[duh. -.-]

[reenka]

I read dorrie6's comment on Sister M's post on Harry-bias in canon about how Draco's understandable and could be made plenty sympathetic in fanfic without white-washing his choices and experiences/beliefs (or making him a pathetic whiney baby or boring and uptight or too serious or... *grumblegrumble*), and I was like YES! and I AM NOT ALONE, I KNOW THAT! and SO WHY ARE THINGS THE WAY THEY ARE??!? and why do people say this on a canon post and only argue till they're blue in the face on most fanon posts.... I just realized: it's because these issues themselves (including my reaction!) aren't really analytically based. I really can't sit there and go, 'okay, so I was thinking about this and it's not like I'm about to scream in frustration or anything... um....'

I mean, we may love the HP books, yes, but we can (sometimes) discuss them calmly 'cause we're not -as- invested as we are in our work or that of our friends or y'know, "our" porn and reading kinks or whatever. That's the bottom line, probably; bigtime fans don't like it when you diss HP (unless it's v. subtle/intellectual and goes over their heads), but they'd probably like it even less if you said their favorite porny fun-fun-happy-time fic sucked & was lazy & OOC. :/ It's hard to say 'this sort of fic SUCKS ASS' in a subtle & intellectual way, I guess :>
    (And it actually never ceases to amuse me that as an actual reviewer, I'm a total verbose squee-monkey and never snark or say snide things... I love fanfic not because I'm so critical/analytical but because I'm just IN LOVE so I notice tons of bad -and- good things the way girls obsess over their butts and notice that light pink rash on the far-off fold of their left buttock...)

So no one says it unless they want to whine, don't care about stirring up shit or are somehow untouchable in fandom. But yes, regardless: point is, it's fic so it's about passion whereas discussing canon can easily-- and is easily-- made purely intellectual in fandom (when it's not a jizz-bottle of pure wank). DAMN IT ALL TO HELL ANYWAY.

The sad sad truth is, I'm probably more -attracted- to fanfic meta than canon meta because it's more emotionally meaty and volatile as a subject in the first place, because it's more -fun- since it's tapping into my creative self, my dreaming self, my wanting-fun-fun-happy-porn self. Canon, to me, is just like 'oh, that's interesting... oooh, I LOVE Harry... oooh, Draco... huh... wow, Snape sure is fascinating, I wonder what's going on... tralala... oh look, it's a zombie!!' -.- Oh, self. *groan*
    PS. I don't mean I like fanon more than canon, I really do just mean I like fanfic more, which is a subtle difference but it's there. Or perhaps I should say I'm v. picky about what sorts of fanon I like & how they relate to canon?? I like a certain kind/flow of canon/fanon relationship, because to me it really is all about relationships between things and never 'the thing alone', which is why I secretly would want most canon meta to be more fanony and of COURSE I want all fanon meta to be canony(!), and I don't just mean romantic relationships, btw. :P

Comments

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

The idea of fanfic meta is mystifying to me. What would that be?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Haha, I used to do it all the time. It's like, 'what works for this pairing/character? why? where would they be likely to go in canon that should/shouldn't be explored? what's an interesting AU? what are these characters' issues that could be seen like -so- or -so- or -so-? how does this character compare to the other? what's wrong/right about cliche X, characterization Y, premise C, etc?' There's really tons. A lot of it starts with things I don't like that get me thinking, like... sometimes it's not just 'oh, it's OOC' that I dislike, y'know... and for a long time I wasn't totally sure what I considered 'IC' in every application, so I discovered it step by step by seeing what -wasn't- working a lot and making a bigger picture.

A lot of my ideas about 'good' fanfic writing (what to do, what not to do, what works & doesn't, what to shoot for, what I appreciate, how characters work in multiplicity rather than canon singularity) greatly influenced/dependent on reading fanfic of various sorts rather than canon. In many ways, I started off comparing 'good' fanon to 'bad' fanon & then adding canon a year later-- once I READ it :>

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

That blows my mind.

I mean, it's not that I haven't seen such meta before, but I guess I never thought of it as fanfic meta - possibly because my perspective is so slavishly canon-oriented, really, I always thought of it as people talking about how to get closer to accuracy rather than how to be a better fanon representation or a better fic or whatever. Probably because to me, the way to be a better fic is to be more accurate.

