....I blame Hayama.

[reenka]

I love boys who think they're mean... except they aren't.
    It's like they're the living embodiment of a joke-- being one thing and yet unable to stop acting like another. And then, of course, they have to meet the one person who sees right through them, and the drama just multiplies.

That's what it comes down to. Y'know, those arrogant, arm-crossing, pigtail-pulling, whistling-as-they-walk, impossible-to-handle, secretly-rather-sensitive, stupidly-joking, pretentious little boys. Who then get their come-uppance-- from overly-cheerful, at times overly-brainy, definitely overly-righteous, give-as-good-as-they-get, sweetly-smiling-while-they-wreak-some-havoc little girls <3 Or boys <3

I just needed to put that out there. Even seeing an icon of Hayama from Kodocha makes me all AWWWWW<333333 and then I remember HYD & Alice/Rin and it all goes downhill.


See, that's the problem with the polite, distant and rational type of arrogance-- it's just nowhere near as fun or entertaining to watch for long, but especially when it's presented as being part of an adult's being rather than a boy's defensiveness. Who really wants politely cutting sarcasm (in other words, not really funny and more like stuffy, uninspired & limp-wristed) when you could have that essential pinch of barely-contained anger with your sarcasm? I mean, it's hard to draw the line-- both are mean, one is just more obviously meant to provoke & combative. It's that prelude to sharp-witted fighting that I like, so there has to be a chink in the armor. I mean, if you're too 'smooth', then the only fight would be to use other terms entirely rather than fluster or catch you off-guard. There's less potential for back and forth & escalation with the polite thing.

I think in some ways, it's hard to be really funny if you're not mean in some little way in your teasing, and anyone's who's mean is already not very sophisticated and is rather childish & petty. You can be meanly mocking -and- glibly sophisticated, but only if you're ironic about it-- that is, if the sophistication is all a facade, and really you're using it as a weapon-- but on the other hand, if the drollness is all that's there, the sheer emotion behind real meanness goes away, and one can brush it off. Like, if someone sounds attractively bored while they're mocking you, maybe you'll wibble if you're an insecure little girl, but who with an ounce of self-esteem would fall for that?

Though maybe there's some overlap there. Like, what is the difference between Hayama or Rin (who like to play it cool, definitely... so maybe there's that bored thing going on even though they're pestering and taunting, so it's not like they're Tasuki or Kyou from Fruits Basket, who's all... well, forthright with his temper tantrums, which is the opposite) & like... uh, Lestat (for lack of a better comparison). There's a difference, isn't there? It seems important. Maybe it's that Lestat is -too- jaded, too entrenched, too... invulnerable. Like, Hayama likes to cross his arms and look bored, but he's not really bored when it comes to our protagonist or whatever he really cares about. Hayama's just a 'lone wolf', as Sana likes to say, but he's obviously just... abandoned. Lestat's also a 'lone wolf', but he's the one who abandons. That seems important too.

I think a central point of division between the stereotypes in my head is that what I'm drawn to is pretension-- the masking of self. If there's not that pre-existing vulnerable underbelly constantly alluded to (even if it's by being denied), then there's not enough personality layers & complexity to interest me.

Isn't the fun thing about that other stereotype of uber-aristocratic boredly mocking young man that usually he's contrasted with someone earnest and young and impetuous who makes him drop his mean ways and become sincere? (Watch out, it's a Victorian soap opera. Hee.) So there's no more pigtail-pulling, no more silly contests of wit, no more tension-- just the sort of 'winning over' of the jadedly witted smirking one by the impassioned, moral yet enthusiastic one. And then it's over. Curtain falls, the snark is dead. Though I fall for that, especially in HYD, 'cause... I'm a shameless romantic like that. But I still like the beginning more.

