[romance = so predictable -.-]

[reenka]

I just saw a pairing meta post, and I actually think it's pretty sad to realize that I've thought about this subject -so- many times whereas it seems like the first time for most responders. I mean, is there any fannish question I've asked myself -more often- than 'what kind of pairing do I like?' and 'what do the pairings I like have in common?' No, I don't think so :D
    In fact, I was actually thinking that one of the major reasons post-HBP and late-post-OoTP fics leave me coldish more than warmish is 'cause people see H/D as a different kind of pairing. Like, duh, it's not rivalslash now and it's not even very Romeo-and-Julietish. Sometimes it veers waaaay over into Big Tough Protector!Harry and Snippy Yet Vulnerable Bottom!Draco, which makes me pretty much reconsider even liking bottom!Draco in the first place. (Which is evidence of caring too much about meta if nothing else... because I can actually enjoy snippy-bottom!Draco a lot based solely on cuteness factor... it's big-tough-guy!Harry that makes me sick... God, I really miss Antenora sometimes, 'cause she wrote my favorite bitter-and-tough!Harry/bitterly-traumatized!Draco.)

Anyway, obviously, equality is pretty paramount to me, as well as emotional intensity and drama ('but no! the world is against us and the other person has sworn off love! plus he's a psycho! WHATEVER SHALL WE DO??!'). Anything that's in the service of making things difficult & tense makes me happy (and anything in the service of making things too stable and predictable-- which is what predefined relationship roles like Master/Servant smacks of-- makes me blanch).

I'm so painfully predictable, it's true.

More specifically, I was thinking about how I immediately got bored with Sydney/Vaughn after they got together 'cause-- y'know-- I only like fluff in pairings where at least one character is deeply fucked up or scarred/traumatized or whatever (secondary source of angst-- so the other character can then be loving and accepting, yaye). And Vaughn is pretty much painfully boring and not-fucked-up. Anyway, as soon as they were apart and yearning fruitlessly, I forgot how boring I thought Vaughn was (I do this with any character I theoretically don't enjoy) because-- yeay!-- pairing angst.

So basically I think I care more about the emotions than the characters in romance. If they can feel things a lot, I'm happy-- and being an antisocial psycho asshole is only in service of people feeling things (the person who loves them-- pain, forgiveness, fear, yearning-- and them with the constant turmoil and stuttery attempts at emotional growth). Well, I also like complementary pairings and ying/yangness & such, but that's also in service of feeling, because the more complementary people are, the more intensely they bond and match each other in the first place (I think).
    Eh, I really hate being predictable. -.- Maybe I like angst in romance so much because I think most romance types are so predictable, so I just need a lot of emotion to be packed into it to keep my finicky attention(?).

Comments

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

Have you received my book yet? I've got yours and am reading it now. I have no idea what it should reach you cos the Aus post system is so crap.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Yaye! Tell me what you think of it if you feel like it :D :D Though I haven't received yours yet, possibly it takes longer the other way 'cause when I order books from an Australian store it says 'a month or more', I dunno why...

[quivo.livejournal.com]

I don't actually mind being predictable so much in my reading habits - it's my writing habits I'm way more defensive of. Though I don't share your prediliction for angst as such, I can't stand constantly reading of/about stable, fluffy relationships. As much as I support H/G in canon per se, I rarely read the ship any more because it's so boring now, as no one ever seems to want more than post-HBP fluff/angst or fairly predictable stuff about the horcrux hunt and so on.

And then, lastly, there's the dreaded Plotless Romance/Angst piece. I don't think I wordlessly hate any sort of fanfiction as much as this, in a way - I'm all about the plot, as a reader and a writer, and Plotless pieces usually give me the heebie jeebies, especially if the main plot is the relationship that's going on/being created. Everything just seems to have a sort of secondary feel to it, for me, and I've no idea how much of that is my prejudice and how much of that is bad writing/plotting/whatever, but either way, I usually don't like it.

