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reenkaAhh, I think I've finally figured out what's wrong with me and why I can't happily read most H/D fics. I mean, I even find one I enjoy, and there's always something to obsess over. Something that reminds me of a million -other- fics that made that same choice that annoyed me then, and that somehow annoys me more 'cause it's so constant and it seems like no one cares 'cause everyone seems to do it like it's nothing (and often enough, it comes down to giving Draco Special Powers™ of any sort, yes, especially if it's not a crackfic written for the sole purpose of playing with that idea in a silly way).
Anyway, my point is that it's all about suspension of disbelief. Everyone and their brother suspends disbelief especially when they read an unlikely (everyone says!) slash pairing like H/D, right? The name of the game, right? It's what you're supposed to do, right? Especially if you ship them, right?? No. Well, not me.
And, you know, there's my problem. Of course I suspend my disbelief too, but maybe 25-50% less than other people do. I have a number of kinks-- things I'm willing to go very far for if they're included in the fic-- but I have ten zillion squicks which throw me out of the fic spitting and clawing at the air. Ten gazillionty million, and at least half to do with how I -don't- want Draco to be & especially in terms of what effect that would have on Harry. :/
I think it goes beyond 'I just want them to be IC', 'cause while it's -true-, I think the real thing that bugs me is certain sorts of fanon which are perfectly valid (that is, possible), but I just know (in a meta sense) what they're meant to -do- in the fic 'cause I've seen it ten trillion times, y'know? It's a plot-device that makes me feel... dumb or something, like the writer is saying 'you don't deserve any better' or 'what, do you expect this to make sense?? fool!' and that's just depressing, especially-- even-- in the midst of a cute crackfic. I dunno how to explain it, really.
Crackfic or not, I just don't want the fanon bits to feel... desultory, like tossed-off little pseudo-reasons for things. Like, insane things (Draco sprouts wings!) are actually much more acceptable to me than too-sudden mundane things (Draco's suddenly become a much better wizard than Harry!)
I think I became really bitter when I realized what I wanted was both an escape (just like everyone else) and porn & snark (yeay!!) but also... something that didn't make me do the work, in terms of virtually the only kind of HP fic I read (which is H/D, though I go through S/R phases repeatedly). With decent S/R, for instance, things just don't work this way-- things don't get tossed off randomly, like 'oh, and by the way, Peter had an evil twin who actually was the one to join Voldemort' as an aside. I dunno. Things are more normal & make more -sense-, even in cracky wacked-out fics about how Remus and Sirius grew breasts and wanked each other immediately. If it's any good, that means it's still going to be Remus and Sirius, and it feels like the writer's less likely to feel they can randomly mess with some significant portion of their character & dynamic right off the bat. I dunno.
Maybe I'm just being ridiculous in comparing a pairing that makes sense even to canon-whorish-type people and a pairing that people say has CRACK written across its forehead in big bold letters.
Maybe that's what's been pissing me off for the last 3 years, too. That very idea, that H/D has to = crazy crack, that's what annoys me. And every time I read a fic that has a wacky/cracky premise (yeay, great-- man, I don't even like overly serious fics) but also lazy little fanon excuses (nooo), I remember how people say it's because H/D itself is impossible that they -have- to do this, and I just get upset because that's not true, it's wrong, it's just been perpetuated by lazy fanon. But it's NOT TRUE.
I mean, it's just a little voice at the back of my head, you know, telling me 'but people don't even realize it doesn't -have- to be like this' that can ruin my enjoyment of what's otherwise an innocuous plot-device. That is, I consciously refuse to suspend my disbelief just because I have a chip on my shoulder, I guess. Something to prove. I want my ship to be... I dunno, normal, because & in spite of how abnormal it is in concept. Like the normality & logic would be there to support the crackiness of it & make it valid. Is that weird?
In a way, maybe it's just that I think the one thing that -makes- a cracky premise (pairing-wise or plot-wise) even work in the first place is a more rigid adherence to the known & established. I think if you're writing something wild and out there (and in a sense, the very idea of H/D is crack enough in itself, forget Veela!Draco or whatever), you're even more bound by the necessity of grounding the action in characterizations that stick to the basics, the known quantities.
It's like, I need that feeling that 'this is them' to go and suspend my disbelief about bigger things in the story. And it's especially hard when a certain plot-device is just so common it's taken for granted, as if it -has- to be this way, as if the relationship couldn't work if -something- wasn't out of whack in the regularly-scheduled-reality dept. That just makes me sad, man. And I don't read crackfic to be sad :/
~~
EDIT - Nevermind, got cheered up reading one of Jei's cute Heero/Duo ficlets. Ahhh, I love friendship-about-to-turn-into-love stuff done right ♥.
Anyway, my point is that it's all about suspension of disbelief. Everyone and their brother suspends disbelief especially when they read an unlikely (everyone says!) slash pairing like H/D, right? The name of the game, right? It's what you're supposed to do, right? Especially if you ship them, right?? No. Well, not me.
And, you know, there's my problem. Of course I suspend my disbelief too, but maybe 25-50% less than other people do. I have a number of kinks-- things I'm willing to go very far for if they're included in the fic-- but I have ten zillion squicks which throw me out of the fic spitting and clawing at the air. Ten gazillionty million, and at least half to do with how I -don't- want Draco to be & especially in terms of what effect that would have on Harry. :/
I think it goes beyond 'I just want them to be IC', 'cause while it's -true-, I think the real thing that bugs me is certain sorts of fanon which are perfectly valid (that is, possible), but I just know (in a meta sense) what they're meant to -do- in the fic 'cause I've seen it ten trillion times, y'know? It's a plot-device that makes me feel... dumb or something, like the writer is saying 'you don't deserve any better' or 'what, do you expect this to make sense?? fool!' and that's just depressing, especially-- even-- in the midst of a cute crackfic. I dunno how to explain it, really.
