....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

[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 :/

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

Like... if Draco's Lucius Jr., then there's no chance Harry would want him.

What, so, you're not a Harry/Lucius fan?

*scurries away VERY FAST*

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Harry/Lucius makes me see red the way only Snape/Draco is able to do :> :>
When you think me & Harry/Lucius, think you & Snape/Sirius & you get some idea~:))

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

BWAHAHA don't say that unless you've actually heard me ran about Snape/Sirius. ;)

You might not want to be compared, if you did HAHAHAHAH!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

When I hate something, I REALLY REALLY hate it :))!!

...The mere existence of Harry/Lucius fics makes me want to start writing stuff where Harry DISEMBOWELS LUCIUS AND DANCES ON HIS GRAVE, CACKLING. Ahem.

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Harry brushed the blood away from his face. The younger Malfoy was still sitting in his corner, frozen and silent. He was looking at Harry, in a maniacal fixed way Harry couldn't stomach. Stupid Malfoy. Harry was tired after all the good work.

"What the fuck are you looking at, arsewipe?" he asked, kicking the renmaints of Lucius Malfoy's body for good measure. Malfoy rolled on his front and his kidneys flashed white through the pink bumpy tear in his chest. Harry's nose wrinkled, but Malfoy's own son didn't even react.

He raised his arm in a sort of jerky, weak movement and pointed at Harry's check with his finger. His arm didn't tremble as Harry expected, which disappointed him somewhat.

He felt his cheek; something spongy and greasy went away, and it took it a moment of eye-scrunching to realise what it was. "Malfoy brains," he said, but he had to swallow to fight off a weave of nausea.

That made him even agrier. "Stand up, Malfoy," he hissed wiping his fingers clean on his robe. "On your fucking feet I said!" He shook his head and knelt, pulling at the father's arm violently and tearing away the red hair from his bracelet. It made a dry cracking sound, and Harry's eyes narrowed and went on the son again.

Malfoy was curling on his side, following Harry's inspection of the body in terror, like he was not capable of looking away. Stupid pussy. This was not the time for being a prude, not that Malfoy was capable of acting in a way that wouldn't piss Harry off in any given situation.

Harry stood up and was on him in a rush, dragging him on his feet even while Malfoy was trying to curl father in the wall to avoid his hands. Harry slapped him, and Malfoy gasped just chocked, stumbling backwards before he finally leaned his hands on the wall behind him.

Harry's lip curled when his eyes widened again, looking at the mutilated body of his father. "Catching up finally, Malfoy? That's what I do to beasts who rape and kill my friends because the baby they're carrying is a half-blood. Thought it was funny when Daddy told you about his crusade, didn't you? Well, he's not even started to pay."

Malfoy had started to tremble, and when he dropped his head, shaking it like a madman, Harry grabbed his chin and pulled him up and close. Malfoy's teeth clanked at the brutal handling and Harry smirked, not feeling happy in the slightest. He felt like crying again, Malfoy was so revolting.

"You stupid spineless bully. I'm going to remove the silver spoon from your arse if it's the last thing I do." Malfoy's eyes were blank, almost shining in their dullness, bottomless with evil and paralized in his frenzy trembling body. Like a rat. "Look at your Daddy now, and imagine him ten times more tortured, and imagine Ginny's body there in his place, and then you have it. That's what he deserved, too bad the snake didn't have any fucking resistence when he's not fighting pregnant women."

Malfoy pucked over his robes.

Harry took a step back while Malfoy shook and fell on his knees, the sound coming from his snapping throat pitched and rasping. Harry looked away. "He had not even started to get what he deserves." The stench of the father's body fluids and the son's vomit was sickening. "You're going to pay that debt for him."

Malfoy just continued pucking.

After a while, Harry got tired of waiting, and kicked the nearest wall as hard as he could, yelling. Then he turned on his heels and went off the cellar, his boots clicking coldly on the muddy stones.

