hp is calling me. weird.

[phineasjones]

so. i promised this post. now i have to figure out what it is i wanted to say.

i have been more than just out of the hp loop lately. i have been in other, far distant loops. once upon a time, i used to say that i couldn't really get into fanfic based on tv shows. that i was more a book or movie fanfic kind of gal. ahahaha. right. then there was sga. and then, there was due south.

thing is, i was primed and ready for new fandoms a little over a year ago. and why was that? because, truly, i had fallen out of love with hp. and why was that? i believe that was a direct result of book 6. which... to be honest, i don't even remember in great detail at this point. it's the only hp book i've read only once. i remember two things clearly; the sense of yuckiness and dread i had when i finished reading it and the catastrofuck that was remus/tonks.

to be clear here, i am not fundamentally opposed to tonks or to remus/tonks. before this book, i liked tonks a lot. and i don't want remus to suffer forever if he has a chance at happiness. really, i don't. but what jkr did with them in that book is... inexcusable. trashy. crappy. poop. it makes me angry to think about it, even now. and i don't blame myself for needing a break from hp. because, yeah, i know my otp thing is a bit over the top. but it's there. and my emotional response to these characters is huge. HUGE. so... i felt manipulated and abused after reading book 6. and i can take the responsibility for being overly attached to characters in a supposed children's book. sure. but it doesn't change the way i feel.

but what this post is supposed to be about is how suddenly i've started thinking about hp again. for several reasons.

1. this horrifying picture, brought to my attention by hominidj. ::scrubs brain::
2. um. july 21. (brought to my attention by anabelwumpkins - that's how out of it i am! i didn't even know!) it's coming and there's nothing i can do to stop it. i am terrified to read the last book. i do not trust that woman. AT ALL.
3. discussing in comments the pain of loving sirius/remus with mrsronweasley
4. dorrie6's new (renewed?) obsession with remus. i haven't read those fics yet. but i'm going to. i can feel it coming.
5. last thursday, i was a wreck. a week's worth of not enough sleep compiled to make me an emotional basket case. in this state, i was driving to school and listening to regina spektor's new album on which she has a version of the song samson. which will always be about sirius and remus for me. thanks to jjtaylor and the heartbreaking fic she wrote, inspired by that song. so, i started to think about that. and i started to cry. goddammit. i haven't cried over those boys in so long. and in my new fandom, my beloved new fandom due south, there can be a HAPPY ENDING. hear that jkr??? it makes me think maybe it wasn't only the craptasticness of what jkr did in book 6 that sent me away, but also the unending pain of loving sirius/remus. in the beginning - you know, around books 3 and 4 - it was good pain. pain that could turn around into bittersweet goodness. and then it just plummeted further and further into the pit of despair. a girl needs a break from that, doesn't she?

for your reference:
samson by regina spektor (from songs, my preferred version)
your hair was long when we first met - heart-rending fic by jjtaylor

so all this leaves me with a tentative desire to read sirius/remus again. sort of. i can't decide what sirius/remus i would want to read. what era? what... outlook? i mean, we're at a point with them in which reading a happy ending-fic is really no happier than a tragic one. it all ends the same anyway. doesn't it? and here it comes, the final word. july 21. will we hear from sirius in any way? will remus up and get married? die? what? oh, right and then there's this kid named harry...

Comments

Harry. Harry who?

[mrsronweasley.livejournal.com]

Dude, OMG. That is exactly how I felt after Book 6. Ass-raped Totally head-slapped and jilted. They was it was done was actually horrifying and I literally threw the book across the room. AND I KNEW WHAT WAS COMING! I WAS SPOILED! (And, in retrospect, really glad of it. If I hadn't seen it coming, I'd have clawed my eyes out on the spot.) I get very very emotional about Remus/Sirius - first slash OTP, first foray into fandom, really, and...yeah. HUGE emotional response, like you said.

The only thing is, I have no desire to read anymore HP fic. It just makes me sad. :(

*SIGH*

Re: Harry. Harry who?

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

The only thing is, I have no desire to read anymore HP fic. It just makes me sad. :(

i so totally understand that. and it's the way i've been feeling until right now. and maybe am still feeling a little bit. it's just been such a relief to be in due south. when i watched cotw, i pretty much cried for joy. i couldn't believe someone would give us the ending that we wanted. not only were they both alive, but they were together! and happy! and... their "ex" people were together and happy. practically unfathomable after s/r.

aw, man. you were spoiled? i could see how that could be an ok thing for that book. i was spoiled for OotP. and that was NOT ok. not at all.

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

I will also try to lure you with my own Remus fic (lure, lure (http://community.livejournal.com/emotionalperil/38568.html)), though I suppose it does include past Remus/Tonks, so maybe not.

I have more to say, but I'm at work.

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

ooh! yes! i am lured. i remember that i saw that at some busy point and i've been planning to go and find it and read it. but now you've done the hard part for me, thanks. :)

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

Okay, I think I might have a moment, or at least a longer moment than before, when my boss walked into my office as I was typing my comment. Okay. What do I want to say? Oh, yes. Remus/Sirius. I think if I'd been a serious Remus/Sirius OTP-er it would have been extremely hard to go on after OotP. I mean, there's only so many fics about intense grief that one can write or read before it just becomes too much. And it's harder to enjoy the past when you know there is no future. I'm coming into my Remus love late, and it's hard for me to deal with except by finding ways to make Remus happy with what he has left. I was not happy with the way Remus/Tonks was thrown in at the end of HBP, though I've been trying to make my way through that, because now I can't write Remus in the future without having it there, so I've been sort of making up my own Remus/Tonks in my head to make up for wrongs done by JKR. It's... not that fun. But I so want good things for him, and I can accept Tonks, I guess, because I'm not very... oh, I don't even know how to say... I don't really care about gender very much, so at least that doesn't throw me the way I'm sure it does others.

