reenka

I'm in this odd state of wanting to um... find something wrong with a fic (characterization-wise) and not being able to. It's scary; I always say I've never read an H/D fic that sets them up 100% believably, in a way I have absolutely no quibble with... y'know, that sort of Holy Grail-type thing where I say "omg, H/D could be canon! DAMN YOU JKR, DAMN YOU FOR NOT BEING A SLASHER!" (or at least H/D friendship could be canon), etc.... Yes, I mean, I look forward to this feeling, call me crazy... but. I've never experienced that sense of 'omg, this could totally, 100% happen to Harry & Draco in canon'... until now.

I mean, I've read plenty of fics with spot-on characterization of either Harry or Draco, that's not the point (because clearly there are many possible interpretations of Draco's personality anyway). I don't even care about 'fanon' versions of characters that much, or not near as much as I care that they still hate each other. In order words, I'm almost fine with letting Draco be a cool-ass Slytherin stud (...) if the story can still retain that tension, the fact that Harry can't stand anything about him anyway and vice versa. If they can still be at opposite sides, if they can still disagree about everything-- I'm fine with almost any remotely sane or at least entertaining character interpretation. Because if they don't start off disagreeing about everything, I swear, what is the point of not writing, say, Harry/Ron instead? I honestly don't understand, is what I'm saying, I'm not being facetious. (Well, outside of 'blond + black = yum' & 'Draco is so cool, he must have the hero pine after him!'.)

The point of H/D as I see it is taking their relationship & developing their current dynamic so infinitesimally patiently, so believably two-boys-who-have-a-gazillion-resentment-and-prejudice-issues, that the eventual slash between two long-time enemies doesn't strike you as a leap of faith so much as a completely normal occurrence. Yes, normal. Not suddenly-there-lust but, I dunno, inescapably-there-love or at least a combination of understanding/need/want, I guess. To take it from the absolute very bottom (total lack of sympathy, understanding, appeal, lust or affection-- not just zero mutual appeal but negative mutual appeal) to the absolute top, or as close as possible. That was sort of my dream with

big_bang_hd, but I'm starting to wonder if it's fully possible with a novella and not an even longer work; and I'm starting to wonder if I hadn't finally found said longer work, as far as post-OoTP canon-believable H/D goes.

And I want someone to knock some sense into me, or something, I swear to god. Tell me this Draco isn't pathetic/whiny enough (he's pretty whiny!!) or... something. Tell me this Harry isn't being hard enough on Draco, isn't being thick-headed and stupid enough. I dunno. It can't be true, can it? Wouldn't this fic be more famous then?
It's not so much that the characterization is 'just like in canon' or whatever, because you can never quite do that: it's that they address all the Issues. Draco's parents; their mutual history; Draco's (unchanged) loyalties; Harry's loyalties; their simple irritation with each other, etc. I'm like... man, I'm totally certain I could never really write the 'ultimate' H/D myself, after all those details.
However it did teach me one thing: after OoTP, a lot of us were wondering what could Draco do to matter to Harry, and also how could he possibly extricate himself from his apparent fate and become self-aware enough to think about his choices. The thing I realized is that with the right set-up, Draco wouldn't have to think alone, and neither would Harry. It seems so simple, so obvious, but-- they could help each other. That's what it all comes down to. Draco probably can't figure out how to break out of years of conditioning on his own, and neither could Harry-- but if they were forced to work together-- that might, in fact, be the only chance (given one wanted to do it, which I'm rather sure JKR doesn't).

Anyway, to get to the point at last: I'm talking about

mijan's `Eclipse'. This is a WIP, unfinished, but I seriously can believe in the very slow building but unmistakable H/D in it, yes, 100%. And that's... man, I... I'm doubting my judgment, haha -.-
So just in case you don't want to be harsh on this fic in public (and basically tell me to snap out of it, there are glaring reasons why this wouldn't happen), I've screened all comments to start with :>

EDIT -
The thing that confused me with this fic, I think, is that it's got such a strong sense of internal logic: events happen in a linear progression, from A-->B-->C, etc. As a person who tends to read and write things on an emotional basis, it's hard for me to immediately see through that to the possible structural flaws underneath-- or at least I'd have to wait until I have a lot less of an emotional reaction to the specific story.

As an H/D shipper and a probably lifelong romantic, I'd always said that I want to believe (in impossible love)-- and I want to believe in it because it's impossible, because I want to see that become real. But as much as I want to make that leap of faith and frequently do, I've always been searching for a reason for it all to work at the same time-- a rational reason, something I can understand and analyze and depend on. It's contradictory, but that's how my mind works. So while usually I believe in love-stories purely based on the emotional drive behind them, the archetypes they invoke, the sheer hope fueling them, I still want that rationalistic breakdown of: let me tell you how this works, step-by-step.

I would also say that I absolutely hate for things to be rationalized within a story-- made 'sensible' without a plausible foundation (told vs. shown); the trick is that I want them to be rationally shown, so that thoughts directly follow events. In `Eclipse', there was a lot of structuring of events and reactions dependent a very logical progression, so that basically you were being drawn a map rather than told where to go. That's what really struck me about it, I think-- that sense of clarity, where H/D seems like such a chaotic maelstrom of passions to me when I usually read it or write it. For H/D to make sense is both an impressive feat and a slightly scary one to me, because the very premise is so... well, crazy, based on their personalities as-is. I like scary, of course, so it works out, but... I like a rational world-view too, so I'm always trying to unite the two (sort of like Harry & Draco, except not).

I'm not sure if I've talked about leaps of faith before, but I do know that after being in fandom for a long time, I've grown tired of the extremes of faith I was required to have to believe some of the stories out there. I mean, mpreg, super-cool!Draco, desperately-in-lust-with-Draco!Harry, love-potions, magically-rational-and-not-a-git-at-all!Draco-- it's all the same, and it all became too much to believe in at once. My mind grew ragged, and my own preference for emotionally based stories gave way to a need for some greater structure. I wanted things to work, dammit, and I didn't want to have to bend my brain in half to see that happen in fic. Perhaps I should also mention that I'm one of those weird shippers who believes in my pairing more or less depending on how believable the fic is; I've not found this to be a common approach, but without it I'd be left with no method of measurement whatsoever. So yes: I want the story to make me believe, even if I do anyway. Or if I don't. Leaps of faith grow tiring when they're constant....

But yes. After a helpful reminder, I do realize that no love-story can be perfectly believable unless one wants to believe; life is also wild-n-crazy and unpredictable (though it takes much talent to transmit that in a spot-on way). I do really like internal logic, though.... And cookies, especially with nuts in them.