(who's gay?? DRACO'S GAY!!1)
Aug. 30th, 2004 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI really wonder if it makes a serious difference that I wrote the porn snippet yesterday only for me and partly for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
malafede. Like. Is it possible to actually write fiction with that narrow of a target audience that only really succeeds with that audience? Not that no one else liked it, but it's not a mass pleaser by any means (and the one crit I got said it suffered from lack of setting). I mean, there's the lack of setting/characterization/etc but is it just that? It seems to me that it gained most of its meaning in context, which is: a) Harry/Draco fucking in my head-- WHEN it is in my head to start with-- needs no context, period; b) malafede's Draco (a foreign 'muse' I'm on familiar terms with-- whatever the fuck -that- means) was being sulky so my Harry was being smirky/horny (on a weird meta level that I feel awkward even approaching rationally). It's weird 'cause like, I'm so fascinated with audience when it comes to fic.
Also because I was readingmusesfool's lj and she was saying how the Remus & Sirius in her head are gay, right-- and I'm not like this with most characters I have 'muses' for-- or, more precisely, I'm only like this with Draco that much, since I do think Pansy & Sirius & Remus are gay, just not so emphatically GAY. Sure, I think 'theoretically' or 'realistically' or whatever, on some uber-objective author's-intent (???! don't even want to get into that, but go with me) level he's either straight or bi.... But in my head... he's just gay. GAY. GAY in big orange letters. G-A-Y. Very gay. So gay it hurts. Veryveryveryveryvery gay, etc etc and so on and so forth. I think the reason I go on about it like that is 'cause I enjoy it. I -like- thinking of him like that. It's like... hot or something. Gay!Harry isn't hot... but gay!Draco is like... -mine- in some weird twisted (WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH ME) sort of way. I think it's another way of saying when I say 'cock-whore!Draco is mine' I mean Harry's. I mean he's Harry's. Therefore, when I say gay!Draco, I mean Harry's!Draco.
Hmm.
Anyway, that occurred to me 'causejedi_penguin said that maybe musesfool is so convinced Sirius & Remus are gay because they're so exclusively each other's. I wonder if being an OTPer leads to this. Though then, I dislike Harry with anyone but Draco, but not -that- much. Can you be an imbalanced OTP-er based on the character you most identify with....? Not that I honestly identify with Draco less, actually, it's just that I'm very conscious that he's very different.
Even so, it seems to be true. My Draco is Harry's, forever and ever amen, so clearly that means he's gay (even though he might 'like' girls, ahahahah TOO BAD, LOVERBOY). But the question of whether attachment defines fictional sexuality or the other way around is a rather meta & tricky one. I think this might be why I dislike stories where it's very laid out that so-and-so is gay, therefore they are looking into the male contingent of the population. It's not slash in some vital way to me. Slash would always go 'only want boy'--> therefore 'gay by default'. Not 'realistic', but just how my slasher mind operates.
Outside the OTP issue, though... without Harry, Draco would prolly go with a girl long-term 'cause he's a conformist but fuck boys in filthy back rooms; it would probably never occur to Harry that he -could- like boys outside of Draco/etc pouncing him, so left to his own devices, he'd be straight. I don't think my Harry gets off on boys outside of some particular one he's attracted to, just because he's rather asexual, whereas I see Draco as rather sexual but repressed. If he wasn't repressed, though, he'd be mostly gay though would fuck girls to feel dominant, the poor wanker.
Some people without 'muses' or a general vision of the characters outside of the particular story they're in might not get this, though. I've had people (well,ishuca) tell me that she doesn't have a singular Draco; I imagine not all writers do have a single version of a character-- why would they? Most 'original' fic writers don't need to have a single version, unless they write sequel upon sequel, which isn't that common. This seems to be more of an RP thing. For me it's more of a quantity-of-writing thing-- I've written the equivalent of an epic or two, word-count-wise, by now, so patterns have emerged. Surely I'm entitled to be on 'familiar terms' with the boys, so to speak :>
PS. Nothing to do with anything, but I'm so having a big ole literary crush on Virginia Woolf right now. Just sayin'.
PPS. The Theban Band can have my babies. Baby Number One: would gurgle and scream POTTER. Baby Number Two: would just sigh contendedly at the pretty full moon. ♥♥♥♥
Also,blacksatinrose's oh-so-reasonable point-by-point S/R plausibility defense has made me nearly weepy with joy. SEE, WE'RE NOT ALL INSANE, DAMMIT!!1 >:O Though clearly, that doesn't quite apply to me. Oh well.
