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ontologyI really am going to do that Deathly Hallows response post, because there is actually a lot to talk about besides How It Broke My Heart And Why I Am Not Resigned, but I keep worrying I'm going to forget something ("I've only read the book twice!), and then the less silly bit of myself says very sternly, "Banui, it's a response, not a ruddy thesis paper" and so the two sides of me sort of bicker amicably for a while which makes it really difficult to actually, you know, concentrate on anything useful.
Anyway, 'tis the season for Great Thinky Meta Posts, now that the early frenzy is mostly over, and here is my first contribution, because I have been mulling this over for some time, and it's got a lot to do with my fic-verse, and I think if I start writing out my thoughts maybe some of it will come out clearly enough that I can start to write about it. I keep trying to write fic about Deathly Hallows, but I run up against this great block that says, "are you sure that this is how you want to portray this?" Like, guys, I haven't even really explored how and when Remus and Tonks actually fell in love, other than that it was sometime during OotP, and I'd like there to be something interesting involved, some sort of -- at least mild -- adventure, something other than mucking about in Grimmauld Place and keeping Sirius from going mad.
...I have apparently lost the ability to post about anything not related to Harry Potter now. This is a sign of dire things I am sure.
Anyway, 'tis the season for Great Thinky Meta Posts, now that the early frenzy is mostly over, and here is my first contribution, because I have been mulling this over for some time, and it's got a lot to do with my fic-verse, and I think if I start writing out my thoughts maybe some of it will come out clearly enough that I can start to write about it. I keep trying to write fic about Deathly Hallows, but I run up against this great block that says, "are you sure that this is how you want to portray this?" Like, guys, I haven't even really explored how and when Remus and Tonks actually fell in love, other than that it was sometime during OotP, and I'd like there to be something interesting involved, some sort of -- at least mild -- adventure, something other than mucking about in Grimmauld Place and keeping Sirius from going mad.
And then there's this arc I want to write -- actually, that I've sort of wanted to write for two years now and found I really couldn't until canon was finished. I'm not sure if anyone other than lady_moriel (who knows All; seriously, ask her about the Dark Secrets Of My Past sometime) remembers or even actually ever knew about this fic I started writing right after I became a Harry Potter fan -- it was the first Harry Potter fic I ever began on, and it was fairly ambitious, because it was back in the day when all of my fics were so ridiculously ambitious that almost none of them ever got finished (which is good, because they were nearly all awful), and I put most of my thought and concentration into fleshing out or creating minor characters, grabbing some nameless person or someone who had a line or two and making them a story, and I reckon I thought this was What I Was Supposed To Do or something, I don't know. Anyway, I had this whole story going about the werewolf in Arthur Weasley's ward at St. Mungo's, and that Christmas conversation with Remus, and...I don't know, stuff. It wasn't very plotty. For the record, his name's Morcant Ellis -- Mor -- and he's Welsh and has got a sister, Alis, and I am having difficulty with his parents.
And, argh, this has SO LITTLE TO DO with what this entry is really supposed to be about, but I was exploring the thought of this long arc about how Mor has something to do with Remus' business with Greyback's pack in HBP, and maybe he's got something interesting to do in OotP, too, and then he comes in later in DH because ARGH JKR WHY WAS THERE NO WEREWOLF BUSINESS IN DH, WHY? AFTER ALL REMUS WENT THROUGH IN THE LAST BOOK, SERIOUSLY. I have convinced myself that there was lots and we just didn't see it because we were with Harry all the time and, you know, loads of stuff goes on that Harry doesn't know about. And then Mor can be involved in the whole universe of mine in which The Lupins Live (Mostly) Happily Ever After. (Seriously, they have two other children already. They poked their way through my subconsciousness and haven't left me alone since. Girls, Marina and Ella -- Ella after Remus' mother who had some longer and very wizarding name that was usually shortened to Ella, because Tonks wouldn't stand for the full name. And I had nothing to do with this, I swear. It just all...happened. And now I've got to write it oh dear oh dear.)
ANYWAY. The purpose of this whole entry, or at least the purpose was, until I started wandering around like this, was Remus in Deathly Hallows, and how everyone seems to be complaining about that, about how he sort of goes insane again and is all "I NEVER SHOULD HAVE MARRIED DORA AND I HAVE DESTROYED EVERYTHING AND MY KID'S GOING TO HAVE A RUBBISH LIFE AND ALSO THE WORLD IS GOING TO BLOW UP IF I AM IN IT WOE AND DESPAIR AND GLOOM AND CAPSLOCK". Which, yeah. Come on Remus. But I wasn't as bothered about it as a lot of people seem to be -- I mean, yes, I was rather disappointed in him ("REMUS DO YOU LEARN ANYTHING EVER? DO YOU REALISE THAT THERE ARE ABOUT A MILLION WOMEN WORLDWIDE WHO HAVE DAYDREAMED ABOUT YOU FOR YEARS?"), and yet -- it made sense, at least to me. I didn't feel as though this was some weirdly out-of-character thing Rowling wrote when she wasn't thinking straight. Yes, he was sort of acting uncharacteristically -- but there were reasons for that.
