yahoo Answers - which you should never read because it's poison.

On there someone claimed that Voldemort raped Lily and that Hagrid was a death eater who imperiused Snape to make him kill Dumbledore.

All I could say to that was "Seriously?" Other people weren't so kind. There was one person replied to this saying something about their mother being raped by the mail man...

Then I looked at the date and saw it posted BEFORE Deathly Hallows was released.

That's not to say that I can excuse such blatant ignorance [or ignorance at all for that matter] but it makes their idea a lot more understandable.

Anyway, trolls are ridiculous. I don't approve of them, but it's hard to tell a troll from someone who's just genuinely ignorant - because usually trolls are also genuinely ignorant.

Fair the well,

April