Lobelia the adverbially eclectic

11) harry potter - why?

*lol*

n.x ;)

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Ooh, ooh, *claps hands*, got an answer to that one.

11) Because sick of lotrips and this presented itself as next available fandom as contains fantastic fics.

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oh, man. i really *don't* get it.

*sticks head in sand and waits for it all to go away*

n.x ;)

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Can you then suggest an alternative fandom for Lotrippers on the run?

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um. i'm not really that much of a "fan", to be honest - lotrips was my first fandom and will be my last, i imagine. i think i'm coming to the end of my interest in lotrips, to be honest, but i'll probably just carry on writing absurd AUs that have less and less to do with any kind of "reality". as i have been doing for, er, some time now...

so why did you fall out of love with lotrips?

n.x :)

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Got bored with the characters. Got bored with the fics! I don't think that people have been writing with great zeal, now that RotK is done and dusted. Do you? I haven't read a fabulously fantastic Lotr-fic in ages, but I've read lots of fabulously fantastic HP fics. And the fps world appealed to me: the rl world of actors was getting a bit limited. And, as you know, I've been going down the AU route, much as you have been doing.

The last straw were two instances of actor-stalking I came across. Remember that girl who posted in her LJ about stalking Dominic in his hotel room at 2 am? Appalling. And someone else, too, behaved inappropriately, and I thought, 'ack, no, how can I even be vaguely associated with this?' it was the first time I was squicked by the rp-ness of it all.

And suddenly I stopped finding Dom sexy and just found him annoying and unemployable, and even Karl started to pale. Orli has sort of remained - poss because he's in so many other films but I only have one lotr icon now, and that's saying something. I took Karl off my homepage!! And took karl_daily off my default friends list.

And if the lust is gone, what point is there in the slash?

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to be honest, i'm not really reading much these days. ;)

dom - "annoying and unemployable" - *lol*. ...elijah was the reason i got into lotrips in the first instance, and he remains interesting, as far as i'm concerned. not to mention unreasonably pretty. the others were always kind of incidental. heh.

i heard about the actor-stalking thing, but i didn't feel that had an awful lot to do with rps, or rps writers - most of whom, as was apparent by the furore this incident caused, would not dream of acting in such a way. i don't feel responsible for the actions of the loony minority. hell, i don't even go to cons or whatever where i could meet the actors in an "official" setting.

i'm just not keen on fps, full stop. and i have to say, that if i was going to write fps, i'd pick one hell of a better writer than jk rowling. but that's just my opinion, of course!

n.x ;)

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Well, one of the inappropriatenesses was connected to a fanfic writer. So. Hm.

Anyway, that was the last straw. But the lotr boat had been sinking already for me. Attrition? And I hadn't been reading much anymore. There *isn't* that much anymore.

And I was resistant to HP for a long time. JKR is not a good writer. And the childness of it was repulsive to me: I read all those books to my own children, for god's sake! It was mixing the un-mixable.

But then I read the fic. And I adore the fanon. I'm still not reading the canon. I'm getting by without doing canon research (I ask canon-afficionados and make the rest up, heh) because I just can't bear re-reading all those books. It's the fanon, though. The fanon's got me hooked. Because the best fanfic of all times (for me) was written in HP fandom, and there is swoonsome stuff out there.

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Well, one of the inappropriatenesses was connected to a fanfic writer

i dunno, but i saw that almost as incidental - stalking people is hardly something that's advocated by 99.9% of fanfic writers. i think she'd be acting a bit odd with or without the fanfic - i certainly don't get the impression that fanfic writing encourages people to act in this way.

hmm. what little i've read of the hp fanfic - and i have read a little canon, i wouldn't just dismiss it out of hand, but i tried it and loathed it - did nowt for me. the best lotrips, imho, is far more inventive and fun. and far *sexier*.

guess we'll just have to agree to differ!!

n.x ;)

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Well, you know what I think is 'best' (see my recs page) but it's all old; I haven't seen anything fantastic in Lotrips for over 8 months. And of course I value all the same things in HP -- good writing is good writing, after all -- but what HP offers that Lotrips doesn't is the possibility at least of a very interesting world, of people with a complicated backstory, and of the magic component which allows you to do some quite special narrative things. Bad!fic, of course, botches all of this but the good!fic in HP really works with these elements in wonderfully inventive ways. Also, HP fic tends to be very long and full of plot, two things I was unused to from Lotrips and two things I like.