The mean little boy never stops snarking or pigtail-pulling even when he's lost & his partner knows the gig is up, having seen his soft little underbelly, though. On a fangirly note, that's why I love dracolicious <3
    Omg, Wyv-Kate's nekkid girl!Harry & Draco >:9

Comments

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Dude, I am so totally the opposite way. I much prefer the polite and distant arrogance, and find the emotive meanness far less effective and interesting, and kind of feel... okay. When you say:

Like, if someone sounds attractively bored while they're mocking you, maybe you'll wibble if you're an insecure little girl, but who with an ounce of self-esteem would fall for that?

I feel completely the opposite way. I feel like, who with an ounce of self-esteem would fall for proddy bitchy meanness? At least the attractively bored, distantly arrogant, rational and polite asshole sounds like he has come to a rational decision that you suck rather than just emoting at you.

So yeah. ;) Other side of the road entirely. ;)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

You and I have the same tastes on this, I guess.:-D

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Hee! I love my rational arrogant bastards.

...and that is such a strange thing to say in this fandom, where I only seem to talk about the Gryffindors and my favorite character is a total hothead. :)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I am starting to suspect this is why you like all those fanon!Dracos~:))) ahahahaldfkjs;ldkjl

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Dude, the best Draco I have EVER SEEN = nocturne_alley!Draco. I didn't always love NA, but I could have read the entire game in one sitting for their Draco. (And their Harry and Millicent, omg! A lot of the adults made me want to smack them, though.)

...anyway. Right. So that's my favorite Draco I've ever run across, and he wasn't really mature, but he did form my view of Draco forever, I think.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

He's a total mean little boy, too~:)) Though... it's hard to know what he's really feeling/thinking, though he's got the appearance of just being who he is and nothing more or less-- not much with the layers, anyway. I... like layers. And also N_A!Draco, but not as much as I love Maya's!Draco or even a similar Draco except where we get to hear his thoughts and see how in denial he is (like with Miss Breed's or Silvia's stuff).

I think with N_A, even though he wasn't mature, he was very well-formed already, and even though he did change in his attitudes towards Harry & Ron and such, he remained... himself. Which is fine & rather realistic, it's just that I feel... unsatisfied unless I see characters I like without their barriers. I'm voyeuristic like that :D

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Hee! Again with the opposite side thing, because I enjoyed that you never saw his barriers down. Realistic and all that, but then I'm all about the realism. Like, aside from the good writing in general, the main reason I loved him was because I could actually envision that Draco being the same Draco I saw in the books, which I can't with... well, most Dracos.

Canon!whore and all that jazz. ;)

And I think, in canon, Draco isn't a particularly layered person, so I tend to be irritated by very layered Dracos, because then they don't register as real Dracos. If that makes sense. O_o

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I also like realism! heh. I just like emotional realism! And I feel like everyone has depths to them especially if they're passionate/driven by their emotions (or at least jealousy/anger/envy/pride/resentment) like Draco is. Like... that's why I write about him, 'cause while I want him to be IC-- it's a challenge to write him close to canon and yet extrapolate to the point where he's a fully rounded person too :> Otherwise he'd bore the living daylights out of me ^^;

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Eeeeee, I don't mean to say you dislike realism, LOL! Just that I liked the format of NA because it was full of barriers, basically.

ANYWHO, I do agree that everyone has depths, absolutely. But I suppose the trouble is that, when I'm dealing with fanfiction, my concern is more heavily weighted toward wanting to see the book character recreated than wanting to see a realistic personal recreated? And yes, flat characters will bore me, but that's why I don't read fanfic about underdeveloped characters, I suppose - because if you add a lot to them, I no longer feel they're the same person, and if you don't, they're dull. Yeah.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! Which fanon Draco's would these be? Didn't you start out loving Fanon!Draco?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, Mira's & Fran's & uh... well, ice-prince!Draco :> Whom I hate with the true and unflinching passion of a thousand burning suns, and um... I often say that. I should have a collection of "I HATE ICY DRACO" posts in my memories, 'cause I'm sure I've made more than a dozen by now~:)) I don't think either Maya's or Cassie Claire's (though fanon) fit that category of fanon, btw, 'cause their Draco is so obviously vulnerable.

