I am the fountain of affection

Harry ruffled a hand through his own hair. Maybe it was just that strange part of him which had already been convinced, but... "That's a bit of an anticlimax," Harry said. "You'd think there'd be some kind of more dramatic mental event associated with executing a Bayesian update on an observation of infinitesimal probability -" Harry stopped himself. Mum, McGonagall, and even his Dad were giving him that look again. "I mean, with finding out that everything I believe is false."

By Less Wrong, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Petunia married a proper Skeptic (or Sceptic, in British!) and Harry knows about Feynman and the scientific method and proposes a test of Professor McGonagall worthy of James Randi and... yeah.

It's not a complete fic, but it's an absolute treasure.

Thank you starkeymonster for telling me this first when the news was hot off the presses. Now, of course, it's 12 hours later almost exactly. I bibbled in IM rather than here, initially.

What? Oh, have you not heard? ( Hagrid never married. Whoops, I mean: Dumbledore is gay. )

Also: She was surprised that no one had ever asked her what Dumbledore’s wand was made of. If ever asked this question she would have simply said "It’s made of Elder" and left it at that. Well, yes. That's why I wouldn't have asked.... Oh, wait, she means before book 7 came out. When eight-year-old Mia asked an Aberforth question, Jo asked her age and said that just for her the answer would be "that the goats were easy to keep clean and that they had curly horns," as the audience roared with laughter. Really, the second (HPANA) link has all the stuff of greatest fannish interest, as you'd expect.
( Yet more quotes. )

I'm amused. As saylee said in IM, "It does confirm my theory that JKR does better gay subtext than straight romance." Ayep. The vibe from just that one description of the picture of the young Dumbledore and Grindelwald was quite clear, and, I must agree, more convincing than any of the overt, straight romantic relationships we were shown.

Yes, not the gay subtext many would have liked to have seen. It does cause a bit of a problem of double vision--confirming one gay identity puts the nail in the coffin of others that were not confirmed. But I have great faith that fanfic-writing fandom can not only only accept JKR's interviews when it wants to, but also accept them with one hand and ignore them with the other. Carry on!

... and other fanfic writers. And other pornographers. You know who you are, and you're probably not reading this. (Nobody take this personally. Every one of these I found in more than one place by more than one writer.)

I have conducted an... ahem... careful study of a broad swath of fanfic over the last several weeks, and here are some pairs of words I would like you to be sure you know the difference between.


discreet, discrete: You almost always mean "discreet". Secret? Discreet.
palate, palette: The first is the one in someone's mouth. Google doesn't actually back me up on this one, but I know it to be so. Is this a British/American English distinction I was previously unaware of? Please advise.
prone, supine: Just look it up. No more bizarre sexual positions because you flipped one of the characters over, thank you.
compliment, complement: I think this is perhaps the trickiest one on my list. Flattery? A compliment. But a shirt that flatters you may complement your eyes, meaning perfecting your look. Careful!
principle, principal: Morals are principles. The main something is the principal something.
illicit, elicit: Is it sekrit and naughty? Use the first one. Is it a verb? Use the second one.

Oh, just look it up:

• taut, taunt
• breath, breathe
• loath, loathe
• baring, barring
• bound, bond

The phrase is just deserts, unless you're actively punning at the time. It does sound like "desserts", but that's because it's not the sandy "deserts", it's "deserts" derived from "deserve".
dominate, dominant: I don't even understand where this comes from, but it's really common. Dominate is a verb. Dominant is an adjective or noun. There is no such thing as "the dominate" in a scene or relationship. No really.

And please, for the love of all that is holy or unholy, learn the difference between
prostate, prostrate: The fun thing for men having anal sex? Only one "r".

Thank yew.

EDIT: tongue tongue tongue Accept no substitutes. (courtesy of kjc007)
baited/bated: Breath is bated. Traps are baited.
rein/reign: Oh, where to begin. Horses are controlled with reins. Kings reign. The idiom is rein in your emotions. No really. (these two pairs courtesy of calanthe_fics)