~~ the quest for kinkless reading continues.

[reenka]

I guess I mostly want to post about whether one can dislike slash & not be homophobic.

I mean, I would automatically say one is pretty much homophobic to some degree if one -hates- and refuses to give slash (or gay-themed literature or movies) a chance. But in the case of just preferring het or gen-type fic, it's different, slash being a genre of romance. People generally read romance for pleasure-- unlike say, "general" fiction or nonfiction. They read it to relax and enjoy themselves, and if they don't identify with the emotions of the characters involved, then what would be the (emotional) draw?

As a 'serious writer', one of my main goals is to write outside my kinks (or pleasure-zones), because I think that's essential to improving one's craft, and also unsticking one's brain from a rut. But as a 'serious reader', I can't be bothered to ignore my kinks outside of class. And a reader's sexual orientation is just one big kink area, isn't it?

I have a straight, non-fandom guy friend who often reads my H/D fic and even enjoys it, so I know he doesn't have a problem with The Gay. He just doesn't like the sexy-yeay aspect of things. At all. And that really kind of made me think-- how many slash readers/writers would stop reading if slashfic no longer felt -good-?

I think the difference between proclaiming the 'yuck' reaction is homophobic & conscious or understandable and unconscious (in a straight guy or a non-kinky girl) is the difference between a higher-brained and an instinctual (pleasure-based) response. The higher brain says "whoa! morally suspect content!" whereas it's the inarguable Id that proclaims "omg hot!!1" or "omg, NOT!". *sigh* It also seems important that while there are -some- male slashers, nearly 100% are gay (thus begging the question of whether they're being as limited as the straight guys who'd rather stick to het).

This needs more thought on my part, clearly.
~~

Also... does loving/writing/reading H/D fics mean you're one of the inchoate group of H/D shippers? Does that have to necessarily mean you're all into the same thing, that you truly have something in common? (...No.)

It's just-- liking "all versions" of a pairing doesn't make sense to me.


Everyone has such a different view on Draco, it seems, and that really impacts my idea of whether or not he "should" be with Harry. That's really at the heart of it. I mean, it really gets confusing when one can't quite say either canon!Draco (as is) -or- ice-prince-fanon!Draco "should" be with Harry. I mean, that just leaves... "my" Draco and canonish!Harry who're MFEO. Canon!Draco is kinda... 'close but no cigar' at this point; I feel like most of the people (whose H/D I love) who write canonish!Draco with Harry do it either by using pre-OoTP Harry, lightening both of them up, or by writing it as a really messed up & abusive pairing.

Eh. Sometimes I do want Harry to love canon!Draco, but. Firstly, Harry's love would -change- Draco, and secondly, Harry being Harry, he'd still need a reason to. But, this makes for good 'boys are silly' fic, as long as you don't get too serious. While canon!Draco's being a dork, using him in fic makes for nice dorky!fluff. Secondly, it avoids using fanon!Draco, who is Teh Eval.

Gar. My hate-on for sexy-cool!Draco doesn't even have to do with canon. I just think he's sekritly evil. Why the bloody hell does he need Harry? He's already perfect! Look at him! He's blondest and prettiest and coolest and.. he doesn't even -angst-! He's Legolas without the ears! Perfection? Is dumb. :D

And "OTP" is such a meta concept that sometimes it hurts my brain, I think (and this is the person who 'ships' earth/sky and black/white and stuff like that). The problem is that Harry&Draco have become too real to me, maybe. And also, too many people these days seem to write H/D that I find heavily not to my taste, somehow. Like my perception of them has become so fine-tuned, any discordant note twangs like a bitch. Even so, I wouldn't rather read well-written H/Hr instead; then again, this might explain my recent sabbatical from fandom.

It's like... I'm okay with being "in" the "HP fandom" because that's such a diffuse, obviously multifaceted thing, but I feel that being labeled an "H/D shipper" implies things about me I may or may not want to represent. I mean, if you picked certain characteristics or aspects or portrayals of the pairing, I can honestly say "I'm emphatically not an H/D shipper". In fact, I have more disagreements with other H/D-shipping people than I do with people who ship other pairings, just 'cause I -care- more about my thoughts on H/D to start with.

