There are problems facing the fandom -- the problems of Slash and Fangirl/Fanboyism. The established section of the fandom is filled with these groups, from Ginnypotter to Portkey to Mugglenet, and even to the point where an archive is devoted to slash (salishna).

What is to be done about these problems which bring us naught but bad writing, lowered IQ's, and the reduction of the FF-net archives to such disturbing depths that none but the most adventurous of us dare to search them without filters enabled? Will we sit around and do nothing? No. We will band together under the banner that Lord Ravenclaw has founded (and the vBulletin that several members helped pay for).

But what is this banner of DarkLordPotter (hereafter known as DLP)?

The banner is comprised of two things:

I. A love of good writing

II. A violent boiling hatred of all bad writing and it's followers, fans, and admirers.


Section I: DLPers and Non-DLPers

The fandom can be divided into these two unique groupings because the fandom itself is divided. Although the non-DLP section is fractured, they are all our enemies, for they perpetuate and continue to add logs to the fire that is not-so-slowly destroying the quality of Fanfiction that is found all over the internet.

So now we must ask ourselves: just what is a DLPer? We have already established that a DLPer loves good writing and has nothing but disdain for the bilge inundating the fandom. However there are more things that make a DLPer unique from the rest of the fandom.

1. A true member of DLP must be intelligent, and must demonstrate that intelligence on a quasi-regular basis.

2. A true member of DLP must have an appetite for the macabre.

3. A true member of DLP must have at least some knowledge of what good writing looks like, and must recognize that the "romance" Half-Blood Prince is not good writing.

4. A true member of DLP must be able to call "Bullshit" on bad writing, no matter who the author is and no matter what genre it is written in.

5. A true member of DLP must despise the cliche in all of it's infinite incarnations.

6. A true member of DLP must demand at least passable grammar in a fanfiction and will immediately put down a fic with Authors Notes or other fangirlisms in the middle of a chapter.

In short, to be a true practicioner of the Philosophies of DLP, a person must strive for perfection; or at least a reasonable imitation of it. Because true perfection is impossible, a true practicioner of the Philosophies of DLP must recognize this and do all that they can to improve the quality of fanfiction on the internet. This means, a real DLPer must be honest in their reviews.

Section II: On Hatred of the Red-Headed Slut.

In DLP, we must not confuse hatred of the fanon red-headed slut with dislike of the horrible romance in Book 6. In fanon, the red-haired whore is Ginny, however there are other varieties of 'Red-Haired Whore' syndrome that plague our fandom. They are the cliched Ho-Mione and Harry/Random Girl Who Acts Just Like the Red-Headed-Whore But Isn't pairings.

Therefore, we must remember that while our hatred of the red-headed fanon slut is perfectly justified, sometimes we assume it is the same as her canon character (when in books 1-5 that is not the case). Instead of blind hatred, we should realize that there are some acceptable H/G fanon pairings that do not have the read headed whore and actually have a character in her place. Meanwhile, we must recognize that other pairings (even our favored ones) suffer from the pox of crappy!Romance and must be reviewed accordingly.

Section III: The Hatred of the Greasy Haired Bat Otherwise Known as Snape

He is not redeemed, he is an asshole. There is nothing more that needs to be said. He is not Harry's father, nor is he Harry's father figure. Harry and Snape will not fall in love with each other.

Section IV: On Slash

There is nothing in canon that supports this. Nothing at all. Harry and Draco are not secretly in love with each other, they are enemies who would like nothing more than to see the other on the wrong end of an AK. Anyone who believes otherwise needs to have their head examined. Rowling has said in numerous interviews that there is no Harry/*Insert Character Here* slash in the book because Harry is not gay.

Furthermore, it does not make opponents of slash 'intolerant bigots' if they dislike Harry/Snape, Harry/Voldemort, Harry/Draco slash. It makes them people who would rather not read Fangirl Masturbation Material.

Section V: The Project Remains Incomplete

This Manifesto, like DLP, is incomplete and always changing. The Manifesto is however a call to arms. It is a call to arms for all who do not like the direction that the HP Fandom is headed in. Section VI (which will be written over Christmas when I am stuck in Rural Ohio and have nothing else better to do) will be a brief history of DLP that traces the evolution of the Forum and the creation of the Modern DLPer.

EDIT (Yarrgh pointed this out): This is NOT a re-hashing of the Potter Law thread. It is a statement of what a DLPer is. This will be made more clear when I write the DLP-history section.

 

Being blunt, though.

Let me say something.