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brightest-blue.livejournal.com

Troy! Troy! Troy! Asshole and elbows, I'm so there! Both RPS and FPS. And if that gets old, there's always Alexander coming up. I'm so greeked! :)

As to your Harry questions, they make my brain hurt. Just ignore fanon, canon, everything. I'm sure it will be marvelous and orginal.

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I liked the film Troy more than I had expected. I think it's a great cracker of a film, in fact. But it's not making me want to write fic at all. (And I founded the troy_rps groups!) Maybe it's too close to lotrips? Overlapping personnel. Similar scenario of movie plus text canon. I don't know: am just not grabbed. Nor do I read the fanon. *shrugs*

Just ignore fanon, canon, everything.
Thank you! I am practically doing this as it is. But it's wonderful to have one's spine stiffened.

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brightest-blue.livejournal.com

Similar scenario of movie plus text canon

Well, there are some similarities, although the only same personnel are Orlando and Sean. And so far, it's blessedly free of kerfluffling *knocks wood* and mountains of badfic *knocks wood again*. But if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work. although I would die of happiness if you wrote Brad.

I AM very much looking forward to your HP, though!

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Sweetie, I have written Brad! *g*

Is there any particular febulous Troyfic you can recommend?

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brightest-blue.livejournal.com

Yes! I know, you were the first person to write Brad, as far as I know. But we wants MORE!

As far as Troyfic goes, do you prefer RPS or FPS? There seems to be a lot more FPS, both "book" and movie-verse. Most of the RPS seems to reside on [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com], but there are several FPS comms out there as well. Let me see what I can dig up for you. :)

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helenish.livejournal.com

okay, I'll go.

1) I believe it's canonically Muggle, but I think muggle is better. It's an adjective! Or, hmm. Except when it's like a nationality/ethnic designation, in which case I suppose it would be Muggle. Perhaps a person is a Muggle, but a television is a muggle machine?

2) Draco - pointy and wry, and sometimes kind of ugly, like when the whole world hates him and his parents give up on him and he joins the other side and is shunned, and sometimes, of necessity, pointy and pretty, when he's an object of hot lust, or somethin'. Eye of the beholder, etc. etc.

3) Draco -- nasty bastard, but kind of a lame nasty bastard, in the books. He's ineffectual, and it must be maddening. But as I'm not overly interested in reading stories where people are EEVIL ('cause I'm a ball of fluff), I tend to make him cross and misunderstood, and prone to reforming.

4) Draco -- look, who really WANTS to join up with his father's crazy hyper-controlling illegal hive mind cult? Even if he's getting pressured to do so. At this point, I think Draco might do it out of SPITE because he hates Harry and co. so much, but without them, I think he might be persuaded otherwise.

5) Religion -- none. Maybe there's some sentimental early muddy spring dancing around druid stones and the like.

6) And if not: Christmas as the pagan, midwinter, let's all eat ourselves silly type holiday, I'd think.

7) Harry -- tousled ward or eat-your-shorts wand-wielding warrior? Tousled, cranky, scrawny, angry, snippy, loyal, sort of in the middle, I'd say. To powerful for his own good, but terrible, terrible social skills the tabloids are willing to overlook.

8) The future: everyone ends up at Hogwarts, as teachers, or everyone ends up in London flats? London flats, because it's kind of more fabulous and romantic than teaching, which, for some reason, always sees depressing, like everyone's stuck in some sort of artificial replay of their childhoods, without getting to go out and whoop it up.

9) The far-away future: any fics out there about Harry, Ron and company aged 45? Snape et al aged 82? I read one where Snape and Harry were 100 or so, and it was quite good, but, as you might imagine, something of a downer. By

astolat perhaps? I'm not sure. All the ones where Ron is 45 are miserable ones where he's just a boring old father in a boring old relationship with Hermione. These are to be distinguished from the stories where Ron is a hot single father and sexes it up with Draco, and does his children's hair in little pigtails and such.

10) Magic -- why? um, I got nothin'

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*glomps you* (Whatever that means; I learned the word on LJ and it has retained its strangely abstract quality although resonates with physical meanings)

Where was I? Oh yes, I enjoyed reading your take on this so much!

But re 6): if pagan midwinter, why do they still call it Christ-mas?

Re 8) Why do you think does it always have to be London flats and not, e.g., London semi-detacheds or Bristol terraces?

