[something like... fannish resentment of character change, the suckiness of]

[reenka]

According to this poll, at least, it's not fashionable anymore to be a crazed Harry/Draco shipper who BELIEVES (in all caps) that Harry & Draco are SUPPOSED to be together and anything else is a TRAVESTY and also incidentally makes Draco a CHEATING BASTARD (the caps have to be there, you see). I mean, possibly fandom's gotten saner. Or more apathetic. Or-- well, both. Ahh, maybe it's like someone-or-other said & uber-OTP-shippiness itself is on the decline... except for some pairings it would be weird, like... if you OTP Harry/Snape, I can see liking Snape with other people, but I think the shippers there have always generally been Snapelovers, so it'd be odd to me if they were like 'ooh, Harry/Ron'. Same with most R/S-ers suddenly going for R/T, but I guess that's more of a canon bitterness thing.

Anyway, what was my point? I think I just miss the old... attitude, where discussing the Sekrit Nature of Draco wasn't passé, what with HBP having laid it all out for most people, I guess. I miss 'fanon' meaning 'beyond canon' (ie, 'not hemmed in') rather than 'against canon'... though that's hard to define. Maybe you know it when you see it?
    I randomly glanced at the interests in the userinfo of an old Draco RPG journal, and it just reminded me how I wanted to get away from that sort of Draco in my own writing, mostly just 'cause a self-satisfied, overly confident character is pretty boring long-term. Sure, he's a delusional prick, but that's why you don't -feed- that & take those delusions away from him. I still think canon hasn't really done that-- it just started to rip the band-aid away. And a lot of my beef with most H/D is that it often functions to put a -bigger- band-aid over Draco's booboo (Harry-as-band-aid... *cringe*). Ergh.

I mean, there's a difference between tough love & really wanting to hurt a character....


Still, all I see is either gratuitous pain or pleasure or just... coddling (of both author, character & audience).

    Maybe I'm wrong in thinking some people need their asses kicked in the right way so they're healthier later. I dunno. I just feel like there didn't used to be -this- rampant a sense of protectionism, before. Or maybe the senility is setting in early, who knows. I do know my biggest pet-peeve in fandom is the way characters get both glorified/white-washed as well as babied to death. I mean, it's not like Draco was a nice boy in HBP, y'know? And this isn't to say that no one writes him as an asshole, but rather that I get fed up with the stagnant self-satisfied assholishness on his part (or anyone's part, but really this gets me the most with Draco)-- the lack of movement. I mean, he's barely 17. Am I the only one that hopes he won't grow up just to be better dressed and more polite yet smoothly manipulative?

This actually is a round-about way to touch upon another central issue I have with fandom, and that's how many people resent character change.

Seriously. No wonder people didn't write Draco changing the way he did in HBP but more and harder and longer and dirtier (not either brushing it off or hobbling under Harry's wing like a wounded baby bird-- seriously, EWWWWWW). This just struck me, actually. Most people don't want that. It's like either they want Draco to go back to his mod-and-posh posturing while settled in a nice Italian villa or have ickle Dwakey-wakey's cares buggered into oblivion. (He has a delicate constitution, y'know. Boys like that just need LURVE.) Huh. Most fans would freak out & cry foul and/or OOC if the creator herself went too far with the 'evolution', forget a fanfic writer. We know what we like, I guess, and what we like is predictability (nicely spiced with the pretense of suspense).

People were actually saying this in regards to Spike's arc straight out in ethrosdemon's recent post, here. They mostly liked Spike better when he was a two-note villain in seasons 2-4, man. Back when you knew everything he was gonna do before he did it. Man, that's just depressing-- though admittedly those weren't really Spuffy or Spike-centric fans, but still. I always thought that Draco -could- have a vaguely similar arc to Spike in fanon, even if he's not really -like- Spike, obviously. It's also an arc about choices, and love, finding your moral center and not depending on the Hero You Know to contrast yourself against-- just -being- different.

I thought it was actually -good- that Spike became less cool, regardless of the writing disasters of Season 6 & 7. Spike was always pathetic, and it's ridiculous to pretend otherwise-- and Draco was always pathetic too. That's definitely something they have in common. But the potential for overwhelming love as a motivating force is also something they have in common, I think-- Draco with his family at this point, but. Yeah. They can change; those pathetic jokers on a quest for the Answer, looking for someone to love.