I'm still confused about how canon meta could be more fanony, though.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hahah-- well, the thing is, all fanfic is 'fanon' 'cause it's Not Canon by definition-- so if you write or read enough of it, even Very Accurate fanfic acquires a separate life, a set of tendencies or missing pieces or whatever. Like, you can be accurate but dull, or accurate but still be missing something from another person's/reader's (still plausible) interpretation that -makes- or defines the character to them. Especially with characters that are ambiguous or not well-developed in canon, like Draco (or even the Marauders in some sense), there's a lot of room for both interpretation and debate as well as nitpicking and categorizing and gossiping, all that. Fanon isn't necessarily 'anti-canon', it's just everything that's -not- specifically, factually canon, and in ambiguous cases this becomes quite an interesting and wide field for meta.

As for 'fanony canon', I think I mean when you have ambiguousness and interpretations/preferences that aren't being projected or said to be Really There, but rather just as part of the discussion. Like, 'here's what I thought of this scene' but also 'here's what it reminds me of' and 'my favorite bit was...' and 'this made me think of it going -there-' and 'I want to think about that more like this, 'cause it's fun!', all kind of riffing on canon rather than just analyzing it. Playing with it creatively or seeing it as 'material' for creative things without actually doing them. Like, brainstorming and playing around in the universe without writing or role-playing being involved directly :D

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

[sucks at teeth] As far as that goes, I think people have spaces in their minds for 'Draco' and 'Harry'. How big or flexible that space is depends on the reader, which is why people can squee over what other would lambast as hopelessly OOC. I've stepped back from my own fic and said "No way in hell would Draco ever say/do that; not to mention he'd never touch Harry'. But I can still do it because my mind-space can accomodate him doing that. Or something.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not like I don't have some give or don't allow room for interpretation... I mean, I don't think I have a solid immutable ideal I'm trying to uphold or anything. It's also true that I've written things I consider highly unlikely or cracked out or whatever... however, I've been here too long and seen too much stuff that is just plain STUPID, and people gimme things excuses like... well, the excuses are just so transparent and stupid, and also don't even deal with canon at all. I don't care what your interpretation is of canon, as long as you acknowledge rather than deny it. When people are like 'oh, Draco always hated his father' (hello, 95% of H/D, probably) or 'oh, Draco never really disliked Harry, it was all an act'-- okay, I'm flexible, but I'm not INSANE.

See, when I start ranting or whatever, people assume I'm so picky and am hating on their buzz or whatever, whereas to me, I'm just pointing out things that are painfully obvious. You cannot sanely read canon and go 'okay, Drakie-wakie is a soft-hearted, misunderstood little moppet, AWWWW'. And yet. And yet.

Point being (as I'm sure I've made a zillion times before), it's not in what they do, it's in how you explain/build-up/set-up what they do. Of course he wouldn't touch Harry in canon, so that's why you have to convince me he would in your fanfic by adding circumstances, changing ideals/prejudices, messing with his mind, etcetc-- as long as you acknowledge you start from point A (he hates Harry), it's FINE and IC as all hell. It's not about what you-the-writer or you-the-reader thinks-- it's about what you can realistically portray-- which is -anything-, as long as enough work to connect the dots is done. Anyway, ummmmm, I wasn't trying to talk about Harry & Draco specifically so much as my interest in discussing fanfic in general...

But this actually illustrates why it's difficult, 'cause people always say 'but it's in the eye of the beholder', whereas with canon people don't get proprietary, I guess. I don't care who thinks what is OOC-- what you need is an -argument-, a good reason rather than just an opinion. Not to mention, while Draco may be ambiguous in canon, Harry isn't, and in some ways Harry is -more- mangled and mischaracterized in fic and is -more- unlikely to touch Draco than vice-versa. Just watch the absolutely maddening fandom insistence that HBP!Harry is actualy (sexually) obsessed with Draco in HBP, like it's actually true. It's seriously not even tongue in cheek, people just forget what canon IS.

...aah, I've gotten off-topic. I just mean that it's really more about the process than the end-result characterization, with any fic. The process is what's interesting to me, like 'how do you make this happen?' But people give up-- a lot like you just implied-- saying 'well, in reality, canon Draco would never do this', when he so would. It just takes a lot more effort to show him doing it than just saying 'to hell with it, Draco Malfoy Woke Up Hot & Also Gay'. :)) Plus there's all this resistance to taking fanfic as seriously as people take canon, which is seen as pretty rock-solid even if it isn't, so that if I insist too much, people are like 'but it's just fic, I can do whatever I want'. Not that that isn't true, but it's a deflection-- of course anyone can do whatever, but they don't have to act like there's no other way....

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

As far as 'argument' goes, I would never consider writing a fic without one! It's just ... you can go so far with that, in building up some sort of relationship but in the end, there's always that one final leap. It's a leap, it's not a logical stepping stone. I always think of that fic I wrote -- Drawing down the moon, that's the one -- and how I went from those two hating on each other to being in love with each other. And that point, where Harry started fancying Draco and vice versa; no matter how much I built up to that, it's still totally ... unreal. I guess if you give people enough sticks they'll see a house, though.