See, I've been labouring under the impression for some time now -- aided by fic -- that Remus was extremely damaged, emotionally and psychologically, by the time he spent with Fenrir Greyback and company during HBP. I sort of showed that in The Wise and the Lovely, but I still don't have a very clear idea of what exactly my Remus was doing during that time (mostly because I'm much too stuck onfernwithy 's version and am not sure I can even think about Greyback's pack without, say, Sweet and Alderman). And then he never really had a chance to recover -- Dumbledore dies, and then the Wizarding world really plunges into war, and he's just -- exhausted, and damaged, and behaving irrationally because of it. Add into the equation my theory that Dora has been threatened, possibly already put into danger, because of the Black side of her family which already despised her but never paid her much attention, until that half-blood metamorphmagus tramp of Andromeda's went and married a werewolf -- I mean, Voldemort even pointed this out, and Bellatrix was fuming -- unless something in the book which I missed contradicted this a lot, I'm fairly sure she at least tried to get at Dora somehow. (Oy, I just typed Dora instead of Tonks twice, without really thinking about it. Oh dear.) Not to mention that anti-werewolf sentiment must have been rampant during the war -- far more than usual, such that Remus was probably in a lot of danger, pretty much all the time, which also meant that Dora and their unborn child were in danger. So his outburst to Harry was slightly justified worry, combined with a massive dose of instability and paranoia.
Okay, blast, now I want to write fic about this really badly.
Speaking of which, in case anyone missed it, I finished that Remus-and-Tonks-live fic, and it's up on my writing journal and fanfiction.net. I mean, you know, in case you missed it before. (Although I haven't even got round to replying to comments yet -- mostly my reaction is 'alkhgdlkhfsgh really?' anyway.) And I wrote two fics forrt_challenge before my muse abruptly gave up the ghost, and now I can't seem to write anything at all, blast it. I am working on a resurrection but it is not easy.
And, because I am a massive dork, I have a mix in the works, which has currently got six songs on it. Er, yeah. It's proselytising, okay? (Not for my fic, but the whole 'what are you talking about of course they don't die' mindset. I am not that self-absorbed, I promise.) The weird thing is the songs have all turned out to be really acoustic Americana. Er, yeah. I think I only need one more song to complete the -- the narrative of it all, the flow, and -- this is a bit scary, actually. When did I suddenly start actually finishing things? Or writing a three-page fic in only a week and a half? Also, Patty Griffin has suddenly become my Remus/Tonks background music. She's always given me that vibe, even though most of her songs don't quite fit (the majority of them are story-songs, for one thing) -- the tone fits, and sometimes a bit of a chorus, or a line here and there, but all of a sudden, songs that didn't fit before totally do. ('Not Alone' AKLHDSLGHH LOVE. I would totally use that at the end of my mix if I didn't already have 'Forgiveness' in. And ninety-five percent of 'Nobody's Crying' is perfect, and -- well, anyway.)
lady_moriel (who knows All; seriously, ask her about the Dark Secrets Of My Past sometime) remembers or even actually ever knew about this fic I started writing right after I became a Harry Potter fan -- it was the first Harry Potter fic I ever began on, and it was fairly ambitious, because it was back in the day when all of my fics were so ridiculously ambitious that almost none of them ever got finished (which is good, because they were nearly all awful), and I put most of my thought and concentration into fleshing out or creating minor characters, grabbing some nameless person or someone who had a line or two and making them a story, and I reckon I thought this was What I Was Supposed To Do or something, I don't know. Anyway, I had this whole story going about the werewolf in Arthur Weasley's ward at St. Mungo's, and that Christmas conversation with Remus, and...I don't know, stuff. It wasn't very plotty. For the record, his name's Morcant Ellis -- Mor -- and he's Welsh and has got a sister, Alis, and I am having difficulty with his parents. And, argh, this has SO LITTLE TO DO with what this entry is really supposed to be about, but I was exploring the thought of this long arc about how Mor has something to do with Remus' business with Greyback's pack in HBP, and maybe he's got something interesting to do in OotP, too, and then he comes in later in DH because ARGH JKR WHY WAS THERE NO WEREWOLF BUSINESS IN DH, WHY? AFTER ALL REMUS WENT THROUGH IN THE LAST BOOK, SERIOUSLY. I have convinced myself that there was lots and we just didn't see it because we were with Harry all the time and, you know, loads of stuff goes on that Harry doesn't know about. And then Mor can be involved in the whole universe of mine in which The Lupins Live (Mostly) Happily Ever After. (Seriously, they have two other children already. They poked their way through my subconsciousness and haven't left me alone since. Girls, Marina and Ella -- Ella after Remus' mother who had some longer and very wizarding name that was usually shortened to Ella, because Tonks wouldn't stand for the full name. And I had nothing to do with this, I swear. It just all...happened. And now I've got to write it oh dear oh dear.)