I do think there's a chance we'll see or hear from Sirius in book 7, but I don't know what that means.

Okay, boss approaching again, but I'm not done. Hopefully I'll be back.

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

I think if I'd been a serious Remus/Sirius OTP-er it would have been extremely hard to go on after OotP.

yeah, and it was extremely hard. but we did it. we all wrote and read about grief and reconciliation and moving on and suffering and miraculous returns, etc. etc. etc. and then she just fucking stomped all over it. honestly, i sobbed for days after ootp, but i think i felt worse after hbp.

i'm not bothered by the idea of remus getting with a woman either. or with tonks particularly. she was fun and cute in ootp. and she was mopey and... pointless in hbp. annoyingly. yeah, if it had been done well, it would have been hard but ultimately ok.

maybe what's really going on for me is that i have enough distance now that i can approach the idea of reading things like, say, remus/neville in a way that does not make me cringe (as an otp violation). i'm sort of... over the cringing. i cringe at the remus/tonks of hbp. if people can come up with better ways of making remus happy, i think i'm ready to read them.

[dorrie6.livejournal.com]

I think I've never been a true OTP-er in that way. For instance, I never had any trouble reading Harry or Draco with someone else, even though I thought of them as my OTP. I don't really have an OTP now (though I'm crushing *hard* on Remus/Neville). Still, I can so easily *imagine* having been the kind of OTP-er you were for Remus/Sirius, and I am actually surprised I wasn't. And if *I* was cringing at the Remus/Tonks we were presented with at the end of HBP, I can only imagine what that must have been like for you.

[coloredvision.livejournal.com]

Man, I'm hesitant to say that book six killed fanfic for me, because I do read once in a great long while, but it was definitely somewhere around the release of book six that the balance shifted so that real life > fandom. Occasionally I'm struck by a strange desire to write something r/s, but mostly only school-era stuff (and even then I end up writing something original instead).

Yeah. I don't know that I trust JKR anymore with her own characters (as strange as that is) but I'm definitely curious enough to read the last.

There's a version of "Samson" that isn't from Songs? Huh.

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

yeah. i think book 6 kind of killed s/r for me too and i really didn't want to admit that for a long time. i had thought that my love and need for them would never die. nice work, jkr.

i totally get not trusting her with her own characters. she thinks about them one way, we all think about them in our own ways. and while she's the one who ultimately gets to decide... i think our ways are just as legit. moreso, if you want my honest opinion. :)

yeah, there's a version of samson on 'begin to hope' - her latest cd. as far as i can tell so far, it's a little faster and has an added string section. i like the old one.

[coloredvision.livejournal.com]

A professor told me recently that sort of thing -- once the writer publishes a work, it doesn't belong to them anymore. It belongs to the people who read it. Which made me go "ugh! no!" as a writer, but as a reader, I completely agree. So as far as I'm concerned, our ways are more legit because she's a jerkface. *is two*

[semielliptical]

i am terrified to read the last book. i do not trust that woman. AT ALL.

Right there with you. I'm afraid that wrapping up the plot without screwing with some major characters will be beyond her. She's demonstrated that she will put plot before character consistency, so who knows what she might do.

I'm hoping for some fun; it has been a fun ride, most of the time. I think JKR could write a really fun comedic novel with a side of serious plot. But if book 7 is lots of serious plot with a little bit of fun, it will be hard going.

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

wrapping up the plot without screwing with some major characters will be beyond her

exactly. there's too much for her to do in this one last book. i fear what she will do to achieve it all.

and your right... it's like the more serious the books have become, the less good they've been. like she accidentally wrote herself into a serious story. i still feel like PoA was the pinnacle... and there it seemed like the serious parts of the story were still light of heart in some way. there was still a ray of light in it all at least.

[madmadharri.livejournal.com]

i am terrified to read the last book.

hmm. i was going to say ditto, but then, i think i actually feel somewhat prepared to read the last book, no matter what she does - and i've been prepared for it by the pain that was OotP, and the kick in the pants that was HBP. i think the books for me have always been about harry mainly (harry/ron, harry/draco... harry's relationships with sirius, remus, dumbledore, the dursley's, etc. - and the ideas of family and home), and i'm interested to see what she does with it. i dread it too, but i feel kind of ok about giving up control at this point.

but yeah... hp as a fandom is kind of dead for me, has been pretty much since HBP. i've moved on to greener pastures, where there actually is potential for slash to come true and be happily ever after - hello, due south, doctor who! but i totally and completely still love the story of hp, the world and the characters. so. we'll just have to wait and see what happens. bah.

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

that's excellent that you have a healthy approach to the last book. i bet it's helpful to be harry-focused, bc clearly jkr must be too. one hopes. :)

does it make you feel sad that hp is dead to you? it makes me sad. it was so important to me for so long. it's just... odd. and yeah, the draw of potential happy endings is HUGE!

[madmadharri.livejournal.com]

it definitely makes me feel sad... i think depending on how the final book goes, i might get back into it. i think i don't want to do too much with hp at this point for fear that i'll get too attached to a possible happy ending - i really don't want to get my hopes up. ugh. i can't think about it too much, it makes me feel icky.