~~and happiness is all about the denial thereof ^^

[reenka]

so. `power play'. it occurs to me i should say something-- or maybe i just want to-- since the last chapter is out, and well-- the thing is-- it's one of my all-time favorite hp fanfics. people usually don't mention it among luw and ip and ul and `beloved enemies' and so on and so forth, but.... in my introduction to fandom, i was lucky enough to read mostly smut and humor fics. and considering my huge penchant for both, i suppose it was no surprise that i adored dahlia's fic and its sequel. i would say that `power play' is a better-written fic than `the silver chain', but regardless i adore them both.
    i know, not really any coherent review-type-thing, but i feel sort of sentimental right now, because 14 was a great chapter, one of the best, even. it just builds so slowly and charmingly and never loses its down-to-earth humor, and i can't help but adore that. and the building slowly thing is funny, really, because the smut started right away, but it didn't entirely affect them to the point where they changed drastically and immediately, and i really appreciate that. i really didn't want it to end, though i don't feel -too- sad, since there's a sequel forthcoming.

i suppose the thing about it is, it's just such a pleasure to read. and the more i think about it, the more i think it's valid to have pleasure as a primary response to fiction and art. or, as plato had it, delight. yes, `power play' gave me pure delight. it wasn't soppy or fluffy or angsty-- it wasn't over-the-top comedic and it rung -true- for me, in a continuous sort of way, because it kept up its own characterizations, solidly and dependably.
    my current theory about why people seem to really love my feedback is, i think i use it to express my pleasure, which is often great. sometimes i feel guilty, that i'm too easy on some fics, that i ignore unrealistic scenarios and characterizations in favor of "the pretty"-- ie, pretty language or pretty sex or snark or angst or whatever. doesn't matter, does it? who cares, really. i think pleasure and enjoyment are at the root of my -impulse- to read (or write) in the first place. i am having obscene amounts of fun, and i express it, just because i can't help myself. i find my best writing comes when i'm really in the -flow-, really kicking as hard as i can. this is a definite correlation with pleasure. i want to extoll the virtues of pleasure, and defend writing for pleasure against all the people who want to suck it out, all the people who want a certain -thing-, predetermined and often cerebral, out of every single story.

i can't guarrantee that everyone would love `power play', or even tell you that you -should-. i don't love it because it's so "original" or because it makes some sort of deep statement about harry and draco. and yet i can definitely think of several long works i would stop reading or could just as easily -not- have read, even though they are supposedly more original and "deep" and beautiful, simply because they didn't make me fall in love. i didn't have fun with them. they didn't make me squirm, and wiggle, and really -care-. i mean, it -hurt- when bad things happened, and i laughed when funny things happened, but they weren't a joy to touch and i was perfectly okay with letting them go. and it's weird, because i've never actually -reviewed- either of dahlia's fics. i just giggled and meeped and grinned my way through it, enjoying it quite selfishly, quite content with my own little feast.
    and if i think of fics that have disappointed me halfway through, i think it's the ones which veered away from their heart, from their intimate connection with the characters and thus the reader, fics which became more about form than function (the function, to me, always emotive). i don't want to just feel -happy-, but i want to always -care-, have that tug that keeps me glued. and i admit, i enjoy feeling happy. who doesn't? i even admit that while i also adore fics that hurt me, nothing could ever compare to stuff that makes me happy to be alive.

and i don't mean it's fluff. i mean it's stuff that evokes a sense of childlike wonder, innocence, hope, faith, that makes me laugh and cry and think and fall in love, is multifaceted and rich with layers, which complement each other. but that's just my ideal. it's funny how i would just take pleasure, when it comes down to it, anything to make me grin, whereas i can't stand things that are soppy and sugar-sweet and fake like cotton-candy hearts. most fluff sickens me, really. but i think that's because it's not -real-. in real life, if people are so sugary, their minds are weak and pliant like taffy. er. yes. instead of ...sparkly minty face-gel??! yes -.-
~~

i don't know why, but i'm allergic to hearing about how it's oh-so-shocking that harry potter is attracted to his enemy, draco malfoy. that word, enemy. i hate it. it reminds me of the clichedness of it all-- of course, i also would hate it if instead of enemy it said "best friend" or just "friend". as in, how shocking it is that harry potter is now in love with his best friend, ronald weasley. a part of me wants him to be in love with neville, just so there aren't any stupid cliches. i mean, how do you say, and how shocking it is that harry potter is in love with just some bloke from gryffindor? who'd have thought? amazing.


