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nothingbutfic, but I'm an adult and I take responsibility for my actions. I also am not necessarily thinking that all of these are all that unpopular; they're just what I think.
1. Severus Snape.
Snape is neither sexy, nor a tortured guy turned bad by the actions of others.
Okay. First, let's stop confusing Severus Snape with Alan Rickman, shall we? Severus Snape is not a tragically dead cellist who comes back through the force of his girlfriend's love, or an angsty poetry-loving Colonel, or even a strangely straight hairdresser who wants to make things up to his son and the lesbian wife who left him years ago. No, Snape is a guy who was into dark magic from the start—that's why James hated him, people, not because he had discoloured underwear.
He's petty enough that he can't seem to rise above his hatred of James, and through James, Harry, to teach Harry how to defend himself against Voldemort. Was Harry being helpful? No, but Harry is fifteen and Snape is 37, and a professor, and should have behaved much better than that. Never mind that he has as his worst memory NOT any one of a number of crimes of the Death Eaters, or anything else that happened during what was a very nasty war, or even nearly being killed by a werewolf, but being . . . humiliated.
Besides, he's nasty to Lily.
2. James/Lily.
Can we have one couple, please, that isn't actually secretly deeply unhappy? Can we stop with the Harry is really Lupin's child/Sirius' child/was the product of a marriage of convenience/had to be born to fulfill a prophecy even though James was really in love with Sirius? Can we just deal with Harry being a child conceived of a loving relationship between a couple of breeders? Is this too much to ask? Sheesh!
3. Character opinions
So you didn't like Sirius, whatever, I don't care. That doesn't mean I can't miss him and be sad about it. If Seamus dies in book 6, expect this place to go into deep morning. And if you think that someone is making too much of a character death, then fuck you. Different people like different characters in books. That's why HP is so popular and why this fandom is so big. I hate Snape (see above) but I also would never, ever say toevil_erato , should he die in the next book, "Snape is dead, get over it, I never liked him anyway." It is unkind and unnecessary and it must stop.
4. Misogyny
What is with the total discomfort with female sexuality in this fandom? Love your vaginas, ladies. Write about them.
Sure, there aren't many developed female characters, but come on, that is a tired tired excuse. What about Parvati and Lavender? Are they really less developed in canon than my beloved Seamus and Dean? Than Percy and Oliver? Than Bill and Charlie? Never mind that Harry/Hermione is just as much of a subtext ship as Harry/Draco.
There is such disdain for het among the slashers, and it mystifies me. Face it: There is plenty of fluffy, treacly slash fic. But there isn't plenty of down-and-dirty het smut. And when the slashers tried to write het, what did we get? A lot of gay boys sleeping with yucky girls because they couldn't have the boy they fancied.
Every time I think about all of this, it brings me back to one place. And that place, frankly, disturbs me. Please, please convince me otherwise!
5. Harry/Draco
Is perfectly fine when well done.
Isn't the only slash ship. Isn't even the oldest HP slash ship.
Isn't dead, but may no longer be the plebe bandwagon slash ship, and that is all to the betterment of H/D, I think.
It will frankly never die, as there have always been fics where Draco was a DE and fought on the wrong side of the war and if someone can make that work, then it doesn't really matter what Draco does in canon short of dying, someone will still be able to get them together.
Of course, it won't be happy fluffy bunnies, but then, were they ever really destined for that?
6. Canon shipping.
To put it bluntly, who gives a flying fuck? I don't care. And all those folks who say that their ships are the One True Way because of stuff in canon, or stuff JKR said in an interview once, need to really think about why they love their ship: because it's canon, or because of love for the ship itself?
I read fanfiction for what I am not likely to see in canon, not for canon replacement. After OotP, if anyone thinks they can predict what JKR is going to do, then I think they should get to work trying to find Jimmy Hoffa as they clearly have The Gift.
