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Apr. 9th, 2018 07:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI am starting to develop opinions about Harry Potter fic.
I find this peculiar because I haven't read most of the books or watched whole movies.
But I started with astolat and now I'm having opinions.
Like, it's a bit peculiar the way a lot of Hogwarts 8th year gets written. Like, the idea that resits would just be... like when they were kids but without an adventure. Or just wanting to write it? Like, I guess that's some version of a happy ending if you're invested in the whole wizard school concept, but I did resits, or rather failed just as badly at the whole turning up part in resit year as when everyone my age was doing exams the first time, and it's weird and awkward and feels peculiar. It would be different if literally everyone you know decided to do the year over, but it would still be... like, they're living in dorms and sitting at tables with 11 year olds and being graded on good behaviour and forbidden from breaking very ordinary rules. Why sign up for that for any longer than necessary? Many people aspire to a bedroom of their very own and being able to do things with only natural consequences. And I grant that their day would be scheduled start to finish whether or not they were at that institution, for a great many of them, but... it's just like their happy ending is to get to be kids after all. Which, okay, I get the appeal, but I don't see it working. Everything is edges and you can't ignore how things got wrecked in the first place.
I like the After stories, where the world has politics and people need to find or make their places in it, and where lives don't turn out like they'd planned and they have to figure out who they are as opposed to who the world told them to be. That's some proper meaty stuff.
I don't know how to filter for that instead of, like, they're all at school and for once nothing is trying to kill them and their only issue is the basic self esteem and does he really like me loop.
Probably it would help filtering for not Hogwarts on top of making No Archive Warnings Apply so there's no underage.
I have also filtered so there's no Snape. I thought that post canon and with a not Snape pairing that would just happen, but no, he turns up elsewhere anyway. What is even with that? He's a... okay, I do not much read canon, I just formed a bad opinion of him and suspect he is a bully. An adult who bullies children. Ugh.
I support and encourage fans who find more subtleties and stuff to interest them wherever, I just don't want to read the fic.
I think the stuff I want to see in fic is stuff that's quite a long way from canon. Hence the not reading canon. The wizard school for 11 year olds bit didn't grab me, but the politics of getting along after you've torn the world apart really does. And I'm interested in them getting some proper democracy and equal rights going, not just kind of shrugging and leaving slavery in place because it's cultural or something. I don't even know, there's a lot going on that doesn't seem to get fixed.
I also seem to like fic where Harry and Draco fix up a magic house together. How there's enough to be a theme I don't know, but I like it. Especially as an after the war metaphor, they've both got to put their houses in order, and heal all the damage. And if they can only do so properly together, brilliant. I could read a dozen of those.
... that seems a bit niche.
... I mean repetitive formula involving sex scenes seems perfectly ordinary, but somehow home renovation with the big payoff kiss does not.
... fanfic has revised my standards in ways regular fiction would find eyebrow raising.
I kind of want to start writing something with some bits I've found from HP fic and want to respin. Poke the whole justice system and why their prisons are so awful. Go on a righteous crusade to get those poor sods some basic health and human relationships education. Teach them some PE that doesn't happen so far off the ground.
I mean in some versions of ceremonial magic you're basically dancing, so it could only help to concentrate on movement for one facet of their education, and I'm always up for a good layered dance scene where all the tensions get transmuted into wordless form.
... I feel vaguely like I picked that up in Highlander, they just do it with swords...
I don't know. I should just sit down and write. And be fine with it being rubbish, going nowhere, and having no audience. Because it would still be wildly superior to a solid five years of purely not writing. Which is what has happened since college.
... you know I can kind of understand the 8th year stuff, I was at college a really long time, I want to send HP characters there as mature students so they can get some foundational learning in, the familiar environs and opportunities seem rich with possibility.
I'm just looking for more. Or different. Or something.
So anyways. HP fic. Why am I even.
*shrug*
I find this peculiar because I haven't read most of the books or watched whole movies.
But I started with astolat and now I'm having opinions.