I think this goes back to what Raven said last night. We - the member base - are not moderators, you included, Giovanni. I know you've got it in your mind that you seem to be capable of determining what's DLP and what isn't - that much can be shown in how you carry yourself and continuously attack a member of our forum even past the argument's conclusion.

That's allowed because of seniority but you also go way over the line and almost to the point of emoing about it in IRC (asking for rep/people to agree) and on the forums. Which is why I'm against you having any say in what DLP is and isn't because you contradict yourself/pull hypocrasy on almost every thread and usually derail it by making it personal.

And technically, that kind of abuse you give out is not for anyone but Zevrillion, Raven, Midknight, Vash or the moderators to dish out. It's the same for this "mission statement" and I would hope they (the administration) would notify us if a regular member was making the site's mission statement or manifesto.

Besides that, this thread still basically brings to mind Potter Law but adds a very personal level which is fine most of the time but seems like the fiftieth such attempt since the PottersPlace 3 Incident.

All in all? It's not for you to call the shots on what DLP is. And if for some reason you were given the power to do it by someone, I say it's still rather dismal ruling at best. If it's an attempt at humor... well I don't know. Lol, then?

 

I think, while I'm definitely DLP material, it will take me a a little longer to become a full blown DLPer. This means a little more posting, a little more time spent reading more fics, and a little bit more experience writing HP fanfiction ("Lessons" is only my first).

Right on.

 

It would be nice if "bad writing" was better described. If the writing mechanics are great, but the plot is shit, is that bad writing? If the grammar or spelling is shit, but the plot is great, is that bad writing? I know of a few pretty widely respected authors on DLP that have shitty grammar in their stories.

I personally didn't like HBP, but it seems extreme to shun a member of a group simply because he or she did like it. Perhaps I'm too naive and optimistic.

There should be a list made of acceptable (nearly canon) clichés, and unacceptable (fools think it's nearly canon) clichés. For example, an acceptable cliché would be, I'd say, "Harry is fantastically wealthy because he inherits from Sirius" or "Harry has one or two seats on the Wizengamot because the Potter family is old and he inherits from Sirius." An unacceptable cliché would be, say, "lolz, time travel! mutlipull copies of haRry, puknchig hte sith out of eech uther" excepting rosswrock's PoT, and another would be Hedwig turning into a Phoenix, again excepting RossWRock's PoT (or maybe not?)

Provisions should be made in parts II, III, and IV for AU. It's already in there a little bit in part II for the "H/G is occasionally acceptable", but it should be extended to III and IV, especially since all of the arguments (excepting the "we're not homophobic one") of part IV are moot in a complete alternate universe. As well, I believe that there is a quote in HBP that goes along the lines of, "Harry was gradually becoming more and more obsessed with Draco Malfoy."

Can you extend that to grammar AND spelling? You misspelled practitioner twice in the paragraph that followed this.

 

Thanks for pointing out that spelling error, I blame Italian (where everything is a 'C' and nothing is a 'T').

As I said in the last section DLP is a changing community and changes to the Manifesto will be made as time passes.

Ross' PoT is pretty much exempt from a lot of the cliche stuff because it was the first major fic (that I know of) to put it together (I could be wrong, I stopped reading it about halfway through because it bored the shit out of me).

Your example of bad writing is exactly that, bad writing.

The cliche is annoying as hell, since everyone is working from the same canon there are bound to be a few, but Rich! God! Time Travel! Cross-Over! Multi-Animagus!... Well you get the point, there are too many to list in order to make a list (and yes, we've tried).

As for the Malfoy point, taken insanely out of context then it could almost mean that Harry has latent feelings for Draco, however taken in context it is obvious that he is obsessed with investigating Malfoy the Death Eater, not Malfoy the insane Hawtness of Tom Felton.

Extending the ocasional acceptance provision to III and IV is a no from my perspective.

The AU is it's own little art-form, but there's only so much canon you can change.

 

Honestly, I don't see much bashing of people who like the books... and I can say this with confidence because I have stated my opinions on them many times and haven't been directly insulted because of it. Well, unless you count Mid, but I was indirectly attacking his post about the problems with book 6 (not on purpose mind you, I hadn't read it previously). But I do agree with the thought behind your statement, even if I don't see evidence of it happening anywhere .

This is pretty much covered in the Potter Law thread already, quite extensively in fact.

That sounds just like one of those mini-speeches about DLP I sued to give to new members . Good times... though, while I did mean what I said in them, they were used as an introduction to the DLP mindset... not as an actual definition of a True DLPer, I still browse Mugglenet every once and a while as there are a few good essays and the news is always up to date. Also, while I can't say anything about Ginnypotter, Portkey is host to many good fics. They had a rather successful (in my opinion) competition a while back which resulted in a few good postHBP fics.