What people don't remember about fanfic is that it is all original. Fine, the characters and settings aren't yours, but you could say that if you wrote about a famous film set or something. Your words and your phrases and your situations; and they say that's not serious? Very silly. I see fandom as a writing apprenticeship, it's invaluable, and I would never belittle it that way.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

You're right about the leap... and I'm probably not the right person to ask 'cause I'm in love with them, so I just want a bone(r)? But. Like, the fics I really can't take are the ones that take that leap right off the deep end, sort of insulting my intelligence rather than asking me to be a romantic. My favorite fics are so subtle about it, about when the leap happens and where, which is why I'm obsessed with friendship!H/D. I'm sure I've already told/asked you to read Silvia Kundera's 'And I Get By', but that's why it's utter brilliance-- like, when did Harry fall for Draco there? Or did he? At the beginning, when he was all shocked Draco actually -smiled- or at the end, where Draco was all 'okay fine, I'll save your ass, POTTER' or in the middle where they were fighting like two horny cats?? Ahh. I wish all fic was like that :( Anyway, the thing is-- yeah, with the sticks-- like, using all these plausible elements to 'sneak in' an implausible one and make it fit with the others as if it belonged there even though you know it really doesn't-- or does it? That takes a really good writer, of course.

But then there's fic like ATBT (and yes, I don't even care about saying that in public anymore), where from the very beginning, patently untrue things are used as foundation for everything else. Like, bam!-- ATBT!Draco had no clue his father's into the Dark Arts (hell, HE was into the Dark Arts in SECOND YEAR, hello), bam!-- Draco's merely 'irritated' with Potter, bam!-- he switches sides and changes gears utterly because, what?? He was shocked and dismayed his father hexed POTTER whom he's merely IRRITATED by and doesn't care about. Ugh. That's not a leap, that's a gaping canyon. I think the job of a great/believable/working fic is to tighten and tighten the leap until it's as natural as it can get, and if that means never getting H/D to luffy-wuffies & cuddly-bunnies & love-confessions, that's probably what it means :P That's why I so totally love 'And I Get By', 'cause "so fuck off after him" = TOTALLY BELIEVABLE DECLARATION OF LOVE. All things considered :D :D

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

This comment will probably seem pretty random after all this time, but I was just taking a stroll through your journal and my own name popped out at me, which was surprising, and so I wanted to come here and actually second your "YES! and I AM NOT ALONE" reaction, because I have thought about this many times--how heated we all get when discussing fanon, and how we aren't able to have discussions as rationally as we do with canon, and it has frustrated me many times. I have frustrated myself over that many times.

Anyway, it was nice to see it all spelled out like this here, and I thought I'd say so. :)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'm with you on the 'frustrated -myself-' 'cause just recently I've been having a resurgence of reading fic, and it's really sort of depressing how heated -I- get. It's hard to get around feeling like 'BUT THIS ISN'T RIGHT!' sometimes, or feeling alone 'cause a really 'bad' fic is popular. I wish I could discuss it anyway, 'cause I think if it wasn't just me stewing in my own juices, I'd become more reasonable. Or so I tell myself :D

But! I'm glad I'm not on crack with this & you've noticed too! :D

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

You are so not on crack. And I think you're right--I think it would be easier to deal with these issues if we felt we could talk about them without creating an endless storm of wank, or at least hurt feelings, but I know well that this can't really be done.

You know, I'm thinking of trying anyway just to see what happens. I fear the results, though possibly in terms of what I might say or do even more than what others might say or do. Hm.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heeee! I find the prospect of you being harsh & fearsome hard to believe, since if anything I think you've been more positive/supportive than most other people I'd say are fandom-positive~:)

But it can definitely be done-- my question was more 'in general' rather than 'personally by me', I guess, because I myself have done it! Many times! I talk about fic on this lj constantly-- I mean, lately I've gotten to flocking because I'm tired of making generalizations and not naming names, but if you don't, in fact, name names, it's pretty easy to talk about fanon/fanfic/fanon!Draco (even about how much one hates fanon!Draco) without creating wank, in my own experience.

