#in general so many dramiones seem to be very long

[gloriaandrews]

Ok ive actually been on a HUGE dramione kick so this is what ive read an enjoyed lately

Better Off Forgotten Measure of a Man Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love Her Beauty and the Moonlight Timeless Unforgivable Things We're All Too Young to Know And my all time favorite Aurelian

These are all kind of long, and differ in theme (the top one better off forgotten is kind of dark) Let me know if you end up reading any of them! Also many congratulations on the baby!!!

Thank you so much!!!!

[pebblysand]

Why’s fan fiction so bad these days.

hi anon! i can't tell if this is a dig at my fics, a dig at other people's fics, or just a standard observation. having said that, i typically don't answer asks that don't say hello/thank you/some sort of minimal human acknowledgement but i did find this an interesting question to raise, so.

i don't necessarily think fanfic is "bad" "these days". IMO, the ratio of good v. bad fic has been pretty much equal in most of the fandoms i've been in overtime. about 30-40% are so bad they're unreadable (i'm talking: awful grammar, terribly OOC, plot that makes no sense, etc.). about 50-60% are "a bit meh", meaning that if you're in a very small fandom where there is nothing else to read, you'll probably read them out of sheer content starvation, but they won't really give you anything of substance. if you're in a big fandom with loads of content, you'll probably pass on them. then, you have probably about 9% that are really good. this, to me, is the stuff you would recommend if you were building a rec list for others, which you believe everyone should read. and lastly, you have the top 1%. those are the fics that have taken your breath away, are imprinted in your brain forever, you've re-read them ad nauseam and have written love letters to the authors about.

i find this ratio pretty much invariable. it was the same when i was writing for Silk, for The Good Wife, and now for HP. it also seems to be the same per HP niche. to me, there's a top 10% of post-war fics, there's a top 10% of harmony fics, etc.

but the major thing to note here is that what is top 10% for me might not be top 10% for you. that's why you don't have everyone reading or reccing the same things, and that's the joy and the beauty of diversity of taste and opinion, as far as i'm concerned. it's why i disagree with your general assessment that "fanfic is bad" "these days". that's something you think - not necessarily something someone else would think, on the basis of the content published. to give you an example, in hinny circles, i see floreatcastellum and northumbrian recommended a lot. on tiktok, i see manacled recommended a lot. having skimmed through these works, they -- personally -- do not do anything for me. but that doesn't mean they're "bad" fics. i'm sure they're great fics. they are loved by many, many people. they're just not something i vibe with, and they're not in my top 10%. just like loads of people think my fics are not for them. and that's absolutely fine. as long as you don't come in screaming in all caps insulting authors whose works you don't vibe with, we can all very happily coexist.

having said that, i have to admit that as far as my taste goes, i'm currently building a massive Google Sheets rec list (yes, coming soon, i promise ^^). one of the things i'm tracking in this rec list is the date of publication/completion of the work. and from what i can see at this stage, the average date of publication of my top 10% works is 2016. which, i think, does also say something. while i do still find loads of fics published semi-recently that i like, i also do have to acknowledge the fact that if we're looking at my own personal taste... you're probably kind of right.

so, why is fanfiction so bad these days?

i think a large part of it is that my personal taste doesn't necessarily align with that of the wider public. i'm not on-trend, let's say. AUs are pretty much the gold standard now, and particularly what-if AUs (e.g. what if Harry was a Muggle? what if Ron was in Slytherin? what if Sirius survived? etc.) you see tonnes of these recommended on reddit/being published all the time. loads of people are also interested in more exploration of characters and niche ships i'm personally not interested in (marauders, death eaters, etc.) there is also a prominence of fluff (or low-stakes romantic angst), particularly in the hinny, dramione and drarry fandoms. it's escapism from canon (and possibly, escapism from the harsh reality of our world), that i just personally don't vibe with/am not looking for. we see this in original fiction as well, with the drive towards fantasy/romantasy in recent years, and more recently still, with "cosy" literature. i don't particularly enjoy these genres in original fiction either, so i think that's probably also why i don't particularly vibe with the fanfic in that same trend.

i also think, just overall, there is less content being published in the HP fandom in general. thus, proportionally, less fics people will vibe with. this is in part simply due to the age of the source material (this happens to TV shows a lot: once a series is over, people tend to gradually drop out of fandom). it's also, i believe, due to the fact that there was a boom of fandom involvement during covid (as people had nothing else to do), and that people have now gradually dropped back out. lastly, it is probably also due to the fact that a large portion of people who used to be in fandom have dropped out due to JKR's controversial opinions. all of these things combined means that there is less overall content, and thus less content you're going to like as an individual.

additionally, globally, many countries are currently experiencing a cost-of-living crisis. this matters because, as i always say, "fanfiction is a rich person's hobby". meaning that: if you're going to truly make an effort in writing, and truly get involved in fandom, you need to have time on your hands. time you won't have anymore if you're struggling, having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. writing at a high level is a massive time suck and very few people, right now, can afford to spend hours upon hours producing free content. it's sad, but it's true. so, of course, that's inevitably going to drive good writers out of fandom. and, sadly, it will disproportionally impact good writers, because they will be the ones who will spend the most time on their craft. it's very quick to write shit fic with loads of grammatical mistakes, much harder/longer to write something high-quality. it also disproportionally impacts, of course, marginalised communities, who will then not produce the high-quality content that represents them.

lastly, i also think that one thing that demotivates writers at the moment, is an overall drop in community engagement. i was very reluctant to buy into this up until very recently because, tbh, i always get the ick when people try and argue that things were "better before" but i have to admit... i've been getting loads of comments/DMs lately from people telling me things like "i never typically comment on fanfic, but...[your fic is great]" or people coming out of the woodwork telling me they've been reading castles for years, without ever making contact before. and, not to criticise any of these people, because i truly cherish every single comment, and i understand people might feel very nervous engaging, but you have to admit that if So Many People do the same thing, you end up in a situation where many good writers get demotivated thinking no one is reading their fics because they're not getting any engagement. and, while yes, people should write for themselves first, it's easier said than done when you're just posting into the void.

so, yeah, idk, maybe instead of complaining, we should be looking at making writing conditions better for online writers and encourage more diversity in fandom. you're always going to have trends and writing styles that you more ore less vibe with, that's immutable, but creating the conditions for more voices to be able to participate is definitely a very large factor in that.

[oristian]

Hey cutie, how are you, love your posts, would you share how you came to ship gwynriel/elucien? and your initial thoughts when you read about them?

Thank you so much, I love this! Time to absolutely gush about Elucien with an added bonus of Gwynriel. Let me take you on my reading journey for ACOTAR, because I love learning about where everyone began and where they are now!

I read the books for the first time in January. I had seen so many spoilers for months before I caved and bought the first book—my goal was to read it and tear it to filth because I was prepared for it to be mediocre and boring, and I had heard that it was full of smut. I was about to be its biggest critic just out of spite for Booktok ….. And here we are, now.

I actually went into the books shipping Feysand and Elriel based on everything that I saw on Tik Tok; I am a sucker for pretty artwork, and some of the videos I saw for Elriel seemed pretty interesting. I had not yet seen any other characters at that point. When I started reading the books, I read just for fun and really fell in love with Lucien and Nesta and that is where my focus fell—at that point, I was not thinking much on ships, but I knew that I currently was not a fan of Feylin and I already knew that Feyre was going to end up with Rhys.

When I got to ACOMAF and I saw that Elain and Lucien were mates, any thought that I had about Elriel literally died on the spot—everything made sense to me. I was already taken by Nessian, but seeing Elucien literally grounded me in place because of how much foreshadowing and symbolism they had as a couple. I immediately bought ACOWAR as I was still reading the ending and read it right after finishing. I was skipping full sections of the book just looking for scenes between Elain and Lucien, as that was all I cared about (I did eventually go back and reread it in full, for anyone wondering). No other fictional couple—besides Dramione and Chuck and Blair—has had me quite like they do.

I have said this so many times, but Elain and Lucien have the most insane amount of potential and compatibility out of any of SJM’s current couples. Everything about them is so complimentary and their book is about to end me. I could honestly talk about them all day if I had the time, but one day I plan on writing comparisons and symbolisms between them from each book in a comprehensive study—possibly when SJM announces the next book I will be more eager to do so.

As for Gwynriel, I knew from the second they met that they would be endgame. I have always been someone who is very in tune with the direction of a story, and I really adored Azriel and wanted the best possible love interest for him—originally, I thought that he would meet that person in his own book (or even Eris 🙈), until Gwyn came along. Most definitely my focus was on Nesta and Nessian in ACOSF, but I knew that Azriel had been included in this arc for a reason. Cassian easily could have been the only trainer, but including Azriel, as well? Something is being built up.

All of the little moments between Azriel and Gwyn were so pointed and written in such a way to draw in the reader’s attention. My original thought was that Azriel and Gwyn would get together by the end of the book, only because, at the time, I was not aware that there were more books being written after ACOSF. So, my thought was that Elucien and Gwynriel would happen in the background of ACOSF—I was disappointed if that was the case, of course. It was not until I joined the fandom in April that I learned that there were more books coming.

It was not until May that I learned about Azriel’s bonus chapter—and bonus chapters, in general. That chapter only solidified what I knew in that Azriel and Gwyn were endgame, but this time with the added bonus of them being foreshadowed as mates. The rest is history!

Sorry for the long winded answer, as you can see I am very passionate about my interests.

[fanfic-lover-girl]

I hope you don’t mind me asking all these questions but I really wanted to know:

What ships do you love? What ships do you neither love nor hate, simply tolerate? And what ships do you absolutely hate?

