| |
| Author |
Message |
|
| sophierom |
 Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 10:17 pm |
 |
|
|
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Posts: 24
Location: Cambridge, MA
|
Sulwen wrote: I suppose I should have been a little clearer on what I meant by not liking the books. I adore the world Rowling created, I'm just not big into her intent. Though they are loved by people of all ages, JKR's intent is to write books for children. This comes through quite clearly in both her style and content. The books were fun little reads, but I found myself longing for something more adult. Therefore, I turned to fanfiction.
Thanks so much for your response, Sulwen. I now understand where you're coming from. You're right; there are themes and characters that will never be explored fully in canon, and I, too, love fanfiction because it allows me, as a reader and writer, to take on these issues. I disagree that the books are only "fun little reads" because I think the books do actually deal with themes that continue to apply to adults, as well as children. But this is purely my opinion, and believe me, I'm no great expert in what constitutes serious reading! 
No matter what differences we may have about canon and fanfiction's relationship to it, I believe that your overall approach to fanfiction - let people write what they will, and I'll read what I prefer - is a just one. One of the great things about internet culture is that it allows masses of people to express themselves, and whether I think what they have to say is "worthy" should not determine if they get to say it. So, I appreciate your respect for self expression and free speech! It's been an interesting discussion. Thanks.
Best,
Sophie |
_________________
Feel free to check out my livejournal page, which, I'll be honest, is a bunch of silly rambling, but just in case you like silly rambling: Completely Lost |
|
| Back to top |
  
|
| distempered |
| Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 5:16 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 12 Apr 2005
Posts: 7
Location: Chicago
|
Thanks to Azazello for posting that history of SS/HG -- a friend of mine turned me on to it, but before that I could hardly even imagine that ever happening. Not, of course, that it ever will happen according to canon.
But there is one ship that simply just boggles my mind, and that is DM/HG. Draco is an even bigger racist than his father, so I hardly think he's going mack it on her. Even in redeemed!Draco fics (and don't get me started on that -- even though I'm guilty of writing a fluffy redeemed!Draco myself), I hardly think people (and I'm talking both Hermione and Draco here) can do complete personality overhauls and forget everything they were ever taught or thought about another person. I suppose it's hardly unconventional, even if Rowling did completely dismiss it in her interviews, because over on Pureblood and ff.net and all those other places, it's still going strong. I just can't wrap my head around it.
That said, I do enjoy a good unconventional pairing. I'm working on a Ron/Lupin fic, and I don't think I've ever read one of those before. Sometimes that is what I like to do. Take something that I've never or rarely seen done and think about how it could possibly happen. Isn't that the point of writing, after all? Thinking. Of course, a lot of it ends up being manipulation, but since these aren't real people, a lot of good writing is manipulation. But if an unconventional pairing is well-written and not so totally OOC that it might as well just be OCs doing the porn thing, then I can get into it. |
_________________
[I got soul, but I'm not a soldier.] |
|
| Back to top |
  
|
| sani |
| Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 12:35 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 19 Jul 2005
Posts: 8
Location: USA
|
I love the HP books, but I am a huge SS/HG shipper. I dont understand this whole arguing about which ship makes more sense over the other. It is down to people's personal preferances, and what they like or enjoy reading. Do I belive that SS and HG will ever end up together in the HP books? No I dont. I love SS character, he is actually the only interesting character to me in the entire HP series, and no its not only because I am a Rickmaniac. I have always loved characters that are Gray, they are not the superheros who always do the right thing, nor are they evil madmen. It is all down to what people like. If you dont want to read it then dont read it noone is making you. I have read many wierd and odd pairings, but that is what FanFic is all about. All stories no matter how close they come to canon are still AU. True that there are some really horrible stories in SS/HG ship, but they also exist in other ships. I love to read this ship and I will continue to read it. I will read any story well written story regarding Snape because he is my fav character, and I really dont care about the other characters so I dont read many of their stories. Same goes for other fans everyone reads what they like, what is to their tastes. An author writes for their own amusment, it does not mean that you have to read their stories. I love some of the way way AU fanfics,some of them are great. Just because snape is way OOC will not turn me away, I love to read other people's interpretations of why he is the way he is. They are stories, nothing more. I read fanfic because I want to see what happens to Snape in different situations, I have my own interpretation of Snape, and I know its probably nowhere near what JKR has probably imagined Snape is,when I want real Snape that JKR has invisioned then I go back and reread HP books.
I dont want to insult anyone, and I hope I have not offended anyone, that was not my intention. I am just stating my opinion, and I am just saying that Fanfic is just for enjoyment, at least for me it is. I can get away from my life, from work and school and general crazyness that is life and enter a world that will make me forget. |
_________________
"In Severus Snape I trust" |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Cormak |
| Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:13 am |
|
|
Joined: 26 Sep 2006
Posts: 7
Location: Westport, MA
|
I'm picky about which type of HP fan fiction I will read.
For me it has to revolve around Snape. He is my favorite character in canon. Even though I am very afraid for him in book seven.
I read Snape/OC fics at first because when I first heard about SS/HG I thought..."Ewwww!" that was until I gave it a shot and read some fics passed on by a friend. Now, it's pretty much all I read.
I know it's highly doubtful in canon, but that's okay with me. I'm not a canon nut if something is written in a believable fashion. I tend to go toward well written SS/HG fics and not PWPs. (Although some PWPs have been written tastefully and with some plot!)
I cannot for the life of me see Hermione with Ron. That will most likely be the way it ends in canon, but I personally see it as unconventional. Unless Ron grows up in a big way over the years I see HG walking all over him and them bumping heads ALOT. That's just me.