Crackfic or not, I just don't want the fanon bits to feel... desultory, like tossed-off little pseudo-reasons for things. Like, insane things (Draco sprouts wings!) are actually much more acceptable to me than too-sudden mundane things (Draco's suddenly become a much better wizard than Harry!)
I think I became really bitter when I realized what I wanted was both an escape (just like everyone else) and porn & snark (yeay!!) but also... something that didn't make me do the work, in terms of virtually the only kind of HP fic I read (which is H/D, though I go through S/R phases repeatedly). With decent S/R, for instance, things just don't work this way-- things don't get tossed off randomly, like 'oh, and by the way, Peter had an evil twin who actually was the one to join Voldemort' as an aside. I dunno. Things are more normal & make more -sense-, even in cracky wacked-out fics about how Remus and Sirius grew breasts and wanked each other immediately. If it's any good, that means it's still going to be Remus and Sirius, and it feels like the writer's less likely to feel they can randomly mess with some significant portion of their character & dynamic right off the bat. I dunno.
Maybe I'm just being ridiculous in comparing a pairing that makes sense even to canon-whorish-type people and a pairing that people say has CRACK written across its forehead in big bold letters.
Maybe that's what's been pissing me off for the last 3 years, too. That very idea, that H/D has to = crazy crack, that's what annoys me. And every time I read a fic that has a wacky/cracky premise (yeay, great-- man, I don't even like overly serious fics) but also lazy little fanon excuses (nooo), I remember how people say it's because H/D itself is impossible that they -have- to do this, and I just get upset because that's not true, it's wrong, it's just been perpetuated by lazy fanon. But it's NOT TRUE.
I mean, it's just a little voice at the back of my head, you know, telling me 'but people don't even realize it doesn't -have- to be like this' that can ruin my enjoyment of what's otherwise an innocuous plot-device. That is, I consciously refuse to suspend my disbelief just because I have a chip on my shoulder, I guess. Something to prove. I want my ship to be... I dunno, normal, because & in spite of how abnormal it is in concept. Like the normality & logic would be there to support the crackiness of it & make it valid. Is that weird?
In a way, maybe it's just that I think the one thing that -makes- a cracky premise (pairing-wise or plot-wise) even work in the first place is a more rigid adherence to the known & established. I think if you're writing something wild and out there (and in a sense, the very idea of H/D is crack enough in itself, forget Veela!Draco or whatever), you're even more bound by the necessity of grounding the action in characterizations that stick to the basics, the known quantities.
It's like, I need that feeling that 'this is them' to go and suspend my disbelief about bigger things in the story. And it's especially hard when a certain plot-device is just so common it's taken for granted, as if it -has- to be this way, as if the relationship couldn't work if -something- wasn't out of whack in the regularly-scheduled-reality dept. That just makes me sad, man. And I don't read crackfic to be sad :/
~~
EDIT - Nevermind, got cheered up reading one of Jei's cute Heero/Duo ficlets. Ahhh, I love friendship-about-to-turn-into-love stuff done right ♥.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 01:32 am (UTC)Another thing is when Draco is really not into the whole following-Lucius or trying-to-make-him-proud or Death Eater youth thing AT ALL, and he's quite reasonable about it ('well, Voldemort won't win, so I'll just decide to take a nap and forget it'). Like, no soul-searching, no angst-- he's just so pragmatic it hurts. That makes me laugh, actually, but it's also very annoying.
Another thing is just when their suddenly-civil or suddenly-interested behavior is completely explained away either by age or sudden complete and utter gayness. Like, Harry's not bi, he's got to be FLAMINGLY GAY and history gets casually rewritten in an aside like 'oh, that didn't mean anything' or 'oh, well, then he realized Ginny was just a silly bit of self-delusion' or whatever. Not even that I can't take gay!Harry, but rather that tossed-off casualness of the fanon cliche explanation to obviously (sooo obviously) pave the way for the slash. Or like they're suddenly all mature and civil and first-name-basis 'cause neither of them have a tendency to hold grudges, obviously, 'cause it's like 2 years later (that drives me up the wall).
I can really make a huge long list but I was trying to restrain myself :))
no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 02:55 am (UTC)(I'm SERIOUS.)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 02:56 am (UTC)...*also serious!*
no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 03:12 am (UTC)Well, I don't know enough about H/D fic to comment on the specific cliches you mention, although I will say that's a problem in every fandom and one of the many reasons I don't read as much fanfic as I would if it didn't all... seem like the same story written over and over and over and... OVER AND OVER AND OVER.
Whenever I come into a new fandom, I find I can read a lot of fic for around a week and the next thing you know I just feel like I've already read everything. Because everyone hangs their stories on the same fucking conventions, and it's annoying enough when the conventions are based in canon. I can't imagine how it feels when the conventions are sort of like, random and cracktastic fanon tropes.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 03:22 am (UTC)I don't even mind the overall -idea- of a fanon convention, but when they're just sort of tossed out in a lazy fashion 'cause it's clear the person's just too lazy to come up with something else less INSANE... then I get pissed. And it's even more depressing that it's -not- because it's H/D that's too difficult ('cause I know there's tons of bad/lazy R/S I've avoided 'cause I hadn't read widely enough) but like, just common-sense writing itself is 'too difficult'. Now THAT'S annoying :/ And it's even more annoying that other people rec these things and lap 'em up like it doesn't matter.
I just saw someone rec a popular H/D fic on their rec website by saying that the stuff that happened within the fic followed its own characterization givens well, or something like that. And I was like NO FUCKING SHIT, EXCEPT THOSE GIVENS WERE FUCKING CRAZY-ASS FANON CLICHES OKAY. *breates* :))