Eh. Well, all this isn't fashionable anymore, so. It's not like I quite wanted to leave fandom, precisely, it's more like people are talking in terms I don't mesh with these days, or something.

Ahh, I haven't wanked on about this in awhile, so I dunno what it is. At least this subject is nothing if not predictable for me. :/

Anyway, all this basically inspired by the fact that I should stick to my guns and stop reading H/D fic (worse! fluffy porny H/D fic) when I know it's not my bag these days. Uh. -.-
    EDIT - Umm... I feel rather embarrassed admitting this, but right afterwards I found 'Another Beautiful Day' by janicechess, which is cute & snarky & porny, and... okay, I only skimmed it, but I guess it's -sort- of my bag. Sometimes :P Maybe. :P!

...Possibly I wouldn't be so uptight if things were more cute more often. Hmpf.
~~

In other news, I was thinking about how I'm almost tempted to write for the feedback sometimes, just to get a little positive reinforcement or whatever and have people pet my ego, but then I get a comment like 'ooh, hot', and I'm like 'eh, fuck it'. I mean, what I wrote -was- mostly porn & snark, and it's not that I regret that, but I just realize I should just shut up if I can't put my fic where my mouth is.

Aaaand, first art rec in ages: nassima's Sirius and Remus as teenagers made me happy, especially the Remus. He just looks -warm- somehow.

Comments

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

[sigh] Even when feedback is good, it never seems to be ... enough. Even people getting pages of reviews are, in the majority, getting 'oooh hot' and when they're not, what on earth do you say? Yes, it was a bit of luck that it turned out the way it did, thanks? Eh.

I'm actively searching out new fandoms now. I think before I always thought HP was my one-and-only and that to leave it would be to leave 'this' behind entirely. Now I'm getting excited about pirateporn and tennisporn and doctorporn and the idea of starting afresh. It's so tempting.

I think the relevance of this is about 0.5, so I'm going to shut up now.

PS -- your post on character death? Word.

[floorpigeon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, man. I want me some FILLING feedback, because this here girl is HUNGREH. Omg, can't believe I just typed that. *facepalm* But yes. All feedback was not created equal. I think it's a total faux pas to say in fandom BUT IT IS TRUE OKAY :>

I always have read other fandoms (just -can't- write other fandoms-- except Peter Pan-- otherwise I would!). Yaye for pirate!porn, anyway, though sadly its heyday had passed... or so we thought, for now there comes a SEQUEL! Soonish... or something ^^; Yesh. Tis all good. ♥

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Gosh, does anyone say that? What have they been smoking I want some? Me, I feel terrible every time I say 'Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!' but one cannot ignore comments unless one has ten thousand comments/is a bitch.

I have just discovered it, do not say it is dead! I just read two Sparringtons that are eerily similiar. Sequel is July 6 -- presuming that because it's such a blockbuster that Ireland actually premieres at the same time as everywhere else. :)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, um, I suppose -I- just said that?? Hee. Yeah, I mean, I feel awkward every time I -have- to reply to insipid comments, which is why I'm happeh I don't have to at archive sites like skyehawke or Eros&Sapphos. I sometimes ignore comments to really years-old fics especially if I didn't answer -any- (this happened once when the fic-- Love for the Strong-- was v. intense for me & the comments were actually -good-, which meant I got all blushy and tongue-tied 'caue clearly I CANNOT WIN).

...it's more resting than dead, how's that :)) It's just that there's not that much being written by the cool kids in it-- I mean, at one point everyone was doin' it the way they're all doing SGA & POT now or whatevers, and then they... weren't. Of course, I dunno, I only read Jack/Elizabeth or Jack/Will/Elizabeth or some such... really anything involving Jack but also... uh... Elizabeth... hehe :>

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am easily confused. :(

I know what you mean. I try to write 'thanks' really sarcastically, but it's quite hard to do.

[purses lips] I really can't stand KK, so the idea of shipping her character is all ... man, you'd have to make her squeaky. And talk about the chicken breasts she had to shove down her corset. (Because of course she would never have plastic surgery and her lips just grew bigger naturally).