Also, if you like Drarry, can you explain why? Was there something in canon that turned you to it or was it just some fanfics that you’ve read and enjoyed the ship in those specific stories? (If you don’t ship drarry, you can ignore this)

Hi anon!

I am assuming you just mean HP ships?

If so, there are no HP ships I love. I have ships I find intriguing, fun, funny or cute like Snirius, Drarry, Lucissa, Druna, Dreville and Dron. In most cases, I started liking the ship due to fanfiction and not purely because of canon. Because that's mainly because I am not a shippy person. I don't watch much media but I can't think of a single romance that truly wowed me, really shook me.

I absolutely hate Jily. Can't stand it. I hate Wolfstar. I strongly dislike Hinny and Romione. I can dig the premise but I don't like the execution of Hinny and Romione. Any ship with Remus and Lily in general. I tried Snupin a few times and I just could not do it. It also doesn't help that I dislike most of the characters involved in these ships.

Ships I tolerate? Bill and Fleur is meh. They seem cute and I liked Fleur's line about being pretty enough for both her and Bill when he got mauled by Greyback. But I don't care about either character much for me to actively ship them. I am fine with Drastoria overall but I am not a fan. I care little for Astoria and I hate the idea that she is responsible for Draco's redemption. Pass me on that. Percy seems to have cute relationships with his girlfriends. He was such a sweetheart with Penelope! For the other ships like Cho/Cedric, Neville/Hannah etc, I don't know much about them to care.

I want to like Dramione...but I dislike Hermione too much. Plus, I hate how Draco and Hermione are portrayed. Even if I find a Dramione fanfic writer who develops the relationship well...there's Hermione still and I don't want Draco with her. Same with Jeverus too. I do like the concept of James being obsessed with Snape and it leading to a toxic or redemptive romance, but I am not interested in James enough to read one. Plus, my tolerance for slash fanfiction is waning.

Drarry for me is very complicated. I have a love-hate relationship with Drarry. I like Drarry for many reasons.

First of all, I am a Draco fan - he's my favourite character. And the best Draco fics tend to lean towards Drarry. I got into HP fanfiction because I wanted a Draco story and it turned out to be a Drarry fic. I feel like Drarry fics tend to explore Draco's character very well and in very interesting ways. Unlike Dramione where Draco is usually horribly OOC. Drarry fics are top-tier.

Second of all, I like the Drarry meta here on Tumblr. While I do not believe romantic Drarry ought to be canon, I do feel like the story suffered by not exploring the Drarry relationship more. Draco and Harry foil each other and have such interesting and entertaining dynamics that I am very disappointed how JKR ended Draco's story in the books.

So basically I got into Drarry through fanfiction and then I learnt about canon more, and I had even more appreciation for the ship.

However, I have moments where I hate Drarry. I don't like Harry much and it would be nice to have a good Draco-centric fic where Harry is not involved. I used to like Harry well enough when I mainly knew his character through analysis and Drarry fanfiction. But as I actually interacted more with the source material...I just don't like him. I hate Harry as a protag and the thought of him with Draco makes me sick sometimes. The daily posts from my mutual iamnmbr3 about Drarry moments in HBP and DH revived my interest in this ship and I have told her that lol. She sucked me back in :')

Sorry, this took so long anon! I had it in my drafts for weeks and forgot about it. Hope my answer satisfies your curiosity :)

[wallflowerlore]

oh yeah, just one more influencer (this time an insanely popular booktuber from my home country), who is not familiar with the universe of fanfics and treats it like a published novel, creating content based on the “polemic” and “problematic” properly tagged dark fic that many who are not in fandom gets surprised when the fic contains said dark content. and then recommending reading a translation on WATTPAD when sen links to a translation inside ao3 in the author notes before even the first chapter…..i know this fic has breached containment a long time ago and that sen has been run through a lot by people who don’t know fandom etiquette so one more person making a video is nothing new, but like i know how the general br public and br hp fandom is towards dramione and fics in general, and is not good, and if this becomes a trend with other big br bookinfluencers (and another one seems like to be considering reading it) because they feel like they *have* to to get views rather than reading because they are interested in the story (and many of the accounts will read because it’s what people talk about and i can see at least some of them being very mocking and pretentious about it) i’ll have to wade through so many annoying fanfic discourse by people who don’t care about the ship or fanfic in not just one language but two while not being able to do nothing about it.

i haven’t seen the video in the screenshot and it does seem like the creator liked the story. but it doesn’t matter that she liked it because it’s the way these booktok/booktube/booktwt approach fanfic that doesn’t sit right with me (i mean, where did you read the fic that you told someone they can find a translation on fucking wattpad rather than using the one the author linked to???). i mean, and it’s sad that sen gets all of this weight on their shoulders (i mean, this thread made me sad).

these reddit posts are more coherent about the overall situation (excluding the issue selling copies which is another problem) that summarize my opinion.

[nidamae-approvedhpfanfics]

Fanfic .com favorites as of March 2024

The list is long mostly Harry Potter but a few Labyrinth.

ALPHABETICAL B-C

Back to the Beginning by burnable Harry Potter u:07-02-2020 - Harry finds himself thrust into his four-year old body, after Voldemort killed him in the forest in what would have been his seventh year. Knowing what he did, he decided to fix some things he never had a chance to before. He'd not go into the magical world untrained this time. OP Harry. Science, magic and discovery. Harem.

Back in the Game by Demoph-the-Black Harry Potter u:11-27-2022 - Harry has planned for years, only for Dumbledore to put a wrench in the works. "You have to die... so long and thanks for all the fish." But his plan will move on even without him. Except... Death has something else in mind. My 1st fic, crosspost from AO3, crack!

Back to the Past by Glorioux Harry Potter u:04-11-2021 - Can Apocalypse be averted? The magical world is a place of horror. Hermione goes back to the moment where all went wrong. Will anyone believe her. Dumbledore made amistake, Grindenwald escaped, and The Magical word is ending; can she stop it? First she must kill the pretender, glamoured to seem like Sirius.

Backward Without Purpose by birdwoman95 Harry Potter u:06-28-2016 - A re-do story full of cliches and cussing. I dislike the Weasley family in general and Ron in specific, so you may want to pass if he's your hero. Adult, Auror Harry is thrown back to his 10 year old body. What does he do? Kick @ and take names, of course. Rating is for the recounting of crimes by a Very Bad Man.

Basilisk-born by Ebenbild Harry Potter u:03-26-2021 - What if the Dementor attack in 5th year had ended with Harry losing? What if someone had stepped in to save him? And what if Harry ended up in the past with a chance to be more than he ever was before? A story about a forcibly time travelled Harry and its consequences... Manipulative Dumbledore, 'Slytherin!Harry', Time Travel!

Basilisk Go Boom! by BeepKeeper Harry Potter u:03-25-2018 - Here's a short story set during Harry's third year. Who gives a fourteen-year-old a powerful artefact to bend time. Did anyone monitor her use? Did anyone warn her of the consequences of misuse? Also something different with Basilisk! Dumbledore Ron & Sirius bashing (no pairings)

Bastard Prince by RhiannanT Harry Potter u:12-11-2016 - Book two in the Outcast's Alley series. Having accepted his place in the Court, Tobias must learn how to fulfill it, as well as handle new revelations about his parentage.

Bathtime by Ruya Firtina Labyrinth u:06-20-2012 - Sarah gets completely dunked in the Bog of Eternal Stench, and there is only one way to get rid of the stink. Okay, I lied before, but now it is really Complete!

Beautiful Things Can Come From The Dark by yesterdayschild4 Harry Potter u:11-28-2009 - He finds her, broken and bleeding, and it will change everything. A rape aftermath story told from Draco Malfoy's POV. DHr

Beauty and the Beast by Lightning09 Harry Potter u:11-12-2016 - Kind. Scared. Smart. Loving. Not words you would use to describe Draco Malfoy. But the war had it's toll on everyone. But Draco Malfoy? During their 8th year of school, Hermione discovers the side of Draco she never would have thought possible. Love and War. Beauty and the Beast. Two opposites who find themselves in one another. DRAMIONE *Sequel out NOW!*

Becoming Neville by Jedi Rita Harry Potter u:06-07-2006 - COMPLETE Neville's Gran breaks her hip just after his fifth year at Hogwarts, and he must spend the summer with Harry and Remus. They discover a hidden message in the candy wrappers his mother has been giving him, and begin to uncover the mystery.

Before the Dawn by snarkyroxy Harry Potter u:07-12-2006 - In her seventh year, a latenight discovery changes Hermione Granger's view on a great many things. Severus Snape is just one of them. Complete.

Beginning of a New Life by rlpj4 Harry Potter u:07-27-2010 - AU. After the events of fourth year, Harry does not return to Privet Drive. He, with the help of Gringotts, decides to travel and learn as much as he can to help him in the fight against Voldemort. Super!Harry, Time-Travel!Harry

Behind Blue Eyes by elmembrila Harry Potter u:11-14-2019 - It's the summer after the Department of Mysteries and Harry Potter's about to do something drastic, something nobody expects, and he may not be alone. Following the lives of Harry and the Order as they battle against each other.

Behind the Mask by tookkia Harry Potter u:08-09-2017 - It begins when he asks her to dance; charming, dashing, Hermione is enchanted; pity it's not who she expects. Tensions continue to rise, though, when a new poison threatens the magical world, more fatal than childish grudges. An impossible pair, surreally perfect.

Beltane Child by White Angel of Auralon Harry Potter u:09-01-2013 - Harry needs some time to let his guard down in the war. So he goes to a celebration just before he, Ron and Hermione plan to get Hufflepuff's Cup from Bellatrix Lestrange's vault. Who could have guessed what the consequences would be?

Beneath Your Window by Crookshanks.x Harry Potter u:06-06-2008 - Hermione finds her life in turmoil and decides that the best move is to run from it all. To her surprise, she's not the only one running from life. DHr fic, Complete.

