Cimorene

I know this isn't a novel thought because I think it every time I read a bunch of Harry Potter fanfiction and I've probably posted about it more than once before, but:

Usually when Harry is too well characterized I find the fic too annoying and sometimes I can't even finish it, and I definitely prefer fic where he's unrealistically not-stupid.

I'm enjoying one right now where he's way too calm and reasonable, and just a couple of days ago I finished another one where I kept thinking "What an idiot! That's definitely in character... ugh."

Trying to remember if this is the only fandom/fanfic character I feel that way about...

Doing them out of order meant that I lost track of them! I haven't included any recs for Kris Allen/Adam Lambert, Hot Fuzz, or NCIS:LA, all of which were also present and all of which I read, because they were present in somewhat larger quantities, and aren't really as rare and literary as the typical Yuletide-feeling fandoms to me. So I've filled in this set with just a few recs from H/D Holidays and HP Yule Balls.

1. There's No I in Team by thefourthvine. Sports Night, Casey/Dan. A deeply hilarious story with a brilliant antagonist who comes bearing motivational slogans.



2. Temperate Self-Governance, by speakmefair. A Knight's Tale, post-canon, Chaucer/Wat established relationship, adventure. This is Wat's POV and fun, touching, funny, and very well-written sort of adventure story, that actually has a plot. A GREAT plot. Chaucer gets called into service as a spy for John of Gaunt, and Wat, advised by a well-meaning Will, gives in to his duty to help out, whether Chaucer wants him to or not. Which necessitates a bit of a quest in the company of Adhemar, ahahhaha. And in spite of the est.rel., this story has a new-relationship uncertainty to it that makes for a definite sub-plot of romance.



3. A Hogmanay Carol. HP, Minerva McGonagall/Rolanda Hooch. This is a lovely intimate portrait of McGonagall and her grumpy temper, holiday traditions, favorite literature, and her suppressed sexual attraction to Madame Hooch. Brilliantly-characterized and perfectly executed.



4. The Invisible Wall. George Weasley/Lee Jordan, accidental voyeurism, Harry, Ron, Seamus, Dean. A prank gone awry traps these four, forced to witness a completely unexpected sex scene between George and Lee. The humorous and traumatized commentary is funny, and at the same time the George/Lee, porny as it is, is really touching and very romantic; in fact, it made me say OF COURSE, and start shipping it, and go looking for more, but I didn't find anything else I liked quite as much as this one.



5. Secretary Tuesdays, or: Things Unspoken. Harry/Draco, Portrait Snape, future (Auror) fic, EWE. Unlike typical Aurorfic, this one is a light-hearted comedy of manners/adventure. The post of Harry's secretary is cursed and he's been getting a new one every week... until Draco Malfoy takes the post. Lots of great little moments, not least due to the presence of Portrait Snape over the secretary's desk making caustic comments.

So I was among the many new Twitter followers of TomFelton due to his posting tons and tons of twinky photoshoot pics of himself and was kind of struck when he posted this picture a few weeks ago, and have been DEEPLY disappointed in fandom as a whole by the extremely small amounts of Dan/Tom RPS out there. Is it just hiding somewhere where I can't find it with delicious or Google? Because all I've been able to locate is one fairly inactive community, and no actually recent fiction at all in spite of fandom's collective Dracogasm after HBP came out. I think there's more Dan/Elijah Wood out there, honestly. *sigh*

The last two years I didn't have time to make Valentines for you guys, so I started a day early today and I drew these little cartoons by hand, which means they are of lesser, yet probably more amusing quality than the 2005 and 2006 Valentine's Day posts. Pairing-themed virtual cards for 8 of my top pairings this year! (Click to enlarge)

( Batman: Batman/Gordon, somewhat inspired by Lego Batman )

( Criminal Minds: Garcia/Morgan )

( The Devil Wears Prada: Andy/Miranda )

( DieHard4: John/Matt )

( Harry Potter: Harry/Snape )

( NCIS: Gibbs/DiNozzo )

( Singin in the Rain: Don/Kathy/Cosmo )

( Star Trek MIRROR VERSE! Kirk/Spock )

By the way, the cutoffs in mid-sentence are completely original to the comments - even when they start in mid-sentence.

• Summary: What would you do if you were given less than a year to live? A beautiful story, well beyond anything I've read in fandom to date. It is profound and it touched me as deeply as 'The Notebook.' Warning: TissueBOX is a must.



• When a magical accident in the heat of battle sends Harry and Snape back to 1943, it



• apologize. He didn't want to hear anything about how it wasn't his fault, or whatever other trite



• When the electric violin duet of Drarry is on stage, they have their passion, but off stage their hearts belong to other men who create something wholly more wonderful.



• Voldemort is long dead and Harry celebrates this day in getting incredibly drunk.
  He spends a night with hot steamy sex with Snape. Severus leaves the next morning and leaves a not but Harry doesn't find it, cause he's blind.

Now I'll have to find something else to read because I'm out of backlogged badfic headers and summaries and out of NCIS badfic. I guess I could go looking for Han/Luke again, but I wasn't really in the mood for it a couple of weeks ago - the fandom's got a kind of, hmmm, ponderous (retrospective, slow, sad) mood to a lot of it, and I kept getting bored. Maybe play catch-up with recent sga? Or just spend my time transferring my recs page to delicious...

