wow... The Day has come.

[reenka]

The Day has come when I don't want to read H/D hatesex, it seems. o_0

Well, at least this fic got me thinking about H/D (and my own fic to be finished in a month before book 7) again. Not talking about all the chan I've signed up for-- of which I'd probably end up writing one fic if I'm lucky, but hey, I have an excuse-- my mom's been over this past week & I'm lucky I could keep up with my email, at least.

Anyway-- Christ. You know what, I finally know how some of my more 'soft-hearted' Draco-loving friends feel (I think). I know I'm all about the rough & badass!Harry & realism but daaaaaaamn, I hate mean!Harry when he's that mean and that blind and that unreasonable :/ I hate the thought that I've RP'd or actually written him as that heartless, because okay, he's not the most empathic boy on the block, but CHRIST, he's not... relentless. He really wouldn't fuck Draco so callously-- or at all-- if he had so many viable issues with him, and in fact he probably wouldn't fuck him at all if he still actively disliked him. I know, I know, a bit late to be saying this now (after all the times I've halfway argued against the idea and all the hatesex I've read & tried to write) but DUDE.

I just barely skimmed that 'cause lizardspots said it made her like H/D even though she didn't before, and... meh. I -am- a shipper and a romantic and I don't think fics should always cater to that (and I often hate it when they do), but... honestly man, honestly, I'm sorry if I ever portrayed him this way because in NO WAY is Harry THAT bad. :/ I mean, this is making me want to take up my old redemptionista placards except for Harry, not Draco. :/

I know geoviki said this is how it'd 'really' go down, and... dude, how could you ship H/D if you think it has to be quite THIS fucked up to be 'real'. :/ I really hate the idea that fanon is one's 'only option' for halfway sane/healthy H/D. I mean, I like fucked up. I write fucked up. But... in the end, I'm playing with (IC) possibilities, not writing what I consider to be 'pure canon-realism'. If I did, I would need to make them really See each other, to understand or at least face their issues, because you know what? That. That is a lot more 'realistic' and probably inevitable than them fucking.

It's not that I need them to be friends or think they will be in canon-- though obviously I've got a soft spot for friendship!H/D. It's just... hatesex, to me, is all about violent emotion and the intense way they react to each other, the crazy way they push each other's buttons. It's not about hate or even rage, not really. In full blast, in actuality, these emotions are extremely destructive and extremely non-conducive to relationships of any sort, fucked up or not. What I like isn't hate or rage, and luckily Harry & Draco don't really feel either emotion towards each other at full blast, not for real. Harry doesn't hate Draco, Draco doesn't really hate Harry (though I think he really doesn't like him & it's mutual). Lack of liking and resentment does not murderous hate make, though. Man. o_0 I mean, I think Harry may be close to 'really' hating Snape post-HBP, but we have to hope he'll never really cross that border and become capable of Crucio-ing Bellatrix or Snape or even Voldemort, because IF HE DOES, he BECOMES LIKE VOLDEMORT.

And dark!Harry love and actual mental linkage and anger issues aside, Harry. Is. NOT. VOLDEMORT. As in, not sociopathic.

And yeah, I can tell that fic wasn't really trying to portray Harry as equivalent to the Dark Lord-- just as a reeeeeally angry teenager with reeeeally low empathy or emotional intelligence, but even in OoTP he was more frustrated-angry than purely unhinged-angry, and that's a serious difference. One reason I'm so insistent here is of course because I'm afraid I've written Harry like this-- as just plain mean, as unhinged, as someone who truly cannot deal with people's emotions or his own, especially when he labels those people as disposable or wrong or 'bad'. But unlike saaaay, Voldemort, Harry's shown himself to be capable of reconsidering people, of truly considering people as they are presented to him, even if he jumps to judgments. He wants to figure out the truth, to do the right thing, which is important! He never really means to hurt anyone seriously, not once in all the books.

He's a stupid teenager, yeah. He plays around with dark spells carelessly, like Sirius or Snape might have, yeah. But it's playing around, it's unintentional, which is what makes what he did to Draco something other than, you know, attempted murder, yeah, just as what Sirius did to Snape wasn't really attempted murder either, yeah? (Probably.)

So when Harry seriously thinks that Draco is better off dead in that fic-- hoooooold up. NO. As in, no way, no how, that's not Harry.

    "So you're a fairy-boy," he said in a conversational tone. "No wonder Parkinson always acts like she needs a good, hard shag."