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Perhentian.en Harry Potter u:04-21-2022 - Hermione had grown quite used to help Harry each time her friend managed to end up in some impossible situation, and this even if the war with Voldemort had been over for a long time. But when Harry, faced with the destruction of the magical world, decides to throw his friends back in time, Hermione is appalled. And what about this reckless plan of his to somehow use Voldemort?

Beyond the Sacred by Lomonaaeren Harry Potter u:12-02-2022 - Members of the "Sacred Twenty-Eight": "Don't you wish you were sacred like me?" Harry: "Not really, no." COMPLETE.

Birdshot by BeepKeeper Harry Potter u:04-01-2022 - Harry's exceptional summer between third and fourth years at Hogwarts begins with revising the goblin wars and figuring out how to get help from trusted adults. He spends time in the sunshine and thinks about his runic arrays and cartouche. The summer gets intense before return to Hogwarts where professors have stupid restrictions once again. BASH DUMBLEDORE BASH Magical Britain

Black Family Business by Nargled Harry Potter u:05-11-2016 - The war and the trials are over. Draco is finally going to become the Heir to the Black Family. And there's nothing that bloody Potter can do about it. Chapter two added, updated.

Blind My Eyes, Sew Them Shut by Greenaleydis Harry Potter u:11-17-2017 - After a close brush with the Death Eaters, Hermione awakens blinded and on the run with a familiar snarky Slytherin. In hiding, Hermione and Draco must find a way to survive - and somehow thwart a plot that could alter their very world. Dramione, post-DH, COMPLETE.

Blood of My Blood by Lomonaaeren Harry Potter u:11-19-2022 - HPTN, AU. Theo knows that someone in Hogwarts is using blood magic, the kind that scrapes at his senses. But without knowing more information, he can't seek them out or stop them. Purely by chance, he finds Harry Potter with blood soaking through bandages on the back of his hand, and discovers the power of taking a risk. Twoshot. COMPLETE.

Blood of an Enemy by Foamy the Squirrel Harry Potter u:08-12-2004 - Hermione kills Voldemort at the end of Sixth year. Over the summer she is turned into a Vampyre. When she returns to school, friendless and alone, she finds out how cruel life really is. -COMPLETED-

Bolt Fashion by White Angel of Auralon Harry Potter u:12-27-2015 - Harry Potter knows that money can give you power and influence. He has learned that from a young age on, seeing how his relatives get away with many things. And others having way much more than you do can be a problem. Thus he starts his path to cause a small revolution in its own right. No matter if Dumbledore doesn't like it. Two-shot.

Bond by MrBenzedrine Harry Potter u:05-24-2017 - What happens at "Bond" stays at "Bond" -Hermione is taken out for drinks at club "Bond", an establishment that can offer you anything from some alcohol and dancing to SO much more. When she, quite literally, falls into Draco Malfoy's lap, will she open up her mind and explore sexual desires she never knew she had? Kink. COMPLETE **FIRST PLACE: BEST SMUT 2017 Dramione Awards**

Bonds of Blood by LiteraryLuminary Harry Potter u:05-04-2005 - Today marks the end of her debt to Lily, paid in blood. On Harry's 17th birthday, Petunia bids farewell to her nephew. She anticipates freedom the instant he is placed in his guardian's care, but is given poetic justice in its stead.

Bone of the Father by BeepKeeper Harry Potter u:04-11-2023 - The ritual in the Graveyard to resurrect Lord Voldemort reveals a problem for Tom Riddle, Jr. Something is missing when he steps out of the cauldron, something he couldn't get from Tom Riddle, Sr's bone. (Bashing Riddle, Dumbledore, professors, Houses at Hogwarts, and Ministry for Magic)

Break the Pattern: Tri-Wizard by Squirrel of Shadow Harry Potter u:03-27-2015 - As Tri-Wizard tournament approaches, Harry Potter prepares himself. He is unwilling to dance to the whims of manipulative old men, and he's laid the groundwork for what he has to do. This year's Quiddich has already been cancelled, and with the shadow of the Tournament threatening him with peril, Harry's got a plan to slip the old manipulative bastard's leash. Crack-ish! Bash!Draco

Breath of the Nundu by corvusdraconis Harry Potter u:10-09-2016 - [HG/SS] AU/Crackfic: One morning, Severus Snape wakes up with a furry visitor snuggled under the quilt with him. As he pulls back the quilt, two glowing eyes lock with his, and everything is turned on its ear. As the rest of his visitor crawls out from under the covers, he realises he has a problem. There is a Nundu cub in his bed, and for some reason, she's bound to him.

Broken by inadaze22 Harry Potter u:07-15-2009 - He felt something close to pity for the woman in front of him. And while that disturbed Draco to no end, what really disgusted him most of all was the harrowing fact that someone or something had broken Hermione Granger's spirit beyond recognition. Revised 2019. Update your Epubs.

Broken Bonds by broomstick flyer Harry Potter u:01-28-2015 - Harry is not happy about the adult responce to the Dementor attack in Little whinging. His letter to the order at Grimmauld place has some unforseen consequences some of which turn out quite good for both Harry and Hermione.

Broken Feathers by naarna Harry Potter u:08-26-2020 - It's been eight years since Draco last spoke with Hermione, and now she has disappeared. Will he put everything into finding her? WIP. Dramione. Creature!Hermione. EWE. (COMPLETED)

Building a Life by redhead414 Harry Potter u:04-23-2012 - A 12 Part Epilogue to "It's All Uncharted."

Bundle of Joy by LadyTuesday Harry Potter u:06-03-2013 - Seeking: An intelligent, capable wizard amenable to assisting a bright, independent, magically-formidable single witch in the conception of a child. Insemination only: no sexual congress; non-negotiable. Further contact will be established following receipt of preliminary letter of interest. Address all inquiries by owl to Joy Bundle c/o Hogsmeade Owl Post.

Burning Boils by SilverAngel99 Harry Potter u:09-28-2005 - COMPLETED! It is the end of the 7th Hermione is overcome by a strange illness that can be cured by a potion. Unfortunately, Madam Pomfrey is ill as well, and Snape is called up to take care of the young Gryffindor. What happens when she needs his undivide

Calculation by fringeperson Harry Potter u:12-08-2011 - Young Harry liked numbers, he liked using numbers and working out the value of things. When he found out that he was a wizard and had a big pile of gold... well, he had something new to calculate. oneshot, complete, don't own.

Can You Manage? by bruhdawg Harry Potter u:07-30-2021 - "'Are you sure you can manage it, Granger'" - Hermione has, once again, gotten caught for being out after hours. Dumbledore and McGonagall agree that the best punishment for her... is to work for the slytherin quidditch team. How will she survive? - dramione *sexual content and slight sexual assault/harassment* *All characters and majority of settings belong to J.K Rowling*

Cards of Truth by cleotheo Harry Potter u:06-27-2018 - When Snape catches Harry and Ron with a card game designed by the Weasley twins, he decides that the seventh years should play as it's nearing the end of the year and all their work has been done. However, the game reveals a few secrets, and more are revealed when the game continues in the head dorms. Fun and light-hearted one-shot.

Cat got your tongue? by VaingloriousHound Harry Potter u:09-16-2020 - Harry successfully manages his animagus transformation. And that's about all he's able to manage. Daphne's insistent attention seems entirely unmanageable for him and his poor heart. Slight AU.

Cats in the Cradle by hermionewiz27 Harry Potter u:12-16-2014 - When Minerva McGonagall heard she had to visit all of the muggle-born students in her house, she expected a tedious beginning to her holiday. When she ended up bringing a student home with her, it gave her the piece of her family she had been missing.

Champions of the Founders by StormyFireDragon Harry Potter u:04-09-2013 - What happens when the founders have enough? Why they come back and help turn the wizarding world upside down. See how people's lives will be changed and see what happens when you upset their heirs. HP/LL DM/SB

Chances Are by keeperoliver Harry Potter u:12-19-2015 - A five year old Harry is taken from an abusive Vernon and Petunia Dursley because of an accident. This accident changes Harry and these changes may decide the fate of the wizarding world. Ron Bashing. All Characters and settings are the creation of J.K. Rowilng

Change Comes to the Changeless by Lomonaaeren Harry Potter u:11-25-2022 - Fawkes thought about leaving the wizarding world altogether after the death of Albus Dumbledore. But there is another that needs his care and has attracted his fascination. Fawkes does not intend to let Harry Potter walk to his death. COMPLETE.

Changed Past by White Angel of Auralon Harry Potter u:07-26-2015 - Auror Harry Potter was hunting a criminal that caused lots of death. Just what he didn't expect was ending in the past, thanks to said criminal's actions. He was never one to sit by while injustice happened, so sitting still until he found a way home wasn't really going to happen. No matter what Hermione had told him about time-travel. One-Shot

Chaos by JustBored21 Harry Potter u:11-24-2019 - Harry gets thrown back in time and ends up in his ten year old body. This time, he's going to do everything different, this time he will have a proper relationship with the love of his life who happens to be a Siren and this time he's not playing Dumbledore's games.Dumbledore, Hermione, select Weasley bashing. Harry x original character. Crazy, overpowered and insane Harry

Chaos of the Potter Family by ReynaAtTheEnd Harry Potter u:08-08-2016 - 6th year AU. Dumbledore messed with Harry's family even more than anyone suspected. Ginny discovers that she was born Guinevere Potter. Harry discovers that, in a twisted system, the power of having multiple houses to his name is undeniable. He sets out to turn this twisted system against itself; and maybe restore the nobility of the former kings. Harry/Luna/harem, dark

Charm School by night.drive Harry Potter u:06-28-2016 - COMPLETE. Ginny Weasley finds herself trying to navigate the strange and confusing traditions of pure-blood society in Narcissa Malfoy's Charm School, where she encounters catty girls, a meticulous teacher, and worst of all, Draco Malfoy. Will she come out on top or be defeated? EPILOGUE POSTED.