he loved his enemy. who cares? it's harry & draco, to me, not harry potter and his enemy. the gryffindor and the slytherin. the blond and the brunette. the boy and the other boy. the green-eyed one and the grey-eyed one. the gryffindor Seeker and the slytherin Seeker (oooh, hot-and-heavy seeker romance, just kill me now). it makes me upset, somehow. pissed off, even. i mean, why am i reading about this love affair between pairs of eyes? who the hell cares?

it's all so melodramatic and boring. i mean, symbolism and dramatic possibility and personal chemistry is one thing. falling in love with your beautiful, wrong-as-could-be enemy is something out of a really bad harlequin. this doesn't happen to real people. no one falls in love with their enemy. i mean, they fall in love, enemy or no, just because it's those two people, falling. enemy or not has nothing to do with it whatsoever. reminding the reader of that in a casual mentioning just sort of makes me feel like i'm supposed to want that. oh, how great. his enemy. how romantic.

when i write an original story, this doesn't come up for me at -all-, but i suppose other people would create it if it didn't exist. i mean, i create established relationships sometimes-- these two are friends, these two have issues, these two are sisters. i hate it when it's the same though. it's always the same story. enemies in love. it gets old real fast.

i kind of like the idea of opposition, conflict, anger, teasing. on the other hand, my dislike for labels is intense and quite rabid. so nevermind me. this has probably to do with my equal disdain for people's insistence on repeating how harry potter is the gryffindor golden boy, the boy who lived, the little-hero-that-could, the most shaggable boy at hogwarts (next to malfoy), and so on, and so forth. it's the "the" i object to, the use of titles without mockery. it's so boring as to choke me. this must be why people start writing neville/angelina johnson het smut. simply because no labels and cliches can possibly be involved. sigh.

of course, all this is sort of ridiculous wibbling, because were i to stop reading h/d i'd stop altogether, that much is obvious. het still freaks me out (harry kissing ginny is enough to make me squirm while dobby/sorting hat just makes me giggle). and other stuff just seems bland. it's a strange addiction. in a way, i'm habituated and frustrated, but in a way, i'm not, simply because when it's good, it's still -really good-. maybe even better than before, i don't know. i could never really care about characters this much. this is more like some sort of mental role-playing or something. i'm not sure. although, what do i know, harry kissing cho (especially if she tastes like "chocolate and spiced roasted almonds") just makes me laugh. loudly. okay so it was polyjuiced!draco, so maybe that's different, but still. i think harry kissing hermione would make me laugh even louder.

just..... imagining hermione in a romance novel setting, with gasping sighs and overwhelmed moans and tiny shivers makes me guffaw. also, catching breaths, watering eyes, trembling hands, sweating temples, secret smiles, speeding heartbeats, etcetc and so on and so forth. just how funny is that??? pretty funny.
~~

btw, this is one of the most messed up and insane h/d (smut)fics in existence, honestly. oh, i love it so, ahahahah. i am so, so sick of h&d displaying gentle loving kindness i can't even begin to say. i mean, honestly now, what's up with -that-??! "and draco secretly wanted to be touched gently and told how he was cared for and reassured and held at night. awwwwwwwwwwww". *chokes and sputters*
    honestly, this touches upon yet another(!) pet-peeve. why oh -why- do people write abusive!harry & wilting-maiden!draco? why? why? WHY?
    this has happened way too many times to be a product of a single, extremely disturbed mind. it's virtually -prevalent-. this theme of abuse. now, ok, abuse is okay for a subject (though 95% of the time, people treat it so horribly as to make me physically sickened). but my beef isn't with poor-widdle-abused-boy!draco. no, it's when you have harry hit draco (or, rarely, vice versa), and the other just take it. that, or run away.
    say -what-??