Hmm, rambly so far, aren't i? Well, the tl;dr point of this is that everyone's pretty predictable, in the long run. It's no shame liking a certain kind of romantic interaction/pairing type or whatever - it's more of a bona fide way to read stuff that you'll actually enjoy. Where it goes wrong is when people try to push their likes/dislikes onto others that may or may not share their likes/dislikes, especially when it's about something as gut-level as pairing preferences or romantic interaction preferences.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Oh man, it never occurred to me that this might be taken that way, but... I hope I didn't come off as saying liking a particular sort of romantic pairing or fic is 'shameful' or bad or whatever. I guess that sort of reading into my post is natural when I basically only talked of my own preferences, so I just assumed I was saying next to nothing about others and that was obvious, but-- for the record, of course I don't find it shameful. I myself am obsessed with classifying my likes/dislikes and others'-- so it's an interest, not an accusation.

I dunno if what I like can be classified as 'angst' so much as emotional drama. Often enough you get drama from angst, but you don't absolutely have to, I think. The presence or absence of 'plot' really depends on what kind of plot you're talking about. A plot can leave the characters and their emotions or personal lives very stagnant, so in that sense the angsty-romance vignettes have something to offer, because they focus on those emotions. Most of them just tend to be sloppily written, 'cause overdoing it is pretty easy and realistic relationship vignettes require skill.

Anyway, I feel like there's a difference between acknowledging that everyone's predictable (true) and succumbing to the boredom mere acceptance would bring. I was admitting 'typical' romance was predictable, so that's why I looked for the 'mask' of intense emotion. If you're involved in the strong emotions and fears and wants of the characters, the rational knowledge of 'this is going in such-and-such direction' seems less important. That was my tl;dr point or whatever. Um. And as for H/G... I know what you mean about people's fic, but I gather that most het and especially most H/G has been fluffy and lightweight from the start.

I mean, most people don't like H/G 'cause it's so dark and messed-up and dramatic. Well, 'most people' not including me, but still.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

Oh man, it never occurred to me that this might be taken that way, but...
Eh, no problem - I don't read your LJ on a daily basis, so I'd no way of telling (waltzed here by virtue of the daily snitch).

Most of them just tend to be sloppily written, 'cause overdoing it is pretty easy and realistic relationship vignettes require skill.
That's really my main complaint as far as most, er, 'angsty' fics go, I think. I do like the emotional/personal lives of characters to be developed to some degree alongside a huge main plot (which is why reading HP is fun in the first place), but think that having the developments in their lives be the main plot gets really old fast, especially since people tend to reuse the same scenarioes and plot devices to support the main romantic plot in a popular pairing.

And on your own tl;dr point - 'typical' romance is predictable, yeah, and I understand your wanting there to be a 'mask' of intense emotion to spice things up, so to speak. I guess I'm just more at the stage where that mask usually has to be damn good to keep me reading if I've been reading fics from that pairing for a while - witness my alienation from H/G. The masks people used in that pairing to cover up its predictability just wore really thin, I think. And most het isn't actually fluffy and lightweight, or at least not the het I've been reading - I went for the typical 'difficult' pairings from the start (Draco/Ginny is a good example, no matter how much I usually can't bear to read that pairing now), and even then, the masks wore thin. I think it's more a function of romance in general that is predictable - people just come up with new masks to help the readers get over the boredom of reading yet another romantic fic, imho.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the whole repetition effect in pairing fic is important-- I mean, I loved my OTP to death & I still love them, it's just at some point it just becomes pretty much impossible to satisfy my need for engagement 'cause I -do- want my brain involved in romance fics, just because I need my brain/rational thought to some degree to springboard emotion from. It's just that I face a lot greater deprivation with H/D slash than if I was reading H/G & genfics that feature H/G "subtext", given it's been sorta canon for ages. Meaning, it's a lot harder to write a believable plot -and- write H/D, so most people don't bother, and I can't be spoiled enough to demand plot (though I try).

Generally, I guess the pairings I like are -so- difficult that I see canon het pairings as 'lightweight' even though I shouldn't. I've nothing against het or anything (I used to read tons of Buffy/Spike, anyway), it's just most approaches I've come across in HP fandom aren't up to slash standards. Heh. And that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish, though I do honestly think that most better female writers in fandom do end up writing mostly slash, in my experience.