Charmed to You by CJRed Harry Potter u:08-18-2016 - Hermione comes up with a charm that allows 'bonded soul' matches, something that has been unheard of for generations. What will Hermione do when her own magic matches her with Draco Malfoy? Unique pairings. This Hermione is a scarred war hero in a political job. She is not going to act like a brash teen and starts out in shock and reserved. Not for all readers.

Checklists by Gin's Comettail Harry Potter u:04-30-2009 - A G/D/B study in absurdity. Harry's left Ginny at Hogwarts, but does that mean any devastatingly sexy pair of boys can swoop in and steal her heart, Blaise wonders? To which Draco says - Wait, WHAT?

Child of Prophecy by VashonBeader Harry Potter u:08-24-2020 - Harry Potter is brought to Gringotts. Adventure ensues. Loving Weasleys, a bit of Dumbledore bashing, but not the focus. Harry/Hermione. This is a roller-coaster ride, so buckle up and have fun!

Choices by erm31323 Harry Potter u:11-14-2022 - Hermione takes a holiday before the second anniversary of Ron's death, hoping to decide if she is ready to move on with her life. Adrian is spending the last month before he must fulfill his familial responsibilities travelling on the continent. When the two run into one another, neither expect the outcome. Not Epilogue compliant

Christmas at Hogwarts by cleotheo Harry Potter u:12-22-2014 - A ferocious storm forces Dumbledore to shut Hogwarts for the Christmas holidays. However, in their haste to leave the Professors end up leaving a small handful of students behind. How will three Gryffindors and three Slytherins cope with spending Christmas at Hogwarts? Fun, festive story.

Chronos Historia by In Dreams Harry Potter u:04-08-2018 - Hermione and Draco stumble upon a mysterious portal and find themselves hurtled back through time a thousand years. Forced to team up to find a way home, they quickly realize that much of the history they believed to be fact, wasn't true after all. A founders era, time travel Dramione. Winner of Most Creative Plot in the Granger Enchanted Awards 2018.

Claimed By A Slytherin by Andy'sGirl4485 Harry Potter u:08-25-2011 - Hermione Granger had lost her bloody mind. At least, that's what the current circumstances would lead one to believe. AU HG/DM Hermione loses a bet and has to wear the claim tag of a certain Slytherin. Comedy, Romance, Fluff, Lemons and Happy Ending!

Closest When We're Very Far Away by GaeilgeRua Harry Potter u:03-03-2017 - Seven years after Hermione rode the dragon out of Gringotts with Harry and Ron, the Ministry has approved her petition to send someone to find it. That someone is Charlie Weasley.

Confused Beauty by DisneyKd4 Harry Potter u:04-04-2014 - She couldn't bring her parents memories back. She had to become a new person and befriend the Grangers as Briar Rose. As life is starting to fall into place again, one birthday changes everything -again. Who exactly are her parents? Why is Draco Malfoy back in her life? And how many more lies are there going to be?:/Pureblood Hermione -plot line loosely connected to Sleeping Beauty

Consequentially Yours by Nyruserra Harry Potter u:07-24-2009 - The war is over, and the recovering Wizarding Community adopts a new Marriage Law to cope with the sudden rise of bloodsicknesses. Poor Oliver, he's about to find out that the consequences of doing the right thing can get very out of hand! Not HBP Com.

Contrats? I Don't Need No Stinking Contracts by Alpha-The-Omega Harry Potter u:12-08-2010 - Harry learns of betrayal and shenanigans in dealing with most of the Order. WHat does he do? ONESHOT

Cornering Mediwitch Granger by Twilight to Midnight Harry Potter u:09-27-2007 - Five years after Hogwarts, Hermione is a mediwitch oblivious to the world of romance but Draco Malfoy is about to change that. If she won't admit she loves him then Draco will just have to force it out of her in the only way a slytherin sex god knows how.

Correcting Mistakes by potterlad81 Harry Potter u:09-12-2018 - At the end of his rope, Harry makes a desperate bid to reclaim his life... all of it. A brief time travel fic.

Correspondence by emikae Harry Potter u:02-22-2005 - Harry isn't getting his letters, so he take things into his own hands, and owls Voldemort to see if he is intercepting them. A surprising thing happens... Complete!

Coven of The Rose by CRose Harry Potter u:09-06-2009 - Harry's escaped from Azkaban and wants Revenge! Now this isn't your normal everyday kind of revenge, Harry is a second generation Marauder with a bone to pick with just about everyone that thinks they can just discard him like a worn out shoe

Craving Curves by WeasleyForMe Harry Potter u:02-08-2012 - Fred is surprised to find how much Hermione has grown up since her days as the Gryffindor bookworm. He's even more surprised by how much he wants her. Hermione/Fred rated M

Creative Landscaping by Acacia Vix Harry Potter u:01-14-2021 - Harry decides to let off some steam. This gives him ideas for handling the Triwizard Tournament. T rating may be overdoing it.

Crookshanks the Matchmaker by midwestern sorceress Harry Potter u:06-10-2013 - All Crookshanks wants is for his mistress Hermione Granger to be happy. But he knows she won't find the happiness she needs with the readheaded male. So, one evening, he chooses to take matters into his own hands. Or paws. H/Hr.

Cwéne by artemisgirl Harry Potter u:11-02-2016 - Hermione watches the inky sky, alone, and wishes upon a star. She wishes for an equal, someone to stand at her side as she takes a stand against the world. And when the Fates deliver him to her, the world will never be the same again.

[dramionediscussion]

These are what I think, with regard to your recent post.

"Hermione not having friends outside of Harry and the Weasleys."

They are the main characters, with more fleshed out personalities in the books, people are more emotionally attached to them. This could be why they are the main choices in fics. I do agree that it would be nice to see Hermione having other friendships, but Hermione as a character could also be difficult to get along with and she would probably be super busy which would make having no other friendships make sense. Basically, I think it depends on her characterisation in the fic itself.

"Most times author just have a throwaway line that her parents are not in her life, and it seems like it's not a big deal."

This also depends on what type of fic it is and how long the fic is. Hermione's situation with her parents is a heavy topic, it can change the tone of the fic significantly. Especially if it's just a fluff fic. Some writers don't want to have to delve into trauma and struggles either, there's a pressure to get it right. That's probably why some writers prefer not to address it in detail. I do think it's nice and realistic to see Hermione being emotionally impacted by what happened, but then again, it's understandable when writers chose not to write it.

"Hermione being a virgin while Draco is the sex god."

It's probably coming from the fact that women are the main demographic for romance, especially hetero women if we are talking about hetero ships. Women generally prefer experienced/competent men, write men like that, seek and want to read men like that — it's a fantasy. It's just a pattern I've observed. Hermione's personality doesn't help either, it makes logical sense that she's inexperienced or a virgin if she's so busy with other things, or have a fear of failure and avoid sex because of it — sex can be scary if you are an overthinker. I personally like the idea of Draco being the inexperienced one, or their levels of experience are pretty much the same. But then again, it depends on how the writer wants to write the characters, as long as they make it make sense, it's alright for me. Some writers have made Hermione sexually experienced because she's curious about sex so she learns and learns, which also makes sense.

"Having more than one conflict in a fic."

Fics very well should have more than one conflict if it's a long fic or else there would be no point to it. But yes, it's good to have a different type of conflict instead of the same one.

"You would think that they would have learned from the previous argument and not jump to conclusions and actually communicate."

Realistically, people take time to change and can slip into old habit, especially if their habit is motivated by insecurities and fears, these are difficult to deal with. So it makes sense if the issue comes up again. I'm personally okay with it as long as they realise their repeated offense before the fic ends, and as long as the same conflict doesn't come up more than 3 times. 2-3 times are realistic for me, I even prefer it since Dramione is a difficult pairing. More than 3 times, it can get tedious. But that's just my preference.

"Draco not having a job." This made me laugh 😂

Your pet peeves are valid, it can get frustrating to stumble upon the same thing especially when you don't like them. But at the same time, I think we also need to keep in mind that many writers just write for fun and write what they enjoy. We don't know the ages of the authors, some of them may be very young and fanfictions may be their first step into the world of writing. Some of them may be busy with work and maybe just prefer to write an easy fic to scratch the Dramione itch. If they don't want to talk about the hard parts, or write something different, there should be no pressure to do so.

Writing is difficult in itself, especially if English is not their native language. Fic writers don't get paid for it, readers don't have to pay for those fics. Ultimately, fandom is something that should be enjoyed by the creators (writers, fanartists, editors) and by the consumers (the audience). Every contribution keeps the fandom active, which is good.

People have freedom of speech of course, but I think when we talk about our pet peeves or complaints, as a part of a fandom and a community, it may be better if we phrase our thoughts like a piece of suggestions and ideas. Like, here are 10 different ways you can write Hermione as a character!, etc. That could make it more encouraging especially for new and young writers.

"Hermione not having friends outside of Harry and the Weasleys." They are the main characters, with more fleshed out personalities in the books, people are more emotionally attached to them. This could be why they are the main choices in fics. I do agree that it would be nice to see Hermione having other friendships, but Hermione as a character could also be difficult to get along with and she would probably be super busy which would make having no other friendships make sense. Basically, I think it depends on her characterisation in the fic itself.

