My Fandom Pensieve Part 1

I didn't know how much I really wanted to be involved in the Fandom Memories project that LeakyCon is undertaking because I didn't think I had that many interesting memories and, if I did, I didn't have many or any pictures or videos to back them up. But I caved for an AccioLeakyCon video, and now I'd like to go back and answer a few of the other questions.

Do you remember what fan sites you went to you when you first came online for Potter?

I discovered Mugglenet first of the big fan sites. I honestly don't remember how I found it, but I probably just searched for “Harry Potter” when I first started my HP forays online and stumbled across it after the Warner Bros.' film sites. I didn't find Leaky Cauldron for a few years for some reason, and it never really drew me in the way Mugglenet did for some reason. So, I ended up joining Mugglespace and Mugglenet Interactive long before Leaky Lounge and all that. Now I check them both regularly, though.

Do you remember what you thought of Dan, Rupert, and Emma when they were cast originally for the films?

I watched the casting process closely on Mugglenet right off the bat. I actually had a lot of faith in WB at this point, so I knew they wouldn't let me down (this faith lasted until Prisoner of Azkaban was released with the horrendous replacement for Richard Harris and a complete deletion of the entire Marauder's story). When Emma, Rupert, and Dan were revealed to have been cast, I was fairly pleased; they all looked close to how I'd imagined the trio, but I wondered even then if they would be able to pull off these roles. I cut them some slack in Sorcerer's Stone since they were young, my patience with Rupert grew thin during CoS, I ended up giving up hope for Rupert's acting in PoA until it got a little better in OotP, and Emma's never bothered me until I noticed her eyebrow thing (seriously go turn on any HP movie and watch her eyebrows...she cannot act without moving them every five seconds. I guess that's how she thinks people express all emotion?).

When was the first time you saw a Wizard Rock show? Which bands did you discover on MySpace?

My first wizard rock show was only a little over a year ago at the YMCA about forty minutes away from where I live. We were trying to get in the mood for Infinitus, and I discovered a wrock show happening about a week beforehand, so I demanded that we go. The bands were Skyway Flyer, Witherwings, Tonks and the Aurors, and The Remus Lupins (though we left at the beginning of their set because we had to meet Brae's grandmother for lunch and neither of us cared too much about The Remus Lupins). It was pretty cool, and we met some awesome people there that were also going to Infinitus (and are going to LeakyCon this year as well)!

I discovered a few bands through MySpace, but most of them were found through searching Youtube for their songs. Of the bands I listen to regularly, I found The House of Black, Marked as His Equal, and Riddle TM on MySpace. I found the rest on Youtube.

What was your first Harry Potter conference you attended?

I kind of already covered this in my two posts on Infinitus (part one and part two), so I won't cover it again and bore you all here.

Where were you when you read OotP, and who were you with?

I read OotP at my godmother's house in Louisiana. We were staying with her over the summer, so my mother had to take me to get the book (at the same Kroger we'd return to for every subsequent HP book release after my mother moved two blocks away from my godmother a year or so later) and I spent the next few days reading, having to be torn away to eat and do things my mother and godmother wanted to do like go see movies and shop. The majority of my time, when I wasn't cramming in a chapter in the car to some store or other, was spent on my godmother's couch next to her candy jar which was empty long before Sirius' death, meaning I had to scrounge in the kitchen for comfort food and chocolate to help with the depression I felt.

Were you pleased with the new direction Alfonso Cuaron took with the Prisoner of Azkaban? Leave a few comments letting us know what you thought, and still think, of the third film.

Ha! I'm sorry, but that question is ridiculous! I have yet to find a HP fan that was “pleased” with the new direction Alfonso Cuaron took with PoA! I mean, it was devastating! The first two films were so close to the book, and then they cut so much to make time for artsy shots of withering flowers, leaves falling off the Whomping Willow, and all that! I saw it with my brother who happened to be in town, and I remember glaring at the Dan fangirls sitting next to me who squealed every time he came on the freakin' screen and laughing out loud when Sirius' soul came out of his mouth! I still think it's the second worst HP film, only because GoF came along to eclipse its badness with the new action movie tactic they took there.