Question? Still moot.
Jul. 30th, 2005 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jlhIt appears I need to revisit this post from last week to point out the more relevant parts in response to a couple of things that popped up on my flist today. In it, I said:
It's canon. It stands unchanging. It doesn't care what you thought would happen; it simply is.
which I still stand behind. However, I also said:
presuming that what someone chooses to write—be it a ship, or an event, or what have you—is them putting a stake in the ground about canon is a really big leap
So since I'm still, thanks to the icon above, in something of a defensive posture according to some of you, I want to make some things crystal clear:
1. I don't make canon predictions. I'm not interested in other people's canon predictions. I personally find it rather boring to watch people argue over something that we are going to find out about in something like two years. I simply don't think about canon that way--see above; it simply IS. It just isn't the way I interact with canon.
That is not to say that I think that those who do have fun with canon predictions are lame or anything like that. It's just not my bag.
2. However, if you had nailed me to the wall I would have said that I fully thought that canon would be R/Hr and H/G. I hoped that JKR would write those ships better than the fanfic I had found, and this hope was (mostly) fulfilled. So me? An H/H writer who was not wrong. I don't think I have anything to apologize for here.
3. Just because you don't like something about canon doesn't mean that the reason that you want to criticize it is because it interfered with your theories. I'm with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
black_dog about being disappointed that JKR wrote queerness out of canon, but that doesn't mean that the reason I dislike Remus/Tonks is because I didn't see it coming. I don't have a great love for it because I found something lacking in the way it was dealt with. I didn't think that she would have a gay love drama in the background of canon; I just hoped that she'd leave the subtext where it was. (Note that's hoped, not predicted.)
4. I really love these books. However, that doesn't mean that in order to be a good little fan I have to genuflect in JKR's general direction. It amazes me the anger that is generated by other people's disappointment. I don't like Snape and I find him to be generally an uninteresting character; I have no time for his puerile bullshit. I'm not interested in going on and on about it because I have friends who have a great love for Snape so I think to do so would be something less than classy. But I have every right to dislike, or dismiss, any character I want. I don't have to like the books in exactly the way JKR thinks I should like the books, or for the reasons that JKR thinks I should, in order to like the books.
5. On the flip side, I also get to like any of the characters I want in exactly the way I want to. If I want to overidentify with Hermione, or Ginny, or Amelia Bones, I get to do that. I'm actually rather infamous for my love of minor characters like Seamus Finnigan. Just because JKR thinks of him as being little more than an Irish hothead doesn't mean that I can't see something deeper in him without that being evidence of my psychotic break with reality.
Okay, that's canon. Now for a few things about fanon.
6. Every ship has their crazies. I've seen it among S/R, D/G, R/Hr, H/H, Snapeslash, need I go on? Every ship also has their sane supporters, their good writers, their perfectly nice people. Now, if you write a fic that starts out being one ship and then ends up being another, such that the shippers of the original ship climbed on to your fic and then felt a bit of bait and switch, you're going to get some grouchy reviews. Unfair? Absolutely. The province of one ship? Not one bit. The first place I became aware of it was the D/G shippers and their DV anxiety but since then I've seen it in any number of places. The mean-spirited, far-too-shippy reviews are not the province of just one ship, though I would say they are the province of one kind of shipper. So when you bitch about it, as is your right, please try to criticize "the x ship reviewers of my fic" rather than "the x shippers".
That said, if you change ships in the middle of your fic you are playing with fire, my friend. Writer beware.
7. Dumb character hate is the hobgoblin of small-minded shippers. It isn't just the H/D hate of Ginny and/or Hermione, or the H/H hate of Ron, or the D/G hate of Harry, believe me. As many of you know I've been floating around CSI slash, and for my own preferred ship, Gil/Nick, there are not-so-great fics that make one character, Sara, into a raving lunatic. It's lazy. You shouldn't have to assassinate some third character in order to make your ship work, literally or figuratively. Romance is all about showing why one pairing suits.
That said, saying that you think Ginny works better with Draco than Harry, and showing that, doesn't mean you hate Harry. Harry can be "Ralph Bellamy" without being a dick or a moron. Shipping, to my mind, isn't about "reward", but personality.
I'm hoping this is me, done, and I can go back to saying what I think through the stories. Carrie said she'd hold my hand while I read the JKR interview lest I burst into tears of shame or rage, which I'm still thinking is entirely likely, but I really just need to read it and get on with my life without worrying about how mentally unstable she, and others, may or may not assume that I am.
It's canon. It stands unchanging. It doesn't care what you thought would happen; it simply is.
which I still stand behind. However, I also said:
presuming that what someone chooses to write—be it a ship, or an event, or what have you—is them putting a stake in the ground about canon is a really big leap
So since I'm still, thanks to the icon above, in something of a defensive posture according to some of you, I want to make some things crystal clear:
1. I don't make canon predictions. I'm not interested in other people's canon predictions. I personally find it rather boring to watch people argue over something that we are going to find out about in something like two years. I simply don't think about canon that way--see above; it simply IS. It just isn't the way I interact with canon.