EDIT - This had to be noted:ildi_bp has done the impossible: drawn such amazing Snape/Draco that I literally felt the pairing. Owwww, my -brain-!!1
malafede. Like. Is it possible to actually write fiction with that narrow of a target audience that only really succeeds with that audience? Not that no one else liked it, but it's not a mass pleaser by any means (and the one crit I got said it suffered from lack of setting). I mean, there's the lack of setting/characterization/etc but is it just that? It seems to me that it gained most of its meaning in context, which is: a) Harry/Draco fucking in my head-- WHEN it is in my head to start with-- needs no context, period; b) malafede's Draco (a foreign 'muse' I'm on familiar terms with-- whatever the fuck -that- means) was being sulky so my Harry was being smirky/horny (on a weird meta level that I feel awkward even approaching rationally). It's weird 'cause like, I'm so fascinated with audience when it comes to fic.Also because I was reading
musesfool's lj and she was saying how the Remus & Sirius in her head are gay, right-- and I'm not like this with most characters I have 'muses' for-- or, more precisely, I'm only like this with Draco that much, since I do think Pansy & Sirius & Remus are gay, just not so emphatically GAY. Sure, I think 'theoretically' or 'realistically' or whatever, on some uber-objective author's-intent (???! don't even want to get into that, but go with me) level he's either straight or bi.... But in my head... he's just gay. GAY. GAY in big orange letters. G-A-Y. Very gay. So gay it hurts. Veryveryveryveryvery gay, etc etc and so on and so forth. I think the reason I go on about it like that is 'cause I enjoy it. I -like- thinking of him like that. It's like... hot or something. Gay!Harry isn't hot... but gay!Draco is like... -mine- in some weird twisted (WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH ME) sort of way. I think it's another way of saying when I say 'cock-whore!Draco is mine' I mean Harry's. I mean he's Harry's. Therefore, when I say gay!Draco, I mean Harry's!Draco.Hmm.
Anyway, that occurred to me 'cause
jedi_penguin said that maybe musesfool is so convinced Sirius & Remus are gay because they're so exclusively each other's. I wonder if being an OTPer leads to this. Though then, I dislike Harry with anyone but Draco, but not -that- much. Can you be an imbalanced OTP-er based on the character you most identify with....? Not that I honestly identify with Draco less, actually, it's just that I'm very conscious that he's very different.Even so, it seems to be true. My Draco is Harry's, forever and ever amen, so clearly that means he's gay (even though he might 'like' girls, ahahahah TOO BAD, LOVERBOY). But the question of whether attachment defines fictional sexuality or the other way around is a rather meta & tricky one. I think this might be why I dislike stories where it's very laid out that so-and-so is gay, therefore they are looking into the male contingent of the population. It's not slash in some vital way to me. Slash would always go 'only want boy'--> therefore 'gay by default'. Not 'realistic', but just how my slasher mind operates.
Outside the OTP issue, though... without Harry, Draco would prolly go with a girl long-term 'cause he's a conformist but fuck boys in filthy back rooms; it would probably never occur to Harry that he -could- like boys outside of Draco/etc pouncing him, so left to his own devices, he'd be straight. I don't think my Harry gets off on boys outside of some particular one he's attracted to, just because he's rather asexual, whereas I see Draco as rather sexual but repressed. If he wasn't repressed, though, he'd be mostly gay though would fuck girls to feel dominant, the poor wanker.
Some people without 'muses' or a general vision of the characters outside of the particular story they're in might not get this, though. I've had people (well,
ishuca) tell me that she doesn't have a singular Draco; I imagine not all writers do have a single version of a character-- why would they? Most 'original' fic writers don't need to have a single version, unless they write sequel upon sequel, which isn't that common. This seems to be more of an RP thing. For me it's more of a quantity-of-writing thing-- I've written the equivalent of an epic or two, word-count-wise, by now, so patterns have emerged. Surely I'm entitled to be on 'familiar terms' with the boys, so to speak :>PS. Nothing to do with anything, but I'm so having a big ole literary crush on Virginia Woolf right now. Just sayin'.
PPS. The Theban Band can have my babies. Baby Number One: would gurgle and scream POTTER. Baby Number Two: would just sigh contendedly at the pretty full moon. ♥♥♥♥
Also,
blacksatinrose's oh-so-reasonable point-by-point S/R plausibility defense has made me nearly weepy with joy. SEE, WE'RE NOT ALL INSANE, DAMMIT!!1 >:O Though clearly, that doesn't quite apply to me. Oh well.EDIT - This had to be noted:
ildi_bp has done the impossible: drawn such amazing Snape/Draco that I literally felt the pairing. Owwww, my -brain-!!1
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-02 02:52 pm (UTC)Eh, I'm like that too actually, I just didn't talk about it. I tend to choose my shipping and my perception of sexuality based on what I think is in the text, rather than the other way around.