I think shippiness is messed up in general. Why each individual "sees" two people as 'good together' is (should be?) idiosyncratic, isn't it? I mean, two fifteen/sixteen year-old boys who can't stand each other's guts are -not- going to have a healthy, balanced relationship any way you look at it. One can only hope they grow up together & don't drive each other utterly mad (or dead) along the way :>

Maybe it's just that seeing this H/Hr shippy rant reminds me of everything that's wrong with shippiness and blatant character favoritism. It's like, oh, look how compatible & good together & healthy H/Hr is! They're such wonderful miniature adults from age 12 on or whatever. Why does that poor idiot, Ron, have to ruin everything?!?

I don't think H&D are "good together" (without a lot of doing), yet I ship 'em like a mofo. I think this makes me a freak :>

I mean, I do indulge in rather blatant Harry favoritism myself, but the idea of using the love of one character/pairing to bring down another, or that defining oneself as -pro- something has to imply you're -anti- something else... that just really bothers me. I love Ron, you know, and I love the relationship between Harry & Ron, but I would never say it's more important to Harry than his relationship with Hermione. He loves (and needs) them both, dude. Draco, though-- my Draco-- is just a dream; or possibly, canon!Draco's nightmare.

I probably I ship Harry and Draco because clearly I adore them, and because they represent all sorts of things about the world and the universe and how I want to perceive love and what I hope can be true about people. I want them to be together because I want to believe the best of people and because I think they can (one day!) be so brilliant together and because they need each other in a whole 'nother way. In the way you need your shadow, and in the way you need your light, and in a way you need to believe in the impossible and in free will and in our own ability to change. There is so much potential there-- and H/D can just explode with it (though it doesn't a lot of the time, not in practice). In practice, very very few H/D writers have really made it -work- for me, and of course those that have, possess my undying love.

But I am in love with them and I will stay in love with them and I need and want them to stay in love with each other, but I still dislike reducing all this passion to the confines of "shipping" and shippiness. To me, it's a way of thinking, of seeing love-- of believing things about the world in general.

I love Aja's use of the world "allegorical" in the post above-- because that's what H/D is to me, as real as both Harry & Draco have become-- an allegory. Both real & allegorical, yes, exactly.

What I'm saying is-- there is all this love in me for my H/D, and Aja's, and Ivy's, and Maya's & Aspen's, and Miss Breed's & Silvia's & Trin's & Audrey's & Thess' & Rhysenn's & Antenora's-- and it's all so individual, so particular, even as it coalesces in my mind into a single feeling from the multiple sources. It's just-- purity of precise meaning remains though the source is mixed. I feel their love and I feel mine, and it's always unique to me, always reborn with every good (there's me being particular again) fic anyone writes.

I'm now wondering whether I'm an OTP writer, and I think I am, because Harry & Draco are always "It" for me. What I always think about, what I care about, what I'm -here- for. Nothing else matters, yes, but other things interest me. I like writing against kink, I like challenging myself, I love knowing I'm growing as a writer. I'll leave fandom for good if I ever tire of H/D, yes, but it's not because H/D is "my ship". They're not -mine-; I'm theirs. They possess me. I have interests outside them, I try to escape them even, but their contradictory, insane relationship possesses me because it's my Story.

It is the story of Love and magic and the need to always feel even when your heart is breaking in two inside you. It is a (meta-)story of love & hate & letting go & growing up & accepting things & learning what's worth fighting for. They are my avatars; they are my starting points; they aren't a sure thing to me because they are always fighting to be.

My Harry&Draco are always a step away from completion; always on the brink of disaster & ruin & heartbreak. Sometimes they snatch happiness from the jaws of hatred, but most times they just try to hurt each other and doubt themselves and each other. My H/D is never comfortable or easy or "meant to be"-- their battle for themselves is always just beginning, but they never stop. They can't stop. They can't let go. They are bound; in orbit; they are the One which is Two. They're not exactly heavily rooted in 'reality'.