Re where Ron is a hot single father and sexes it up with Draco, and does his children's hair in little pigtails and such..
*laughs and laughs* Oh my, I didn't know such depravity existed. How much cuteness can a fandom actually stand without imploding??

re 1): I use Muggle because canon but prefer muggle. Maybe I'll just shoot canon to the winds here.

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re 1): I use Muggle because canon but prefer muggle. Maybe I'll just shoot canon to the winds here.

*g* That is our perogative as fanfic writers, to choose what we get to shoot.

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I think you just summarized most of the Harry Potter story lines right there.

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Hah!

*laughs and laughs*

It's that easy to infiltrate a new fandom, is it? Oh dear. *wipes tear from eye*

But you haven't answered any of my questions!!

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Well most of the story lines I've seen ;)

So you're asking my opinion rather than checking out some canon/fanon facts? Hmm.

1) No idea. Considering that I read the books first in Finnish and we don't use capitals in the middle of a sentence, I kind of don't pay attention to this one.

2) Both, depending on my mood and the story. I admit I'm a romantic and H/D shipper. I'm so... predictable.

3) See previous answer.

4) See answer to #2.

5) Hmm. As far as I remember, they don't seem to have any in canon. In fanon, they're either religious or swear by Merlin or some such; probably depending on the writer's affiliations.

6) Because it's fun?

7) See answer to #2.

8) Hmm. It would be an enormous coincidence, not to mention require killing off most of the canon teachers to make room for Harry & Co. For some reason, I can't see him filling Filch's position... On the other hand, why would they all end up in London? It's not like they've all born and raised there and if they're wizards (witches), they can apparate wherever they want.

9) Check

painless_j's journal: she's done several thematic searches/recs and I think future-fic was one of them.

10) Um. I don't think I understand this one. "Why magic?" Isn't that sort of the whole point of the HP universe? Though I always end up digging up AUs of various nature, including living-like-muggles stories.

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HP in Finnish. Wow. Mugglöovökännenatekken.

Eep.

Ooh, and I know Painless' LJ: thanks for the reminder.

Oh, and the Why Magic. I suppose I was asking about fanon: why do people stick magic into their fics? And do they feel the need the magic for the sex? Or something.

*g*

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Heh. Muggle is jästi in Finnish, in case you're interested. We've been incredibly lucky to have a good translator for the books, one of the reasons I love the HP universe is the richness of the language. Since English isn't my first language, a lot of the puns and wordplays pass right over my head in the original book (and other stories English). I'm even tempted to say I consider my book canon as Finnish and fanon as English... it was really disturbing to read OotP in English as it felt like I was reading just another fanfic.

And the magic thing: I think people take the existence of magic in HP universe as a free pass to use their imagination. Nothing is too wild or fantastic since it can all be explained away with "You know, it's magic". What is harder to find is a story where magic is somehow logical, meaning that there are certain laws in using it: you can't just wake people from the dead, for example. Too often the result is like this: "Facing a desperate situation and 200 Death Eaters, The-Boy-Who-Lived suddenly started to glow. Then he turned into a dragon, his animagus form, roared and breathed fire on the screaming Evil Wizards, thus destroying them forever." Only without spellcheck. Maybe I should write badfic or something.

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*laughs and laughs at 'magic' ending*

Yeah, it has the feel of 'And then I woke up and it was all a dream'.

But magic with rules: I like that a lot.

And you mention the richness of the language: well, JKR in English, imho, has no richness of language. It must be all the wonderful translator's richness of language. She is not a very good writer. She's quite a good plotter but her prose style is pedestrian and, in the two last books, chunky and unedited.

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Hmm. You might be onto something in that language thing: one thing that threw me when reading OotP was, of course, language but also the feeling that it was unedited. Or unbetaed, whatever. It was way too long and had too many big words ;) Now that I've (mostly) read the book in Finnish, it seems more "real", it fits better into the book canon that I have in my mind. So I say we're definitely lucky getting such a fabulous translator; I think she's won at least one award for her translation.

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I find it very interesting how different language-readers can have a different experience of one and the same text.

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I find it very interesting how different language-readers can have a different experience of one and the same text.

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1) Caps. It's how the books do it, isn't it? Or do they forget to capitlize it sometimes? (Then again sometimes they attribute things Ron said to Harry and call Percy Perry soooo... Editors don't catch all. >_>;;)

2) Pointy pretty, I imagine. Or at least pointy average. I don't think we have reason to believe otherwise. If he was particularly unattractive I think we would have heard about it by now, all that's stressed is that he's particularly pale.

