[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

[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