See, even that is too mean for me. *cries*

HAVE I GONE SOFT???! T____T I mean, my Draco might say that to Harry, but then that's because Draco's all about the bluff and bombast and overt, if often inept mockery, and Harry, if he said it, would have to be SINCERE, wherein lies the rub.

I feel so horribly guilty and nearly sick to my stomach about the post-OoTP non-connish fics I've written where Harry edged that line, now :( And btw, I was sick to my stomach then, too, and it was supposed to be clear that Harry was especially unhinged at that time, not at all normal, and, and.... :/

Comments

[shaggirl.livejournal.com]

lizardspots said it made her like H/D even though she didn't before

Remember what you said yesterday about not understanding the social niceties? I mean, the fic *was* gifted to her.

I cringed all the way through it, and not just because it was mean. The characterizations are just so far off base I couldn't even see it - they were just an excuse for the meanness. I'm not worried about my shipper creds for not liking it.

[spare-change.livejournal.com]

The idea of Geoviki making any claim about canon cracks me up. I don't remember America's Next Top Death-Eater being written in the books, you know?

Anyway, I tried to read it and got bored almost immediately. :( I think this may be more a function of my own current ennui, though, than a reflection on the fic.

But Harry hating Draco is not canon at this point. He *pities* Draco. And JKR views pity in pretty redemptive terms -- he pitied Luna at the end of OOTP, too, and that was what enabled him to start feeling somewhat more hopeful again.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

*cracks up* Well, now I feel better, somewhat, 'cause I know & trust the person that wrote it, and more importantly I know she didn't mean it (& in fact I suppose everything -was- an excuse for the meanness since that was the request-- I believe??). Hahah see, JUST LIKE HARRY :)) HAHAHASHfklfjaslkjfsajk
...Anyway, I also have it on good authority that Lizard did like the fic that much, but that's a minor point since it's what got me curious, that's all :>

I was mostly upset at the idea that my own mean!Harry was that sort of mean. But you're right in that the whole characterization was off across the board, which bizarrely makes me feel better about my own writing. *eyeroll* :>

[shaggirl.livejournal.com]

Who wrote it? Not someone whose fic I otherwise enjoy, surely?

If lizard truly liked it then it served its purpose. From a H/D shipper perspective it made me feel a little ill.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

You're right about it serving its purpose; what made me even more ill, though, was the idea that maybe when -I- wrote angry!Harry or mean!Harry, it came off the same way. ^^;;;

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hahah yeah. I think I'm sort of bitterly and half-unwillingly paying attention to her opinions on canon 'cause so many other people do :)) I also get bitter about everyone who's sooo certain Draco's already a DE and write him that way; I mean... even if he has the Mark (which we don't know), he's not really an active one and he's also a failure at being one in HBP, and so on and so forth. Though defanged and despirited Draco also upsets me, basically-- I've long had that same ennui and discontent with every possible characterization in fandom, it seems, which is why me caring about this is... a good thing, I guess. In the writing sense. I even just wrote some characterization notes for my fic :D

Y'know, I haven't thought of JKR's views of pity before!! :D I just hate pity, in myself and others; compassion-- yeah, but pity is icky and slimy, y'know, or at least not 'redemptive' or positive or at the very least not conducive to romance. So a lot of those hurt/comfortey poor-ickle-ill-Draco fics got up my nose too. :> And of course I disliked Harry pitying Luna also, hahaha, 'cause if anything I think it's pretty clear she doesn't pity hersef & that's one of her more endearing qualities-- to pity her is to insult her (okay, a little too much identification with her here, I know). But yeah, I can see the positivity of pity in the HPverse with the narratives of Snape and Pettigrew and Draco and even Voldemort in HBP, so :> Perhaps I'll have to ponder this :D

[shaggirl.livejournal.com]

No, no. I think you nailed it on the head that this Harry seems sociopathic. And Draco is almost as bad. I expect post-Dumbledeath a bit more self-awareness from him, but he's just a caricature of his worst traits, else he would run as fast as he could in the other direction.

And now I feel quite bad that the author may read my comments, but I did honestly hate this fic, so there you go. You can't hit everyone's buttons all the time.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, hahah, self-awareness and Harry... no matter what, not a match made in heaven :> You have to be veeeerry careful when ascribing any to him, but yes. More than... that ^^;

I'm wondering what he'd run in the other direction from. Not Draco's hard-on, surely :>

Also, don't feel bad, I have it on 'good authority' that the author also hated writing it :))

[shaggirl.livejournal.com]

I was referring to Draco, actually. :>

[amalin.livejournal.com]

God I'm always so off topic. Sorry. What is your fic that you want to finish before Book 7? Are you really going to do it? Did you know that I am still secretly working on the hugfic, little page by little page, in the hopes that it will eventually be done someday? I want to say before Book 7 but I just don't know. Wah.