3) Nasty bastard. There is no indication that this kid wants to be Harry's friend. Now, there's every indication that he's rather obsessed with Harry, since we know he talks about him to his father all the time and spends all his time looking for ways to louse him up. Still, I think this is more or less the hobby of a boy who otherwise has everything.

4) Um... Well, neither? He's entirely unqualified to be a Death Eater, he blabs any secret information he gets immidietly to anyone he can show off to. He's not entirely clueless, either. He knows his father is a Death Eater and he's proud of that. I was having a long discussion with my friend the other day, however, and we concluded that since he likely has no concept of what death really entails, he would likely be terribly shocked if he ever went so far as to kill someone himself. As I remember someone saying "He hasn't seen a thestral and he thinks dementors are funny." Clearly Draco doesn't have a lot of bad memories, and we know his mother spoils him. JK Rowling mentions on her website that she had written a scene with Draco and his fellow, "cleverer" Slytherin Tom Notts, who is also the son of a Death Eater, talking while their fathers meet, indictating that she acknowledges Draco isn't quite the sharpest of the DE's progeny. I don't think he's struggling with anything. I'm pretty sure he thinks he'll grow up and join the proud Death Eater tradition, but doesn't know, per se, what that MEANS.

5) I would suggest that they individually follow their own religious traditions just like Muggles, but may have some different practices therein handed down among their families.

6) This suggests to me that Christianity is still rather predominant among them as it is with Muggles.

7) Neither again. Definetly an emotionally stunted boy with a great proclivity for magic who has yet to comprehend the depths of his own rage.

8) Well, those who aren't dead... I really see Harry becoming an Auror if he lives through. I think everyone will follow their own individual career paths. Ron and Hermione will likely be married to one another if neither of them dies.

9) ...I've never really thought about that.

10) Hrm. Some way of manipulating the primative forces of the universe, I guess. I'm still contemplating this for my own fic I'm working on.

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The only time we see that Draco might have some sort of protectiveness for the trio, at least insofar that perhaps he considers them HIS targets and no one elses, is really in GoF Ch.9 when he is gloating to them of what his father is currently doing (torturing Muggles by flinging them up into the air) but says to Hermione "D'you want to be showing off your knickers in midair? Because if you do, hang around... they're moving this way, and it would give us all a laugh." That, at least, seems to be giving fair warning. If he'd particularly wanted her to be dangled around, he would have kept them busy until the DEs come, wouldn't he have? Other than that warning, he seems quite proud of what his father is doing.

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Ooh, wow, amazing: you are taking my questions so seriously! It's funny the way people persist in making Draco pointy-pretty: the word 'pointy', though ostensibly neutral, holds such negative connotations that, when applied to a face, it is generally taken to mean 'ugly'. But the pull of Draco is so strong it will simply flatten such niggling details... Ah, how I love the slashy undertow.

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*giggles* XD Well, seriously all in the name of fun. The way I look at it...

1) You are a very good writer.
2) You want to write Harry Potter fanfiction.
3) You want to work with Draco.
4) Most fanfiction with Draco has him so horribly out of character that I cannot get through four paragraphs of it.

I have no choice but to give your questions thought out answers!

Question for you, what do you think of Jason Isaacs opinion that Lucius is an abusive father? Most people who take this to heart seem to take it to ludicrious extremes.

mortenouva and I were recently discussing that it's obvious Lucius can be emotionally abusive, "I hope my son will amount to more than a thief or a plunderer, Borgin. Though if his grades don't pick up, that may indeed be all he is fit for." Still, Draco talks about bullying his father into buying him things, and Lucius seems to ignore him very patiently when he goes on about Harry. When Draco tries to blame his poor grades on the teachers favoring Hermione Granger, Lucius says he thought Draco "would be ashamed that a girl of no wizard family beat [him] in every exam." We could only imagine that it is possible that book!Lucius could actually strike Draco when he exhibits behavior that he feels is unbecoming, and this is, of course, movie canon. Personally, I feel that if Draco was raised to understand there are circumstances where he deserves to be hit and is spoiled in all other ways it wouldn't effect his development much on the surface, he would see it as "normal." But I don't know... do you happen to have an opinion on abused!Draco? :3

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