The biggest fallout from my v. public fanon!Draco hate is probably that I've been defriended once by someone I admired but didn't know that well, but since you really don't know -me- at ALL if you don't know I can't stand fanon!Draco... I feel it's all above board :> I think if you remain recognizably yourself & don't diss anyone specifically or perhaps zero in on a currently popular fic (like, I think it's okay to hate on IP or the DT or whatever), it's fine :)

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

You know, I think maybe why I perceive speaking out on these things as such a problem is that I have been nice so long that people really freak out whenever I say anything negative. :) I've done it before, too, with occasionally disastrous results. I end up hurting *someone* no matter what I say, because I have friends who write the type of H/D fic I most dislike, and it's hard to talk about it without them feeling that I think they are part of the problem. Well, and I think the bigger issue is that I *do* think that, so it is hard for me to make it seem like I don't. And certainly I understand why they would take it personally. I remember getting really upset with *you* once, with whom I am not even close at all, for saying things that I felt implied that everyone writing H/D at the time was doing it badly. And maybe the problem was that you really did think that too. :) It's hard for things to not get personal when it comes to fanfic meta because the people reading the meta are the same people who are producing the work being discussed. Still, we all *want* to.

Oh, the drama. :)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Ahh, yes, I think I see the problem~:) If -I'd- be a little freaked out but intrigued by the idea of you taking the gloves off (heee!!), I imagine it'd be much more stunning for your friends and so on. It really depends on what kind of reputation one has built as well, the nature of one's lj relationships/typical interactions-- like... most of my friends write fics I like and they know it. As in, I wouldn't friend you if you wrote fics I didn't like, ahahah :) This -is- a fandom journal and I've stopped friending people just 'cause they friended me near the beginning, plus I don't get to know people through chatting or what have you... so maybe I've been lucky in that sense :> Also, my friends on lj know me as being unspoken about these things & also tend to be the sort of people I -can- talk to frankly... 'cause while I'm nice to people I don't know, I like to be frank with people I do know :D (So the girl I beta'd knew very well I thought her characterizations lazy at times even if the snark flowed well...)

But yeah, it doesn't help if there -is- inherent conflict there, moreso than usual-- or if one just has a big audience. I mean, both furiosity (of the recent review wank) & you have a bigger flist audience than I do :> I think the solution might be to 'prepare the ground' and talk about fic with those people personally... or at least that'd be my solution. People are less jumpy without the added stress of feeling 'attacked' in public ^^;; Though honestly, in my experience a lot of the more well-known fanon writers (like, I dunno, emmagrant or geoviki) are aware they're writing fanon. And then there are some who're open to discussion/critique and are reasonable even if they're writing 'the way they see it' (scoradh & mistful come to mind). It's true that some people are just... ummm... both touchy & insecure & convinced Draco is really a sex god... um :)

But yeah, at that point I really was convinced everyone's H/D fics (that I read) sucked :)) Post-OoTP, I was really frustrated in a way I'm not anymore (thank god). When I think back on it now, though, I mostly remember the gems in the mud, or something :>

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

It's funny, I think I'm in a place now where you were after OotP, where I can't seem to find any fic I like, and I feel just completely out of step with most everyone who is writing H/D. It makes me want to make sweeping statements that would inevitably insult those who are heavily involved in the current H/D fandom. :) Are we doomed to these stages? It's kind of depressing to think about that.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Ahh, but it's not that I think people's fics are better post-HBP, mostly it's that I'm so alienated and confused as to what I want myself, it's hard to know where to start critiquing-- like, on the one hand these are 'stages' (or rather 'my fault'), but on the other hand people have -never- really written canon-plausible H/D fic in the majority, and every fan discovers that at a different point. I discovered that post-OoTP :>

Now, though... everyone's writing Auror!H/D and post-Hogwarts and the whole dynamic's changed, really-- not just in fanon, but in canon! That's really confusing to me especially-- I mean, in OoTP it changed in canon but in a way I personally knew how to deal with (even if everyone else seemed not to know). Now, everyone's all happy that Harry's obsessed & Draco's emo/hurt-comforty, so people are sort of coasting... to the point where I dunno if anyone has a clue what H/D's about anymore but I don't think they care among the porn ^^;

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

There was a lot of fic post-OotP that I liked, maybe partly because I was deep in the process of really forming my own ideas about H/D, so I was open to a lot of different interpretations of canon, and a lot of speculation on future characterization. Now that my own ideas and convictions about the characters are fully-formed, I have less tolerance for things I consider OOC, and I suppose less tolerance for porn, which is something I've been thinking about writing about (and perhaps will!), which was maybe all inevitable, but it's sad for me. I don't like not liking fic. If that makes sense. In any case, there is now a looong list of things I can't abide in H/D fic now, and I find that there is very little fic that doesn't step into that territory. Some fic I can still read because I like the writers (and their writing) so much that I can forgive almost anything from them, but mostly I feel like a crotchety old man yelling for the neighborhood kids to get off the lawn. When did I turn into that person? Argh. I do *really* want to rant sometimes, though. Or to get back to where we started here, I guess, I would love even more to have a real discussion about it where nobody flew off the handle (including me). That, however, seems unlikely.

