WINNING at Making Everything About Sex ALL The Time
I admit it, I don’t care much for fan fiction. I think it’s usually just tepid wish-fulfillment done in the most ponderous, hack-y fashion imaginable. There’s a reason the original creator is a success and you’ve never published anything. They can write and you can’t. They have a gift for storytelling, multidimensional characters, subtlety and pacing… and you don’t.*
*not necessarily true in the case of Twilight.
But the thing I hate most about fanfic is that the vast majority of it is just everybody in love and screwing all the time. It’s sophomoric. It’s clumsy and childish. Write your own stories with your own characters fucking each other. Don’t write stories where Snape is cornholing Harry. That’s not who these characters are. Also, it’s pedophilia and Snape’s hair is greasy.
WINNING at Getting These Dorks To Do Some Cardio
ALTERNATE CAPTION: Winning At Inventing A Really Shitty Excuse For A Sporting Event
I’m sure you all remember Quidditch, the unfortunately-named sporting event from the HP books. The rules are goofy, a little impenetrable, and the Quidditch sequences in the book are some of the weakest passages in the whole series (I can do without Stan Shunpike, while we’re at it). But in the movies the Quidditch scenes were pretty exciting. Little wizards on flying broomsticks, zooming around a giant pitch and chasing weird golden buzzy things.
But here’s the thing: in the fictional stories they had flying broomsticks. Flying can make anything seem exciting (except Green Lantern). So when the decision was made to bring the game of Quidditch into the real world (named “Muggle Quidditch” in an effort to be even more excruciating), these dumbos were forced to make some concessions. There aren’t any magic broomsticks in the real world. Instead we get a “sport” where doofuses in robes run around with broomsticks between their legs. It’s the best they can do. No flying.
This would be like saying you’re engaging in a jousting tournament, only instead of horses everyone ran around like the knights in Holy Grail making clop-clop noises with coconuts. Or claiming to be a motocross champ but doing all your stunts on a Big Wheel. That actually sounds kind of cool.
But at least this silliness is just confined to Potter fans. It’s not crossing over into the lives of rational people, right?
MUGGLE QUIDDITCH MIGHT BECOME AN OFFICIAL HIGH SCHOOL SPORT
Great. Anything to keep these kids from doing their homework and making a future for themselves.
Anyway, knock it off. Come on. I realize we’re all living lives of quiet desperation, but this is trying too hard. The books aren’t real; and even if they were you wouldn’t be one of the characters in them. This is just sad. Even the Juggalos are making fun of this one.
This guy is making better use of his time than a Muggle Quidditch enthusiast.
WINNING the Nerd Olympics
Oh, yes. It’s Harry Potter Day. In celebration of the release of Harry Potter 7.5 I’ll be highlighing some fine examples of Potter-themed winning.
Yes, yes. Five points for Gryffindor or something. Just make sure –if you ever wind up in a real prison– make sure to spin a really good story about this tat. Say you got it in a Siberian gulag or something. Tell them you shanked a guy with a sharpened toothbrush over some borscht, and that the guy was a distant relative of Putin. That sounds pretty boss.