I think what makes me the most sad/frustrated about fics in which Harry is just unrecognizably cruel is when he starts being cruel to his friends, too. It's true that he can be carelessly cruel to them in canon, in small and normal human ways, but even then he always feels terrible about it after, and he would never do it on purpose. I mean, Harry would never be heartless and awful to Ron and Hermione and really mean it and keep meaning it. Not that he necessarily is, here - I skimmed very quickly - but whenever I do read that, I'm like, what, no :((

I love that you still talk about H/D! It makes me secretly glad.

[cellia.livejournal.com]

I am too scared to read the fic ;_;

Wasn't Harry all horrified at what his spell did to Draco in the bathroom in OoTP? I just can't see sociopath!Harry unless you pile some kind of personality-altering experience. And also, since I am a sentimental wuss, I prob wouldn't want to read about it, even if the author did sell such a personality shift.

Of course, my preferred fannish stuff nowadays is all about incest with iffy consent issues, so I really can't judge anyone else...

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

O well, it's all better since now I know the person who wrote it was being purposefully OOC :> And no, Harry wasn't horrified (I don't think), not for long-- he was sort of struck dumb when he saw all that blood but he didn't dwell on the guilt or anything, so 'horrified' seems a bit strong? In other words, he got over it pretty fast ^^;; But he had that drop of pity or whatever.

I actually like some sociopaths in romances (especially ms_manna's original Administration series), but Harry is... not like that, so it's just...wrong. I mean, in some situations, if you could make incest or non-con believable & IC, that's all I need. It's the, well, slander that gets to me, hahah. But now if I know the writer didn't mean it :>

Also, it's pretty funny how my random 'grr argh H/D' post got all this response from people who otherwise don't read H/D anymore. Awwwwww. ♥.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hehe, why the Death Eater!Draco novella I periodically mention, of course :> It's not even my only novella, but the other one's firmly Jossed now and this one's still barely struggling in its weak little linkage to HBP and all. I should never say 'really', because really I can never guarantee anything and I'm a total flake, but I really want to. It'd do wonders for my self-esteem to follow through at last. And of course if I was so dispirited by HBP as far as fiction-writing, I can only imagine what a pall the last book will cast on me (besides totally Jossing whatever vision of Death Eater Draco I may have). Ah well, it does so weary one, being original :> *cough*

Heeee! Hugfic!! *jumps around* Man. I believe that the world won't end when Harry hugs Draco, but it's a near thing :D :D I'm still on board for cheering and reading and whatever else, you just have to push me, remind me, maybe threaten me a bit, I dunno, I just procrastinate a lot and then it's been too long and I get embarrassed and avoidant and so I didn't talk to you from sheer shame for like, 2 months sometime last fall, I believe. *facepalm* Anyway, I'm happy you're still on it!!! I wish I could read your Draco/Pansy but the mere idea of the pairing makes me want to curl up in an avoidant ball and go 'lalalala Draco Malfoy is gay, gay as a loon, gay as pansies, gay as monkeys and pink kittens, gaygaygaygaygaygay... lalalalala' ^^;;;;

Anyway, yeah, I hate it when Harry's mean to his friends or even suddenly totally insensitive to Ginny. Even if he figured out he's gay and even if things changed for his chest monster, I'd hope he wouldn't become a total jerk and be like 'oh, she's just a demanding bitch' or whatever especially when in canon she always knows when to shut up & actually fights her brother on his half-assed behalf. For a pov character of all the books, people have the craziest ideas about Harry, honestly. Sometimes he only likes Hermione but not Ron, because Hermione's reasonable and gay-friendly where Ron is this dumbass homophobic bastard or something, and sometimes Ron is just not important one way or the other, not compared to Draco, and it's just.... *headdesk* What books do people read -.-;;

Haha, be glad I deleted my post where I whined about nothing and how I'm full of ennui about H/D and how everyone's got it wrong and love has to be blah-blah and I'm too invested blah-blah because I know how Draco feels about Harry blah-blah :)) I can get really maudlin and stupid about it :))

[cellia.livejournal.com]

It is because we feel your pain! I would give *hugs* but I am not that sort of person. *pats you on back gingerly*

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Ahaha I'm not one to give hugs either, but I always awkwardly suspect I'm supposed to be giving hugs I'm not giving, like a hug paranoia... ... ... Anyway, thanks!

