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H/D: A Ramble
I hate the OTP mindset and as much as I joke that Clark/Lex is my Smallville OTP, it really isn't. The OTP mindset encourages mediocrity in the name of volume and terrible characterization in favour of hitting the writer's kink for hot boysex.
*points at icon*
I'm sure there are very good H/D fics out there. Somewhere in the trenches of the fandom there's a brilliant and unappreciated H/Der who's doing amazing and original (and IC) things with the pairing that would shock us all into submission, but not OTPing, because she's the kind of writer that makes you appreciate the story and the characters before the sex and cuddles. So far as I've noticed, there are few popular H/D writers who come even close to this dream of mine - the majority are writing wildly OOC, bizarrely Harlequin-esque faux epic romances that suck all the fun from the source text and shunt it off into otherspace in favour of melodrama and paint-by-numbers tales of True Love.
I've long wondered about the appeal of the pairing, at times putting it down to aesthetics and alternately to the uber-fun that is enemies slash, but there are problems with both suppositions because you see, H/D isn't pretty and they aren't archenemies.
Draco is described as pointy-faced and pale. Ferret like.
Harry has messy hair, huge glasses and a facial scar.
Neither appears to be a target of mass-romantic affections in the series and neither is described as being particularly attractive. Many H/D stories emphasize The Pretty and play up the boys' physical differences (i.e. hair colour). It seems a bit thin to hang a OTP on, but anime fandom has done worse.
As for the grand enemies angle, well, the older they get, the more obvious the gap between Harry and Draco becomes. Increasingly, Draco is insignificant to Harry - an annoying insect who complicates his life, but has no lasting effect. Harry sees Draco as beneath him. Draco is the Hogwarts version of Dudley. Why not ship the other form of H/D and have all that super-kewl incestuous fun?
All of this is justification of my own deep and abiding hatred of the pairing and amounts to so much mental masturbation with at the least, a mercifully low word count. But here's the thing, the above is the both the worst of the pairing and what is most common to H/D fic. Show me a H/D that rises above The Pretty and The Passion and I'll dance a fucking jig because ladies and gentlemen, good lord, we have something other than shipfic, which is all too rare for romantic fanfiction, especially in the more popular pairings.
The OTP mindset allows an already unlikely pairing to become farcial, with its pretensions to destiny, parity and equality. It allows H/D to descend to the level of cheap, cracker-jack romance because hey, at least it's H/D, right? The community nature of fandom works to make the OTP mindset a form of textual feedback, circling the same ideas around and around, but slowly degrading in quality like the fandom version of broken telephone. But that's ok, because hey, it's H/D, right?
*points at icon*
I'm sure there are very good H/D fics out there. Somewhere in the trenches of the fandom there's a brilliant and unappreciated H/Der who's doing amazing and original (and IC) things with the pairing that would shock us all into submission, but not OTPing, because she's the kind of writer that makes you appreciate the story and the characters before the sex and cuddles. So far as I've noticed, there are few popular H/D writers who come even close to this dream of mine - the majority are writing wildly OOC, bizarrely Harlequin-esque faux epic romances that suck all the fun from the source text and shunt it off into otherspace in favour of melodrama and paint-by-numbers tales of True Love.
I've long wondered about the appeal of the pairing, at times putting it down to aesthetics and alternately to the uber-fun that is enemies slash, but there are problems with both suppositions because you see, H/D isn't pretty and they aren't archenemies.
Draco is described as pointy-faced and pale. Ferret like.
Harry has messy hair, huge glasses and a facial scar.
Neither appears to be a target of mass-romantic affections in the series and neither is described as being particularly attractive. Many H/D stories emphasize The Pretty and play up the boys' physical differences (i.e. hair colour). It seems a bit thin to hang a OTP on, but anime fandom has done worse.
As for the grand enemies angle, well, the older they get, the more obvious the gap between Harry and Draco becomes. Increasingly, Draco is insignificant to Harry - an annoying insect who complicates his life, but has no lasting effect. Harry sees Draco as beneath him. Draco is the Hogwarts version of Dudley. Why not ship the other form of H/D and have all that super-kewl incestuous fun?
All of this is justification of my own deep and abiding hatred of the pairing and amounts to so much mental masturbation with at the least, a mercifully low word count. But here's the thing, the above is the both the worst of the pairing and what is most common to H/D fic. Show me a H/D that rises above The Pretty and The Passion and I'll dance a fucking jig because ladies and gentlemen, good lord, we have something other than shipfic, which is all too rare for romantic fanfiction, especially in the more popular pairings.
The OTP mindset allows an already unlikely pairing to become farcial, with its pretensions to destiny, parity and equality. It allows H/D to descend to the level of cheap, cracker-jack romance because hey, at least it's H/D, right? The community nature of fandom works to make the OTP mindset a form of textual feedback, circling the same ideas around and around, but slowly degrading in quality like the fandom version of broken telephone. But that's ok, because hey, it's H/D, right?
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