Harry Potter VS Twilight

This is an ongoing battle between fans, whether it's on YouTube comments and video's, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and now this blog. It's a ridiculous thing to be fighting about, I mean, if J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyers met in the street (unlikely, but for hypothetical purposes, it's happening), I'm sure they wouldn't start bitch-fighting right there about whose saga is better, and it's only the stubborness and pride of fans that keep the battle going, so really, if both sides could just be open minded, it would all be over, and we can just call eachother equals and worthy of our own opinions. Of course, it's only human nature that we want to voice our opinions and prove the rest of the world wrong, so, guess what I'm going to do? ;) First off, I'd like to state that I grew up with Harry Potter. Mum started reading it to me when I was about five or six, but by the time we were about half way through The Goblet Of Fire (book 4) I was easily scared, and mum was getting tired of reading out loud, so we didn't read any more together. I tried reading it on my own but it just wasn't the same, and I hardly ever picked the books up again until I was about 12 or 13. I started the whole series again, borrowed the final two from the school library and then when I saw the copies of the last two for sale with the same publishers covers as the rest of the ones I owned (the paperbacks with the three different colours on the spines) I bought them, or rather I insisted that they would be my birthday presents. Then I read every book again, several times, until I became well and truly obsessed with both the books and the films. I'd been addicted to Harry Potter for no longer than a month or two, when out of the sheer annoyance of my friend, I read Twilight. It took me two days, and I have to say, I lost almost all interest in Harry Potter, and devoted all of my time to reading and re-reading the Twilight books. The time of my first reading collided with my first holiday to the Lake District, a beautiful place, but I spent the majority of the time there either reading or walking around, admiring the scenery and wishing that I could be reading. In the week I was on holiday, I'd finished Twilight, read New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, and had started Twilight again. I was instantly a Team Edward fan, although at that time I didn't know that the term existed. The day that we arrived back home, we went to ASDA, where I bought the Twilight DVD. I watched it the second I was through the door, and then the next day I went back to ASDA and bought the soundtrack CD, which I sat and listened to in full before I could do anything else. For the next few months I did barely anything that wasn't Twilight or school related. Months down the line, much to the irritation of my friends, I was introduced to Fanfiction. This sparked another dangerous obsession. Bella/Edward fics were read by the dozen, and I (badly) attempted to write a few. This went on for a year, and around the time of the anniversay of the first time I read Twilight, I lost interest in Edward, and began my obsession with Carlisle Cullen, the shiny, harmless doctor. Cue the Carlisle/Esme fics. I read hundreds of them. I wrote about two hundred chapters about them, although only around half of them were posted online. This is when my addiction to Fanfiction.net really kicked up a gear. For those who think I'm exaggerating witn my use of the word 'addiction', I'm not. I checked for reviews at every possible chance. I set up email on my iPod so the reviews and the favourites and the author alert notifications would be streamed straight to my iPod whenever I had Internet access. I cried when I didn't get any reviews, and I got such a kick out of getting good ones. Every spare moment was spent either writing or thinking about writing, and I'm not even exaggerating. Eventually, writers block struck, and finally I got to the stage where I was unable to update. For weeks I was frustrated and miserable. It was a GCSE Drama exam which gave me hope once more. As part of our exam, our given stimulus was the film, The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas. We watched it as a class, and one major factor stuck out for me while watching it; a particular character who whenever he appeared on screen, made me think "I haven't seen Harry Potter in ages...". The actor's name is David Thewlis, and if you know me at all, you'll know that I harbour great respect for him as an actor, as Remus Lupin had always been a favourite character of mine, for reasons I never quite understood. I wasn't sure that it was Lupin, but it damned sure looked like him. After the film had finished, I stayed after class and requested to watch the end credits, to see if I was right, which of course I was. That night, I watched Prizoner of Azkaban, a film which throughout every amazing film I've ever seen, remains in the top five. From that day onwards, I've had a rather large obsession with David Thewlis, Remus Lupin, and werewolves. I watched as many films and TV shows starring David as I could on YouTube, and begged for months to order his book online, which I didn't put down for a day or two when it arrived, and is currently my favourite book ever. I'm still mildly obsessed with Remus and Tonks' life together. The number of fanfictions I've read about those two in three months rivals the amount I read about Twilight in general in two years, and I'm currently undergoing the planning for a HUGE fanfiction, which will follow Remus' life from childhood to the day he met Tonks, then double back and do the same for her life, and then the part where their timelines merged and from that point onwards, until their last moments. I've given myself a year at least to plan it, because, A) I want this fic to be perfect in every single way, and B) school comes first, so I want to get all of my exams out of the way before I start writing seriously. Plus in the space of now until next year, I should have a lot of chapters pre-written before I start uploading them. Anyway, my point is that both Saga's have had a lot of influence on my life. (Will be continued later.)