Still, I should be able to find me some old stuff upon which to feast. Eee. And welcome to Eng-er-land. ♥

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

PS: your 'slasher' journal name reminds me of a line from a postcard I got on the Sussex campus & just used on my floorpigeon layout, hehehe :D

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

It didn't happen to have a picture of a fat blonde man in silver spandex on it, did it?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, fat blond man :)) Well, here (http://floorpigeon.livejournal.com)... he's blond, but I dunno about 'man' :>

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

God, I'm so slow. Connect the dots, Rachel. Not too quickly, you'll give yourself a headache.

Definitely ripping off Little Britain. And that poor kid is doomed to uke-dom from the get go.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heheh, it's a lot funnier in context!! When you said 'Little Britain', I initially assumed it was a band with lyrics, y'know. Haha, what an insane show.

...though this (http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/littlebritain/gallery/wallpaper.shtml#10)... that's just downright disturbing, man o_0

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Have you seen much of it yet? For a funny show, it's often not; and the parts with the Weight Watchers club are just awful. But Mr Only Gay in the Village is funny, especially one clip with a gay vicar.

As for me, I live in a village ... and I'm 99% sure I'm the only slasher in it. xD

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, I didn't even know it was a show (not a band) till you told me! I just liked the card. Though from what I can tell on the website, it seems to be trying too hard, or something. I like all the gay though, because I am just that easy :> I mean, the hypnotist & the aide are also clearly homosexualists :D

...you know, I always wanted to live in a village... more like on the outskirts of a village on a cliff by the sea in a cottage with a rose-garden, but that's neither here nor there. There'd be a village in there somewhere, though I'd rarely see it. It probably sucks if you're less of a hermit, I imagine ^^;

Also, have you thought of visiting Brighton for a change of pace? It's... sunny and everything... *cough* :))

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Well; it tries hard to insult basically everybody in the world, and it succeeds pretty well at that. Vicky Pollard, also? "But yes but no but yes but no," sold her baby for a Westlife CD (That's terrible! I know, they're crap). That's all you need to know about Little Britain unless you are a 12 year old boy.

As far as I can see, living in a village means there's nothing for miscreants to do and no broadband. Woe.

Hehe. I hadn't considered it, because I had a little plan to visit NYC next April. As it is my twenty-first birthday then, and I am desperate to escape a marquee and a huge piss-up. (I don't drink anymore.) Also: Beauty and the Beast on stage!!

Ahem. Brighton is supposed to be lovely (and was I supposed to go to uni there at one point? ... nope. Bournemouth). But NYC, man! ♥

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Whee! I'll see you in NYC, then :> Which is probably more exciting to everyone who's not -from- NYC. There was one person who was like 'wow, NYC' here and I was like 'you're like, WOW, from ENGLAND', but I didn't say that ><;; I suspect we'd read different books at impressionable ages-- I read Peter Pan & Sherlock Holmes, with my only American constrast being stuff like Michael Jackson, ahaha. Well, some people would prefer him, of course :>

There's a pub crawl going on right now, which I'd be -on-, I imagine, if I myself was a miscreant, but. Why do miscreants always drink BEER??

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

That'd rock. You may be able to stop me getting killed by muggers or lost in the Bloomingdales etc (although with me, there are no guarantees).

It's like that in Ireland. We get tonnes of Americans, as I'm sure you know, and Ireland is this little insular crappy place with terrible weather and no public transport to speak of and they're all like 'I want to buy a pub and live with some setters' or something. I don't get it. And Ireland is ten million times less exciting than New York.

Because they have no tastebuds? I have never been on a pub crawl, just a pub to club thing. They are terrifying at first but I ended up finding people on them who disliked them as much as me, then we hung out. Elsewhere. :)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

No worries, I've never heard of anyone I knew being mugged in NYC, though I was pickpocked upstate New York in Binghamton, where I go to school :/ I was really out of it, but the thing is that I was relaxed, like NO WAY would someone do anything in a little town, right? Whereas in NYC one is always on guard or at least always feeling vaguely antisocial (it's in the atmosphere), which is, I think, the best deterrent to stuff actually happening :)) But yes. Yeay! :D

...I think people think Great Britain in general is 'romantic' and 'quaint' and 'charming' in its 'eccentricities' ehehehe. *cough* Not that I'm... like that or anything...

[lykaios.livejournal.com]

Me, I'm totally monogamouasmdfosidufcan'tspell with Sirius/Remus. Though I do like to see Sirius fuck Regulus as much as anyone. OH DASH IT.