Even though Snape is old for her and currently the murderer of AD some authors have gotten creative following along canon. Some great stories with an older Hermione have made that pairing very believable to me. of course that might change when book seven comes out! Although sometimes I do still live in a fantasy world pretending alot of HBP didn't happen. Especially with Snape killing AD!
Honestly, unconventional pairings don't bother me. If a pairing has a fanbase, more power to them, regardless of how outrageous it may seem. |
_________________
Cormak's FanFiction
http://www.intothesunstudio.com/fanfiction/ |
|
| Back to top |
|
| LadyWhitehart |
| Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:20 pm |
|
|
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 193
Location: New Jersey, USA
|
I'm mostly a fan of SS/OC, but I'm still very picky about the fics I read. Sometimes I'll read SS/HG, but mostly just the friendship/working together fics. The only canon/Snape pairings I like are Snape/Tonks--thanks to the story Yes, But-- and Snape with one of the minor characters. I just can't get into any of the pairings involving the teens. Sorry, the ever-rotating who's snogging whom of teen romance just doesn't float my over 35 boat. When I was younger maybe, but not now.
Shipping is a very scary place unless you have a particular 'ship to sail. I've visited various 'shipping sites for research purposes, and I learned a few important things:
1. Never go to a 'shipping site and use an avatar that doesn't conform to the ship. OK mine's a neutral avatar, just Snape and me--that is to say, a white deer (hart).
2. When going to a 'shipping site, make sure you have XXXX + XXXX = 4EVER tatooed somehere on your body. It doesn't hurt to have photographic proof.
3. 'Shippers don't believe that non-'shipper exists. If you don't sail their 'ship, you're trying to sink it. I tried to explain my 'shipping status once, and it didn't work. I was called some really foul names in the one forum.
4. 'Shippers will cling to their their pairing with all the tenacity of a pitbull and will rip you a new one if you present them with canon evidence that says things could really go either way.
5. 'Shippers use code names for opposing ships in the same spirit that Malfoy calls Hermione a Mudblood.
One 'ship I do like is Granger/Krum. |
_________________
Come be my friend! I need friends. http://ladywhitehart.livejournal.com/
Enjoy my fics at http://archive.sycophanthex.com/viewprofile.php?p=Lady%20Whitehart |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Vesera Paens |
| Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2006 5:15 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Posts: 13
|
This was really fascinating to read. When I started, I remembered that although I like HG/SS (not necessarily the fandom, but the concept), I am curious about the really unusual ones, and usually end up reading them out of curiosity. So far, I seem to have been unlucky, as I haven't found any I've actually liked. I tend not to like the purely canon ships. It's not so much that I don't like them because they are canon, but because so far, I haven't been convinced of the logic of them. J. K. Rowling is excellent at writing the mystery and adventure parts of the books, but so far, I haven't been convinced by any of her pairings, with the exception of some of the minor ones in the background (well, mainly Hagrid/Maxine and possibly Narcissa/Lucius).
Which brings me to a conclusion I had recently. A while back, I read a fan fiction that I sort of liked... until it detoured into something I didn't. There was even a scene that could have allowed for a huge problem to overcome (i.e. good plot)... except that it didn't. I couldn't let it rest. I had loved the beginning of this story, loved the set-up of it... but hated the direction it went. And so, I did what any self-respecting fan fic writer does. I chopped off half the story, started in the middle, added the huge conflict, and essentially came up with my own continuation of it. I am being circumspect on purpose here, because obviously, were I to actually put it anywhere in public, it would be a huge case of plagiarism... It's for me alone, for my own self-indulgence. Believe it or not, despite the fact that I did it at all, I do respect the original writer.
Anyway, the whole point of what I was doing was admiration mixed with criticism. And recently, as in sometime this week, I realized that that is, in a way, true of all fan fiction. It's not so drastic as what I did, which was essentially say that I could write the story better than the original author had, although I don't doubt that some writers do feel that way. But there is the thought that we want to write about things she has chosen not to include for some reason or another. No matter how close you are to canon, there is something you are changing, or else you're just copying the words on the page. Even "what if" stories lament the fact, to some extent, that this will likely never happen in the books, or hasn't yet.
Personally, I love stories that deal with things that could never happen in the books. I don't mean the stories that are fangirlish, or "could never happen" in the sense of changing canon around for the fun of it. I'm talking about exploring the areas of the canon that will never *be* developed. Those flat characters mentioned by someone earlier (sorry, it's not coming up on the review of posts below this window) are really fascinating to me. So are the references to other places: France, wherever Durmstrang is, America, etc. One of the stories I was betaing for awhile was a Fleur story. And I never thought I'd write fan fiction, except to create my own school in the wizarding world peopled with an entire cast of OCs. I haven't yet written that...
As for characters that are changed because of the situation they are in... I think I know what you mean -- they are changed first and then put into the situation assuming the change has already taken place... at least I hope that's what you meant, because one thing I really like seeing is how a situation can change a person. You have to start with the person as close to canon as possible, though, and through time, show how they are being changed by the situation. In other words, don't show me Snape raping people at a Dark Revel as your first scene. But if you *can* make it plausible, through a series of other events prior to it, and show me the change in his psychology, it can still work. And it would be very interesting to read, because it would likely end up being very tragic.
The story I wrote for NaNoWriMo does this with Hermione. She is slowly corrupted by choices she makes and situations she ends up in because of those choices. And in one case, giving into impulse.
(By the way, I essentially came to fan fiction in the same manner that Azazello did) |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
All times are GMT
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
|
