Well, my journey with Harry Potter is over. I finished the book last night, and I really, really loved it. Were some things predictable? Sure, but it still felt like a fitting end. ( Spoilers ahoy! )

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I flipped on the TV and turned to the JAG rerun on USA. First thing I see? Jason freaking Dohring. I was less than thrilled, but then Admiral Chegwidden smacked him, and that was kind of awesome.

The call for drabble prompts is still open. See my previous post for details.

I got a sunburn this weekend, and my nose is peeling. Charming.

Is anyone else watching Greek on ABC Family? I had caught the ads before it premiered, and decided to check it out, since there's not a whole lot else that I'm watching this summer. I'm actually enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. It's fluffy summer fun, but it's quite entertaining.

I finally bought the last Harry Potter book yesterday, and I stayed up far later than was prudent reading it. I'm over halfway through it, and I'm really enjoying it so far. The plot is moving along nicely, and I'm excited to find out exactly how everything works out. It definitely has a different feel than the previous books, but I think it's very well done. It's weird to think of the series ending, since I've been the teensiest bit obsessed with it for almost eight years now. I bought the first three hardcovers as a lark around Christmas 1999, having heard some of the rumblings about how awesome the series was. I think I read them in two days. Some of the books (particularly book 5) have been less enjoyable than others, but overall it's been a worthwhile journey.

Not too much else is happening in my life right now. I'm at t-minus 23 days until the big birthday of doom, but honestly, it's not bothering me too much. I've decided that I desperately need to start exercising and getting back into shape, but I haven't figured out how. I'm much too cheap to hire a personal trainer to kick my ass into gear, so somehow I need to find an internal motivation. Bleah. I'd rather watch reruns of The O.C., thanks.

Title: "Veronica Mars and the Vagabond Squib" (2/2)
Authors: angel_grace and monimala
Fandom: Veronica Mars/Harry Potter
Characters/Pairings: Veronica/Lamb, Hermione/Snape
Rating: R
Word Count: 15,000-ish
Disclaimer: Not ours, although we enjoy playing with them. Rob Thomas is God, and J.K. Rowling has more money than God, so we're pretty much outnumbered in the deity department.
Summary: Veronica's a wizard and Mala and Gracie are quite possibly high.
Spoilers/Warnings: General spoilers for the VM S1 & 2 mysteries and the Harry Potter universe through HP: HBP. Some dirty words and adult content, crossover, AU, crack!fic.

( Part 2 of 2 )

It started on December 12th, during one of our near-daily e-mail exchanges. It was just a silly comment, that quickly grew into a crack!fic behemoth of dare I say epic proportions. The week between Christmas and New Year's derailed us a bit, but today we sat down and hammered out the last bits of insanity. Enjoy! It's all about drinking the Kool-Aid, people.

Title: "Veronica Mars and the Vagabond Squib" (1/2)
Authors: angel_grace and monimala
Fandom: Veronica Mars/Harry Potter
Characters/Pairings: Veronica/Lamb, Hermione/Snape
Rating: R
Word Count: 15,000-ish (total)
Disclaimer: Not ours, although we enjoy playing with them. Rob Thomas is God, and J.K. Rowling has more money than God, so we're pretty much outnumbered in the deity department.
Summary: Veronica's a wizard and Mala and Gracie are quite possibly high.
Spoilers/Warnings: General spoilers for the VM S1 & 2 mysteries and the Harry Potter universe through HP: HBP. Some dirty words and adult content, crossover, AU, crack!fic.

( Part 1 of 2 )

This is a can of worms that I'm probably going to very much regret opening, but I just can't help myself.

Let me start off my saying that I'm not really active in the Harry Potter fandom. I enjoy reading some of the fics, and I don't mind chatting about the books and characters with people I already consider on-line friends. But I don't write any fic myself, I don't post in any communities, and I don't know the names or identities of the BNFs.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued yesterday when I stumbled across the news that someone in the HP fandom, specifically a Draco/Hermione 'shipper, has been caught plagiarizing. I'm not talking about lifting someone else's fanfic, either (although that's reprehensible). Rather, she lifted several pages of text from a published work of fiction. I find this shocking, disappointing, and something not many people upset by this have mentioned--insulting.

Apparently, the scandal broke in the community weekinthelife, where my darling Liza, whom I adore from GG fandom, noticed a striking similarity between Sabrina Jeffries' Married to the Viscount and day 3 of this collaborative 7-part fic. Kudos to her for having the courage to point it out.

On the heels of this revelation came the news that the same author had plagiarized yet another published work in a chapter of one of her stories.

Naturally, as a result of this, there have been a lot of LJ posts, counter-posts, arguing, flaming, wanking, and the like. I've read arguments for forgiveness and vilification. I've read debates on whether plagiarism is any worse than writing fanfic at all. Assertions have been made that certain people (cherii_emrei) wouldn't be so angry if they weren't directly involved with the collaborative fic that was plagiarized. Further assertions have been made that a friend of the plagiarizer but non-collaborator on the fic can have an "outside perspective" on the situation.