Why would she be busy? I agree that this depends on the fic, but you can write a story where the trio doesn't work right after the war, they go traveling, or just chill and heal. She doesn't need to be busy. She can connect with other people. And this is fanfiction, you can make a new character, give them a background, and flesh them out to make them a main person in the story. You don't have to rely on the canon characters. Realistically, most people don't keep the only friends they grew up with. In the HP context, it makes sense that Hermione would always be close to Harry and the Weasleys because of what they have gone through, but it doesn't mean she cannot become close to someone else.

"Most times author just have a throwaway line that her parents are not in her life, and it seems like it's not a big deal." This also depends on what type of fic it is and how long the fic is. Hermione's situation with her parents is a heavy topic, it can change the tone of the fic significantly. Especially if it's just a fluff fic. Some writers don't want to have to delve into trauma and struggles either, there's a pressure to get it right. That's probably why some writers prefer not to address it in detail. I do think it's nice and realistic to see Hermione being emotionally impacted by what happened, but then again, it's understandable when writers chose not to write it.

I agree it depends on the fic, some people want to write a fic showing the impact of her actions, showing her dealing with her loss. But what I was referring to, what I should have specified further, was that some fics don't include her parents, and say she doesn't have a relationship with them, but then has her being very close to the Weasleys. I get that the author wants a parental figure for Hermione in the story for love and guidance, but her parents are right there. Why can't they just say she went back for her parents and all is well. Why dismiss them but then replace them with Molly and Arthur? Why just not use her real parents? In canon Molly said not treat her too nicely, but in fanfiction they always have Molly as a second mother. But she has a mom already, so just use that character, you don't have to dive into what happened and how they healed and moved forward as a family because of the obliviation. You can keep it simple and easy.

"Hermione being a virgin while Draco is the sex god." It's probably coming from the fact that women are the main demographic for romance, especially hetero women if we are talking about hetero ships. Women generally prefer experienced/competent men, write men like that, seek and want to read men like that — it's a fantasy. It's just a pattern I've observed. Hermione's personality doesn't help either, it makes logical sense that she's inexperienced or a virgin if she's so busy with other things, or have a fear of failure and avoid sex because of it — sex can be scary if you are an overthinker. I personally like the idea of Draco being the inexperienced one, or their levels of experience are pretty much the same. But then again, it depends on how the writer wants to write the characters, as long as they make it make sense, it's alright for me. Some writers have made Hermione sexually experienced because she's curious about sex so she learns and learns, which also makes sense.

I don't quite agree with this. Yes, women want a competent man in their lives, but sex has nothing to do with that. Competent men can be shitty in bed and shitty men can be gods in bed. And most fics have Draco being in his early 20s and already knowing it all when it comes to female pleasure, it's unrealistic honestly. Also, there is nothing in canon that makes me think it's logical for her to be inexperienced or a virgin other than her age. You say personality, and that rubs me the wrong way honestly. Just because she has a type A personality, doesn't mean she no one wants to date her. She went out with Viktor, an international sports star and it was implied they made out, and she went on a date with Cormac, an older student. Ron fell for her after years of friendship. They all clearly liked her personality enough to see her in a romantic sense. But we are talking about fanfiction, most fanfiction is set after the war when they are in their 20s. People in their 20s date and explore their sexuality, so why can't Hermione. Why does she have to be the prude? Canon shows that the Wizarding World is not as modern as the Muggle World. Being a child of the 80s, you would think that Hermione was the one who grew up in a sexually liberated way while Draco who grew up as an aristocrate, grew up to be the prude one.

"Having more than one conflict in a fic." Fics very well should have more than one conflict if it's a long fic or else there would be no point to it. But yes, it's good to have a different type of conflict instead of the same one.

Yeah, that is what I was referring to. Again I should have specified more, but I was talking about having to same arguments and conflicts. It feels redundant to make them argue over the same thing two or three times in the story.

"You would think that they would have learned from the previous argument and not jump to conclusions and actually communicate." Realistically, people take time to change and can slip into old habit, especially if their habit is motivated by insecurities and fears, these are difficult to deal with. So it makes sense if the issue comes up again. I'm personally okay with it as long as they realise their repeated offense before the fic ends, and as long as the same conflict doesn't come up more than 3 times. 2-3 times are realistic for me, I even prefer it since Dramione is a difficult pairing. More than 3 times, it can get tedious. But that's just my preference.

I know that in real life people will take time to change and heal and move forward from their insecurities, but some fics have them arguing over a particular thing in one chapter, then less than 5 chapters later, the same arguments, and the same miscommunication. Because of their histories, I would 100% expect some miscommunications and uneasy talks about their past and how to create a future. But when you have Draco for example, being jealous of Hermione's friendship with Theo or Harry over and over in a story, it makes me not want to ship them. One fic I read recently had them have a massive argument in the final 5 chapters. After all they have gone through and all the healing, they are ready to move on and build this great life, now a new thing comes up and it felt like the author just wanted to extent the fic unnecessarily.

But at the same time, I think we also need to keep in mind that many writers just write for fun and write what they enjoy. We don't know the ages of the authors, some of them may be very young and fanfictions may be their first step into the world of writing. Some of them may be busy with work and maybe just prefer to write an easy fic to scratch the Dramione itch. If they don't want to talk about the hard parts, or write something different, there should be no pressure to do so.

I completely understand and agree, but at the same time, I can express what I like and don't like. This is why I did this here. I was reading a fic and didn't like how the author wrote a scene. I went to check the reviews and some people were not kind to the author about what they disliked. And while I agreed with them, they could have been nicer. But it got me thinking about things that I see are common and it made me just want to vent a bit

People have freedom of speech of course, but I think when we talk about our pet peeves or complaints, as a part of a fandom and a community, it may be better if we phrase our thoughts like a piece of suggestions and ideas. Like, here are 10 different ways you can write Hermione as a character!, etc. That could make it more encouraging especially for new and young writers.

Why can't we be a bit negative though? There is nothing wrong about saying "hey I don't really like this and here is why". I don't think anyone should have to sugarcoat their dislikes (depends on the situation). I understand now in society there is so much negativity and we should 100% be nicer to people, but in this context about pet peeves, we are not targetting any person in particular. We are not calling out a specific fic. I am just talking about things I have seen multiple times in fics over the last 15 years that irks me. That doesn't mean I won't continue to read fics with these things in them. It just means I will be sighing a lot. Also writing a post about "how to write Hermione" is not that dissimilar to my pet peeves post technically.

Anyway, thank you for the response. I'm glad you sent this in, it's nice to engage with other people who have a different opinion than me. I might not have agreed with all your points but I do understand them and it can help me see things differently in the future. Who knows, maybe I might be able to remove some of these pet peeves off the list! LOL

-Lisa

[broomsticks]

~22 min: “substantially more of the dudeslash is explicit than the femslash … the numbers of mature fics are about the same across all three. femslash is [also] more likely to be General Audiences”

interesting! not the case for HP from what i saw -

these stats are for harry potter fics on AO3 (english, no crossovers) updated in the 2022 calendar year

prob gotta redo these though because i apparently forgot ‘not rated’ exists as a category

• • •

F/F is [about half as] likely than M/M to use a couple of the Major Archive Warnings, specifically Rape and Underage

there isn’t a ton of difference between the two queer categories [for Violence and Major Character Death] but het is much more likely to use both of those […] I don’t have any story for that at all.

i think looking at the stats for “gen” might help give some insight? my hypothesis would be that gen resembles het, neither strays too far from canon shipping, and this is more people indulging in the ‘violence’ flavor of ‘forbidden desires’ than the ‘sex’ type. (though obviously yes these are not non-overlapping categories!)

• • •

32min: fandom has always seen white male bodies […] as these blank slates upon which you can rain down any sort of, you know […] trauma and pain, right? […] And you don’t want to do that to a female body, right?

yeah fandom 101 hahah

Reylo and Draco/Hermione, and some other others, were among the top het ships that I was finding when I was doing some breakdowns of specific ships

(was ships supposed to be ‘kinks’ or ‘tropes’?)

you were not comparing het and slash, but like, Draco/Hermione is, like...it’s not that different from [Draco/Harry]?

i’m not quite sure what the point was here (whether you would or would not expect the fandom to be similar, given their not-extremely-different* canon dynamics), but i did actually vaguely look at drarry vs dramione here and also here: they are SO different. hahaha. one has twice as many G-rated fics as the other… which has nearly twice as many E-rated fics.

34: I looked at Eve and Villanelle from Killing Eve versus Will and Hannibal from Hannibal, […] how similarly do people write about these two ships that are extremely similar in canon dynamics? […] totally vindicating breathedout’s experience here, I saw, I did see a lot more use of things like Soft Villanelle and Soft Eve and more like Dark Will Graham and stuff […] it seemed like the Hannibal fandom was a lot more likely to make them at least as dark and messy as in canon, and the Killing Eve fandom was a lot more likely to sort of soften the characters and what they’re doing Digging into some of these very parallel ships, like, there clearly is some amount of people wanting different things, if it’s two men versus two women.

37: So I feel like there’s been a lot of discourse […] framing desire for women as creepy and like “what men do,” you know this kind of discourse? You shouldn’t be leering or too horny about it […] because then you’re “just like a man.” […] So I wonder if some of that is reflected, because you want to just write something soft and gentle, so as not to seem too... Yeah

short response: “yeah”

long response: yeah i wasn’t around then but i’ve definitely seen… remnants… of this backlash against dark femslash, and i’m especially thinking about this in light of the chatter at the start of this episode soliciting more soft femslash (“Because there’s a disproportionate thing happening here […] there has to be people who like clean femslash, or else there wouldn’t be that much of it”) —

i feel like it’s a pushback, actually, the fact that femslash is predominantly (at least perceived to be) soft leads the very specific subset of fandom who are multishipping reccers of rare ships to want to promote dark femslash. they (we) have the perception that soft femslash, the acceptable girl romance kind, is basically everywhere you look.

plus there’s the related but distinct (imo) point that the people in fandom who proudly read and write abuse and trauma being rained onto female bodies have usually done that certain kind of looking-into-the-abyss reckoning and know how difficult it is and want to make it easier for anyone else to make that jump!

