~~fic & art recs, and rambling about ambiguously-redeemed!draco.

[reenka]

gah. this whole linking thing is a bother, but i feel so remiss if i don't note it down, for my own future reference at the very least. and yes, i want to share. and yes, i want you guys to run and read their stuff. and um, also i'm making a rec-site where i gather all these links for the good of posterity, ahahahah, because everyone knows if i like it, it means it's good :D
    what? i can't have an ego, too? *grins*


anyway. hackthis wrote more h/d sweet-luuuurve fluff, more explicit this time. (*bounces*) do i even -need- to go into why everyone should read it? (well, everyone who doesn't hate t00by grouchy happiness with a great abiding passion.) i do review these at the time i read, and it feels weird to review here, too. let me just say that i personally think it's pitch-perfect as far as capturing my favorite, in-denial!fucked-up-crush!draco & um, well, as far as harry it has your usual mysteriously yummy yet agreeable sex-god. what, what? it's a ficlet. and do we even -need- to know why? all that matters is that he's willing :D
    so here are the rules & the agreement. you can thank me later.

and then there's ethrosdemon, who wrote h/r-- lyrical and sweet and poignant and all those things. i'm realizing that it's not so much that i hate certain pairings, but that few people really have a -feel- for them in my frequency. i'm not saying they're not done well-- i'm only saying they're not usually done in a way i "dig", so to speak. does that make sense? it's like, i don't know i love it before i read one that sees it in a way i can grok on an emotional level. not just "yah, this is written well," or "yah, this is hot," but "yah, i can see this."
    on the other hand, there are certain writers that always do this, with all pairings or non-pairings, just because i seem to "get" whatever they write. um. yah ok, so there's heavy overlap between these writers and the writers of non-OTP pairings that i dig. um. yah. i am biased. guh. moving on.....

    i also should rec ashura's `splendour falls' new chapter, even though most people who would want to know, already do. still, it's got that wonderful harry & ron characterization, and the pacing & style are just so rhythmic and strong, it's a pleasure to read.
   dark_soul_lost wrote another h/d snippet, beautiful and smoothly flowing and sad, in that pretty green-silk-of-death sort of way. um. i think my reaction to it is more over-the-top than the actual piece, btw.
    and eeeeee, marysiak wrote the most enchanting poem, `a requestion', which is harry/draco and not and just beautiful however you look at it. fannish poetry is easy to go wrong with-- but yes-- this-- just-- doesn't.

    i know vanityfair already linked to this, but still. the ad slogan generator, especially when set to "H/D", is hilarious. um. yeah. "Only H/D Has The Answer." ahahahah. so true, so true :D



    i also found out about aome's semi-new mpi!draco sketch, which has one of the most unique expressions i've ever seen on a draco. all wistful and tender and touched and bittersweet. mmmm.
    and then there's rabby's posting of the sirius and riddle watercolors in drawmeharry. *sigh* sirius' smile is so mischievous and spot-on, i love it-- and of course i am a huge sucker for well-done watercolors.
    am so glad i found this link to hp fanart, where i saw a number of old favorites again. like julie zhuo. she did that beautiful cg'ed draco i remember from way back ago-- it was probably the link off her general site, to potterism, the hp site she runs, with the artwork. the intense stare, the colors-- just-- mmm, i think that's how one should look as one speaks parseltongue, perhaps. if that isn't draco, i don't know what is. mmmmmmrrrrr.
    someone drew a really cool cho, too, who is as adorable as anyone. and this hermione, who looks actually wise and insightful for once. i'm apparently not that picky with harry's characterization, though. this and this and this(~!! finally, i found it~!) & this & this & this & this. . ....although all these links only work if you copy and paste them, since it's tripod ><;;

japanese!harry is just frightening. but still, they all seem completely and utterly adorable. of course, they're probably meant to ><;;

~~

erk. have been bothered by the straight-boy accusation that i'm all wrong about draco. because i ignore his evil antagonist nature and because my favorite type of draco (which changes often) is ``witty and selfish and amoral and gorgeous (of course) and arrogant and mocking and somewhat deluded and obsessive and pathetic and slippery and ultimately overcomeable. or already overcome." i also said, i quote: `evil is dumb,' which may have also not gone over too well.