7. Cons and other various gatherings
You can be disappointed that you won't be able to attend something, but to be so completely angered about it seems a bit much. There is no perfect location for a cash-strapped college student. Out-of-the-way cities aren't that much cheaper to fly to because they don't have as many available flights. Larger cities are more expensive to be in. I can't think, frankly, of a place that is large enough to have facilities, small enough to be cheap and equidistant from everyone in the fandom, nor a time of year when everyone is free of work and family commitments. So, get over it.
8. Snobs and cliques and other such things.
I am not going to be so dismissive as to claim that it doesn't affect all of us. Hell, I hate doing memes after Cassie does them, generally because she pretty much flattens them (like, what else is there to say?) but also because about some things, we share opinions, and I do wonder if someone will think I'm just a parrot. But you know what? Anyone who does, doesn't know me, and I really don't give a shit. Think I'm a gate keeper, a toady? Go right ahead. I used to worry about you, and now, I don't.
That said, there is no belonging without exclusion. We all want a place where we can socialize with our friends and let our hair down and have a nice time. I've been lucky to have that with two groups of people in the fandom, with my in-town friends and my Muse friends, and I'm getting to know more and more people all the time. And I, personally, am a shy sort of person who takes a little while to get to know people. But one really shouldn't have to worry about charges of clannishness when all it is, is people wanting to be with their friends.
9. Sirius Black.
I am not satisfied with his character arc and I don't believe that it is over. And that is all I have to say about that.
10. Blah blah heroic quest blah blah blah.
I only care because I care about Harry. I am not the person to ask about what happened in the graveyard or at the Ministry. I wrote an entire fic based on "The Unexpected Task". It's why I'm wandering around in this fandom despite not loving LotR or other epic adventures, or most manga, or Buffy, or fantasy or sci fi in general. And I very much prefer books that are mostly in our own world, but hint that there might be something beyond it, likeblackholly's books.
Sometimes I feel rather badly, that I don't have much of an inner eleven-year-old boy, but then I remember that I was raised on romantic comedies and mysteries and slice of life sort of books like Anne of Green Gables where the plot isn't about how someone is going to capture a silver chalice but about how someone is changing, inside, and that generally how I approach everything HP, too.
nothingbutfic, but I'm an adult and I take responsibility for my actions. I also am not necessarily thinking that all of these are all that unpopular; they're just what I think. 1. Severus Snape.
Snape is neither sexy, nor a tortured guy turned bad by the actions of others.
Okay. First, let's stop confusing Severus Snape with Alan Rickman, shall we? Severus Snape is not a tragically dead cellist who comes back through the force of his girlfriend's love, or an angsty poetry-loving Colonel, or even a strangely straight hairdresser who wants to make things up to his son and the lesbian wife who left him years ago. No, Snape is a guy who was into dark magic from the start—that's why James hated him, people, not because he had discoloured underwear.
He's petty enough that he can't seem to rise above his hatred of James, and through James, Harry, to teach Harry how to defend himself against Voldemort. Was Harry being helpful? No, but Harry is fifteen and Snape is 37, and a professor, and should have behaved much better than that. Never mind that he has as his worst memory NOT any one of a number of crimes of the Death Eaters, or anything else that happened during what was a very nasty war, or even nearly being killed by a werewolf, but being . . . humiliated.
Besides, he's nasty to Lily.
2. James/Lily.
Can we have one couple, please, that isn't actually secretly deeply unhappy? Can we stop with the Harry is really Lupin's child/Sirius' child/was the product of a marriage of convenience/had to be born to fulfill a prophecy even though James was really in love with Sirius? Can we just deal with Harry being a child conceived of a loving relationship between a couple of breeders? Is this too much to ask? Sheesh!
3. Character opinions
So you didn't like Sirius, whatever, I don't care. That doesn't mean I can't miss him and be sad about it. If Seamus dies in book 6, expect this place to go into deep morning. And if you think that someone is making too much of a character death, then fuck you. Different people like different characters in books. That's why HP is so popular and why this fandom is so big. I hate Snape (see above) but I also would never, ever say to
evil_erato , should he die in the next book, "Snape is dead, get over it, I never liked him anyway." It is unkind and unnecessary and it must stop. 4. Misogyny
What is with the total discomfort with female sexuality in this fandom? Love your vaginas, ladies. Write about them.