Anyway... I'm well aware that the ideals I'm imbuing the pairing with aren't always there, in every H/D fic, to say the least-- that is partly why I find so many H/D fics to be painfully crap, my standards being sky-high. This is also a part of the reason I'm semi-open to other fandoms-- in the end, this type of meta-emotional landscape is transferrable to other pairings, if you write them right. (That is to say, I can "get" a similar vibe from other pairings, it's just that I don't have the pre-existing emotional investment to make it as powerful for me). H/D isn't unique in its suitability to carry this particular sort of context-- it's just rather rare.

I'd insist that what's important to me isn't That Pairing, but rather a way of -perceiving- That Pairing. Too many fics/writers see H/D (and the two characters individually) in a way I can't stand for me to feel comfortable. Ice-prince!Draco alone would put me off more than half the H/D fic out there (well, the ones that don't have porn to distract me with). How can I say I support these visions and call them "mine" by proxy?

This whole rambling quibble is a product of obsession, of course. I'm not even saying I ship H/D "better" or "truer" or "more intensely" than the rest-- I'm just saying I probably see them differently than most; just as I fit in neither with the canon!Draco-fanciers nor with the fanon!Draco-fanciers. (Which is to say, I like canon!Draco, redeemed from his future and made slightly less pathetic). Harry&Draco are not necessarily the same people to me as to most of the fandom.

As to ice-prince!Draco being coupled with nice-and-heroic!Harry? Sometimes I want to throw up, but mostly I just studiously don't care. Unless it's brilliantly written, of course, then all bets are off. I do mindlessly enjoy well-written porn (whether it's emotionally or physically based), but when I fall in love, I fall in love with an H/D writer's singular vision, and with these boys, all over again, every time.
~~

Generally, what I really care about is a good story rather than a shippy or a slashy story, even though those things draw me in initially. It's rather difficult to overcome some ridiculous characterization to write a brilliantly moving tale, but that's only because usually the stuff that's "OOC" makes no sense anyway. Usually it's just -stupid- or uninspired, moreso than it's anti-canon, as far as I can tell. But I'm cranky that way.

Comments

[luciusmalfoy.livejournal.com]

i don't like slash, but i don't think i'm homophobic... really. -.-

slash is just something like i'm not that interested in reading, it's not that it doesn't relate to me but it's just... eh. i dunno. i have enough darn gay in my life & i don't need to read about it.

errghh the gay

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

I don't really have anything to add to this--in fact I disagree on some points, but not enough to quibble with the overall spirit of your post. I just want to clarify that when I said, in my post, "I love knowing that I can always count on to write H/D. They are sure things, in a way, because I know that regardless of how we write our OTP, we all love it..." I wasn't referring to the pairing itself as a sure thing--but to the writers who keep coming back and exploring it again and again.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

stuck at the doctors, i read an enormous post i had printed out. or two. one was about nott vs. draco, the other about 5-qu-about-hp-fanfics. and they all seemed to say again and again how badly draco was written.
now you say you don't read ljs at all? i found it interesting that opinions there could clash because it is possible to read only one kind of fic while the next person never saw any of that kind. i just made up my mind to try to get a more canon-draco into a fic, if it killed me. just as snape, he is hysteric. he is not cool. he is a good mimic, but loses nerve easily and can never, ever keep his mouth shut.
why do i write that? *g* coz this time i lost the thread of what you actually wanted to say up there. although i know from past posts what you mean. sort of?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

You know...liking or not liking slash is an interesting thing. Because I've liked het pairings too, though none in HP. So part of me wonders why one would not like something because the romance was between two guys. The obvious reason is that you think two guys is icky, but I don't think it has to be that.

Slash has generally been described as being for and by (and maybe even about) women and I think it basically is. I started slashing, really, when I was probably as young as 5 or 6 when I was all into Batman and Robin and Robin getting hurt and Batman coming with the comfort! I have just always loved male/male relationships and friendships. But I think that also probably meant that I, for whatever reason, naturally liked to project into male characters. More than female ones, I think, because I rarely project myself into those. So for me it's natural for me to like my romance "as a boy." (In fact, I'm not even sure if, when I read het, I "am" the boy or the girl in my head--I've always thought I was the girl, but who knows? Maybe I flip back and forth?)

