#(same for you impossibleleaf. if you are bothered I will take off your tag)

[firendgold]

🥤🍄🍬🔪❄️🎨 - for the ask game

🥤-> an author or fanfic I love: I love all of SiderumInCaelo's work, as terrible as I am at telling her so. *poke poke* perhaps, gentle anon, you may be a better audience than me?

🍄-> another time travel harrydore headcanon, beautiful! Harry braids Albus' hair every evening that they sleep together. Albus pesters Harry about growing out his hair so Albus can return the favor, but Harry never does.

🍬 -> "post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character". you are trying to get me in trouble. But I'll go for it. I couldn't decide between "Sirius or Remus" and "another character because more than enough people have lamented those two", so I flipped a coin and got "other". I'll pick Draco Malfoy.

*breathes in* Okay. People who assume Draco "deserved" a "better redemption" or think there was always going to be one in the cards for him but That Woman changed her mind are, in my not-so-humble opinion, missing the point of the character. It's okay that Draco Malfoy didn't let go of his bigotry in the main series. It's normal. It's completely realistic. Sometimes the people you hated in school do not Get Better With Age. Sometimes, they just get older and more bigoted and reinforce why you disliked them in the first place.

Draco Malfoy is a bully. As a child, he uses slurs and flaunts his wealth and family history among peers and enemies alike. He grows up and ends up forced into a fascist organization that he's not ready to fully commit to. Lying about recognizing Harry saved Harry's life, and it was decent, even if you consider common decency to have a floor and a ceiling with that act as the floor. The war is a wake-up call for Draco, and (discounting Cursed Child) the only glimpse we have of him in the (yucky) Epilogue doesn't give us a firm idea on whether he has rolled over and gone back to sleep. (I think Pottermore or whatever it's called these days confirms he is a little better, but his parents aren't. Intriguing, but eh.)

I've read many great fics where Draco becomes a better person. Sometimes he's shipped with Harry, or Hermione (or even more rarely but refreshingly, Ron or Ginny), sometimes he's just Straight and Decent in the background, but I have seen the idea done well. I think redeemed!Draco is fine as an idea; it adds nuance to the series since Draco has had enough screen time for his makeover as the "good Slytherin" to be slightly less nauseating or out of left field than it would be for a minor Slytherin character (Blaise) or a canon non-entity (Daphne).

But I don't like the fandom idea that's taken prevalence where Draco or his mother or the whole Malfoy clan (or any Slytherin they like, really) has to be redeemed. I hate it, actually. Draco and his family have serious flaws. Those flaws are not just going to go away because you (nonspecific 'you') might think they are attractive or that you can say sorry and it cancels out the slur and the bullying and the sucking up and the generally unpleasant behavior. If we want to redeem Draco, start from where he is, and don't bend over backwards to excuse a character whose actions aren't excusable. And no, sometimes 'just having him spy for Dumbledore' is NOT enough in my mind. Snape is doing that too, at far greater risk and with no reward (the woman he loves is dead and everyone thinks he's a dickhead, because he is a dickhead, but he does it anyway. we don't need a spy who's not even going to be as good as that). And yes, I at least will not shoot you or send you nasty comments if your Draco Malfoy never rises above his hate and stays basic and annoying forever, because it's realistic and it happens every day.

🔪-> "what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project"? Uh, once when I was a teenager I wanted to write a story about a serial killer, so I looked up a lot of unique ways to murder people? ...yeah.

❄️-> "what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?" I would love for someone to write the "better 6th year fic" that's been rattling around in my head since like 2008, where Harry and Albus finally acknowledge that they are found family after 40 chapters of deliciously served angst and hurt/comfort, and then they kick Voldemort's ass really hard in the "better 7th year fic". It would be a masterpiece. No bashing, of course, just kind of a rundown of why Harry and Albus Need Each Other and how no one else can really provide Harry the kind of support he needs while also backing off to let him be the orphaned Last Potter when he needs to assume that role. Lots of healing longtime trauma too. But I don't know who would write it best because all the best HP authors I know write either canon-compliant h*nny/r*mione, flowerpot, or h*phne... and I would require that it was Harry/Hermione.

🎨 -> "link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it". Uh. I don't have only one favorite. But to fit with the theme of the blog, I'll share one of kazuza-art's pieces from last year:

I absolutely adore this fanart. It was one of the first I ever came across when I was creating this blog and looking for posts and art that matched the ship ("what am I thinking. it's hard to find posts about these two and their canon relationship that aren't bashing. does anyone even post about these two snogging???"). I love it for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons I like it is because it's fanart for a VERY good fanfic (if you haven't read Weeping Angel by impossibleleaf what are you dooooooing), but another is that it has the same quality as the headcanon I gave existingtm in my previous answer.

Harry and Albus are very recognizably themselves, but they still vibe together really well in this shot. Harry's still a great Quidditch player, still kind of easygoing and charge-ahead-and-fix-things. Albus is still an academic genius, often found with his nose in a book, kind of above it all even when he's right next to you. And they just look so GOOD together. I swear 40% of my brain when it comes to fireandgold/time travel harrydore is just this art.

Even though a lot of the fanfics I read/promote/etc. on here often ship Harry and Albus when they're older, kazuza's piece is one of the ideal versions of them in my mind.