~~ stupid pairing rants. *smacks self*
May. 25th, 2003 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkathere are few things lamer than ranting against pairings. i know this. believe me, trust me, understand me, i -know- this. every pairing is like an idea-- it may annoy me, but it is what it is, and it exists and i don't have to pay attention. it usually has a reason for existing-- just like everything else. people like it for a certain reason. usually that reason is some psychological predisposition to romantic fluffiness or kinky darkness or insane absurdity (hello, neville/squid). it's not that i would say, "let's go hug every pairing there is", but certainly, they mean no harm (the ideas themselves). they want to grow, prosper and multiply, like all memes, but it's not as if they're inherently "better" or "worse" than any other comparable idea/pairing. okay then.
that said, harry/lucius is annoying me today.
some part of me is begging the rest of me to get on my high horse and to natter about how obviously whoever ships harry/lucius cares nothing for harry, for what kind of person seriously wants a sixteen-year-old (or so) to be having this (almost certainly temporary) affair with the father of his school arch-rival, a confirmed death eater, a person who's never shown the slightest kind regard towards him and is unlikely to ever start? i mean, seriously, that's really fucked up.
*smirks* yah. it's easy to say, "well, i'm just looking out for harry's well-being, here", but of course it's also easy to see how stupid that statement is. of course, this is the same person who wrote 2 (count 'em! two!) harry/cho fics for the sole reason that i imagine harry would thank me (awww, he has a crush on cho-- why not make him have what he wants? awww, the ickle w00bie, etcetc).
see, what i'm really sometimes apt to rant about in my head isn't a -pairing-, it's my imagined scenario where people pair harry (ickle, lovable harry! hee) with people who just aren't good for him! same for draco. it's like, they don't care about him and are merely satisfying their perverse lust (which you know, pot, kettle, obviously). this is seriously making me sound like a care-bear. this is why i'm rather mocking myself, here. i think it's just that i have a relationship with harry & draco-- partly voyeuristic & perverted, but partly, you know, affectionate. he's like my little fictional adopted brother. although, seriously, that's fucked up, considering all the smut. but the point is, i want him to be happy, and fulfilled, and emotionally healthy. i want him to get his heart's desire, to realize he's lovable and special and all that jazz, but also to break him out of his mental biases and to show him more of the world. i also want draco to well... flower. not be redeemed, just, nurtured more, challenged more.
(this bit of ranting in response to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dahlia_777's post referencing a h/s fic with lucius/draco as a side pairing.)
has anyone noticed how even in fics that have nothing to do with draco, the writers always feel the need to do something with draco? like, pair him off somehow, with blaise, justin, blah blah, somebody. never even anyone realistic like pansy (like they do r/hr all the time, why not d/p, my -gahd- is it JUST because fanon!draco's hot and thus must be gay?), or anyone really silly and unusual like ron (ahahaah). it just really really annoys me.
i mean, rationally i know it's not in reaction to the idea of h/d (knowing the hegemony that is h/d exists and thus having to respond to it even if by implication), but i think subconsciously maybe it is. i've read enough h/s to know that they never, never, never once do justice to the harry & draco dynamic. it's as if harry & snape overwrite it or something. you know how harry & ron gets pissed on by most h/d fic? well that's the feeling i get with harry & draco and h/s fic. it's like snape somehow takes the place of draco, which he shouldn't since it's only in fanon that draco's with harry. and yet i feel this lingering presence, like a phantom limb, where you can almost -smell- the h/d.
maybe (probably) this is just in my head, but still. i guess i've just had bad experiences. possibly this is because h/s writers simply have a very different view of draco and don't care about him all that much, thinking he's a little twerp that may as well do the gay thing 'cause he's a malfoy (even though lucius is hotter, obviously). i keep getting this feeling like snape-love and draco-love are not all that compatible within most people.
'cause like, snape's the mature, in-control, bitter one, with all the implied complexity of moral ambiguity and all that meanness carved down into a sculptured artform. whereas draco's the opposite, in a way-- immature, premature-ejaculatory, all-bark-no-bite, wannabe big mean slytherin who only manages to look pathetic and crass most of the time. (and yes, i'm well aware this is almost draco/snape-shippy of me, ahahahahahah!!) interestingly, a lot of fanon!draco's try to compensate for this by making draco more like snape-- more in-control, more icy and alluring and mature. ha. what they really want is snape, except aged down.