Colin was waiting outside, his childlike face pale and stony. "Malfoy's ill. When he's finished bathing in his own vomit, bring him to my rooms." Colin looked at him from inside his carved eyesockets. "Malfoy Junior, I meant."

Colin nodded and went back to looking at the stairs. Harry's boots clicked again when he climbed them to get away from the hell in those cellars as fast as he could. The red hair in his hands felt dried up and dead. No stench.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Um. *swallows*
I guess I/Harry didn't really mean that. About the grave-dancing and mutilating ^^;; That was...disturbing >

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Was it the kidneys?

*comfort porn (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2152846/1/)*

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think I just v. rarely like mad!killer!Harry. Yes, I am a wuss.

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Well, I tried to make him all filled up with emotion for you. And Ginniness. Um, I obviously failed.

[malafede.livejournal.com]

PS: Do you want Draco disemboweling Snape too?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Well, first Lucius rocks in SohW so being like him isn't so bad ;-), but Draco isn't like him. He's just an adult who fits the background he comes from--he's rich and good-looking and spoiled. It doesn't deal with the transition since Harry hasn't seen him for a few years, but Harry, too, is 25 so he doesn't deal with things exactly the same way. He's also started to question the way he looked at things before because of other things that happened--specifically something that happened when he was 20 that made him see what he didn't want to become, so he's got a good reason for not reacting to Draco the way he does in canon.

I haven't read Transfigurations, but in SohW Harry and Draco have been working together for a while at the start of the fic so Harry already knows this new Draco. It does use the fanon convention of "Slytherin Ways" being intriguing (as opposed to canon's Slytherin being the house of morons) but I can see why a writer would be interested in using Slytherin that way. Harry thinks about Slytherin this way now not just because of Draco but because he's a teacher who has to deal with the kids in the house, and it frustrates him the way they have to be so difficult once he gets the tiniest insight into them--like, as an adult he knows they're scared when somebody disappears but they continue to act like little snots to him.

Also, I mean, it seems like part of the appeal of this type of fanon convention, where they're separated for a while and when they come back together Draco's had a chance to catch up to Harry a bit and grow into the man you'd expect with his background, is much the same as OotP is for Harry, where *he* is just too super cool for his enemy to deal with. Isn't that the fantasy for so many people--Ginny lived exactly this in OotP with only a few weeks to account for her change (and then the change was retroactive as well). People actually do come back to their high school reunions having grown up a lot.

I mean, it's true Mira has openly said she's writing fanon!Draco to have a more equal relationship between the two and doesn't think it works as well dramatically to pretend Harry has all this animosity for somebody too far beneath him. But while she's not trying to recreate the kid from canon I think she takes more care than most in making canon part of this Adult!Draco's backstory. One of the biggest appeals of the fic for me is the way it uses the post-Hogwarts world--which is obviously a preference; if you don't want that time period, that's your preference. But everything has pretty much changed for people now that they're not in that artificial school world and I can buy a lot of it. I like thinking of the kids growing up into these adults in ways I don't usually buy post-Hogwarts fics (especially ones that aren't just taking place during "The War" so everybody has a war-related job). Everybody's a bit of a fuck-up--Draco too, I think, only we haven't been given the details of his intervening years. Harry's interested in him because he doesn't know.

I mean...you mentioned Harry not being interested in a Draco like Lucius, but as a character in SohW just explained, that's why Harry's interested in this Draco. He wouldn't be interested in a Draco who became a DE. But if the idea is gaining Harry's interest, I think one could make a good case for Draco no longer needing to beg for Harry's attention being a good start. JKR obviously thought so with Ginny, and SohW!Draco is far less perfect about it, imo.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I'm still tempted to read it, but I've become so bitter & jittery (...can you tell? ahahah) and it's hard for me to like, get over my instinctual intense dislike for self-controlled!Draco when it feels like what I like most about him (outrageousness, obsessiveness, passion, irrationality) went away. I've liked fics where he was all cool and distant & enjoyed them because he was just in denial or because he was so unique (Mayamayamaya).