Like Sirius, to me, read as straight, but he also read as involved with Remus, so I think of/write him as straight-but-in-love-with-Remus, rather than going for gay or even bisexual, really. Originally, when my feelings about the Remus/Sirius pairing started shifting from a neutral notation that I thought they were a couple into actually liking that idea/becoming a shipper, I thought, well... okay Sirius must be bisexual if he's in love with Remus, but ultimately that kind of fell through because that was pairing based logic and didn't actually fit with the way I read him.
Remus was easier since he always pinged me as gay.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-02 07:28 pm (UTC)Not that I'm the sort of militant slasher who'll slash anyone with anyone, chemistry/romantic potential be damned-- far from it. But it just somehow seems related to the act of slashing that the 'romantic potential' is separate from orientation, and one assumes orientation isn't 'gay' within almost every text. Y'know? That's just part of slash, to me. They're... well... NOT REALLY GAY :> In HP it's more deceptive 'cause it's a children's book in enough ways that we don't see the characters do any of that romantic-type stuff much unless it's plot-related, and the central characters are still on the kissing-a-bit stage. But... being in other fandoms and stuff has also influenced how I see the gay/not gay issue, probably :>
no subject
Date: 2004-09-02 08:15 pm (UTC)LMAO!!!
I don't really do fanon, to be honest. At least not in the normal sense. What I mean is, I have no issues with fanon, but for me, everything I do, everything I believe, has to be something I could believe would happen in canon. So I guess I do care if they're gay or straight, but then I'm not a slash fan, really, so much as a "whatever I believe about canon" fan, which then becomes wedded to "if it does something for me."
It's like, I kind of like Harry/Draco, but I don't really believe it would ever happen in canon, so I can't get up the passion to invest in it. And on the other side is Ron/Hermione, which I do rather think is going to happen in canon, but I don't really care. Remus/Sirius on the other hand, hits me with a combination of personal interest and legitimate subtext, and thus it boom, became my OTP.
Also, it's interesting because, you know, I don't actually assume orientation to be not gay in source text. What I actually do is start from a 0 assumption, and then start building my view of them from there depending on what they do.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-02 11:56 pm (UTC)Anyway, as far as H/D and me... well, I got into fandom before I read the books-- I saw the first movie & was bored & reading massive amounts of fanfic & then I found HP. It's funny how you don't really -need- to read canon to get the fics, 'cause they're so OOC and not canonically relevant in the first place, most times. Especially H/D fics, which is what I found (a lot of)-- first :D
So... most likely I'd be shipping R/Hr & that's it (and just 'cause I ship it doesn't mean I care to read it, btw), maaaybe if I even shipped -that-, without fanon. I sort of read romance into things, but it's generally -het- romance (before I was corrupted by slash... uh, but that was just 2 years ago or so...). I think Harry & Draco have potential-- outside canon. Fanfic is good 'cause you can explore the things canon won't~:) Like say, gay sex :D :D :D :D
This is all kind of backwards 'cause Sirius/Remus is my secondary OTP 'cause of `Drawing Down the Moon' :D :D! *laughs and laughs* People rail on about crazed S/R shippers with their 'theirloveissocanon', and I just smirk. I kind of died with fangirl glee when I saw Ailei & Khirsah for like, a minute at Nimbus :D Heh. Ahhh, I'm a dork.
I don't actually think about textual orientation-- I mean, I don't consciously build a dataset-- it's much more instinctual. It's like, conscious building would be -work-. I hate work :> So I don't assume anything, but I think that the 'gay' thing would never occur to me before slash. Like. At all. I think I got 'vibes' anyway, but didn't know what to call them. Like, I always got 'weird vibes' from Star Trek & say, Sherlock Holmes, right (duuuude!! Omg Sherlock & Watson = twue wuv, ahaha), but like... I remember how I loved their love but hated the one time I came across some mention in some sci-fi journal (maybe??? this was before the net) about how some weirdoes (!!) think that Kirk & Spock are gay lovers(!!!!). I was like, EWW OMG WTF. Ahahah -.- It was like, WHY ARE THEY RUINING THE PURE BEAUTY OF THEIR WUV???! EVIL PEOPLE!!1 (it wasn't the -gay- sex, it was just... the sex).
So it's a question of do I choose to read -romance- into things. I could actually probably read romance into cabbage (I'm that obsessed), but if I'm like, in 'friendship' or 'gen' mode (...I think I do have one), then it's like, as porn-obsessed as I am, mention of sexual attraction kind of makes me indignant :> :> I'm like, DUDE, IT WAS HARD ENOUGH GETTING RID OF MY NEED FOR THERE TO BE SCREWING IN THIS STORY, GO AWAY >:O
....and now that I've talked your ear off.... -.-