actually, i myself like both draco & snape as far as personality types, i just don't want them confused, heh. and i don't think snape is shippable with anyone, though sirius, remus & lucius are all possibilities, they lack that certain something (and lucius, the poor man, i wouldn't inflict him on anyone except narcissa 'cause they deserve each other & james 'cause i'm so soppy). i'd ship him with lily but that's just way too tragic for me, thanks.
but yah. you get this sense that the harry/snape writers i've read don't really know what to do with draco, and yet there's this need to do -something- that i don't quite understand (just as i don't see why you have to "do" something with ron, and not just keep the relationship somewhat as is).
i wonder if it has something to do with the possible need to mature harry in order to pair him with snape. there seems to be an inherent need to change the mindset here-- if you keep it as that of the naive, emotionally/physically reticent yet needy boy who -hates- his potions professor, you can't very easily segue into any sort of sexual relationship with said potions professor. you need to basically change harry at least somewhat-- have him grow up, otherwise the power imbalance becomes such that snape is abusing him, basically.
the thing with h/d is that you don't need to change anything-- he could still hate draco, still be reticent and immature and ejaculate prematurely in safety, knowing draco is just the same. (woo!!) they're -boys-. they can fuck even if they hate each other, they can be oblivious as to deeper feelings together (awwwww) and basically, they can mature together as their relationship progresses. but see, harry & snape -can't-, because snape should know better.
anyway.
so harry gets this new sense of aesthetics which suddenly involves greasy potions professors (god, harry sue, how i hate you-- although having harry suddenly adore pale hair and pointy chins annoys me too-- that whole, oh god, you're JUST MY TYPE phenomenon is rather sickening). what to do with draco?
i've seen fics where harry's had a "fling" with malfoy (but malfoy was too immature for him-- *stabstabkillkill*). that's still better than suddenly-mature!harry being above the petty nuisance that is malfoy, and being able to rationally point out to malfoy the error of his ways. then there's the other option of happily-paired-off!malfoy. like, see, see? look, he's happily screwing someone else, isn't that what counts? malfoys are born to screw other men, apparently. plus there's this sense that draco's -a- malfoy. lucius becomes much more prominent because snape brings the older generation into the picture, and lucius is more interesting than draco anyway, -isn't he-?
my overall point is that draco has to be "out of the way", and there's no particular care as to which way he is. i mean, in h/d fics, you don't usually get snape with lucius or snape with sirius or whatever, just to get him "out of the way". he remains the scary mean potions professor (written for better or for worse). but if harry still had the same relationship with draco (taunting, hating, semi-obsessing, ie, what-would-malfoy-think), his new-found insight into slytherins would be compromised somehow, i guess. plus, snape is the -true- object of his hatred and interest.
all of this is understandable of course. ha. though plebey. funny how i didn't mention the incest or anything. 'course, to me it's all secondary to the basic, "but if you're doing it, you should do it for the `right reasons'" argument, which is lame but i can't help it. can draco/lucius even -have- "right reasons"? prolly not. i mean, it's perving no matter how you look at it. which is fine. and the idea of a "right reason" is stupid anyway. but i can't help thinking that the lucius-lust or snape-lust which is so blatantly obvious in say, lucius/whoever or snape/whoever is kind of, unfair treatment of the characters, or something. this extends to harry/draco if you write it 'cause of draco-lust or something. sigh. but none of this holds any water, objectively speaking, i know that. and yet......
disturbingly enough, treat characters -too- well, and you make them sappy and out-of-character and all melted into gooey puddles of over-sweet ichor. yuck! i am never happy, obviously >:D
~~
also,prillalar's response to the latest ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hp100 challenge kills me. just. KILLS me. ahahahah. oh god. i need to watch the matrix again >:D
that said, harry/lucius is annoying me today.
some part of me is begging the rest of me to get on my high horse and to natter about how obviously whoever ships harry/lucius cares nothing for harry, for what kind of person seriously wants a sixteen-year-old (or so) to be having this (almost certainly temporary) affair with the father of his school arch-rival, a confirmed death eater, a person who's never shown the slightest kind regard towards him and is unlikely to ever start? i mean, seriously, that's really fucked up.