Sure, there aren't many developed female characters, but come on, that is a tired tired excuse. What about Parvati and Lavender? Are they really less developed in canon than my beloved Seamus and Dean? Than Percy and Oliver? Than Bill and Charlie? Never mind that Harry/Hermione is just as much of a subtext ship as Harry/Draco.
There is such disdain for het among the slashers, and it mystifies me. Face it: There is plenty of fluffy, treacly slash fic. But there isn't plenty of down-and-dirty het smut. And when the slashers tried to write het, what did we get? A lot of gay boys sleeping with yucky girls because they couldn't have the boy they fancied.
Every time I think about all of this, it brings me back to one place. And that place, frankly, disturbs me. Please, please convince me otherwise!
5. Harry/Draco
Is perfectly fine when well done.
Isn't the only slash ship. Isn't even the oldest HP slash ship.
Isn't dead, but may no longer be the plebe bandwagon slash ship, and that is all to the betterment of H/D, I think.
It will frankly never die, as there have always been fics where Draco was a DE and fought on the wrong side of the war and if someone can make that work, then it doesn't really matter what Draco does in canon short of dying, someone will still be able to get them together.
Of course, it won't be happy fluffy bunnies, but then, were they ever really destined for that?
6. Canon shipping.
To put it bluntly, who gives a flying fuck? I don't care. And all those folks who say that their ships are the One True Way because of stuff in canon, or stuff JKR said in an interview once, need to really think about why they love their ship: because it's canon, or because of love for the ship itself?
I read fanfiction for what I am not likely to see in canon, not for canon replacement. After OotP, if anyone thinks they can predict what JKR is going to do, then I think they should get to work trying to find Jimmy Hoffa as they clearly have The Gift.
7. Cons and other various gatherings
You can be disappointed that you won't be able to attend something, but to be so completely angered about it seems a bit much. There is no perfect location for a cash-strapped college student. Out-of-the-way cities aren't that much cheaper to fly to because they don't have as many available flights. Larger cities are more expensive to be in. I can't think, frankly, of a place that is large enough to have facilities, small enough to be cheap and equidistant from everyone in the fandom, nor a time of year when everyone is free of work and family commitments. So, get over it.
8. Snobs and cliques and other such things.
I am not going to be so dismissive as to claim that it doesn't affect all of us. Hell, I hate doing memes after Cassie does them, generally because she pretty much flattens them (like, what else is there to say?) but also because about some things, we share opinions, and I do wonder if someone will think I'm just a parrot. But you know what? Anyone who does, doesn't know me, and I really don't give a shit. Think I'm a gate keeper, a toady? Go right ahead. I used to worry about you, and now, I don't.
That said, there is no belonging without exclusion. We all want a place where we can socialize with our friends and let our hair down and have a nice time. I've been lucky to have that with two groups of people in the fandom, with my in-town friends and my Muse friends, and I'm getting to know more and more people all the time. And I, personally, am a shy sort of person who takes a little while to get to know people. But one really shouldn't have to worry about charges of clannishness when all it is, is people wanting to be with their friends.
9. Sirius Black.
I am not satisfied with his character arc and I don't believe that it is over. And that is all I have to say about that.
10. Blah blah heroic quest blah blah blah.
I only care because I care about Harry. I am not the person to ask about what happened in the graveyard or at the Ministry. I wrote an entire fic based on "The Unexpected Task". It's why I'm wandering around in this fandom despite not loving LotR or other epic adventures, or most manga, or Buffy, or fantasy or sci fi in general. And I very much prefer books that are mostly in our own world, but hint that there might be something beyond it, like
blackholly's books.Sometimes I feel rather badly, that I don't have much of an inner eleven-year-old boy, but then I remember that I was raised on romantic comedies and mysteries and slice of life sort of books like Anne of Green Gables where the plot isn't about how someone is going to capture a silver chalice but about how someone is changing, inside, and that generally how I approach everything HP, too.