ANYWAY. The purpose of this whole entry, or at least the purpose was, until I started wandering around like this, was Remus in Deathly Hallows, and how everyone seems to be complaining about that, about how he sort of goes insane again and is all "I NEVER SHOULD HAVE MARRIED DORA AND I HAVE DESTROYED EVERYTHING AND MY KID'S GOING TO HAVE A RUBBISH LIFE AND ALSO THE WORLD IS GOING TO BLOW UP IF I AM IN IT WOE AND DESPAIR AND GLOOM AND CAPSLOCK". Which, yeah. Come on Remus. But I wasn't as bothered about it as a lot of people seem to be -- I mean, yes, I was rather disappointed in him ("REMUS DO YOU LEARN ANYTHING EVER? DO YOU REALISE THAT THERE ARE ABOUT A MILLION WOMEN WORLDWIDE WHO HAVE DAYDREAMED ABOUT YOU FOR YEARS?"), and yet -- it made sense, at least to me. I didn't feel as though this was some weirdly out-of-character thing Rowling wrote when she wasn't thinking straight. Yes, he was sort of acting uncharacteristically -- but there were reasons for that.
See, I've been labouring under the impression for some time now -- aided by fic -- that Remus was extremely damaged, emotionally and psychologically, by the time he spent with Fenrir Greyback and company during HBP. I sort of showed that in The Wise and the Lovely, but I still don't have a very clear idea of what exactly my Remus was doing during that time (mostly because I'm much too stuck on
fernwithy 's version and am not sure I can even think about Greyback's pack without, say, Sweet and Alderman). And then he never really had a chance to recover -- Dumbledore dies, and then the Wizarding world really plunges into war, and he's just -- exhausted, and damaged, and behaving irrationally because of it. Add into the equation my theory that Dora has been threatened, possibly already put into danger, because of the Black side of her family which already despised her but never paid her much attention, until that half-blood metamorphmagus tramp of Andromeda's went and married a werewolf -- I mean, Voldemort even pointed this out, and Bellatrix was fuming -- unless something in the book which I missed contradicted this a lot, I'm fairly sure she at least tried to get at Dora somehow. (Oy, I just typed Dora instead of Tonks twice, without really thinking about it. Oh dear.) Not to mention that anti-werewolf sentiment must have been rampant during the war -- far more than usual, such that Remus was probably in a lot of danger, pretty much all the time, which also meant that Dora and their unborn child were in danger. So his outburst to Harry was slightly justified worry, combined with a massive dose of instability and paranoia. Okay, blast, now I want to write fic about this really badly.
Speaking of which, in case anyone missed it, I finished that Remus-and-Tonks-live fic, and it's up on my writing journal and fanfiction.net. I mean, you know, in case you missed it before. (Although I haven't even got round to replying to comments yet -- mostly my reaction is 'alkhgdlkhfsgh really?' anyway.) And I wrote two fics for
rt_challenge before my muse abruptly gave up the ghost, and now I can't seem to write anything at all, blast it. I am working on a resurrection but it is not easy. And, because I am a massive dork, I have a mix in the works, which has currently got six songs on it. Er, yeah. It's proselytising, okay? (Not for my fic, but the whole 'what are you talking about of course they don't die' mindset. I am not that self-absorbed, I promise.) The weird thing is the songs have all turned out to be really acoustic Americana. Er, yeah. I think I only need one more song to complete the -- the narrative of it all, the flow, and -- this is a bit scary, actually. When did I suddenly start actually finishing things? Or writing a three-page fic in only a week and a half? Also, Patty Griffin has suddenly become my Remus/Tonks background music. She's always given me that vibe, even though most of her songs don't quite fit (the majority of them are story-songs, for one thing) -- the tone fits, and sometimes a bit of a chorus, or a line here and there, but all of a sudden, songs that didn't fit before totally do. ('Not Alone' AKLHDSLGHH LOVE. I would totally use that at the end of my mix if I didn't already have 'Forgiveness' in. And ninety-five percent of 'Nobody's Crying' is perfect, and -- well, anyway.)
...I have apparently lost the ability to post about anything not related to Harry Potter now. This is a sign of dire things I am sure.