*smirks* yah. it's easy to say, "well, i'm just looking out for harry's well-being, here", but of course it's also easy to see how stupid that statement is. of course, this is the same person who wrote 2 (count 'em! two!) harry/cho fics for the sole reason that i imagine harry would thank me (awww, he has a crush on cho-- why not make him have what he wants? awww, the ickle w00bie, etcetc).
see, what i'm really sometimes apt to rant about in my head isn't a -pairing-, it's my imagined scenario where people pair harry (ickle, lovable harry! hee) with people who just aren't good for him! same for draco. it's like, they don't care about him and are merely satisfying their perverse lust (which you know, pot, kettle, obviously). this is seriously making me sound like a care-bear. this is why i'm rather mocking myself, here. i think it's just that i have a relationship with harry & draco-- partly voyeuristic & perverted, but partly, you know, affectionate. he's like my little fictional adopted brother. although, seriously, that's fucked up, considering all the smut. but the point is, i want him to be happy, and fulfilled, and emotionally healthy. i want him to get his heart's desire, to realize he's lovable and special and all that jazz, but also to break him out of his mental biases and to show him more of the world. i also want draco to well... flower. not be redeemed, just, nurtured more, challenged more.
(this bit of ranting in response to
dahlia_777's post referencing a h/s fic with lucius/draco as a side pairing.)has anyone noticed how even in fics that have nothing to do with draco, the writers always feel the need to do something with draco? like, pair him off somehow, with blaise, justin, blah blah, somebody. never even anyone realistic like pansy (like they do r/hr all the time, why not d/p, my -gahd- is it JUST because fanon!draco's hot and thus must be gay?), or anyone really silly and unusual like ron (ahahaah). it just really really annoys me.
i mean, rationally i know it's not in reaction to the idea of h/d (knowing the hegemony that is h/d exists and thus having to respond to it even if by implication), but i think subconsciously maybe it is. i've read enough h/s to know that they never, never, never once do justice to the harry & draco dynamic. it's as if harry & snape overwrite it or something. you know how harry & ron gets pissed on by most h/d fic? well that's the feeling i get with harry & draco and h/s fic. it's like snape somehow takes the place of draco, which he shouldn't since it's only in fanon that draco's with harry. and yet i feel this lingering presence, like a phantom limb, where you can almost -smell- the h/d.
maybe (probably) this is just in my head, but still. i guess i've just had bad experiences. possibly this is because h/s writers simply have a very different view of draco and don't care about him all that much, thinking he's a little twerp that may as well do the gay thing 'cause he's a malfoy (even though lucius is hotter, obviously). i keep getting this feeling like snape-love and draco-love are not all that compatible within most people.
'cause like, snape's the mature, in-control, bitter one, with all the implied complexity of moral ambiguity and all that meanness carved down into a sculptured artform. whereas draco's the opposite, in a way-- immature, premature-ejaculatory, all-bark-no-bite, wannabe big mean slytherin who only manages to look pathetic and crass most of the time. (and yes, i'm well aware this is almost draco/snape-shippy of me, ahahahahahah!!) interestingly, a lot of fanon!draco's try to compensate for this by making draco more like snape-- more in-control, more icy and alluring and mature. ha. what they really want is snape, except aged down.
actually, i myself like both draco & snape as far as personality types, i just don't want them confused, heh. and i don't think snape is shippable with anyone, though sirius, remus & lucius are all possibilities, they lack that certain something (and lucius, the poor man, i wouldn't inflict him on anyone except narcissa 'cause they deserve each other & james 'cause i'm so soppy). i'd ship him with lily but that's just way too tragic for me, thanks.
but yah. you get this sense that the harry/snape writers i've read don't really know what to do with draco, and yet there's this need to do -something- that i don't quite understand (just as i don't see why you have to "do" something with ron, and not just keep the relationship somewhat as is).
i wonder if it has something to do with the possible need to mature harry in order to pair him with snape. there seems to be an inherent need to change the mindset here-- if you keep it as that of the naive, emotionally/physically reticent yet needy boy who -hates- his potions professor, you can't very easily segue into any sort of sexual relationship with said potions professor. you need to basically change harry at least somewhat-- have him grow up, otherwise the power imbalance becomes such that snape is abusing him, basically.
the thing with h/d is that you don't need to change anything-- he could still hate draco, still be reticent and immature and ejaculate prematurely in safety, knowing draco is just the same. (woo!!) they're -boys-. they can fuck even if they hate each other, they can be oblivious as to deeper feelings together (awwwww) and basically, they can mature together as their relationship progresses. but see, harry & snape -can't-, because snape should know better.
anyway.
so harry gets this new sense of aesthetics which suddenly involves greasy potions professors (god, harry sue, how i hate you-- although having harry suddenly adore pale hair and pointy chins annoys me too-- that whole, oh god, you're JUST MY TYPE phenomenon is rather sickening). what to do with draco?