Now I'm wondering if it was unrealistic that Harry kept this grudge against Malfoy in Transfigurations, but... even when Harry thinks Malfoy's beneath him in OoTP, he can't stand him and uses any excuse to beat up on him. Malfoy = slime, so it's not big deal even if Harry doesn't bother thinking of him a lot. And plenty of fics I like have Harry reconsider this attitude almost if not right from the beginning, of course-- it's just that Harry's still recognizably Harry in every other way, so one sees 'oh, well, something happened to change his mind' instead of wondering how to reconcile these two realities, or something...?

Man, but I like Harry's petty animosity :(( And Draco's. And if Harry loses it, I still like how Malfoy flusters him, befuddles him, annoys him, attracts him, matters to him (even in OoTP he did, even if just as an outlet for his rage). It doesn't even matter if it makes them both loser dorks or shows badly upon their characters. :(( Hate forever, man <3 If they don't love, at least they can hate. Indifference is the worst :/ It makes me wibble. The only excuse I can have for indifference is that Draco needs to get over Harry & grow as a separate individual, so he deals with everything & moves on. But that's the death of H/D, though, to me.

I'm all about the equality between them, too, but I don't think you need fanon!Draco to do it-- or rather I don't think you need a pre-made fanon!Draco. It's like, it's 'fanon' if you give Draco motivations/thoughts/interactions that he didn't have in canon, but you don't need to make him aloof and over Harry to do that... he could still compete. And maybe win on his own terms. He could do something unexpected. He could have a secret weapon. He could become a tool of Cthulhu-- that'd -really- startle Harry. There are ways :>

Like... in the RPG Of Doom, every time Draco wants to get back at Harry and 'really show him', he leaves, or threatens to, basically implying something like, 'well look, I don't care anymore, I give up!'. And I'm so sick of that. It's like... Draco doesn't give up. When Draco gives up on Harry is when I give up on H/D, y'know/

I just realized it's not that I like Hogwarts vs. post-Hogwarts so much as I like immaturity and irrationality as the starting points and understanding & a greater maturity as the ending points. So if you start with mature!Harry & likewise Draco, then they'd have to be too 'good' to snipe at each other and have the usual bickering and tension between them, wouldn't they? Unless they 'regress' or something just to progress again, which seems weird...? Like, and if they're not at odds, then what's the point? I mean, you might as well have Harry/Snape, 'cause at least -those- two are always going to have huge issues with each other no matter -what- happens. Ahhh, I just don't want Harry & Draco to have an easy time of getting along~:)) It just seems so... sad :>

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah--I mean, I think it's important to know what it is that you really dig about the character(s) and the pairing so that you know what stories are not for you. There are some Draco's where I just don't read because they have something or lack something that for me makes him not Draco anymore, somehow. Or maybe I shouldn't say not Draco, since none of them really are him because they're not canon, but they're just not a fanon!Draco I'm interested in.

I don't know if I could pick apart this particular one and say what he has or not...I know when I tried to think about him the first thing that came to mind was Harry talking to this little portrait of him in the corner of Grimmauld Place and when he introduced himself as Harry Potter and Draco says that he's older than he is and asks, "Am I grown up too?" and then asks, "Are we friends?" And that, to me, is Draco all over. Even if he says his mother told him he and Harry should be friends, when Harry asks him why he just says, "Who knows why mothers want the things they do," or something. And he's got a wolfhound in the picture and I love him.:-)

But anyway, yeah. See I think probably every pairing contains within it a few different dynamics a slasher can work with, and some have to do with the dynamic in canon, and others have to do with information about the characters that isn't used for the dynamic in canon so much. Really the time people consider it so OOC it doesn't matter anymore is probably when they try to graft one of another pair's dynamic onto it. If H/D is acting like H/S it's not the same if S/R is acting like H/R it's not the same and for some reason who cares?