now, if harry had the size/shape/mentality of dudley, or crabbe, that'd be one thing. but he's -harry-. slight? skinny? awkward? hello?
    to have draco be traumatized because harry slaps him is the height of insanity. what happened to slapping someone back? giving as good as you got? getting -angry- instead of -afraid-? i mean, when -hermione- slapped him, he didn't get all mental, did he? and okay, so maybe the opposite-- having them -get off- on hitting and biting and beating each other up isn't the most realistic thing in the universe, nor is it more "healthy", but at least it's boys acting like boys. grr. ergle. eek.
~~

oh, and, as many people have noted, penelope_z is right and that is, in fact, priceless >:D<
although, honestly, i wouldn't even know where to -begin- to apologize with my stories.
perhaps,
"I'm sorry, Draco. I never meant to be so free with your first name" would be a start, ahahahah. or, "I'm sorry I made you a brooding, pontificating, existential bastard once. I know you'd rather just shag Harry." *snorts* or, "I'm sorry, Ginny, that whole homicidal rage thing was just uncalled-for. But how -else- were you shagging Harry, hmmm, hmmm? Tell me -that-."

in other news, mistermaki's harry has me -gurgling- (ie, gar. erkle. muphmph. sputtlecluck. eeeeeeeeeeeeee~!!!). is that not the hottest-yet-realistic harry ever?? well, nevermind. i think i'm in that sort of mood right now ><;; and, and, the harry/draco. eeeeeeee!
    and. read vignette00's `a second metamorphosis'-- and well, come to think of it, everything else she ever wrote. guh. i can never get enough of the sweet insanity, eheheh. oh god. way too many 80s sitcoms for moi.

Comments

[thegraybook.livejournal.com]

either he just -doesn't notice- girls (hopefully we get an admission that he -used- to, but often, he was like, -pretending- to).

When I read the "pretending to" versions I just assume the author hasn't read canon. Either that or they have a deep incomprehension of what third person limited narration implies. You might as well run all the way with it and announce that Harry was just pretending to miss his parents.

i definitely kind of tried to ignore the larger implications of that scene, and attempted to just see it as sort of an anecdotal, let's-mock-harry-and-his-gayness thing. i mean, you -could- take it as mocking harry rather than the girls.

I guess you could if there was any implication that there was anything wrong with Harry's behavior, or at least that his reaction was out of proportion to the cause. It's not ridiculous enough to be a parody and there's nothing funny about the scene. There isn't even any implication that it's supposed to be funny, but isn't. There is no mocking tone to the narrative. It is simply straightforwardly a statement that this is the way that Harry feels, and if that is the way he feels, then he is a hypocritical little tool, and I hate him. And since I hate him, I am uninterested in his sex life or the success thereof.

when i -do- find i like a female character in a slash fic, i'm totally amazed and happy and like, wow.

Yeah, and isn't that depressing and kind of sad? Slash fiction is mostly written by girls and for girls. It's meant to be a fun expression of creativity and sensuality and instead in some cases it becomes a mirror for self-hatred through the fetishization of these gay boys. I don't want to hear that girls are disgusting. I don't want to hear it. And not only can I not tunnel-vision it out, but I also don't want to tunnel-vision it out. I think if I forced myself to ignore it, I'd wind up internalizing it and small, but necessary, parts of myself would die.

As a side note, you can be a gay boy without finding women disgusting. I'm not attracted to girls either, but if I wandered in on two girls having sex I would be no more upset than if I wandered in on two boys or a girl and a boy.

plus, i was being (still am) really warm and fuzzy over the last chapter, which made all the rest worth it, simply because it was so adorable and they're such -boys-. she does best with the harry/draco dialogue and interaction.

I understand, and not having read the last chapter, I can't weigh in. All I can say is that I found both characters to be hateful, and their sexual interest in each other didn't really redeem them as human beings in my mind. I am not interested in the love lives of hateful people. I do not care if their romance works out. I do not find witty byplay between characters I find to be selfish hypocritical bigots particularly adorable. Perhaps I am not enough of a Harry/Draco stalwart.

Meh. This is sort of not about Power Play anymore. Consider it a general rant.