i've seen fics where harry's had a "fling" with malfoy (but malfoy was too immature for him-- *stabstabkillkill*). that's still better than suddenly-mature!harry being above the petty nuisance that is malfoy, and being able to rationally point out to malfoy the error of his ways. then there's the other option of happily-paired-off!malfoy. like, see, see? look, he's happily screwing someone else, isn't that what counts? malfoys are born to screw other men, apparently. plus there's this sense that draco's -a- malfoy. lucius becomes much more prominent because snape brings the older generation into the picture, and lucius is more interesting than draco anyway, -isn't he-?
my overall point is that draco has to be "out of the way", and there's no particular care as to which way he is. i mean, in h/d fics, you don't usually get snape with lucius or snape with sirius or whatever, just to get him "out of the way". he remains the scary mean potions professor (written for better or for worse). but if harry still had the same relationship with draco (taunting, hating, semi-obsessing, ie, what-would-malfoy-think), his new-found insight into slytherins would be compromised somehow, i guess. plus, snape is the -true- object of his hatred and interest.
all of this is understandable of course. ha. though plebey. funny how i didn't mention the incest or anything. 'course, to me it's all secondary to the basic, "but if you're doing it, you should do it for the `right reasons'" argument, which is lame but i can't help it. can draco/lucius even -have- "right reasons"? prolly not. i mean, it's perving no matter how you look at it. which is fine. and the idea of a "right reason" is stupid anyway. but i can't help thinking that the lucius-lust or snape-lust which is so blatantly obvious in say, lucius/whoever or snape/whoever is kind of, unfair treatment of the characters, or something. this extends to harry/draco if you write it 'cause of draco-lust or something. sigh. but none of this holds any water, objectively speaking, i know that. and yet......
disturbingly enough, treat characters -too- well, and you make them sappy and out-of-character and all melted into gooey puddles of over-sweet ichor. yuck! i am never happy, obviously >:D
~~
also,
prillalar's response to the latest hp100 challenge kills me. just. KILLS me. ahahahah. oh god. i need to watch the matrix again >:D
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-05-25 02:21 pm (UTC)Anyway, I agree with you that Snape-love and Draco-love don't seem to be compatible, and I can't figure out why. I think both of these characters are fabulous to write and think about, for different reasons. And of course I find it personally frustrating since most of the Snapeslash I write is S/D, which means that the H/D shippers think it's squicky and the Snapeslashers roll their eyes 'cos they loathe Draco.
Of course, there are exceptions, and I should note that given how few people write S/D there's really a high proportion of great fics out there. (Atalanta Pendragonne, for example. Mmmm.) But the pairing is never going to have the popularity of S/H or H/D (or even L/H), and it's interesting to speculate why.
I know some people would say that it's just not as complicated (and hence interesting) as S/H, but I don't think that's necessarily so. Snape is kind of like Draco's alternate father figure, but he's also someone who's loyalties are divided, and the potential for misunderstanding and even tragedy is to me just as interesting as the S/H dynamic. Yes, they're both Slytherins, but not they're not on the same side. Not necessarily.
A bunch of us had a long debate about this about a year ago, about characters and canonicity and you name it, and we finally just decided it was a question of aesthetics. Some people like black hair more than blond hair, I guess.
Anyway, I know you don't like either of these pairings, but I just couldn't stop myself from responding anyway. Sorry!!!
no subject
Date: 2003-05-25 02:44 pm (UTC)and i mean, i may not like them, but i -am- open-minded enough to discuss and think about it, and perhaps even to read it, possibly maybe. i read ishuca's. *giggles* i have a d/s-reading badge, now :D
my feelings on h/l and d/l (which is mostly what i was thinking of), aren't really reality-based, and more instant reactions, you know? like you'd have a reaction to madame hooch/dumbledore, kind of, without reading any. heh.
there's more of a focus on "issues" and conflict and "how messed up and interesting can this get, and how complex the dynamic" rather than, as i was saying, trying to make the characters happy. which is my little shtick, as i was saying. not -too- happy so that it's sappy and one can't take it, just-- sort oflike fitting puzzle-pieces together. it's looking for that -perfect fit- that wouldn't take away and only add. or something.
obviously, i'm a hopeless romantic, but i mean, i -was- kind of self-mocking about it, at least ><;;
i'm sorry it looked like i was generalizing using a fic i hadn't even read. eep. -.- that was rather stupid of me. was just using the idea and running with it, not really thinking about the particular fic (which i should've, since i mentioned it in the first place). sigh. i'd read it, but i have such i huge backlog already, it's frightening -.-
i can see how d/s could have contrast, but it's not an -obvious- contrast. if you think about the sorts of things most people go for in romance (think of popular movies & books & tv, i guess), you'd see why d/s isn't more widely read. it's not really like any of your stereotypical romantic dynamics. i can't easily think of any couple they'd remind me of. if i had to try, it'd probably be something "in the past", like... some failed relationship you get referenced, on draco's part if he were to fall for someone really different.
