~~lists. i like lists.

[reenka]

i know there was some loff for my harry & draco characterization list. and well, i hate it but it happens-- i'm starting to notice patterns. evil patterns, evil. i'm starting to get the drift-- where things are going-- i'm not a person who predicts things easily, mind you. my analytical side likes days off. a -lot- of days off. but i'm beginning to think i know the deal. so here goes, inspired by penelope_z's question on why would harry love draco. so let's hit it.

Reena's Waste of Braincells, Exhibit A
      Fanon Cliches of H/D Love [not Lust]

1) - Draco has to kill Harry because of orders [i.e., Lucius/Voldemort]
    - realizes he can't [``but I love Harry!"]
    - realizes he wants to make up his own mind
    - blah blah joins the Light Side blah

2) - Draco isn't antagonistic anymore
    - Harry wonders why/has to investigate
        + is intrigued
    - Harry becomes impromptu counselor
        + bonding
    - Harry is snapped out of obliviousness
        + becomes obsessed himself

3) - Draco has something Harry needs [or wants]
    - familiarity with darkness
        + to show Harry
        + to help Harry fight it [blah, war, blah]
    - ``you hurt so good" [i.e., pain/anger makes Harry feel more alive]

4) - Harry and Draco are thrown together by events
    - during the war
    - working on a project both are invested in
        + come to understand each other
    - Harry sees Draco has his uses

5) - Draco's physical effect on Harry [while fighting/fucking: lust] makes Harry question everything about himself
    - Harry trusts his new instincts
        + disregards common sense and proceeds to shag like bunnies
    - Harry sees Draco's gentler/emotional side
    - Harry "just falls" in love/lust
        + becomes obsessed himself

6) - Draco decides to pursue Harry thus changing a basic aspect of their former dynamic.
    - ``You want me??"
      ``I want you?!"
    - Harry loses former compass
    - Draco acts in more varied ways, confusing & mystifying & intriguing
    - Harry's view of Draco expands & so does the room for more feelings
    - Draco plays hard-to-get, inflaming Harry
        + IP..!

7) - Harry wakes up and smells the sexy [also known as #2 with a ``lemon twist"]
    - usually Draco is acting aloof [Harry/Draco role-reversal]
    - Draco remembers his former obsession
        + ``He's good/evil but I want him!"
        + yeay, bye-bye logic, etc.



am going hot and cold now, with harry/draco and stuff, as winter approaches. what i mean is-- i both disbelieve fairy-tales and cling to them like a crazed hussy. penelope_z's latest post illustrated that. i was so excited to see how she could possibly get them out of this pickle (unapologetic-bastard!malfoy and in-character!harry, etc), but she doesn't know either, and now-- now i wonder who -does- know.
my reply just basically said that here's what's been done before, and these are the routes you could take, but none of them are 100% honest and anyway, most of these fics are unfinished. yes, all my favorite fics have either a toned-down malfoy or a darkened harry. all of them. malfoy has -some- redeeming quality besides his desire for harry, in every single one. wax_jism's fic wasn't really like that, but then, it didn't exactly have a traditional love affair, and in fact had nothing but some groping, did it.

i'm thinking of the more fluffy (but in-character) fics-- like silviakundera's and augustuscaesar's-- and the difference is that draco is a prat, yes, and casually cruel, yes, but-- well-- it being fluffy rather than angsty you don't need to the deepest of harry's motivations and could just have draco wear him down, or harry just having a "thing" for malfoy all of a sudden. if you consider him just having a "thing" to be cheating and not explaining it-- then what?

this is like an elaborate chinese-box puzzle for me. my mind just goes over and over it and i can't really see a solution that is completely honest. i refuse to say, "but they just aren't canon", which is bullshit. you take these archetypes and you see what you can do with them. like, fitting jig-saw pieces together, i turn them around and around, this way and that. every single fic i read-- every single one-- i want the answer to this question-- how & why. how gets answered all the time, but why-- there's usually some cheating there. it's always-- like i said in my reply-- either plain attraction, or harry's descent into darkness, or them being brought together by war (or plot!), or harry realizing there's "more" to draco, or him being tired of fighting (uh... yeah), and deciding to be friends-- which just changes it from harry & draco to harry & some guy who used to be draco but has been house-trained a little. i'm not saying they all turn draco into an apologist, because they don't-- but he isn't so petty, so completely raw and lacking in layers of obfuscation and mystery-- penelope's draco is so straight-forward. so basic. the core of draco, violent and needy and selfish and cruel and unstable and heartless and possessive and passionate.

i've asked this question before, on this lj.
no one's ever answered me-- i don't think anyone truly knows. one person's guess is as good as another's.
when i post inspirational pieces, people respond and say "yes" or "thank you", but. i also want to be inspired. i also want to be reassured. i want a fic where you take unapologetic!draco, cruel, petty, needy-- and make harry somehow fit that. somehow. maybe it's impossible after all.

i'm not exactly mercurial or unsure-- i still believe. but i'm not blind. i want actual thought and discussion and i want -realism-. maybe this is just fanfic, and just a stupid pairing, at that. it is. why do i even bother. but it's difficult, you see. it's difficult, and a challenge, just like harry is a challenge to draco-- and truth is, i can definitely see this love being unrequited. maybe this is the angle i should pursue with my draco/ginny fic. because ginny would be different. beggars can't be choosers. but that's not how harry is. he needs to think there's more to draco, something he needs in draco, besides want/desire, which other people can give him. it's been proposed that only draco can see him for himself, on an equal level.

bleh. like i was saying, what reason does -anyone- have to love -anyone-? why does -anything- work? if we can figure out harry & draco, what mystery would remain? nothing "just comes" in life, nothing just "happens"-- or does it? do you choose your destiny or are you simply drawn, inexorably, towards the things you cannot escape within yourself? that's alright, i like the echoes.