The Draco I started out loving was Ivy's, Erin's, Aja's, Silvia's, Amalin's, Penelope's, Riddle's, Marysia's-- old skool all the way!!1 Fanon but a different fanon. That's sensitive!angsty!obsessed!Draco and silly!deluded!sarcastic-twit!Draco <3<3<3

I hate him if he's in control of himself (or Harry). Hate. Hate. HATE :>

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hmm--that's odd since I would never really associate myself with Fran and Mira's Draco. I mean--when I say associate myself I don't mean "I wouldn't associate with them" like I hold them in contempt, just that they're not immediately what I think of as "my" version of Draco. Fran's in particular--in Resolution (as opposed to Malfoy Watching). Mira's I do like but he's not the draw of her story for me--I love the whole story and everyone is an interesting character, including Draco. I liked the very small flashes to Year 7!Draco we got in this last chapter, but my favorite Draco interaction in SohW so far is the one Harry has with portrait!Draco, who I think is perfectly believable for Child!Draco speaking to what he presumes is a Pureblood adult.

It's true I don't hate a Draco who's controlled or smooth if I like whatever particular character he is--particularly in Mira's case when he's older and I actually think any writer *should* make him somewhat more controlled because honestly, I think by the time he's 25 he can't realistically be a goofy kid the way he is in canon. Sometimes, actually, I think that's a real challenge in writing him. Like, satinrose mentioned NA!Draco above, and you know I adore potterstinks, but I remember his player saying she wouldn't know how to write him without Lucius if she had to continue and I felt in the game ps was perpetually a child--like he was fully-formed and would not change. Even when people were projecting into the future Draco did not change at all, he was just an old man version of himself...and I just didn't think that would be realistic, really. I mean, it wasn't that I had a version of Draco that I had planned myself, but given what we'd seen at the end of the game I felt like it had gotten to where keeping him true to canon in the very same ways that made him great in NA would actually have been artificial.

It's like Snape--if we had seen books set in MWPP era I seriously doubt that *anybody* would have come up with the Snape of canon for futurefic. So yeah, with Draco I do honestly think that while he'll always be himself he should, as an adult, be more controlled and probably seem, superficially, more icy than Harry because Harry isn't part of the same social circle. He wouldn't always be controlled, but I think he'd have gotten better at the affected iciness he's been attempting since his first scene.

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

about potterstinks: I completely agree. Actually, as much as I miss him sometimes, in a way I'm rather glad it all ended because he really was my favorite character, and I would have hated to see him descend into self-parody by continuing to be the same on one hand... and also would have hated to see him become unrecognizable on the other.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The game was the story. Anything after that would be a different story which could be really good, but has to be a different story. And really it seemed like part of what worked about it is that you had to feel like everybody had changed and so were on the verge of something you couldn't predict.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Ahahah, I haven't actually read Mira's fic, 'cause I was totally freaked by this quote while initially skimming:

Gritting his teeth, Harry watched for a minute as Draco headed back to the castle. Then he turned resolutely away and picked up the brooms Draco and Poppy had used, thinking hard thoughts about Slytherin House in general and Malfoys in particular and wondering who he liked less - the pale, pinch-faced child who had called him "scarhead" and made Potter Stinks! buttons or the cold, poised, distant man who had taken the child's place when Harry wasn't looking. Inconvenient, indeed. Malfoy had probably learned from his father how to use courtesy like a switchblade, if he hadn't learned it from the mother whose soirees could make or break a Death Eater's advancement in less time than it took for the canapes to run low.