I agree with you on much of this post and I greatly look forward to The History of DLP, but I think it is fruitless to lay down rules or even guidelines that DLP members should follow... We all like different things and one thing the community prides itself on is an openness to new ideas. Actually, in a fanfiction sense, we eagerly await new ideas.

I think this thread could have been summed up by, "Here at DLP, we don't like clishés or bad writing... and please don't be retarded, I don't want to have to clean shit off of my shoes... again."

 

No. Not at all. Look at the reputation list, Kendra, half the people on there don't write fanfiction, and barely read it at all. You're fine with doing what you want, you don't have to be a writer to be a highly regarded member of this forum.

I do find it odd, though, that certain members hang around here, when they've clearly got nothing to do with the Fandom at all, and don't contribute to the Harry Potter area of this site at all.

 

It's only a partial definition which will become more clear when I make my attempt at writing a DLP History. Speaking of that History, anyone who wants to do the four months between April 2005 and August 2005 is welcome to it, I wasn't a member so I'm positive there were some things I missed.

Mugglenet and Portkey have their good points, but they've become inundated with crap as well.

This is more of a "these ideas suck, are tired, and don't work so please don't keep them alive" Manifesto. As for the guidelines that DLP members should follow, there are so many informal ones that putting even a couple of those into writing is helpful.

Perhaps it could have been.


Kendra: It's not just about the writing (if it were the Rep chart would look a lot less than the way it does today).

 

I see the points you've made but we'll have to face a couple facts:

1. Ginny is a canon character no matter which way we look at it.
2. People are going to like slash and you can't change that.
3. People think that Snape is 'da bomb.'

I'm not wild about slash because most of the time, the story is cliche and at the same time, there is nothing but mindless sex instead of a plot! It's rare to find actually slash fiction that is tasteful and decent! You can't really just clump all people who write/read slash together because some of them are pretty good writers who know what they are doing.

I happen to like Ginny. She's not my favorite character but I do like her. At the same time, it's like what I said about the slash writers. There are way to many different types of Ginny fans and they're all different! I bet there are some really good, well written fan fics about Ginny and she's not paired with Harry! She doesn't have to be paired with him but if she is, then big whoop! You can say it's cliche but there are some writers out there who try very hard to make their stories interesting.

However, I do agree about the your whole rant about Snape. Thought of him being Harry's father scares me and it goes the same with the lover thing. That's pedophilia no matter how hard you look at it. I don't care if it's cute: it's creepy.

 

I realize that one doesn't have to be a writer to be regarded as a respected member of this forum, but as a writer who has stuff in the library, I think it definitely contributes.

Now that kind of sounds like compliment seeking, but let me be very very honest: Truth is before I came to DLP I participated in HP fandom very little, if at all. I've read four of the books (PS, GOF, OTP, and HBP) and seen all the movies. I was *insert sigh and bowed head* what you guys would call a 'fangirl' of Daniel Radcliffe for a time and it was largely because of my admiration of him as Harry Potter that I became so interested in this community (ha ha, even though the boy is a terrible actor).

That having been said (*anticipates neg reps*), I am first and foremost a writer. I have been a member of FF.net for a long time, and I went to school for the shit [EDIT: Screenwriting, that is, not fanfiction writing, lol]. When I decided, after my enthusiasm for Dan started to simmer down and I began to really pay attention to JKR's universe, to try HP fanfiction out I was of course sorely disappointed. My frustration with the tripe I read on a daily basis drove me to write my own, and that led me here. Since I've been here I have learned a lot.

I haven't said this so clearly before, but it's true. That is why I say that as a writer, I could be more 'DLP'--because I want to, because it's the kind of standard I think is worth holding my writing up to, because this forum is about the fanfiction, about the kind of fanfiction that you guys (that is to say DLP, which I guess means me too ) want to see more of.

I wasn't saying that you have to be a writer/reader in order to be highly regarded here. But as for my part, that is the vehicle with which I choose to fit in most, along with participating in the threads intelligently and respecting the mods and admins.

I'm sorry, but other than that, I can't understand what could be more DLP. We have threads scaling a wide range of shit--from silly forum games to every day life, to politics...there are all sorts of forums that do that well, that have intelligent people on them who engage in intelligent conversation, but what makes DLP DLP is the quality of the fanfiction and the type of person attracted to it, is it not? And that, to me, is what makes us all such (forgive me for being sappy) a family. How can you be a member and not have some kind of something to do with HP fanfiction? Why would you come here at all if you didn't?

Isn't that what Gio's thread is all about? Or...well shit tell me if I missed something...