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

I should add, by the way, that my lack of tolerance for fic I once liked includes my own early H/D. Which possibly makes me even sadder, because I find myself wishing people would not read it anymore.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Haha, I've long accepted my early H/D fic sucked, and would be amazed if anyone -did- read it! (Since there's so much else to read...) I sort of look at it as a learning experience-- I remember where I was coming from, why I wrote what I did, so I understand it. It also helps me to realize that I perhaps -can't- write an H/D fic I'd be fully happy with-- because it means so much to me & my goal is so lofty, I'll always be falling short of what my vision actually is. So all that's left is the pleasure in writing & hopefully seeing the improvement in one's later works. Like, comparing it to what went before is what shows you you haven't been wasting time & are learning :>

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, my earliest H/D is the most widely-read. Actually, my very first one is by *far* the most popular, and so I've resisted my urge to remove it from public view entirely, but I can't stand to read it myself. Not that my newer fic makes me much happier to read--perhaps you're right about the impossibility of fulfilling one's own expectations. I don't know. :( I did hide some of the shorter, more embarrassing fic, though. People can still read them, but they have to take the trouble to join a community and search them out (they aren't listed on my public index anymore), so I'm hoping that weeds out a lot of potential readers. That makes me feel a little better.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hee! I've been a crotchety old man for a long time now, welcome to the club!! :D Though actually I don't like not liking fic either, that's why I get frustrated/unhappy enough to rant in the first place-- otherwise I'd just quietly left fandom or stopped reading fic like the 'reasonable' people have done :>

I think what you said and having already formed opinions is v. important to how one reacts, though. I'd already formed my opinions by OoTP, and the fifth book itself was what cemented them-- to the point where it was difficult (next to impossible) for me to 'recover' and shift my perception of H/D with new -canon- the way I should have with HBP, forget new -fanon-! :D But while my perceptions were still forming post-GoF, I was fine with all sorts of crazy things... I mean, I always wanted things to be well-written, but I suspect rereading LuW now, for instance, would just make me laugh :>

I do think if you rant about specific ideas in characterization, it's not as bad as pointing at fics! A lot of times people don't recognize themselves in putting forth 'that' characterization, anyway-- it's always 'those other people' :> Like, few enough people are self-aware about what/how they write the characters as, which is actually one of the reasons they write them out of character, I think! :)

I think a civil discussion may be more likely if you flocked/filtered (just to get it off your chest may help, even if the audience shrunk), though I'd be sad never to see it :>

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah, a lot of the fic I *love* when I first got into H/D fandom now makes me cringe. I've thought about editing my recs list to reflect current tastes, but I just couldn't bear the thought of people noticing that I'd deleted recs of their fics, so I just let them sit there.

More and more, I think I'm going to make a post. Probably it will be public. Er. Maybe. Probably.

You know, it's interesting, though, I haven't had any difficulty adjusting to new canon, but maybe that's because it matches so closely to what my own personal fanon was before HBP came out.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I'll look forward to it! Maybe! Probably! :>
Me, I don't know what my current tastes are. The only fic that -really- worked for me post-HBP was hydaspes' 'A Very Long Misadventure (http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=11252)' :D I really enjoyed other characterizations at times (like furiosity's recently), but the whole package hadn't clicked that I remember aside from that fic. -.- I do still like Aspen's porn though :D

What I meant by 'having trouble processing canon' isn't that HBP wasn't in my groove or contradicted my personal fanon but rather that it -fulfilled- my personal fanon & I don't know how to go -beyond- it. On the one hand, I know Harry hadn't fully 'seen' Draco yet, but on the other hand, characterizations themselves aside, Draco's shift in priorities makes it hard for me to write him as Harry-obsessed and angry/needy as I used to, and I'm unwilling/unable to make Harry take up the obsessive slack. So it's really an odd mix of having what I wanted happen & yet being stumped because I have no clue where I'd want to take it from here & feeling like I'd be okay with whatever JKR does :>

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

Mmm, yes, I can understand that. Maybe in some ways my current dissatisfaction with fanfic is related to that. Maybe I'm so okay with whatever JKR does at this point that I don't have the same drive for reading/writing fic as I used to. Certainly it's been hard to write. I have one fragment of a post-HBP H/D fic sitting on my hard drive that seems doomed to stay there. And I am not very interested in Auror!H/D and the other stuff I've seen. I don't know. Hm.

I'll check out that fic you mentioned. I would love to really like something again.

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

http://dorrie6.livejournal.com/460459.html