I think with most guys, though not all, the whole romance story thing isn't something they do anyway. They'd sort of rather just focus on the girl in a porno and whoever the guy is is sort of them. So if you hand them slash to them it's about two guys having sex and that might not be something they're really interested in, or it may be unpleasant to think about doing it themselves, even if they're not homophobic. But maybe for some reason it's not so much that, "Eww! You're writing two boys doing it!" as it is, "Why would I want Harry to do it with somebody who wasn't me?"

I feel like that's what happens with a lot of people who say they start off thinking slash is bad and then they read it and like it. I think what they might be learning is that oh wait, I can be a boy character too, really. I'm not cut out after all!

Just something I was thinking about...

[flimpy.livejournal.com]

liking "all versions" of a pairing doesn't make sense to me.

Heh. I do have a specific idea of what H/D means to me, and I'll defend it to the death, but I also love all the ways it can be shipped... fluff, angst, drama, dark, humor, vanilla, kink. I would say that I'm shameless, except I honestly don't think I am. I just like variety, man. ^_~ I love that I can appreciate nopejr's detached yet powerful style and wayfairer's impassioned attitude as well.

Like you've said, I just want H/D to make sense within the context of the story - and ultimately, good storytelling is what it's all about.

[malafede.livejournal.com]

(I've deleted my comment because I've realised that the bold fonts made me look like a raving fundie.)

So, I've thought about this H/D thing. It boiled down to three issues: kink, good writing and good characterizations.

Kink. Now the beautiful thing with kink is that you don't explain it, it's very much like pavlovian dogs. You just have it. It makes you happy. So H/D, no matter how much bad written, no much the seriously weird characterizations, will make people happy just by virtue of having one blond guy called Draco with a vaguely hostile (sometimes not even that) attitude and one dark haired guy who is a hero. And they fall in love. And their love achieves world peace. I mean, there's nothing wrong with this. There could be so many reasons for people to have this kink (like I have a sub Draco kink, and I get off on real crap in its name): it could be philosophical, it could be allegorical, it could both.

I think this is why many really really bad stuff is not only being read, but also enjoyed and praised to the sky - and the only problems I have with this are of intellectual honesty, ie: don't call your kink good writing.

Also my squick is many of these people's kink and this makes me bitter. But that's my problem.

Good writing and good characterization get confused a lot too. For example, I don't think some of the better writers out there have the best characterizations. Ivy Blossom, who writes beautifully, isn't as close as JKR's universe like, for example, Breed. But Ivy Blossom's psychological realism, her insight into humanity (even as illustrated by different manifestations of humanity than I see in H&D), is good, and makes the reading enjoyable nontheless.

I have my H&D, and I think they're close to canon - or, they're my interpretation of canon, that is admittedly subjective, but that's as honest I can get without renouncing to my own individuality (ahaha, the PRETENTION!). And I am attached to it; I can read about characterizations that stray from it (like Ivy Blossom's) but it doesn't touch the same emotional chords Breed touchs in me. It's good writing - but it's not the Harry and Draco I believe in.

Then there's things that don't have anything even remotedly resembling Harry and Draco how I read them in canon (and actually, I am talking about a objective standard here because I do think that perfect hottie Draco is pure fanon) and couple it with the bad writing (idealised writing, super-human characterizations, trite plots, trite emotional manipulations, and I could go on.) These fics are written by people that are clearly getting a happy out of it, and their readers too, and they have all the right to it - real people's happy is more important than fictional one.

But it worries me that this vision is so popular, if not only because it feeds the fanon bleed, this wide-spread idea that Casanova Draco is textual.

Oh, and the shippy rant. So many levels of wrong. It's not the healthy bond that makes the romance - it's the chemistry. Even it was true that Hermione and Harry are too-cool-for-school and Ron is just a simpleton, thing is, the chemistry is still between Hermione and Ron. And, to clarify: I don't ship them.

And dude, this is why I hate heroes sometimes. The meta-hate, it is my precious.