• • •

Um, Toast, you read Good Omens fanfiction, right? I’ve heard that there is, like, some wild genitalia stuff there. Is that an overstatement?

bahahahahha. it’s not completely random!! it comes from how crowley has a snake form and snakes have some interesting genitalia (links are to scientific articles). see also: the fact that Sex with Snake Form Crowley (Good Omens) is a wrangled common tag and yet the more generic snake sex is not 🤣

• • •

I did some amount of just taking the first 4,000 Will and Hannibal fics, because that’s about how many Eve and Villanelle fics there were […] and tried to compare what about when these ships are just starting out. And they are a lot more similar in their tagging, and I think the amount of tags does grow more as the ship and the fandom get bigger and bigger. So that’s tentative, and I’m still working on it, but that seems to explain a lot.

!!!!

• • •

lol Migratory Slash Fandom. what a concept. “the pan-fandom ether” 💀 i can’t tell whether these terms are supposed to be derogatory or not!

reading back comment: ah the fanlore article was helpful.

migratory slash fandom (MSF) is the most recent term used to describe the idea that slash fans are always on the lookout for the next shiny, new juggernaut pairing (…) MSF is usually not meant as a complimentary term. Some people who dislike MSF say that these migratory fans write the same bland characterization across all their fandoms, and are only interested in pairing off white male characters.

• • •

Nonbinary Character, LGBTQ Character, Bisexual, Gay, [Polyamory, and other things that are sort of related to queerness … are a lot more commonly used] over on the femslash side, even though femslash generally uses fewer tags

femslash is also more likely to use neurodivergent tags, in particular, Autism. And a little bit ADHD.

M/M is twice as likely to include pregnancy as F/F, based on the tagging

• • •

(on the lack of pregnancy storylines in femslash): I wonder how much of that is self-perpetuating. I wonder how much of that is about people feeling like everyone else feels that way, so, they don’t want to read about a woman being pregnant, that’s too uncomfortable, even if they feel fine writing it.

the aspect of this that would be really interesting to me to explore would be: how fast do certain fandom trends catch on? are certain subfandoms/ subsets of fandom generally more likely to write in accordance to their audience’s (perceived) likes and preferences?

• • •

This also makes me curious […] I think that this is true to some extent, that there’s a het fandom community, and then there’s a slash fandom community, which also includes femslash, to some degree, right? That slash and femslash people are, you know, together in queer fandom, and then you’ve got het fandom over here, and that’s a different group of people doing different things.

i… attempted to do this for harry potter ships somewhat! looking at ship overlap within an individual fic, because that can be done with tags. would love for a way to be able to pull stats from authors’ catalogues, but i wouldn’t want a survey; i trust ppl’s self report negative percent 💀

• • •

I definitely have encountered a lot of younger fans who don’t think of slash or femslash as a unifying group meaning anything at all, […] And yet, I still feel like I see some of the, like, cultural hangover continuing to exist in younger fans’ work, even when they’re not aware of it sometimes.

hot take, maybe influenced by the fact that i do actively stay off fandom platforms dominated by younger fans: referring to this as a ‘younger fans’ problem is being too generous on your part 😂🙈

Episode 191: Femstats February

In Episode 191, “Femstats February,” Flourish and Elizabeth welcome back @destinationtoast—the Steve Martin of Fansplaining—to talk through their massive stats analysis comparing the F/F, M/F, and M/M categories on the AO3. Length, rating, frequency of certain tags and warnings: What results matched their expectations, and what results were surprising? And what do the differences between them suggest about fandom? (Prepare yourself: armchair theorizing and hot takes abound!!)

Click through to our site to listen or read a full transcript!

[enoughslices]

I usually try to stay off of my fandom discourse soapbox, but hear my heartfelt plea: There are so many amazing short works (I’m talking under 30k) in fandom! If you usually stick to 100k+ works, please take a little breather between your next WIPs or completed works and check some of them out. Some Facts and Figures, because of who I am as a person:

As of today, 12/30/20, there are 11,997 Dramione fics on AO3 and 75% of them are complete

Only 367 of those (3%) are over 100k and only 227 (1.9%) are over 100k and complete

Only 1430 of them (11.9%) are over 30k

In order to write a 100k work in six months, a fanfic author would have to write an average of 548 words a day, or 769 words five days a week (this, of course, doesn’t include other projects, editing time, or rewrites)

The average daily word counts of professional authors vary greatly, but seem to generally land in the 500 - 2000 word range, with some prolific exceptions. Bear in mind that these are the word counts of people who write as their full time job! (Source)

The average published novel is between 80k-100k, but anything over 45k is considered novel-length

Published writers who produce a novel every year are thought to be prolific. However, in fandom, there is such an incredible demand and pressure for a high volume of words in an environment in which people are not and cannot be paid for their labor.

There are many short pieces out there that are crafted with a lot of love by incredibly skilled authors. A great deal of labor can go into writing a 10k piece, rewriting some or all of it, self-editing it perhaps 3-5 times, and then sending it off to alphas and betas for more editing. I’ve been so impressed by the absolute immersive qualities and gorgeous prose of some of the short fiction I’ve read in fandom. 

If you work full-time, or even part-time, or have loved ones to care for, or have any number of the Complicating Life Factors that so many of us have, and also have a rigorous standard when it comes to the work you put out into the world, it isn’t always feasible to bang out long works. More power and so much appreciation to those who can do this (❤️❤️❤️) but it just isn’t possible for everyone. And it can be very disheartening to spend all of your free time working to put out a one-shot or a short multi-chap and see so much, “I don’t read anything incomplete or under 100k,” or “It’s pretty short, like 70k, but it’s good so it’s worth it anyway!” in forums and discussion groups. My friends, 70k is a full-ass novel!

Which is to say, go forth and shower love on all those short works now and again. Especially if you’re feeling antsy or frustrated because you’ve “run out” of long, completed works. There is nothing nicer than getting a glowing comment on a six-month, or year-old, or two-year-old one shot! And there are truly so many lovely hidden gems out there!!

[cocoartistwrites]

I love your stories they are just so good!! They make me want to fall in love asap !!! Are you going to write more Tomione? If yes, what would it be about? What are your favorite Tomione fanfiction?

Thank you! I don't know if I'll ever really revisit Tomione on a grand scale, but I have promised @highgaarden I'll do Tomione professors for her at some point. It's on my to-write list.

I'll share my recent favourites, because I've read three excellent ones this year I really recommend. I rarely read Tomione but I do have old rec lists floating around.

1. Madam Umbridge's Home for Wayward Girls by LovelyVillain (idk if they have tumblr?) COMPLETE

Hermione’s life takes a dark turn after the death of her parents, leaving her at the mercy of a tyrannical Matron. Her new home is more prison than sanctuary, haunted by ghosts bearing terrible, bloody secrets. And though she is surrounded by troubled young women, it is the men in her life who teach her that freedom comes at the greatest price of all.

Victorian AU, Tomione, Dramione, no triad

This fic is an absolute monster, but it's brilliant. All the author has to do is change the names to get it published because it's already so AU, but they've very generously put all 700-and-something-thousands words up for free. Legendary stuff.

2. Birds of a Feather - babylonsheep WIP

In 1935, Hermione Granger meets a boy in an orphanage who despises fairy stories, liars, and mediocrity. He offers her a deal of mutual convenience, and soon a tentative friendship forms between them—if Tom would ever lower himself to call anyone a "friend".But whatever they have, it's something special, and if there's anyone who can appreciate Specialness, it's Tom Riddle.1930's-40's Childhood Friends AU.

I'm v late to the party one this one because I didn't really read Tomione for a long time during and after writing unsphere. But this is a genre-defining masterpiece that often explores similar themes to unsphere the stars but in many cases does them better. The only bad thing I have to say about it is that it's unfinished and hasn't been updated in a while, but I was torn between awe and seething jealousy for most of it so HONESTLY give it a go anyway if you haven't.

3. take the bit between your teeth by but_seriously (@highgaarden) WIP but updating atm

It starts at Professor Slughorn’s first party at the end of the first month of their first term and it’s because Harry, miraculously, comes out first in Potions.

Riddle calls it a sudden … predilection, and he only has a tiny curl at the set of his mouth.

Hermione calls it cheating.

She thinks Riddle would be more inclined to agree if he didn’t have his perfectly-polished Prefect badge stuck so far up his arse.

This is the funniest Tomione you will ever read, written in a universe where Tom is at school with Hermione, Ron, and Harry, but most of what he's created still happened anyway. It's set then-and-now as two absolute idiots come to the realisation they've been in love the whole damn time.

PLUS: a different type of Tomione. 

4. In the Bleak Midwinter by TheLoud WIP

After escaping from Merope in London and fleeing back to Little Hangleton, Tom Riddle had thought he was free of witches. He wasn’t expecting yet another witch to turn up on his doorstep. This one seems different, but she too smells of Amortentia. Can he trust her when she tells him that she has brought him his baby from a London orphanage?

This impeccably presents the argument that Tom Riddle jr might not have got magic from Tom Riddle sr, but he got a hell of a lot of other stuff. It’s absolutely brilliant. Witty with great world-building and complex characters - just my cup of tea. 

[chelleblack]

✖Unhealthy Hypersexualization: Draco Malfoy vs Fanfiction✖

This is an official complaint to all the random Harry Potter writers who have been savagely and ruthlessly destroying the essence of Draco Malfoy. For years, and they've been hiding behind: "He's a fictional character, he's not bad."