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-28 08:10 pm (UTC)7. I had my issues, I moved past 'em once I got them out of my system. I'm now settling in to massive internal squeeage about seeing everyone again.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 06:57 am (UTC)People always have issues--heck, I had issues--but you know, one always will, I suppose, is what I was saying. And squeeeee! that you're planning on going!
no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 07:10 am (UTC)And there was never *any* question of my not going. I just don't think October 05 will get here fast enough for me!
*bounces*
no subject
Date: 2003-11-28 08:13 pm (UTC)You know my feelings on most of these, but may I just say that #1 made me giggle - a lot - and that "Love your vaginas, ladies" is like, the most true and the funniest phrase ever? :D
And thank you for your future not mocking of me - you know that means a lot to me. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 07:08 am (UTC)and ha, that was taken from Madonna's Sex book: "I love my pussy."
<3!
Date: 2003-11-28 09:27 pm (UTC)Re: <3!
Date: 2003-11-29 09:04 am (UTC)And #2 is my big, I-will-not-be-moved, fandom stance.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-28 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 09:08 am (UTC)*clings*
as I think that is actually the real sterling "unpopular" opinion in this meme.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 09:27 am (UTC)Right on the head,
*points to nose*,
*yells "bingo"!*
no subject
Date: 2003-11-28 10:36 pm (UTC)Kate
no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 09:10 am (UTC)I think, really, that we're in the middle of something, and when book 7 is read and behind us, we'll be able to deal with all of it, and it will all make sense in the larger scheme of what goes on. OotP convinced me of that. All trust in JKR.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-28 10:44 pm (UTC)<3!!!
no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 09:11 am (UTC)Thank you! :D *loves*
Absolutely Fantastic!
Date: 2003-11-29 01:14 am (UTC)As you already know, I whole-heartedly agree with you on numbers one and four (and mostly everything else too) but I just had to say so again.
Re: Absolutely Fantastic!
Date: 2003-11-29 09:12 am (UTC)Re: Absolutely Fantastic!
Date: 2003-11-29 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 02:07 am (UTC)*dead*
Is that an actual fanfic or did you just come up with that? I wouldn't be surprised if it were real...
no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 09:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 02:36 am (UTC)::falls off chair laughing::
I'm really inspired to go and write my own now...
no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 09:15 am (UTC)Het is cool! Het is great! Het we should appreciate!
no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 12:11 pm (UTC)Have written het. It's the only thing I can really write. My slash just goes nowhere. Wah.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 03:29 pm (UTC)Whoo! I love that. I'm going to steal it and use it as my new slogan (with acknowledgments, of course). ;)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 06:23 am (UTC)Except for possibly the last one, because, hmm, fantasy pretty, and also my lurking fear that Sirius' character may in fact be as developed as it's going to get, haven't read any list I agreed with as completely as this one.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-29 09:18 am (UTC)I have a vast lurking fear about Sirius, actually, that he shouldn't have been saved with the time turner in the first place and it's a whole thing about things happening for a reason, but I'm trying to push that to the back of my mind because it's far, far too sad. And anyway, I have a really big issue with characters that have short lives that are largely unhappy; I find it personally very upsetting. (In fact, for me, it's the most upsetting thing about Lolita.) That may just be a personal non-sexual squick, though.
# 6
Date: 2003-11-30 01:13 pm (UTC)To put it bluntly, who gives a flying fuck? I don't care. And all those folks who say that their ships are the One True Way because of stuff in canon, or stuff JKR said in an interview once, need to really think about why they love their ship: because it's canon, or because of love for the ship itself?
Should be the HP Fannon quote of the year. I have been wanting to say something like that for so long but you put it so much better than I could have.
Re: # 6
Date: 2003-12-01 03:18 pm (UTC)