~~why can't we be friends. heh.
Jan. 14th, 2003 12:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaharry is always oblivious. in comedy or tragedy, the punchline is-- harry is oblivious. sometimes it makes me laugh, and sometimes it makes me cry, but harry remains harry and it's funny how you could have two completely different takes on it. every time i read a future-fic where harry has failed to read all the little signs that meant draco wasn't happy, that meant things were falling apart, i rebel and feel awful, and like this is the worst thing that could possibly happen. lack of communication is always what destroys everything. really. what can't be fixed if people just -understood- each other?
but then you have the humor-fic, where he's oblivious but it's cute, it's ok, it's endearing, it allows someone to sweep him off his feet, to knock him over the head, to twirl him about and to bedazzle him with things he'd never suspected. the virgin bliss, the pure innocence, the true heart.
i'm not about to rant and say, i hate this or that or it's bad or wrong. it hurts that it's like that, it's always like that. it's like there's a script, and the future and the past intertwine, and it's frightening how the same thing can mean two different polar opposite things when taken in different contexts.
i mostly mean the contrast between![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hackthis' `Things to do When Your Lover is Dead' and orphne's `three scenes', which is the lighter one.
i remember when the thought that you're -wrong- about someone, about something that mattered more than anything to you-- the thought that you were that wrong-- was enough, all by itself, to torture me. there some large trauma involved in realizing you're wrong about someone or something you've held dearly as truth. we like to think we're not stupid. i'm sure even harry likes to think he's not the biggest bloody idiot to ever walk the earth. i'm sure he likes to imagine he could tell right from left, and whether someone loves him, hates him, or is indifferent. that's sort of one of those baseline assumptions.
some people, of course, -are- that wrong. some people are so emotionally numb and insensitive that they could exist right next to someone, and really be so deluded as to make up a whole emotional world that is completely false. it's one of the scariest things i can think of, really. if you can't understand the person you love, you can't understand -yourself-. if you can't understand -yourself-, what does your existence matter? you don't even know what you're doing, it's like you're always walking around in a fog, where you couldn't even find yourself as a dot on the map of your consciousness.
love is supposed to bridge the emptiness, the void where traditional "understanding" can't walk. maybe you can tell someone loves you if they keep trying to touch you even if you're oblivious, even if you can't see them. because they -love- you and they can't bear to be away from you. but there's always that doubt, that says that love isn't any one thing, and you can never really know what someone would be/should be acting like, and you can just lose them if you don't watch out, like there are all these things you're supposed to -do- to keep someone. because if you don't watch your back, they might disappear while you'd turned the corner, while you weren't looking, while you were spinning your fantasy of them always walking one step away from you.
harry -is- pretty oblivious, i guess. who isn't? most people don't see what's right in front of them, it's true. a lot of the most affecting stories i can think of center around the tragic consequences of not saying some crucial things to some crucial people. it rings true, because well-- it happens a lot, i guess. and you'd think if one wrote about what happens when you don't even -need- to say anything, and you can just -understand- someone, it'd be all schmoopy and saccharine and basically a friendship fic. romance is all about tension and suspense and surprise, right. well, especially if it's harry/draco.
this makes me think fondly of fics where harry & draco are friends (`underwater light', luw kind of, the Trilogy... sigh... not much else). i think i'm beginning to be wistful for that whole friendship dynamic. it's -important- for lovers to be friends. if they can't be, it's just not something i can truly believe in. they -have- to be able to be. they have to be able to talk easily, to understand each other. i think i can go for some nice friendship stories right about now. all this crushing and angstying is great, but it's kind of empty, and i never believed love was empty.
EDIT - to cheer myself up, i've decided to look atbhanesidhe's wonderful friendship h/d pics. mmmm. here and of course, the handholding pic. *happy sigh*
but then you have the humor-fic, where he's oblivious but it's cute, it's ok, it's endearing, it allows someone to sweep him off his feet, to knock him over the head, to twirl him about and to bedazzle him with things he'd never suspected. the virgin bliss, the pure innocence, the true heart.
i'm not about to rant and say, i hate this or that or it's bad or wrong. it hurts that it's like that, it's always like that. it's like there's a script, and the future and the past intertwine, and it's frightening how the same thing can mean two different polar opposite things when taken in different contexts.
i mostly mean the contrast between
hackthis' `Things to do When Your Lover is Dead' and orphne's `three scenes', which is the lighter one. i remember when the thought that you're -wrong- about someone, about something that mattered more than anything to you-- the thought that you were that wrong-- was enough, all by itself, to torture me. there some large trauma involved in realizing you're wrong about someone or something you've held dearly as truth. we like to think we're not stupid. i'm sure even harry likes to think he's not the biggest bloody idiot to ever walk the earth. i'm sure he likes to imagine he could tell right from left, and whether someone loves him, hates him, or is indifferent. that's sort of one of those baseline assumptions.
some people, of course, -are- that wrong. some people are so emotionally numb and insensitive that they could exist right next to someone, and really be so deluded as to make up a whole emotional world that is completely false. it's one of the scariest things i can think of, really. if you can't understand the person you love, you can't understand -yourself-. if you can't understand -yourself-, what does your existence matter? you don't even know what you're doing, it's like you're always walking around in a fog, where you couldn't even find yourself as a dot on the map of your consciousness.
love is supposed to bridge the emptiness, the void where traditional "understanding" can't walk. maybe you can tell someone loves you if they keep trying to touch you even if you're oblivious, even if you can't see them. because they -love- you and they can't bear to be away from you. but there's always that doubt, that says that love isn't any one thing, and you can never really know what someone would be/should be acting like, and you can just lose them if you don't watch out, like there are all these things you're supposed to -do- to keep someone. because if you don't watch your back, they might disappear while you'd turned the corner, while you weren't looking, while you were spinning your fantasy of them always walking one step away from you.