But yeah... um, this whole problem with romance fanfic getting boring & repetitive is pretty much why I quit reading fanfic for the most part and just read 'normal' original stuff now.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

Word to the repetition effect thing. I've never had an OTP, so I tend to escape a lot of it because I try to only skim from the top, quality wise, in what I read. But it does leak through, still, which is why I tend to avoid certain pairings anyway, because of the sheer lack of quality in them. And have you been floating around on the H/D ship for long? There are still some new gems that pop up here and there, for H/D, so I'd keep feelers out just in case :).

And I agree with you - most het I come across in HP isn't up to slash standards. But it all depends on where you look, if you don't mind reading outside your OTP - I still find great het here and there. And anyway, if I can't find something I really want to see more of, I'll usually get round to writing it or something, especially with het. I think the reason why slash is so much more developed in terms of quality in the HP fandom is that it requires more of a plot and more of, I don't know, a 'backbone' to make the story believable, or to make it work. So there are more stories in slash than in het that, so to speak, go the extra mile in terms of plot, characterisation and the like. Which is why I try to mainly write het in the first place, but anyway.

Btw, where do you get your original stuff from? I've been curious about how that might work online for a while now, so just thought I'd ask...

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

It's really sad how I feel like saying I've been on the H/D ship forever, but-- close enough to it. I've been here (as reenka) since June '02, oh my god. Wow, I amaze myself. But yeah, ummm... what most people might think of as 'gems' I think 'been there, done that, got the tshirt', etc. It doesn't help that I've a lot of 'issues' with the direction the pairing took post-HBP and even post-OoTP since no one was seriously writing the post-OoTP issues as -I- saw them, for the most part (except for Cassie Claire & PhoenixSong/mijan).

Most of the post-HBP H/D has basically lost the emotional-drama 'steam' 'cause Draco got defanged, y'know? And Harry's all 'sensitive' now... of course he isn't, but people think they've got an excuse to write him that way (ARGH). Next to one writes a Harry I can stomach, it's really kind of pathetic. Some people (hackthis, definitely) still write a Draco I go for, but the interaction between them... heh. Well, at least I'm not as bitter and annoyed as I used to be :D I'm all zen now; let the people amuse themselves, I'm on to greener pastures.

Speaking of those... by 'original fic' I actually meant published stuff-- uh, fantasy novels, comics, a bunch of scanlated shoujo & yaoi manga. If you thought I meant online original fic for free or whatever-- I haven't been looking that much, so I only found ms_manna's 'Administration' series so far. It's got (cyber-suspense/future dystopia type) plot and lots of it, but... uh... it's also got rather explicit S&M type slash, so I dunno if it's your cup of tea. It -is- excellently done though, so here (http://www.mannazone.org/zone/admin/index.html). If you like Alias and don't mind slash or messed up protagonists and/or kink-- I envy you your first time reading it :D

[blonde-cecile.livejournal.com]

*nods in agreement*

You know, when I first got into the HP fandom, I came across Draco/Hermione and thought "Wow, that's interesting!" I thought it had, along with Draco/Ginny, a lot of potential for emotional intensity and angsty dramatic goodness, but it turned out... not so much. I still think they do have potential, but nobody wrote it half-decently enough for me to enjoy. Finding H/D was like uncovering buried treasure - despite the ever-popular mischaracterizations and such, it has a lot to offer in comparison to most het.

I see what you mean about H/D rarely being rivalslash nowadays, though. I hate that too. I read fics where they meet after HBP and are relatively civil and I'm like WTF?! Just because Harry felt an ounce of pity for Draco's situation, doesn't mean he's going to try to be all chummy with the prat.

And as far as Alias goes, I never understood why anybody liked Sydney/Vaughn. My friend and I were actually upset when he "came back from the dead". I've always dreaded the S/V interaction since they got together. It's not that I completely hate Vaughn, I just never understood why Sydney loved him so much! The perfection between them is boring, I guess. (Sark's the guy-to-love on that show. I was disappointed he didn't get some more romance with Rachel or something - but at least possibilities are still open for the imagination!)

Forgive me for rambling in your journal. ^.^