[floorpigeon.livejournal.com]

Heheh, if you wrote S/Regulus, I'd totally read it... mostly I stay away from Regulus!fic 'cause he's an unknown quality almost as much as Blaise, which means I'm afraaaaid of the sort of OC people could come up with. I do like tortured doomed incest to contrast the... uh...tortured doomed puppies... er... :>

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's funny...I started reading a post-HBP fic today about Draco and I felt like you in thinking, "I can't read this type of thing anymore." I mean, I was very aware that this was the kind of fic I'd read lots of times post-GoF and it just didn't work post-HBP. I was trying to figure out why, and this may be something where we're totally different on it, but I realized that I can no longer take fics where Draco's basically just a fuck up.

It's like...his story in HBP is so...what? Hard core? To me? It just gets into all this fundamental philosophical territory where he gets everything blown apart, etc. It surprised me on the recent poll about him switching sides that I saw very few things that to me seemed really related to HBP. It was a poll about what things would make it realistic for him to change sides and it seemed like it could just have been written post-GoF. Like it wasn't taking into consideration that HBP brings him to a total moment of disintegration.

Maybe that's what I also think is missing from the "baby bird" stuff or the snarky and cynical guy. He was never either one and now he's even less so. It's like...I just don't think that the way his story went in HBP that you can write him as a straight line or even as the kid who used to believe all this bad stuff but is now ready to be taught by good guys--and the whole world is good, of course, too. Like everyone else went through the war with great dignity and has jobs and only Draco made a fool of himself and has regrets.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hahah, I wanna know where you're finding these fics where he's a fuck-up! Unless you mean the ones where it's all externally based-- like, he's lost Malfoy Manor, has no money, is prostituting himself or selling out to the Ministry or whatever, or is at his wits' end 'cause no one will hire him or likes him, etc-- yeah, that seems wrong/uninteresting but it's not what I mean, I hope you know that. My Draco is a fuck-up the way he always was-- but not 'just' a fuck-up-- I mean, the point is to move forward & succeed!! It's a personality-flaw thing, not anything to do with circumstances, which... aren't entirely his fault. I want him to overcome circumstances, to struggle and attain victory!! GO DRACO GO! You know I've always been like that, I just didn't want to have things handed to him, by Harry or anyone, 'cause it just wouldn't mean as much. One of the things I can't let go of with Draco is that he doesn't give up-- he has his pride, his ambition. He wouldn't... he just wouldn't accept his 'lot in life' or whatever, I don't think, if he -was- supposedly forced into something (...prostitution) without trying to turn it around to his benefit somehow and/or using it to get attention.

Anyway, I don't see a lot-- or really, any-- truly believably flawed Dracos that aren't, you know, either excused and protected or turned into addicts/beggars/stereotypes. Everyone is a fuck-up in my view-- or at least Sirius, Remus, Snape, Harry, Hermione, Ron. Tom Riddle, now THERE is a fuck-up. It's just how you write about it, y'know, what that all leads into, maybe. Hopefully not just death or couplehood & comfort sex.

I suppose 'moment of disintergration' is really what I was talking about with the 'ripping off the band-aid'-- and that's... yeah, people don't seem to realize it or accept it. Things are just different. And whenever I start to skim a post-HBP fic, somehow they're still the same. Draco's now 'hiding out' in Grimmauld Place or wherever, or he's running from Voldemort or he's pale & self-righteous and with Harry about how he's suffering-- and all of this just seems surface going through the motions to me. Maybe what I'm saying is that stories seem too focused outward, whereas the real interest is inward-- what's happening to Draco. Who the hell cares about bloody Horcruxes or his running from Voldemort 'cause he's afraid of Greyback, poor baby? In a way, it's almost like he's turning into Remus with all the quiet traumatization -.-

Like, the 'disintegration', the questioning-- it always skips the middle stages and goes straight to scarring in fics. He needs someone to help him, but I've never once seen him even try to help himself except by approaching Harry. And. Maybe that'll be how it goes in canon, but you know, SOMEHOW I DOUBT IT. Which is why I think it's still plausible to write him as a Death Eater post-HBP... just not for the milque-toast 'reasons' people suppose when they wonder what 'side' he'll choose. In practice, no one writes DE!Draco anymore, not that I've heard of (...except me, ahahah). Actually, that stuff about not being able to read fuck-up!Draco makes me wonder what you'd think about my WIP DE!Draco novella. I'd really love your opinion on that characterization, come to think of it, 'cause I really need all the help I can get :>