After reading so many fanfictions of Dramione / or Draco being the protagonist as such. And, apparently it has become a general rule when writing and bringing Draco Malfoy to life, being that it is not his canon in the first place, (although they defend themselves saying that they want to make it as real as possible, and that is why they have created and reproduced this horrifying image). Second; this is twisted and much more because we are talking about a teenager, not an adult. Without exaggeration, 80% of the fanfics that you find of Draco; he's a sex symbol, despite being a minor in most of those stories. And it's not okay that they want to cover this up just because he's a fictional character. It's still noisy, and troublesome.

The first story I found (and I won't say the name of the fic, or author) had this "trope", it surprised me because I had recently finished reading the HP saga, and the image of Draco, the real personality, was still fresh. So even though it disturbed me, I continued reading for a bit and then gave it up because I was annoyed by the hackneyed badboy cliché they imposed on it. And I thought, "Well, not everyone writes about Draco Malfoy like that, I just had a weird experience, and that didn't mean that everything I would get to see about the Slytherin boy would be like this."

So ... I venture into Fanfiction, I go to Ao3, I give Wattpad a spin, I have a look on Tumblr, I even get into a lot of potterfic forums, a lot of potterfic forums and blogs. And guess what?

It turns out that in an extremely terrifying way, the fandom has turned Draco Malfoy into fanfiction; into a sex symbol, and no one is complaining or even stopping this. What the hell?

Why are all the most famous fanfictions written have this trope? When the hell was Draco Lucius Malfoy Black in the JKR books a playboy? AT THE AGE OF 16!?

Because when it comes to developing a character as deep and complex as Draco: the most interesting and complex thing they do with him is to be a mediocre womanizer, and with a very bad sexual education, very worrying and alarming. I know that in the world of HP, there is machismo, I know that in the Slytherin house they didn't even let women play Quidditch. But still, where did this come from? And why has Draco been the worst hit victim in the fanfic genre? The boy literally never had a girlfriend in Hogwarts days, or talked dirty about women. The only girl in Hogwats who was next to him was Pansy, and although they refuse to accept it; Draco was really fond of her, and he never disrespected her, he seemed rather very reciprocal.

The only character who is constantly sexualizing and speaking macho about women is Ron. But hey, that's another topic.

The real Draco, is the complete opposite of the macho that they have established in the fanfics. Draco is a boy who comes from a strict family, with retrograde ideals, what is the most daring that we have seen of him in the Harry Potter saga? That is, with Hermione in the fourth book when the Death Eaters sabotaged Quidditch and injured several children of Muggle parents; Draco told Hermione that if they saw him they would cast a spell on her and her panties would be exposed as well, hinting at an event they were witnessing with a poor woman flying through the air.

But hey ... Because of that aforementioned scene with Hermione and the "Half-Blood Prince" wagon scene where Draco has his head resting on Pansy's lap and she's stroking his hair and he looks relaxed. They have been the reasonable enough reasons of some writers to create according to the "true personality of Draco Malfoy". I'm not exaggerating, when I discussed this on Reddit, these were the "strong justifications" they gave me.

It is completely ridiculous to claim that Draco is a misogynist because he practically warned Hermione to be careful because he could see her, and they would also blow her up in the air and show her panties, why is this alarming everyone? This is literally how the woman they bewitched looked like, Harry Potter describes her like that, Draco just made a comment on that. And about Pansy, it is already very degrading that they sexualize that scene in the wagon, very personal comments were taken very out of place from Harry. (Which should be noted that Harry always had very out of place comments about other people, but that didn't mean they were good or real)

So, back to the point of the issue of sexism and objectification.

Why didn't they act equally alarmed when Harry began to view Ginny too sexually? Or when Ron used Lavender just to calm his hormones? Where were you to point out the clear objectification of the woman's body? Where were you? They clearly existed hideously in regards to Lavender and Ginny.

However, hypocrites, is Draco alone the only moral and ethical target to escrack on?

In his life Draco Malfoy verbatim according to the books, he only dated more than two girls. His Malfoy-Black family is super traditional; They come from marriages arranged from an early age. Possibly Draco was raised in the most prim way possible. And as he got older, he had more important things to do than act like a hormonal jerk. He had manners and used all his neurons.

Is it very difficult to write about Draco like this? Is that the real boy, is he not a Don Juan, or did he have a long list of exes (and why does this seem strange to you? Draco just turned 18 at the end of the saga, they need to calm down wanting to see that the teens have more partners than the average adult in the first place, that's not normal). The real Draco hardly had any friends, he was an insecure and damaged boy who hid behind that rude and immature behavior that in the end paid dearly. I don't think it is very difficult to overexploit an insecure and complicated boy with too many things and responsibilities. It didn't cost JKR that much.

Or is it that writers find it difficult to write about a man who is not macho and super heteronormative? It's sad to see how they continue to reproduce this crap, and it's very hard to see that they don't hyper-sexualize with a teenager, because they've practically turned him into a bad boy sexual fetish on Fanfics.

They've done it, they've ruined Draco Malfoy. And they are demonizing it even more.

Draco, who is a completely intelligent boy, had one of the most powerful young minds of his generation, apart from Hermione Granger; since apparently they forget that he was for the second in class with her. It has a lot of potential to write a complete saga. And no, it is not necessary to hypersexualize it to develop it. It is not necessary to write about a man who has a fragile masculinity, or who is heteronormative. Although they do not believe it.

I know Draco's character has a very, very vague development in HP, he was missing his historical arc, we all know that. And everyone is free to turn it into a story, and whatever (even if it's annoying and boring to see its canonical image spoil). The problem here is that this type of "trope" is the one that abounds, and Draco is the one that is used the most, nor does he want to use other characters, they only do what they do with Draco, they just continue to idealize him in this way. And it's already reached a point where Fanfiction is making it canon in Fandom, something JKR never wrote, but you keep reaffirming. You random writers took things out of context, made guesses without concrete material. And it seems more like a wave of people hating this guy and looking for the need to make him more dirty, and they can only cope with it by sexualizing and dehumanizing him. They know he has a story with potential, but they hate him so much that they don't want to be nice or treat him like a human.

It is time to accept it.

Because you do that? Could you stop writing like this? It is practically decent. And writing about decent men, what Draco Malfoy really is like, is what it takes; because that's what it really is. Stop apologizing that he's just a character, show how much you need to stomp on him, and keep dehumanizing him.

If you hate him, you better not write about him, you are only causing that poor boy to be killed. And rather it would be very good for you a writer, because firstly, why do you write about someone you hate?

[coffeestainsandcashmere]

Let No Man Steal Your Thyme - (older Dramione), Part Three

Wow! Thank you so much for your feedback and apparent enthusiasm for the previous parts, and for your excitement to see more in the future! I never imagined it’d get any traction, but I’m staggered and touched to see that people are enjoying it!

Here’s part three for you, as promised. I had written twice as much as this (around 7k in total) for part three, but I split it up into two. Part Four will go up tomorrow after I’ve given it another once-over. It’s tooth-rottingly adorable really. There’s pizza involved. And a little delving into the past.

Content warnings for part three: unexpected run-in with Ron, passing mention of past alcohol abuse (Ron), and general prejudices against Slytherins. Again, this isn’t supposed to be a Ron-bashing story, but relationships do break down when fundamental beliefs don’t align. If I seem harsh on Ron, I don’t really mean to be. Hermione also isn’t perfect or unbiased, but she has perhaps slightly more reason to be upset with him than he does with her. It will all be explained in a later part, I promise, but it has been hinted at already in the previous two parts.

Part One | Part Two

___

Friday found her lingering awkwardly in the Ministry’s echoing Atrium, waiting for Theo to come out of his last meeting of the day, up on level five. The problem with being the former Minister for Magic - and one so famously young - was that quite literally everyone knew who she was. So far, in the ten minutes she’d been standing there, a seemingly ceaseless line of twittering assistants and employees had come cringing up to her to ask if she needed anything.  

She’d just sent the latest one packing with a tight-lipped ‘no, thank you. I’m just waiting for a friend,’ when someone cleared their throat behind her, and a familiar voice made her heart clench and her breath come short for half a moment.

“’Mione? What are you doing here?”

“Hi, Ron,” she sighed, even before she turned to face him.  

In the decade or so since their divorce, he’d actually done pretty well for himself. Gone was the lingering paunch that had crept in towards the tail end of his quidditch career, and now he looked… well, quite frankly, he looked really good. He reminded her of Charlie Weasley a little, with floppy, roguish hair and a surprisingly lean figure once more. Becoming the coach of an internationally-recognised quidditch team suited him, clearly. That, and a happier, second marriage with Lavender, she supposed.  

“How are you?” she asked, trying not to sound too stiff and failing abysmally.  

“Good,” he said, rocking back on his heels for a moment with his hands shoved into his pockets. “What, uh, what brings you here then? Miss the place too much?” he asked with a little snort of laughter.

“Hardly, Ron,” she said with perhaps a little too much feeling. “No, I’m waiting for Theo.”

At the mention of Theo’s name, Ron’s eyes darkened. “Why?” he blurted.  

“Why? Because he’s my friend, Ronald,” she said. “And what are you doing here? Come to blag your way out of another ‘drunk and disorderly in possession of a broomstick’, hmm?”  

She knew even as she said it that her snide comment was uncalled for, and that she was being disproportionately petty, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. Something about his lingering, bone-deep resentment of the people with whom she chose to associate these days just brought out the worst in her even now. She wasn’t proud of it. In her defence though, how many times had he tried to use the whole ‘The Minister for Magic is my wife’ ploy to get out of scrapes like that in the past?