To both of those statements, I call BULLSHIT. I'm about as outside-perspective as you can get here. Before yesterday, I knew exactly zero about the guilty author. I had never heard of her. Didn't know her, didn't care. And, quite frankly, I am furious about what she has done. This act of laziness and dishonesty casts a pall on fanfic writers everywhere. We already take a lot of flack for what we do being derviative, or being a violation of intellectual property rights, or copyright infringement, or whatever the catch-phrase of the week is. Something like this is just more ammunition, a way for people to say, "Those fanfic writers are so evil--not only do they steal people's characters, but they outright plagiarize!"

We all get inspired by things that we read or hear or see. I've used lines from movies as chapter titles for my fics countless times. But not only do I give credit for the quotes, I also write my own story. Maybe someone thinks that the plot of Some Kind of Wonderful would be perfect for a Smallville fic, with Chloe as Watts, Lana as Amanda Jones, and Clark as Keith. Great. Wonderful. Go ahead, write the fic, in your own words, with a note at the beginning crediting John Hughes with inspiration. Don't just post the movie script and change the fucking names. It's a whole different ballgame.

Apparently, the author has apologized for her wrongdoing. I'd be a lot less skeptical of this apology if 1) it wasn't in an apparently f-locked post (to read the text of the apology, go here), and 2) if she had issued an apology and owned up to all her plagiaristic offenses before getting caught a second time.

And now we come to the "forgive and forget" portion of our program. Yes, she did wrong. Yes, she apologized. What more can she do? That is the question her protectors and defenders are asking. And the fact is, there's nothing more she can do. People are either going to forgive her, or they're not. I guess I'm the vindictive sort, because in my mind, even though apologizing is the best and only thing she can do, "sorry" just isn't good enough. I know that if I was in charge of an HP fic archive, all of her stories would be immediately removed on suspicion of plagiarism, and she would be banned from any future submissions. If she wants to keep writing, more power to her, I guess, but I don't think she deserves recognition for her work. Let her host her own fics, if she must.

Am I being harsh? Yeah, I am. But she didn't crib a couple sentences. She lifted ten pages of text, and then sat back and took the praise for someone else's writing. That's huge. And she didn't just do it once--she did it twice, that we know of. And if this is allowed to just blow over, and there are no further consequences, what is to stop her from doing it again? Who's to say that, somewhere down the line, she's tired or busy, and she figures, why not? They forgave me the first time? I don't think that a responsible fandom can allow that precedent to be set.

I'm starting to feel like I'm the only person who hasn't seen PoA. I want to, of course, as it is my favorite book in the series. My tolerance for obnoxious small children is low, however, so I think I shall wait until some of the furor dies down.

I started a new fic--it's an Everwood future fic, focusing on Bright and Delia. I think it's going to be fun to write. :)

There seriously needs to be some sort of resolution to make weekends longer. Two days simply isn't enough.

I decided that in order to balance out the crankiness of that last post, I needed to write something cheerful and fandom-related. Or something.

Watched 24 last night, naturally, and when it was over, I thought to myself (actually, I might have said it aloud to my otherwise-empty house), “There was not nearly enough KIEF if that episode. I don’t like that.” And then, of course, I thought about aliasrlm and stephdub. Because they get the Kiefdom, yo. Or something like that. I’m such a goob. :-P

After a rather slow start to the season, I am once again enjoying American Idol. As I’ve mentioned in previous entries (I think—I’m a bit senile like that), it is so TV crack. Week after week of cheesetastic horribleness, and yet I can’t stop watching. [Interesting side note: I am typing this up in Word, as it is thereby less obvious to TPTB at work that I am not actually, you know, working, and apparently, “horribleness” is a real word. “Cheesetastic,” naturally, is not.] ( More AI thoughts )

So right now, I’m going through a voracious Harry-Potter-fanfic-reading phase. It started out fairly innocently over at The Sugar Quill, where I sought out nice, sweet Harry/Ginny fics, and had “Hermione, Queen of Witches” recommended to me. Then I decided that I was in the mood for some smut, and I found my way over to The Restricted Section. I read Harry/Hermione, Hermione/Ron, Harry/Draco, Hermione/Draco, Draco/Ginny…it was a gold mine for my smut-deprived little mind. But now…oh dear me, I have found what I fear to be my true downfall.

Hermione/Snape fic. On the surface, I find the concept utterly repulsive. Just, eww. But hot damn, there are some amazing fics out there. I’ve been combing through The Lord and Lady Snape and I am beyond addicted. This is very, very bad.

One final thought: Everwood hasn’t had a new episode in far too long. And then The WB taunted me this past Monday by making me thing the new ep was that night, which of course it wasn’t. But at least I got to see Bright as “Tony Tigerillo” again.