But yeah, at least I make everyone into a fuck-up and/or bastard in the war... or just in general. Harry especially had his multiple lapses in dignity & taste, certainly. But that's what makes it interesting, I think. Also, the whole 'taught by the good guys'-- the very cut-and-dry fanon CONCEPT of 'the good guys'-- makes me even more ill than it does in canon :/

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's like...I mean, there's the fuck-up that's canon, and you can't lose that. But maybe it's the exact kind of...awareness that should be there? It's hard to explain but it's like...the story I was reading had him at a place where he had lost everything, but there were people who cared about him, and all these other people were basically treating him well even if he hadn't treated them well. So now he was starting over.

What I felt was missing was...maybe this is it. Like, from Harry's pov and from ours as the reader Draco's always a bit if a dunce because of where we stand, and we see him beaten down all the time. But people don't really mix in enough of the part of Draco who wants to be noble and takes things seriously. Like yeah, he's a fool in a lot of ways but at the center there are things he takes seriously that he has to somehow reconcile with what happens in HPB. JKR does it or hints at it in that moment where Dumbledore's offering him mercy and for the first time he gets a real choice that he's aware of. Not just, "I'll show everyone--I'll become a real Death Eater!" which is sort of a dumb teenager thing, but where he's seriously considering his family's future as the soon-to-be head of the family and realizing that maybe the way they should go is in Dumbledore's direction. There's something else out there that something inside him tells him is right even if he doesn't understand it. But it's going to be hard for him to learn to understand it.

Maybe that's what I wish I could get from stories are ones where Draco's seriously struggling with these new beliefs, and not just in the way of, "So Muggles don't really eat people?" It's like there's always this feeling that people write him without really getting into his head honestly so that they understand him. They know Voldemort sucks and you doubt they could write him as any kind of true believer. So you never get the feeling that he had any real hopes and dreams connected to Voldemort.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think... it's not that the Draco I see most often (in angsty/serious fics, at least) is a 'dunce' in the 'haha silly in-denial boy' sense-- that's actually the more IC quirky-type fics, generally. Like, he takes things seriously, but because the uh, patheticness is seen as 'that thing that funny!fics do', he just... doesn't even -have- that to deal with. That's where you get the white-washing to go along with fucking up his actual life in the external sense, if you see what I mean. People seem both afraid to make him unsympathetic-- or unable, perhaps, to reconcile his negative qualities whatever equates to The Draco They Lurve (hotness!)-- yet also unaware of what is it, exactly, that actually -makes- him sympathetic in canon in the first place, maybe.

Like, sometimes I'll find a self-professed 'Slytherin-centric' fic where we the readers do see why Draco supposedly has stuff invested in Voldemort, etc, but-- that tends to be presented as so... self-satisfied and unquestion, like I was saying with that userinfo. If it's a Slytherin-sympathizer fic where our motto is 'Death Eaters Are People Too' (or whatever), of course the other side of the equation will be ignored, just like -this- one is swept under the carpet in Gryffindor-centric fics (for lack of a better term), where Draco is a charity case reminiscent of middle-class people adopting children from Ethiopia, y'know? Eeeew, that's really what's it's like, come to think of it!!

I mean, fact is, I've never come across a post-HBP fic that shows Draco on the fence in that murky sort of half-light, or really a post-OoTP fic besides perhaps 'Eclipse' (which -attempted- this, whatever its flaws). I mean, I know -just- what you mean by 'they know Voldemort sucks'-- you can just -tell- the writer takes certain things completely for granted as self-evident, to the point where the less nimble writers will just call it 'the Light Side', all the meta like a ton of bricks.

I don't think the 'fuck-up!Draco' fics try to show him as a fool, really; I think it's just that he's really unfortunate and they don't even realize he's tougher than this to start with, so they're not even insulting him, I think. Not that I think he's a cynical hardass, either, because -those- fics tend to make him Mr Smooth and totally impervious to everything (Harry included), which leads to uber-fanon!Draco and horror, utter horror :>