harry -is- pretty oblivious, i guess. who isn't? most people don't see what's right in front of them, it's true. a lot of the most affecting stories i can think of center around the tragic consequences of not saying some crucial things to some crucial people. it rings true, because well-- it happens a lot, i guess. and you'd think if one wrote about what happens when you don't even -need- to say anything, and you can just -understand- someone, it'd be all schmoopy and saccharine and basically a friendship fic. romance is all about tension and suspense and surprise, right. well, especially if it's harry/draco.
this makes me think fondly of fics where harry & draco are friends (`underwater light', luw kind of, the Trilogy... sigh... not much else). i think i'm beginning to be wistful for that whole friendship dynamic. it's -important- for lovers to be friends. if they can't be, it's just not something i can truly believe in. they -have- to be able to be. they have to be able to talk easily, to understand each other. i think i can go for some nice friendship stories right about now. all this crushing and angstying is great, but it's kind of empty, and i never believed love was empty.
EDIT - to cheer myself up, i've decided to look at
bhanesidhe's wonderful friendship h/d pics. mmmm. here and of course, the handholding pic. *happy sigh*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-01-13 09:28 pm (UTC)Yeah, that's the only problem with this sort of pairing. Most of my 'ships have been best friend ships, because it can be more emotionally fullfilling.
of course, writing for best friend pairings also often end up repeating itself after a few fics, and they can get dull. So. Each kind of pairing dynamic has its drawbacks.
The Harry Potter fandom doesn't really have an unconditional, loving best friend pairing to work with, unfortunately. Too much resentment mixed up in Ron/Harry to apply.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-13 10:28 pm (UTC)i think you don't have to be completely harmonious to be friends, or to understand each other, by any means. i don't know if you read `underwater light', but that has glimmers of this. i think your enemies can also understand you. i think you can bicker and fight and have passion and conflict with someone you understand in spite of yourself, on a deep level. like, maybe -because- you're not blinded by unconditional love-- it's just that you -understand- them.
i think `artful facade' also goes there. af!harry & draco understand each other like no one else can, and that's really what i want to think of as the potential of their relationship.
like... it's a complex situation, where you feel protective and intense about someone you both love and hate and understand too much and yet are so different that you're enemies.
it's a delicate thing-- between making them really different and yet not so different that they can't meet at some point, which is the important thing.
and i think it's possible that all sorts of love can be unconditional. and in particular, conflict and difference are just about -completion- rather than reflection, in a way, y'know?
at least i want to think so~:)
no subject
Date: 2003-01-13 11:05 pm (UTC)Doesn't mean that I can't read people who write that, but. One part of me always rebels and so it's not 100% satisfactory. It doesn't "do the job" that friends into love pairings give me.
but then, that's just how I see it. and am not The Master Of The Universe. (damn!)
no subject
Date: 2003-01-13 11:21 pm (UTC)i mean, without that, it's not even love. it's just... superficial. i think the root of the capacity to be patient with someone, to forgive, to transcend differences...
that's what friendship is, too, isn't it? maybe it's not the same type as the friendship that makes you sit around the fire and swap stories from your day...
maybe it's just where you would die for someone, or renounce your friends for someone, or change your whole life for them.
if harry & draco -wouldn't- do any of those things for each other, then... their potential is severely limited, isn't it? they're better off with someone they -can- feel that deeply for, right?
i suppose i'm all twisted because i got introduced to hp through film and then fanfic. i don't judge things based off canon, but more, just inspired by canon. i think i was indelibly affected by ivy's and aja's and rhysenn's and riddle's and penguin's fic, back then...
to be, they have to be able to attain pure love, just by using a different path than best friends would. whether or not that's realistic-- i don't know. i think it is just hope that makes me want it, rather than realism. harry & draco are all about hope and romanticism to me.
they don't make sense and they seem impossible, but i want them to be, so i believe. otherwise they'd be no great difference between harry/draco and ron/draco, y'know? harry/draco has that fairy-tale quality to me. where it's not necessarily "realistic" but the dream is that it's got a shot at being True. or something like that~:)
no subject
Date: 2003-01-13 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-01-13 11:40 pm (UTC)meaning that that attraction that got them together in the first place was all they managed to build.
which i feel kind of shortchanges the possibilities of the pairing. plus everyone seems to think harry & draco are doomed, long-term, which irks me. heh.
'course, all kinds of people think buffy/spike -and- harry/draco are doomed short-term, forget long-term, when things could (conceivably) get tighter between them.
ahh, those of little faith ^^
no subject
Date: 2003-01-13 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-01-14 12:01 am (UTC)just when i thought i was getting too serious ><;;
no subject
Date: 2003-01-14 01:25 am (UTC)reena, you constantly make me feel guilty and motivated to do better.
you *rock.*
no subject
Date: 2003-01-14 09:24 pm (UTC)it's.
not a cliche, exactly. more like a trend. that bothers me, but i don't think it's -ooc- necessarily, y'know?
i want to see more hopeful stories, where the -possibilities- of harry & draco's better selves can be explored. like. i want something that feeds my faith, that makes me believe, rather than something that -challenges- it all the time.
so i guess that's why i'm always saying, "but they can do better!". which isn't the same as implying the -writer- can do better. though mostly, the writer can too ^^;
but really, i want -harry & draco- to do better. because they -can-, right?~:)