Heheh I think it all comes back to my thing about rationalization/justification & telling-not-showing and so on. Like, it was a bit... sudden in its introduction. For instance, in fics like Transfigurations, you have a more 'adult', self-controlled Draco, but Harry sort of is like WTF??! MALFOY??! WHAT?? and treats him the same at first, which allows me-the-reader time to adjust. If we just have Harry going, "oh. Malfoy is different now. I guess I can't understand his mysterious Slytherin ways", then I'm all :/ :/

I don't want him to remain static-- I mean, me, of all people-- I want him to change, develop, etc. Though this whole issue may be while I can't stand most post-Hogwarts H/D anyway ('cause I want to see this progress happen within the fic, not have it handed to me to extrapolate & do the mental work).

The other thing is that I don't WANT Draco to become Lucius Jr-- isn't that the point of H/D? To make Draco take a different path in some way? Like... if Draco's Lucius Jr., then there's no chance Harry would want him. None. Just, I totally don't buy it. Harry would spit at him just as he did in Transfigurations (because Harry's just 'like that' about Malfoy, it's not a maturity thing and more a single-minded prejudice thing), but if Draco was truly so controlled and adult, then he wouldn't be provoked and they'd just avoid each other or something.

So I mean, I don't want doofy-kid!Draco 4Evah or anything, necessarily, but I want to see him growing up because that's what's most fascinating about his character to me-- how he does it. I've never actually read a believable transition from canon!Draco to icy!Draco, btw. It just... grates on my nerves like crazy 'cause it's everywhere. I don't even want true-to-canon!Draco-- I don't like him in canon that much anyway. All I want is a character with depth, with emotional resonance, with motivations I have any clue about. Otherwise it feels like an OC since he's a minor canon character made different-- and the only way around that is to take canon-like!Draco and change him while we watch, at least so that I'll accept it. That, or at least not make him successful at controlling himself where before that was the one thing I liked about him-- his inability to, his obsessiveness & passion :/

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

See, the thing is-- I'm thinking of specific characters, which might be the problem. I edited a bit to make that clearer. Like... both types act bored and distant, but with one it's 'just an act' and you could easily (with the right antagonist) give them a run for their money, and with the other, it's... like... it's like they're Just That Cool And Mature. Or something.

Like... I don't think it's just 'emotive meanness' that I'm talking about in contrast, so I don't think it's the other side of the road, y'know? It's like... Tasuki (from Fushigi Yuugi) or Kyou (from Fruits Basket) is all emotive and angry and GRR ARGH. That's not mean, that's... well, it's cute, the way berserkers are cute (that's just me though).

The 'mean little boy' is all 'I'm so bored and arrogant' but really he's still playing. The arrogant adult-- all he knows is the game, so you can't defeat him except by showing him he's COMPLETELY WRONG about life and/or you in particular, so he'll make an exception for you and not be mean to you anymore. That's what I meant, I -think-??

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Nope nope, still on the opposite side. I'm still all about the ones who really are that distant/rational/cool/mature, and still not nearly as interested in the ones who are just playing, LOL!

I have no idea who Tasuki or Kyou are, but for example? My favorite characters are people like Magneto, or Kunzite from Sailor Moon, or such like that. Not so much excited about the emotive sorts, really.

Which is funny, since in HP my favorite character is Sirius? LOL! I mean, you'd think it'd be fanon!Lucius, or Remus or something, hahah.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I actually love stoic characters (who tend to be distant & mature), too-- like Sherlock Holmes and Spock and stuff-- it's just that they're not mean. Stoic & mean doesn't really go together in my head, y'know? It's just... weird, because I associate 'stoic' with 'moral' perhaps a bit too much. I think one can be unemotional & mean, definitely, but I only tend to like that if the character's messed up and is just being defensive & isn't really... evil or anything.

Like, the characters like Draco (can be) or Hayama (definitely) aren't really emotive in the straightforward sense of being sincere (that's more like... um, Jim Kirk-- the typical hero-- if you're going for 'not mean' or say... Han Solo or Wolverine, maybe, if you're going for 'kinda mean' as in, extraverted rogue types... which I also like, but not because they're so mean).

