(no subject)
Dear Harry/Draco and Harry/Ginny authors:
I know that in every fic involving Harry getting involved with someone, the question comes up-how do I keep Ron and Hermione from interfering? I would like to suggest that there are other answers for this question than “throw them in bed, too, in the background, and then I won’t have to deal with them except for the occasional snog scene”.
Not everyone who likes to read H/D or H/G is an R/Hr shipper. Many of us find the pairing incredibly icky. Even those who don’t recognise that it’s an incredibly uncreative thing to do. I’m at the point where this has been done to me often enough that the merest mention of R/Hr in an H/D fic will send me screaming for the back button, because even if, as bookshop said, “it’s just one sentence!” that first sentence in the first chapter alerts me to the fact that there may very well be more such sentences. I also like to read the occasional dark H/G, but the chances of avoiding R/Hr in H/G fics are so low that I tend to only read recs for that pairing from people I trust.
Don’t tell me that ‘it’s there because it’s canon’. Especially not if you are writing H/D, because that? Is so totally canon, right. As of this date, June 6, 2005, Ron/Hermione is not canon. It may become canon. It may not become canon. But what you are writing is fanfic, and for many people, especially those of us who read slash, the point of fanfic is to get to read pairings we know the author won’t write.
Many people do like R/Hr (and OBHWF), but those of us who don’t like R/Hr as a general rule really don’t like it, for reasons this essay is not the place to go into, but in most cases, we can tell you at length and with vast amounts of detail why we don’t like it and will probably never like it, even if JKR does write it and we’re forced to put clothespins on our noses in order to finish the next two books. If we don’t want to read it from her, we certainly don’t want to read it from you.
And yes, there ARE other people you could pair each of them with. Ron has an as-yet unrequited crush on Hermione, but that wouldn’t stop him from reciprocating if Lavender or Luna or Mandy decided to bag him (yes, he seems straight to me, but if you think he could be otherwise, that opens up even more possibilities). And Hermione can either keep writing to Viktor or go with Terry Boot, Blaise Zabini, or Zacharias Smith, not to mention any number of girls.
If you are an R/Hr shipper, that’s different, of course you should pair them.
But if you are an R/Hr shipper, chances are I’m not reading your fics.
If you’re not an R/Hr shipper and you just want to get them out of the way? That’s a cliché! Find some OTHER way to do it, and more people will finish your fics. Something creative. Cause personally? I’d rather read about the sex life of the Giant Squid than have to watch Hermione snog Ron Weasley, and even if I love your writing, that is a mental image I will not thank you for putting into my head.
I know that in every fic involving Harry getting involved with someone, the question comes up-how do I keep Ron and Hermione from interfering? I would like to suggest that there are other answers for this question than “throw them in bed, too, in the background, and then I won’t have to deal with them except for the occasional snog scene”.
Not everyone who likes to read H/D or H/G is an R/Hr shipper. Many of us find the pairing incredibly icky. Even those who don’t recognise that it’s an incredibly uncreative thing to do. I’m at the point where this has been done to me often enough that the merest mention of R/Hr in an H/D fic will send me screaming for the back button, because even if, as bookshop said, “it’s just one sentence!” that first sentence in the first chapter alerts me to the fact that there may very well be more such sentences. I also like to read the occasional dark H/G, but the chances of avoiding R/Hr in H/G fics are so low that I tend to only read recs for that pairing from people I trust.
Don’t tell me that ‘it’s there because it’s canon’. Especially not if you are writing H/D, because that? Is so totally canon, right. As of this date, June 6, 2005, Ron/Hermione is not canon. It may become canon. It may not become canon. But what you are writing is fanfic, and for many people, especially those of us who read slash, the point of fanfic is to get to read pairings we know the author won’t write.
Many people do like R/Hr (and OBHWF), but those of us who don’t like R/Hr as a general rule really don’t like it, for reasons this essay is not the place to go into, but in most cases, we can tell you at length and with vast amounts of detail why we don’t like it and will probably never like it, even if JKR does write it and we’re forced to put clothespins on our noses in order to finish the next two books. If we don’t want to read it from her, we certainly don’t want to read it from you.
And yes, there ARE other people you could pair each of them with. Ron has an as-yet unrequited crush on Hermione, but that wouldn’t stop him from reciprocating if Lavender or Luna or Mandy decided to bag him (yes, he seems straight to me, but if you think he could be otherwise, that opens up even more possibilities). And Hermione can either keep writing to Viktor or go with Terry Boot, Blaise Zabini, or Zacharias Smith, not to mention any number of girls.
If you are an R/Hr shipper, that’s different, of course you should pair them.
But if you are an R/Hr shipper, chances are I’m not reading your fics.
If you’re not an R/Hr shipper and you just want to get them out of the way? That’s a cliché! Find some OTHER way to do it, and more people will finish your fics. Something creative. Cause personally? I’d rather read about the sex life of the Giant Squid than have to watch Hermione snog Ron Weasley, and even if I love your writing, that is a mental image I will not thank you for putting into my head.