~~

in other news..! hee! hee!
i posted my fluff-fic from last night on two lists and got two reviews...!
*cries*
such glory. i got the longest review yet :D hee! hee! she said it was one of her favourite things, too :D hah and she said it was in-character! i die.

aww. *melting* i feel the loff. i was being wibbly because i'd have thought this last one was a crowd-pleaser (yea, right) but least it's a two-people pleaser!!! dammit :P
~~

art links..!
    moya's boy-next-door!harry-- don't you just want to schnoogle him-- and rip his jeans off??
    from drawmeharry: a wonderfully inked, uber-realistic snape-- by drizzt-- whose skill knocks me off my feet and onto my butt. i will NEVER be that good. most people i rave about will never be that good. yes, i'm telling you, stop comparing to the rest and start comparing to the best (yes well, in the wan hopes one can, in fact, catch up *sigh*) then again, she's professional, so ^^;;
    and draco's long lost, adorable twin sister, who proves that i'd ship het if there was anyone like her to use~:)

Comments

[skysorceress.livejournal.com]

*dies laughing at list of cliches, then looks guilty* Haha, some of those almost describe AF word for word. ^_- Mostly, hmm, 3 and 4. Is it wrong that I'm somewhat tempted to write a fic including *all* of those cliches? Mwaha, j/k. I think. Very interesting post..Gives me much to ponder.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

erm. *shuffles*
*looks down at feet*
hee~!

i should've called this: fanon conventions of how harry might get to like draco, to help penelope_z with her fic. because. you read `the untold want', right? (if you don't, you should!! she's. oh god. anyway...)-- anyway, she's at that point where i was, when i stopped writing my own harry/draco epic, in disgust. so why would in-character!harry like in-character!draco, again? etc.

so i did what i do best: summarize and generalize ~:) mostly generalize.
it's not that i think they're all bad ideas. almost all of these come from -both- goodfic and badfic.
the thing is, i want -pure- harry and -pure- draco, with nothing that seems like an excuse or a softening of edges-- or a prettying-up-- or a darkening-- just-- i want them to happen anyway. harry would't be dark. malfoy wouldn't be less snarky. harry wouldn't "like it that way". draco wouldn't stand for harry's friends, but he might (might!) secretly respect hermione, but he'll never like ron, etc etc and so on and so forth.

and i was thinking of `artful facade' for the dark!harry option, simply because out of all fics, you did it best ~:D and there's nothing saying that it's intrinsically necessary to have "pure" harry & draco. y'know? yeah. all that matters is the storyteller & their story.

so. yeah. but if you have any ideas for penelope..... *sighs*~

~reena

Re:

[skysorceress.livejournal.com]

I completely understand. Don't think I was offended in the least. I suppose that there's not so much pure Harry and Draco because we, or at least I, have a tendency to want to expand on the characters, to mold what is there into something that interests us more. I know that I made Harry darker not as an excuse for him to be with Draco, but because that side of Harry has always interested me more than pure!Harry. I think. Just got home and am rambly and incoherent, so ignore this if it makes no sense.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

hmm. that's a whole new can of worms.
what if all the things that i came up with-- are all to make draco or harry more interesting, because as they are, they're too cardboard...? i suppose that's a valid enough point.

mind you, (*laughs*) i haven't even -read- canon beyond three quarters of the first book, so like, what can -i- say to that?? :D
i like draco they way he is (ie, i do still hate it when you get mature!draco-- to hell with mature draco, i mean, he's a totally different character then)-- and i -think- i like harry the way he is, but i can't be sure. i know i like ambiguous characters-- neither dark nor light, and i think that's how harry's supposed to be, in canon. hard to tell. i remember back when i read it (er... more than a month ago, now ^^;; heh), i was surprised at how witty harry was, how he wasn't some goody two-shoe, the way some stories portray him as. he's not a boyscout or anything....

i like that uncertainty. he's a boy. he's finding out things. have you seen `stand by me' (the movie)? or `the outsiders'? i also am thinking of `a separate peace' and `dead poet's society' and even `lord of the flies' and of course, The Absolute Classic, `a catcher in the rye'. all schoolboy-meets-darkness movies/stories.

none of them have "dark" characters to start with and i think that's why they work so well.
i want someone to write hp in the tradition of those stories. something with gravity, and insight into the workings of a normal boy's mind-- finding out they're really alone in the world. finding out who they really are. realizing how different they are now, then they were at eleven. and still remaining themselves, or struggling to. maybe failing. maybe giving up. having painful, confusing emotions. trying to deal with them.
     the world of harry potter is ridiculous and over-the-top, and it makes it hard to have deep, human characterizations. you have voldemort (oh please), you have silliness everywhere-- you have people like ron (*shudder*), etc. you have malfoy as the potential love interest, and how pathetic is -that-? i mean-- when you're young, you want to idolize someone, you want to really fall hard and be enchanted and be swept off your feet-- it may seem painful and ridiculous later, but-- when you're say, 16, you shouldn't be jaded immediately.

and how could jadedness and darkness -not- play a part in a harry/draco romance? it can't. on some level, i don't know if harry would ever embrace it just because of that. harry has enough darkness without needing draco to make him feel even more pathetic about it.

i'm just saying, harry is already dark-- i agree with the accessment that he's darker than draco. draco is an innocent, really. harry's the one who's had to deal with way more than he should in his life.
*sigh*
but no, you have to get a lot more incoherent than that before i can't decipher you~:)

~reena