I sort of like the intraverted rogue-- who tries to play it cool and succeeds except when he's met his match. Or something. Um. Does that make any sense? :-?

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, see, I don't like the Holmesian/Spock sorts that much (OMG UNEMOTIONAL SLASH OTP!!1! anyway.) I like the characters who are calculating and brilliant and rational to the bone and can cut things up with their words (if they're that kind of person) or are just totally straightforward but not particularly emotional (like well-written Magneto, or Claremont!Magneto anyway.) They're cool and arrogant and mature, yes. That is what I love.

Whereas characters who try to play it cool kind of annoy me because they're full of pretense? Which is maybe why I like Sirius now that I'm thinking about it - he doesn't even act at being mature. ;)

Draco, I don't really have any idea what to think of him, to be honest. I mean, on one hand I think he is pretty sincere, in that what he says really is what he thinks, but on the other hand I think it's a naive sort of sincerity because I'm not convinced he has any idea how deep the shit he says really is. He's a bit of a parrot, really, I think.

But it's hard with JKR's "villainous" characters (in quotes because Draco hasn't actually DONE anything, so it's kind of odd to consider him a villain at this point) because she doesn't develop them very well. Which, I think, is why this is one of very few fandoms where I liked the heroes better than the villains.

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Oh, I should mention, the reason I don't like Holmesian and Spock sorts is probably BECAUSE they combine stoic with moral, which bores me. I prefer immoral/amoral stoicism, cos it's more fun. ;)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

It does sound more fun-- 'cause in a way, amorality is often a chaotic, passionate trait, while stoicism puts a huge damper on it, so it's interesting in that way.... I think I'm just always uber-focused on the soft underbelly, and if I don't get to see it, I pout a lot :D So I'm perfectly fascinated with an amoral stoic character like say, Elric (from Moorcock's novels), 'cause he has all this angst and PANE and NO ONE UNDERSTANDS~:) Even if he doesn't show it.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha Holmes & Spock would never undress because it would be illogical~:)) AHAHAHAHAHAH *coughs* But no, this goes against my stoic/impulsive OTP roots, man (KIRK/SPOCK 4EVAH!!1!!11! ...it was my first-- platonic-- pairing, y'know.)

I think I sort of like pretense, which is such a weird thing to say, 'cause normally I believe I want 'the truth' in a person, and I want them to just be who they are. But that'd be the driving force of any story about them-- trying to get them to stop pretending & be who they are~:) That whole self-acceptance/self-discovery thing is a big theme for me in my favorite stories/shows anyway. Like... that progression, that tension to be overcome. It's frustrating and annoying if someone's pretentious, but that's why I like them challenged by sincere, passionate people :>

Also, the pretension implies a deeper layer, and I'm all obsessed with the deeper 'sekrit' layers of everyone/everything :> Not the obvious truth but the SUPER SEKRIT TRUTH OMG :>

Draco's like, a weird combination of pretension (in so far as he puts on airs and most likely lies to get what he wants and he's such a poncey snobbish bastard) and sincerity, yeah-- 'cause he is just parroting/unaware of what he's really saying. So he's naive. I like to sort of tear away that naivete from him in fics-- like... get him to really see things as they are and watch him sink or swim :> But that's because I like to torture him :> I mean, it's not that I like Draco better. I just like to play with him :>

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha Holmes & Spock would never undress because it would be illogical~:))

*DIES* OMG HAHAHHAA!

And this is fascinating, I am learning a great deal about your fic tastes! I think I prefer revelation to pretense: like Magneto, he's not hiding who he is, but there's more there than there seems to be, as well, know what I mean? Because it's not like everything's on the surface, but at the same time, he's not trying to pretend either. Yeah!

And you are a DRACO TORTURER!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Well, it depends on what we're liking the *for*. I HATE boys like this in life. In school I would avoid them and run from them because they would be mean to me.

As characters, love 'em! They don't insult me when they're fictional.:-)

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Rin.

I LOVE.

Must make icons.