That is not to say that I think that those who do have fun with canon predictions are lame or anything like that. It's just not my bag.
2. However, if you had nailed me to the wall I would have said that I fully thought that canon would be R/Hr and H/G. I hoped that JKR would write those ships better than the fanfic I had found, and this hope was (mostly) fulfilled. So me? An H/H writer who was not wrong. I don't think I have anything to apologize for here.
3. Just because you don't like something about canon doesn't mean that the reason that you want to criticize it is because it interfered with your theories. I'm with
black_dog about being disappointed that JKR wrote queerness out of canon, but that doesn't mean that the reason I dislike Remus/Tonks is because I didn't see it coming. I don't have a great love for it because I found something lacking in the way it was dealt with. I didn't think that she would have a gay love drama in the background of canon; I just hoped that she'd leave the subtext where it was. (Note that's hoped, not predicted.)4. I really love these books. However, that doesn't mean that in order to be a good little fan I have to genuflect in JKR's general direction. It amazes me the anger that is generated by other people's disappointment. I don't like Snape and I find him to be generally an uninteresting character; I have no time for his puerile bullshit. I'm not interested in going on and on about it because I have friends who have a great love for Snape so I think to do so would be something less than classy. But I have every right to dislike, or dismiss, any character I want. I don't have to like the books in exactly the way JKR thinks I should like the books, or for the reasons that JKR thinks I should, in order to like the books.
5. On the flip side, I also get to like any of the characters I want in exactly the way I want to. If I want to overidentify with Hermione, or Ginny, or Amelia Bones, I get to do that. I'm actually rather infamous for my love of minor characters like Seamus Finnigan. Just because JKR thinks of him as being little more than an Irish hothead doesn't mean that I can't see something deeper in him without that being evidence of my psychotic break with reality.
Okay, that's canon. Now for a few things about fanon.
6. Every ship has their crazies. I've seen it among S/R, D/G, R/Hr, H/H, Snapeslash, need I go on? Every ship also has their sane supporters, their good writers, their perfectly nice people. Now, if you write a fic that starts out being one ship and then ends up being another, such that the shippers of the original ship climbed on to your fic and then felt a bit of bait and switch, you're going to get some grouchy reviews. Unfair? Absolutely. The province of one ship? Not one bit. The first place I became aware of it was the D/G shippers and their DV anxiety but since then I've seen it in any number of places. The mean-spirited, far-too-shippy reviews are not the province of just one ship, though I would say they are the province of one kind of shipper. So when you bitch about it, as is your right, please try to criticize "the x ship reviewers of my fic" rather than "the x shippers".
That said, if you change ships in the middle of your fic you are playing with fire, my friend. Writer beware.
7. Dumb character hate is the hobgoblin of small-minded shippers. It isn't just the H/D hate of Ginny and/or Hermione, or the H/H hate of Ron, or the D/G hate of Harry, believe me. As many of you know I've been floating around CSI slash, and for my own preferred ship, Gil/Nick, there are not-so-great fics that make one character, Sara, into a raving lunatic. It's lazy. You shouldn't have to assassinate some third character in order to make your ship work, literally or figuratively. Romance is all about showing why one pairing suits.
That said, saying that you think Ginny works better with Draco than Harry, and showing that, doesn't mean you hate Harry. Harry can be "Ralph Bellamy" without being a dick or a moron. Shipping, to my mind, isn't about "reward", but personality.
I'm hoping this is me, done, and I can go back to saying what I think through the stories. Carrie said she'd hold my hand while I read the JKR interview lest I burst into tears of shame or rage, which I'm still thinking is entirely likely, but I really just need to read it and get on with my life without worrying about how mentally unstable she, and others, may or may not assume that I am.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Here by way of random lj hopping
Date: 2005-07-31 12:45 pm (UTC)And this I say as a convinced Ron/Luna shipper previously. I was so sure that, of everybody, Ron would be one of the best when it came to handling her flights of fancy. Well, at least I understood the Ron character.*shrugs*
PS: I think of myself as one of the t00biest Ron lovahs in the land. I think it's perfectly okay for you to be all "meh" about him. I refuse to get defensive and rail in the name of a fictional character. Also, you got him right in your Ron/Padma fics, dammit. *tips hat off*
Re: Here by way of random lj hopping
Date: 2005-07-31 04:34 pm (UTC)I really am in love with the concept of Ron/Ravenclaw and I wish that JKR had pulled through on the Ron/Luna because I thought it was more interesting. I also think Luna has Ron's number in a way that I'm not sure Hermione does, and I really love pairings like that.