In other news, right after I finished transferring all my old Trek bookmarks the other day, Trekiverse.org got domain-stoled and they haven't finished transferring (the main page was at Trekiverse.us but the internal links were all broken and the stories weren't in place last I checked). Bitches. Sigh. Why don't they install the Automatic Archive software, for God's sake?

cimness: Emma Watson went to RDA last summer.
wax_jism: >:/
cimness: Are you frowning because you're trying to remember who Emma Watson is, or because you're trying to remember what RDA is?
wax_jism: What is RDA?
cimness: Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
wax_jism: Oh, you mean RADA.
cimness: XD Oh that's right. RDA is Richard Dean Anderson. I knew it was one of those acronyms.
wax_jism: 'Royal... Dramatic Arts? What is she doing with Richard Dean Anderson?'

AUUUGH IN THE DECENTFIC I'M READING HARRY JUST SAID THAT FLITWICK WAS BLOWJOB-HEIGHT

Which, by the way, is actually a word in Finnish.

The story I've been gnawing away at for the last three days has gradually been mentally downgraded from goodishfic to decentfic to kindofbloodyridiculousfic to, finally, badfic (specific sub-variety whatthefuckwasshethinkingfic). It's a bit disappointing because it was so very pleasing at the beginning, despite early indicators of its untrustworthy quality - long, slow to develop, full of UST and reasonably good dialogue and characterisation, and pushing buttons if you like Maaaaaaagical Telepathic Bonding stories, which I do. Alas, as is so often the case, once the sexual tension was prematurely resolved characterisation went out the window, and has since picked itself up from the under-window flower beds and made its escape. I think it's somewhere in the outer solar system, or possibly even all the way outside the Milky Way by now. It might have vanished entirely from existence, in fact, especially if the dialogue being attributed with outrageous bald-faced cheek to Snape is anything to go by. ...I'm actually still kind of enjoying myself, though. I definitely can't stop reading yet. At least nobody is a vampire!

But why is it that so many people jump the gun in resolving the sexual tension? And why is it that so many people completely abandon characterisation once the UST is resolved? Is it a case of just getting carried away and forgetting that characterisation exists? Are they deluded into thinking the characterisation is good, perhaps because they've been moving away from the realistic kind only gradually (it takes longer to write a story than to read one, after all)? Are they driven insane when they start thinking about some story kink or other?

The story where gypsies are actually magical creatures with strange powers who MATE FOR LIFE was mentioned in passing in a post on fandom wank last year here (thanks to kyuuketsukirui for reminding me), but the post is mainly about a public blow-up that occurred thanks to an equally appalling story about Native Americans (who apparently also mate for life - I guess in Mediocre Harry Potter Fandom Slushpile Land, all non-caucasian/white/whatever races really are animals!). Apparently whatever happened about the gypsy story happened in a locked post, and it isn't summarised. In fact, the post doesn't make clear that gypsies are creatures who mate for life in the story, which is why I didn't remember it in the first place, no doubt.

If you look at the post, though, you'll see that quite a lot of back-and-forth went on about the other story, which had essentially the same issue (plus many other offensive stereotypes in a horrifying sort of Accidentally Pick Up One, Get Ten or Twenty For Free deal). So... either (a) a lot of people are so completely clueless as to be incapable of grasping why OTHER RACES = ANIMALS is offensive even after it's been explained repeatedly, or (b) a small but vocal minority are. Either way, it's pretty nauseating, in that can't-look-away way. I mean, you know that people who are this clueless exist, but it's hard to wrap your brain around it, so you tend to be surprised/revolted/despairing anew every time you run into them.

For someone who loves Harry Potter fanfiction as much as I do, it's strange to admit that I dislike several characters.

In many ways Harry, in canon, is a blank slate, because the point of view is so thoroughly focused on him, and his main character traits are bravery and thickness. He's not as completely thick as Ron, but he's thick enough to get on well with him - he occasionally figures things out on his own, just never quickly. I don't exactly hate him in canon, but I hate to read his point of view. The books, while told almost entirely in his point of view, have some saving graces - like the fantastic world-building - but are still, in my view, somewhat of a trial to read (boring, long-winded, requiring frequent breaks to breathe deeply and think of calm blue oceans and rant about the stupidity of the characters). Fanfiction doesn't have those saving graces, usually, at least not in the same degree. Fortunately, most fanfiction isn't too accurately characterised.

I find that my favourite fictional takes on the world keep the thickness, stubbornness, recklessness, and loyalty (and not infrequently, some or all of the prejudice) of Harry and Ron but make them bearable to read. (If they don't, I back-button. I'm not going to put up with an accurate characterisation of Harry or Ron for anyone but Rowling.) I suppose it's not too hard to achieve these things - although I've never seriously written in the fandom myself (parodies, very short pieces, and somewhat purple now-jossed Marauderfic don't count) - because many writers manage it admirably, even when there are other flaws in the stories.

But it's a funny thing when edging closer to canon characterisation becomes a flaw in my point of view.