Elizabeth ColtonFollow

Date Collected

Winter 12-4-2018

Place item was collected

Online

Informant

Arianna Waters

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Ariana Waters (Ari) is a twenty-year-old from India, where she has lived all of her life. She has always been a fan of reading, one of her favorite series’ being Harry Potter, and began writing fanfiction when she was seventeen. Since becoming a part of the online fanfiction community, she has entered in numerous competitions, one of which being the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition (QLFC). She is on her third season of the QLFC and is a Beater for the Falmouth Falcons (which has made it into the ‘finals’). Out of everyone on the team, she is the most likely to make jokes/puns and share memes, which the entire team appreciates.

Context

The QLFC started in 2013 and is now in its sixth season of competition. It is on the Fanfiction.net forum. The creators of the QLFC try and keep the rules as similar to the rules of the British and Irish Quidditch League from the Harry Potter books; the QLFC even uses the same team names as those that participate in the fictional Harry Potter books, which are: Appleby Arrows, Ballycastle Bats, Banchory Bangers (in the Potter canon, this team disbanded in 1814, so the QLFC doesn’t use this team), Caerphilly Catapults, Chudley Cannons, Falmouth Falcons, Holyhead Harpies, Kenmare Kestrels, Montrose Magpies, Pride of Portree, Puddlemere United, Tutshill Tornados, Wigtown Wanderers, Wimbourne Wasps. There are eight players on each team, unlike in the original Potterverse. In the Harry Potter canon, there is a Keeper (protects the goal posts so the other team doesn’t hit a ball through), two Beaters (armed with bats to try and hit specific balls to knock players off their brooms), three Chasers (who work to get the ball through the opposite team’s goal posts), and the Seeker (who searches for a tiny, golden, winged ball called the Snitch. When the Seeker catches the ball, the game is over and the team the Seeker plays for is awarded 120 points). Usually, one of the team members is also the Captain. In the QLFC, the Captain is a different player, so instead of seven, there are eight members of each team. Every round of the QLFC, each team member is given specific writing prompts, and two weeks to complete their fics. Sometimes, these writing prompts call us to write Alternate Universe fics (AU!s), where things are very different from the original Potter canon. An example would be a University!AU, where the author of the fic would have to write their fic in a University setting. There can also be AU!s that are from other books/movies/tv shows. So, a Riverdale!AU would be a Harry Potter fanfiction following any Harry Potter character put into the town and situations of the currently airing drama Riverdale. Arianna and I are a part of the Falmouth Falcons (nicknamed the Foulmouth Falcons by me due to the fact that we all swear like sailors). She is a Beater, and I am the Seeker. We have a group chat for the whole team over the app Whatsapp, where we discus current rounds or just joke around. We have become a tight-knit group of friends, and it’s common to have one of us sending memes or jokes, and we sometimes get on off-topic rants about anything and everything. We haven’t gone a single day in the last three or four months where our chat hasn’t been active. This meme in particular was sent when Ari was in one of her joking moods (it was roughly midnight for her at the time), while the chat was the most active. I’ve copied our comments and messages, so they are direct quotes.

Text

Ari: Can we have this?

(Picture of Professor McGonagall with the McDonald’s logo and instead of “McDonald’s” in front of the arches, it says “McGonagall’s)

MoonytheMarauder1: 😂 lol

Ari: I'll take it over McDonald's anyday, siriusly

Ari:

(One of the promo photos for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, where Harry and Voldemort are facing each other. The only difference is that Harry and Voldemort are drinking from straws into the same soda)

Po: Riverdale!au

Texture

Ari sent these photos around midnight her time, which she is usually fairly active in the chat at this time, so it is quite common for her to be messing around on the internet and sending us random things that she finds. As always, I was quite glad to receive it, and the rest of the team seemed to be too. Ari sent it like she would send anything, with either a quick and witty caption, or no caption at all.

Course

Folklore 2210

Instructor

Dr. Lynne McNeill

Semester and year

Winter 2018

Theme

G9: Internet Memes

EAD Number

5.42

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Additional Files

McGonagall's.jpg (42 kB)

Voldy and Harry Sharing a Shake.jpg (89 kB)

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