Like, it's a bit peculiar the way a lot of Hogwarts 8th year gets written. Like, the idea that resits would just be... like when they were kids but without an adventure. Or just wanting to write it? Like, I guess that's some version of a happy ending if you're invested in the whole wizard school concept, but I did resits, or rather failed just as badly at the whole turning up part in resit year as when everyone my age was doing exams the first time, and it's weird and awkward and feels peculiar. It would be different if literally everyone you know decided to do the year over, but it would still be... like, they're living in dorms and sitting at tables with 11 year olds and being graded on good behaviour and forbidden from breaking very ordinary rules. Why sign up for that for any longer than necessary? Many people aspire to a bedroom of their very own and being able to do things with only natural consequences. And I grant that their day would be scheduled start to finish whether or not they were at that institution, for a great many of them, but... it's just like their happy ending is to get to be kids after all. Which, okay, I get the appeal, but I don't see it working. Everything is edges and you can't ignore how things got wrecked in the first place.
I like the After stories, where the world has politics and people need to find or make their places in it, and where lives don't turn out like they'd planned and they have to figure out who they are as opposed to who the world told them to be. That's some proper meaty stuff.
I don't know how to filter for that instead of, like, they're all at school and for once nothing is trying to kill them and their only issue is the basic self esteem and does he really like me loop.
Probably it would help filtering for not Hogwarts on top of making No Archive Warnings Apply so there's no underage.
I have also filtered so there's no Snape. I thought that post canon and with a not Snape pairing that would just happen, but no, he turns up elsewhere anyway. What is even with that? He's a... okay, I do not much read canon, I just formed a bad opinion of him and suspect he is a bully. An adult who bullies children. Ugh.
I support and encourage fans who find more subtleties and stuff to interest them wherever, I just don't want to read the fic.
I think the stuff I want to see in fic is stuff that's quite a long way from canon. Hence the not reading canon. The wizard school for 11 year olds bit didn't grab me, but the politics of getting along after you've torn the world apart really does. And I'm interested in them getting some proper democracy and equal rights going, not just kind of shrugging and leaving slavery in place because it's cultural or something. I don't even know, there's a lot going on that doesn't seem to get fixed.
I also seem to like fic where Harry and Draco fix up a magic house together. How there's enough to be a theme I don't know, but I like it. Especially as an after the war metaphor, they've both got to put their houses in order, and heal all the damage. And if they can only do so properly together, brilliant. I could read a dozen of those.
... that seems a bit niche.
... I mean repetitive formula involving sex scenes seems perfectly ordinary, but somehow home renovation with the big payoff kiss does not.
... fanfic has revised my standards in ways regular fiction would find eyebrow raising.
I kind of want to start writing something with some bits I've found from HP fic and want to respin. Poke the whole justice system and why their prisons are so awful. Go on a righteous crusade to get those poor sods some basic health and human relationships education. Teach them some PE that doesn't happen so far off the ground.
I mean in some versions of ceremonial magic you're basically dancing, so it could only help to concentrate on movement for one facet of their education, and I'm always up for a good layered dance scene where all the tensions get transmuted into wordless form.
... I feel vaguely like I picked that up in Highlander, they just do it with swords...
I don't know. I should just sit down and write. And be fine with it being rubbish, going nowhere, and having no audience. Because it would still be wildly superior to a solid five years of purely not writing. Which is what has happened since college.
... you know I can kind of understand the 8th year stuff, I was at college a really long time, I want to send HP characters there as mature students so they can get some foundational learning in, the familiar environs and opportunities seem rich with possibility.
I'm just looking for more. Or different. Or something.
So anyways. HP fic. Why am I even.
*shrug*
no subject
Date: 2018-04-10 06:51 pm (UTC)I am with you on the Harry and Draco home renovation front. I've read a couple of those and now I want to read more of them. So weirdly soothing.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-11 01:46 pm (UTC)though if there are really very few wizards in a school year and they all want to specialise after Hogwarts then it's possible apprenticeship works better than classes? Maybe? I mean, I don't see it, but I'm sure there's numbers where it would work.
Harry Potter and the sensible interior decorating challenges
does not at first glance sound like a good afternoon
and yet.