one's take on draco, i find, tends to mirror or otherwise relate to one's relationship with semi-ambiguously, charmingly evil or `bad-boy' characters. i like draco to be pathetic, deluded, cruel, obsessive, antagonistic-- but evil death eater? not so much.
    i realize some people sympathize and identify with him -because- he's bad, -because- he's death eater material, and thus you pretty much get the feeling that any harry & draco relationship is doomed. well, with that draco? it is, unless harry changes drastically (not saying -unrealistically-, just, change he must). you also get this phenomenon with spike (`buffy the vampire slayer')-- i don't know about lex luthor or many other fandoms, but i would guess it's a similar sort of thing.

many buffy fans only like antagonistic!vampire!spike, and no other, and pathetic!love-fool!spike from last season made them sick. this isn't any more wrong or right than my own reversed preference (though i like all kinds of spike, actually, because he's always funny & that's good enough). but it -does- prevent a number of people from liking the buffy/spike pairing, or in draco's case, the harry/draco pairing. entrenched evil doesn't really work when paired with entrenched good. both have to give a little. both have to become ambiguous. love has to smooth the edges and create new connections, love has to change them.

of course, this doesn't mean i'm some raging redemptionist (but that's only because my idea of redeption is sort of different from most other people's). i don't want defanged!spike nor do i want gryffindor!draco, and in fact the very idea makes me shudder in horror. i've been accused of disliking simplicity, of inflicting my own overly complex, morally ambiguous view on non-ambiguous characters (like draco). draco is an evil git who's born to be a death eater. that's who he is. if you change that, what's left of draco? you're left with a character you made yourself, that has almost nothing to do with draco-- so the argument goes.
    meh. so what. i care not for canon!draco and that's all there is to it. without complexity, without a depth to him, he bores me. why would i care about him? why would harry need him? he doesn't and i don't.

this is all fairly simple. i realize some people -do- care about canon!draco, that idiotic bumbling proto-death-eater with his father's pointy stick up his arse. well. um. ok.
    yeah, there are certain things about him i find interesting-- the obsessiveness, the passion, the tireless pursuit of what he wants regardless of failure, the arrogance, the witty comebacks, and so on. his death eater nature is a bore. evil is a bore, if it's a foregone conclusion, if you're not struggling against it, if you just accept it from the get-go and it remains what it is, umoveable. that's why tom riddle can go suck wormtail's cock for all i care. unless he's with hagrid. there are always exceptions. *giggle*
    i like antagonists too. complex antagonists. complex protagonists. anything else is-- well-- why bother. good is also boring, when it's a foregone conclusion-- thankfully harry is set up so that he's struggling with the darkness inside him from the start. if draco is simply `bad', there's not much he can show harry, and not much harry can show him, and it's all moot and i start `shipping harry/hermione, and then what's poor ron to do??! hee.

responding to ashura's latest chapter of `splendour falls', i came across yet another aspect of my weird, ambiguous relationship with draco. her draco is, as i've said, `semi-redeemed'. this is a telling distinction, for me. even though her draco is merely at the beginning of his development, and doesn't love harry yet, and isn't "good" in any way, really, he's thinking for himself, he's seeing the ambiguity of his choices, he'd deciding to forge his own destiny, no longer needing to mock and try to mess with harry's. he's seen his father and voldemort in a sober light, and he wants to step away from that light. this is a crucial step on his road to becoming a complex, ambiguous character worthy of harry's attention.
    i don't even mean that i -like- that sort of draco. it's a kind of short-cut, really. ideally i like to see the journey to that transformation in draco from step one (canon!draco). ideally, i want harry to influence this becoming, and for it to be intertwined with the development of draco's feelings towards harry-- i want to see him become a more complex and ambiguous character, his amorality informed by a sense of possessiveness and perhaps protectiveness of harry. what can i say, i'm a sap, i guess. `Love under Will' tries to do this, especially in the latest chapters, now that i think about it.

so this questioning of loyalties is really a middle step, a turning point-- which is why i called it `semi-redeemed'. at full redemption, draco doesn't become "good" or "kind", in my head, anyway. he becomes someone who could love, and who could be aware, and who could understand harry and to some extent, himself. someone harry could accept. someone harry could love. it's really a journey of self-discovery i'm looking for here, for draco as the antagonist or harry as the protagonist or anyone in any story whatsoever, really. that's what i'm interested in-- the very nature & the building of identity. good and evil incidental, love utterly vital, batteries not included :D