azurelunatic | Fic Rec: "Beautiful Boy" by mamadeb

hehheh...HI Father-Sir!

I don't know if he always reads the comments, but he does click on cut tags, sometimes. He doesn't have an account (that I know of), so he can't comment, because I was having troll problems a while ago...

I ummm, couldn't finish that. Was the sex, when it finally happened, worth reading?

I kept counting the plot elements I've seen before. When the RW/HG showed up (you know how I feel about that) and the Dumbledore adulation got to be too much for me I had to quit.

I wanted to like the fic because I like her. But I couldn't. Ron/Hermione, no acknowledgement whatsoever that Dumbly is a little dodgy even if you do believe he's truly good, sexually-abusive-Voldemort (I don't think he's got what it takes to BE sexual any more in canon), and Harry-save-me!Draco is just...too many of my plotsquicks at once.

It was ... um ... I actually remember the building more than the actual boinking. Far more my cup of tea than yours.

*nods* I like Harry/Draco but only if Draco retains his personality. And if Hermione even so much as says she returns Ron's obnoxious canonical crush I'm so outta there.

*nods* And my cup of tea has got a lot more sugar in it.

I don't think that's it at all. I think I write a *lot* of sugary fic. Dylan & Alastor get intensely sweet at times. I am a horrible romantic and I write stories about people who manage to be not only emotionally but physically faithful under circumstances that would break most people's relationships completely apart--Severus/Juliana, anyone?

Not to mention all the fic I write about my favourite characters as adorable small children.

The fastest thing (other than genuine non-con, Ron/Hermione, and MPREG) that will turn me off an HP fic is when all the moral ambiguity falls out of the universe. Because even though Rowling does it very imperfectly and occasionally makes the Death Eaters seem like evil Keystone Kops, she does include characters like Snape and she does have Dumbledore doing things that are ethically ambiguous, whether or not you ultimately consider them justified.

Generally (there are exceptions, such as RJ Anderson's work) if the Sugarquill would host it, I won't finish reading it.

I think my genuine biggest turnoffs are bad writing and poor characterization.

I really can't see Harry/Ginny, though.

Oh, good lord, I wasn't even thinking of that. If it has bad writing or poor characterisation I'll never read enough of it to know if it has the things I dislike or not. ;-)

I've found that I can read many things if it's written well enough. Heck, I can read outfandom fic -- I was addicted, for quite some time, to

thebratqueen's Angel/Wesley -- and I don't follow those shows, neither Buffy nor Angel.

Though I do tend to flee screaming from scenes of ghastly torture.

You know, a good enough writer can convince me of nearly anything, but there are some things I really don't want to be convinced of.

I haven't figured out all my squicks yet, but then, how many worlds have I got balanced in my head now? It's really weird in here sometimes. I'll still believe the one with the prettiest story...

You know, Harry/Ginny is not a ship of which I am fond. Before OOTP I thought the very idea was ridiculous. I mean, every guy wants to date a girl who is so in love with the idea of him that she can neither truly see him nor manage to talk to him, right? *eyeroll*

But after OOTP it seems a bit easier to accept because Ginny has become a person in her own right and is out of Harry's shadow. I still think there's a lot of Bad Tommy's shadow remaining, but Virginia ~~Rose~~ Molly Weasley is alive in there. And the whole Bad Tommy connection is something they have in common.

I do like H/G fics in which they come together out of the things in their painful histories that they share, as opposed to shiny teenage twoo lub. There was once an H/G archive called "The Psych Ward" and in the original notes for HoIF it was H/G, but then Severine asserted herself.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that there are people who can convince me of Harry/Ginny (Verity, and a guy who used to post on Gryffindor Groupies whose name I forget), but only JKR will ever convince me that Hermione could see Ron as a romantic option, because she's the author and if she says so, she says so, but I will find it terribly depressing and disappointing unless Ron changes so much as to be nearly unrecognisable.

I think Teenage!Hermione could see Ron that way, because I don't think she's used to young men respecting her and paying attention to her. I don't really see her sticking with Krum either. Ron's around, and he's definitely attractive, and he's one of her best friends, so why shouldn't she like him? If she hasn't got any experience with love, why wouldn't it feel like budding love?

As soon as someone of her own intellectual league starts paying attention to her, however, any residual attraction to Ron will go merrily flying out the window.

I could see Hermione/Neville, actually, because he knows how to get out of the way and let people on a mission do their thing, and also knows how to interfere when something has gone way far enough.

I can see Hermione/Harry/Ron a lot better than I can see Hermione/Ron, because the dynamics of the three are far different than the Hermione/Ron, or even the Hermione/Harry.

Heh. Great. Now I've got a plot bunny, "Someone Sane to Come Home To."

...in fact, I think my canon OTP for Harry (potential) is Harry/Tonks.

Honestly, if I was going on strict canonical characterisation, I would say Luna, Tonks, Hermione, or Draco (assuming JKR actually develops his character, which she might not) are his last best hopes. Tonks is a bit old for him but she's young enough, there is slightly more mutual respect between him and Hermione than there is between her and the weasel, and Draco really is genuinely obsessed with him in a way that could lead to something neither one of them would know what to do with. And Luna...? Well, she might not understand him as the darkness sinks its hooks in and squeezes, but she'd accept it, and the day may come when he'll find that very, very comforting even if she is a bit eccentric. (I need a Severine icon badly, don't I?)

Heh. And Luna's just wacked out enough to say or do something so completely random that Harry would have to spend about a year puzzling it out.

Harry/Neville would be dangerous. Hmm.

Oooh. I like that idea.

I'm too used to thinking in terms of Draco/Neville, thanks to AJ Hall, but that could be scary.

I mean...

They're both powerful.
They've both got serious Past Issues.
They both have a serious beef with Voldemort.
They're both intelligent.
Neither of them is currently holding on to all their marbles.
And if they're focused on each other as well as on Voldemort (the downfall and/or death of), they haven't got any brakes on. Hermione's the brakes for the Harry/Hermione/Ron friendship, generally. I see Neville as being able to stop Hermione and Ron from crackbrained schemes, but I really don't see him being able to stand up to Harry, because they're too much alike.

Fic Rec: "Beautiful Boy" by mamadeb

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