for some insane (INSANE) reason i'm thinking of the movie `willow', and of the dark princess having an affair with one of the dark generals, back before she rebelled against her mother. and stuff. ahahaha. how messed up is that?? ha. but i was just seeing this love affair between differently-ranking soldiers in the Dark Army, anyway ><
and then of course, you have the -redeeming- romance with someone brash and heroic and sexy. hee >:D
it's just... the archetypes don't usually work that way. while it may be interesting, it's a specialized sort of interest, for those into those particular dynamics. it doesn't fit the "normal", stereotypical romance dynamic, like h/d does so spectacularly (yep, i'm typical), and to a lesser degree, h/s and even LESSER degree, h/l (which is a false archetypical match, really, 'cause lucius is in no way a romantic lead for harry in terms of epic romantic storytelling as far as i can tell, in archetypical terms).
and yah, i know about the thread. hee. i read it, as well as the rest of penelope's journal ;)
Re:
Date: 2003-05-25 02:57 pm (UTC)(And now I get really wanky): But I think one of the reasons Draco is such a prat is because he doesn't have any kind of moral anchor. And Snape could potentially be that, except he's so morally confused himself. I love these kinds of stories about ambivalence and authority and all the different ways it can be perverted or abused (and not just by the person in the position of authority, either). Actually, now that I think of it, my very first smut scene in the fandom was exactly about this too. *facepalm*
Anyway, I have long given up hope of convincing people about specific pairings since at the end of the day, it's What You Like, you know? And I'm always finding myself suddenly enjoying pairings I had decided I'd loathed (like 99.9% of Lucius/Severus), when I find an author who does them well. Hell, I've read excellent Snape/Neville, and I just read a Harry/Cho that was amazing.
So I'm not going to try to convince anybody about S/D or L/D, particularly because the last one is such a major squick for most people anyway. But to be honest, I love L/D more than any other pairing, although the only person who really writes it the way I envision it should be is Olympia (and only in long-gone LJ ficlet entries, to boot). For me it's not so much the father-son stuff (which yes, is disgusting), but rather all the issues of power and abuse and control and rebellion, and the utter caprice of authority figures. Both of them are so fucking weak, and in ways that bring out the worst in each other. As Olympia once said, "Poor Draco, having Lucius as a father. Poor Lucius, having Draco as a son."
But we all mine different kinds of emotional territory in our fics, and your explanation of the kinds of emotions that tend to have the greatest appeal makes perfect sense to me. Unfortunately, I have no interest in making my characters happy, but I do love a good fluff fic as much as anyone else, if someone else writes it. Recently I decided that if there was only ONE never-finished WIP that I could magically force through to completion, it would be Dreams of Enchantment.
Yeah.
Anyway, thanks.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-25 04:11 pm (UTC)and, i just thought i'd make the distinction between wanting characters happy and wanting fluff. maybe i should clarify that i want harry to end up happy, not to be happy in general. like, no one is always happy unless they're on drugs, heh. i love exploring all sorts of dark, disturbing reaches of the psyche, it's just-- since i care about him-- i have hope for him. i want him to be alright. i hope that doesn't mean i want fluff, y'know? i just want it all to be -for- something, to -mean- something, i want harry to win and not to -lose- himself in the process. i want him to find love that fulfills him, and i hope that doesn't make it depart from realism and go into fluff.
what i'd really want is something dark and challenging that eventually results/resolves into something more hopeful and fulfilling.
like, i want to see what you (or olympia) for instance could do with a draco/lucius backstory to an eventual h/d, say.
like, from the standpoint of, okay, that's all over and he's not in that place anymore, and this is his childhood/youth and he's almost a different person now, but draco would still have to deal with what his father meant to him, in many ways.
so say, after lucius' death, all this would come back to him in full force, and you could sort of weave these things together in flashbacks or something.
i guess i'm saying that none of it has to be exclusionary. i want love to be wide, to be able to contain many different things, many different possibilities for dynamics within the same relationship. that's why i love h/d, in part, because you could go so many different places with it and remain recognizably h/d.
hee. and i know what you mean about the surprising good stuff in all these weird pairings. though i still haven't branched out -that- much, and i still find that only my otp gives me that special burn. like, i only swoon when h/d kiss. and, well, ailei & khirsah's sirius/remus, 'cause obviously they're goddesses and i'm entirely at their mercy :D