These days, I've been feeling 'closer' to you talking about you w/ Medha, sort of like saying hi without... saying hi. Not that that makes sense or... anything, but. :))

[amalin.livejournal.com]

Yay finish your fic and I'll finish my fic it'll be a mad dash just like I rushed to finish Transformation before HBP let's do it yes! Okay, maybe. But I want to, it's just . . . I get distracted. Plus, I feel so detached from fandom in general right now, so I feel a bit like people will read the hugfic (or no one will read the hugfic) and be like, "Where is she coming from?!"

The Draco/Pansy isn't really Draco/Pansy! It's like, Draco-and-Pansy friendship fic with a couple of kisses. But it is totally fine with me if you are in your denial ball :D

The longer I'm in fandom ("in" being a loose term), the more I care about canon, it seems. Ahaha, in 2002 I was like, "Fic with Harry and Draco? Well, who cares about the bad spelling and the ~*s and the I luv you's, anyway!" Or more like, "I don't care about canon, I want Draco to kill himself and be buried in a glass coffin and have Harry mope around spouting poetry before he kills himself too, so there!"

Pretty much exactly like that, actually :">

There are worse things to be maudlin and stupid over, really, is what I think.

[cellia.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean! It is bizarre to me to whenever I talk w/ her... like WORLDS COLLIDING. I just want you guys to be, like, gentle to each other or... something. Jeez. Also: don't talk bad about me! Or like, don't let me find out about it if you're talking bad about me. (yes, hello random paranoia that I have for no known reason) Anyways... I hope things are going well for you! :D

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heeeeeeeeee the fic with the glass coffin <3333 I wrote a sequel where the roses entwined just like in that Oscar Wilde fairy-tale (I believe), hehehehe. That is toddler-antics level cute, seriously, weepy angst and all. I remember salivating over your long paragraphs describing the color of the sky (I believe there were seashells involved) and how things smelled, etcetera. I also remember not liking Ivy's constant descriptions of things smelling & tasting like other things (pumpkin-juice was everywhere, it seems) quite as much, but hey come one come all, the more the merrier. Except those bits about cocoa kisses in that one super-fluffy chess!fic with weepy Draco, I always hated that with a passion. Um, where was I.

I'd read it!! I mean, it -is- my challenge :)) I think we really should make a pact. Totally. I just saw the HBP countdown in Barnes & Noble today, good lord. 37 days. *___* Maybe check in with each other every week, like. For real. It's summer so it's possible, right? One last bang. Or something. See, see, it's not about being in fandom or not! It's not even about people reading, at least for me. It's just the doing of it, the accomplishment, like a rite of passage. Of course you've already had yours with Transformation so you've got nothing to prove whereas I'm just at sea, having never finished one single story I'm really proud of aside from the Pansy/Ginny one. :/ However, the story should really stand on its own-- it's its own thesis, its own explanation as to where you're coming from, right. Fandom helps one write, but it can be just another distraction, too. But I totally think writing fic isn't really the same as being in fandom, if anything 'cause most of my fandom friends who write fic aren't in fandom :>

Anyway, if we both release our novellas at the same time, we can throw a party and I betcha at least lillithium & djinniyah can be coerced into making covers for us and everything. *dreams mad dreams* :> Well, djinniyah was always excited about my novella so it's not total crack :>

Every writer ever has said they're 'distracted', you know that, right :D Is there any other way to be? At least if you don't have ADD you're a bit ahead of me on this :))

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heh I just realized after I posted that comment that it'd make -me- paranoid if I read it ^^;; You don't have anything to worry about, though, unless us considering your Myers-Briggs type counts as 'bad' :)) Some people get weirdly touchy about it if you speculate about their type, but then those people tend to freak me out in general... ^^;; She does have quite a different perspective than I do, though (...still a -good- perspective, but... I can see how it'd be weird.) :>

[amalin.livejournal.com]

Slksdjfs seashell skies.

A pact it is! I'm totally in.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

All right!!

...this means if I don't email you next friday, you totally have to email me, and we've gotta have verbiage. As in...... multiple pages, like. *facepalm*

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Oh I am so relieved now. That fic was so relentlessly unfair to Draco and smug about it. There also were a couple of exchanges between the Gryffindors that boggled me.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

...so like....... I'm not like that, riiight?? *laughs*