Ron’s freckled face flushed at that. “I’m clean and sober now, Hermione,” he said. “Have been for the past five years, which you’d know if you ever came to any of Harry’s dinners. We used to be the ‘Golden Trio’ for fuck’s sake…”

Very quietly, and with what she thought was a remarkable degree of renewed self-control, Hermione said, “Excuse me for not wanting to intrude on your happy family, Ron. I am pleased to hear that though. That’s no small achievement. Congratulations.”

“But you’d still rather go scuttling off with the Slytherins instead of having dinner with me and Harry?” he said, eyes flashing.  

There it was. There was the comment — the little dig at her choices — that she’d been waiting for ever since she’d mentioned Theo’s name. 

“I hear that you and that lot are pretty tight now. Even dragged Neville into it.”

Her already-simmering outrage crept a degree or two hotter beneath the surface, and Hermione blinked rapidly. “‘Dragged’ Neville? Is that what you call his perfectly healthy and happy relationship with Pansy?”

“He wouldn’t have had anything to do with her if it wasn’t for you and Nott meddling. He’d have settled down with Hannah instead of leaving her for some Slytherin trust-fund bitch. You know she’s still heartbroken about it?”

Her eyebrows rose. That wasn’t how it had happened at all, though she knew Hannah was still upset, and she’d just opened her mouth to say so when she felt the prickle of other people’s eyes on them.

“I’m not discussing this, Ron, and I’m certainly not starting something here in the Ministry Atrium, for God’s sake,” she said, turning away. Her ears were starting to ring as her magic crackled inside her and she took a long, steadying inhale to try and calm down. People were indeed starting to stare, and she thought she glimpsed Gabriella Guile lurking near the sandwich shop with one of Rita Skeeter’s bloody ‘Quick-Quotes Quills’ hovering at the ready. “Please, Ron.”

He stepped in close and snarled, “Well, at least some of us still remember where our loyalties lie.”

Hermione saw red at that and spun back round to face him, eyes flashing and hair expanding like a Devil’s Snare. “Loyalty?” she spat. “You — you of all people — want to lecture me about loyalty?!”

Clearly he hadn’t followed that thought through to its conclusion before opening his mouth. He turned beetroot red and took half a step back, hands up defensively. “Look, Mione, I’m sorry. I didn’t come over to start another fight. It’s not like I expected to see you here - you don’t even work here anymore, and it’s not like we hang out or anything. How was I to know?” He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m meeting Harry when he gets off work and we’re going for a drink at the Leaky. Let’s... Lets just forget it, ok?”

A hand landing gently but firmly between her shoulders made her jump and she whipped round to find Theo standing behind her, looming over her from his six-foot-something height. “Alright, love?” he asked in a steady baritone without taking his eyes off Ron.  

“Ready to go,” she said tartly. “Say hi to Harry for me, Ron.”

And with that, they left the Ministry by floo for Theo’s.  

As she stepped out of the swirling green flames of the fancy, Mayfair town-house’s marble fireplace only a moment or so behind him, she found Daniel rising from the sofa to greet Theo with a kiss, and once Theo had moved off through the house to hang up his cloak, he opened his arms to hug her warmly.

Dan, always a pleasure,” she said. “How are you?”  

The unexpected meeting with Ron left her oddly rattled. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen him at all in the decade since the divorce - his little sister was her own best friend, and she’d met Bill Weasley on more than one occasion during her time at the Ministry, but still, to see him doing so well for himself and to see him so happy should have made her pleased. After all the years of shared friendship that she genuinely cherished, she should have been happy for him.  

Instead it galled and made her uncharacteristically bitter to know that he had everything he wanted now and he still couldn’t resist trying to rubbish the few things she had left of value in her life. Theo and Daniel were among her closest friends, and to her surprise, the rest of the Slytherins had adopted her into their little group without question.  

“Let’s start a bit early, shall we?” Theo chimed as he re-entered the living room with three champagne flutes and a bottle of something French and no doubt eye-wateringly expensive floating in front of him. Since that left his hands free, he began undoing his cuff links as he walked. “The others should be here soon enough anyway, and I just closed a deal with the Ministère des Affaires Magiques de la France that I’ve been trying to hash out all year. Yay me.”

His flawless French accent made Hermione smile. Everything just seemed so easy and natural to Theo; it might have enviable if he weren’t such an affable sweetheart to go with it.  

“Yay you,” Daniel chuckled, eyes glittering with affection as Theo handed Hermione a very full glass. “To my brilliant husband.”

Two hours later, amid the happy murmur of conversation that now filled the gorgeous, airy ground floor, Hermione looked up as the floo whooshed and Draco Malfoy stepped out. She’d begun to think he wasn’t going to show, and when she caught sight of him, a weight unexpectedly lifted from her chest. Something, at least, was going right today.

He had a heavy, black cloak around his shoulders and a bundle of brown paper parcels under one arm, printed with the logos of various Diagon Alley shops, though it was well past most of their closing times. She wondered where he’d been in the meantime, but didn’t want to pry.  

Whether out of surprise or curiosity, the chatter in the living room sputtered out a little at his arrival before Pansy rose to her feet and flung her arms around his neck. “Draco, darling!” she laughed as she air-kissed his winter-pink cheeks and hissed melodramatically in his ear — loudly enough for everyone nearby to hear —, “I’m so glad you came; Blaise owes me ten galleons. He said you wouldn’t come.”

Draco twitched his lips fondly into something that was almost a smirk and unclasped his cloak as she stepped away from him. He folded it up neatly atop the parcels beside the now-still fireplace and shot her a look. “Glad to know how much my company is worth these days, Pans,” he drawled.  

As he straightened, Hermione actually sank her teeth into her lower lip at the way his bespoke charcoal grey suit fitted him, accentuating his long, lean figure, with narrow hips and broad shoulders. He looked every bit the successful businessman while she was slouching around in the jeans and mauve hoodie she’d thrown on in the back room after closing the bookshop for the day. No wonder Pansy had given her an affectionately pitying grimace when she’d greeted her earlier.  

Theo rose gracefully from his seat beside her on the sofa to join Draco and Pansy by the hearth, and he hugged Draco fondly, murmuring something in his ear. The two were almost a match in height, though where Theo’s hair was a warm, copper-streaked, chocolate brown and his skin a tanned, freckled olive, Draco’s hair and skin were almost as colourless as the marble fireplace behind him.  

When Draco drew back this time, he spotted Hermione over Theo’s shoulder. He offered her a slow incline of his head, and allowed a clinking tumbler of whisky and ice to be pressed into his hand by Theo.  

Hermione wasn’t really sure quite what she’d been expecting from Draco when she’d invited him to join Theo’s usual Friday night drinks. Whatever it had been though, it wasn’t the thoughtful, considerate conversationalist she now found engaging Neville in detailed discussion about the disadvantages of farming dittany commercially. For some reason, Draco’s icy exterior and apparently reclusive behaviour had made her think he might be socially awkward, but apparently one can’t train the upper-class manners out of someone once it’s been bred into their bloodline for umpteen generations, even after a dusty decade of disuse. Further to her surprise, he actually seemed genuinely interested in what Neville had to say about the difference in potency between rare, wild-harvested dittany and the farmed stuff.  

Meanwhile, she just sat on the sofa with Neville on her left and Theo on her right, and only half-listened to the talk around her, not participating at all.  

Despite everyone’s obvious enjoyment of the gathering, Hermione found herself unable to muster any of her usual social enthusiasm, and remained in pretty subdued silence. After a while, Neville politely excused himself to find Pansy, with an earnest promise to follow up on something or other for Malfoy, and his seat was not reoccupied.  

In the lull, Malfoy took the opportunity to lean across the space from his armchair to the sofa and murmur, “Everything alright, Granger?”  

From beside her, Theo looked round and slung his arm causally over her shoulders and squeezed. “Hermione had a small run in with her ex-husband in the middle of the Ministry Atrium.”

Draco’s eyes flashed and his lip curled minutely.

“Nothing dramatic, but the prick had the nerve to insinuate that Slytherins make for poor company. Luckily, dear Hermione reminded him that we’re not all still twelve years old...”

She managed a smile at that. “Don’t let me rain on your party, Theo, but I think... I think I will head home now.”

“Feel free to floo,” he breezed, waving the hand that had been around her shoulders with a flash of the gold signet ring on his little finger, “But obviously I’d much rather you stay and drink yourself into a giggling stupor again... It’s been far too long since that happened.”

“You drink yourself into a giggling stupor every Friday, Theo. I’m sure you can manage to do it again on my behalf tonight. I’d love to stay, but it’s all getting a bit... loud now anyway...” she said vaguely. “I think I’ll walk home.”

Theo just nodded and gave her an affectionate little wink that would have looked corny on anyone half as charming. “Take care of yourself, sweetheart. Say hello to whatever your book-du-jour is for me. Will it be Emily or Charlotte this time?”

Draco frowned in confusion and she laughed a little. “Charlotte.”  

Still cleanly nonplussed, Malfoy looked from Theo to Hermione before Theo grinned at him. “Brontë,” he said conspiratorially. “Muggle author.” He looked back to Hermione and said, “Means it’s an evening with dear Jane Eyre then. Haven’t you read that a hundred times?”

“More, probably,” she chuckled, standing. “Goodnight, Draco. I’m glad you came. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

He nodded, looking slightly winded for some reason, and offered nothing else.  

After saying goodbye to a few people, and finding that Pansy had somehow managed to drape herself successfully across Neville’s lap despite the fact that he was sitting on a bar stool of all things, Hermione headed for the front door and slipped out into the night alone.  

With her coat still over the crook of one arm despite the biting wind, she made her way from Theo’s cushy house out into wider Muggle London, and from there she began to meander.  

Just as she crossed the boundary into Hyde Park, she heard running feet and someone calling her name. To her surprise, she turned and found Malfoy loping along the pavement after her.

Halting, she waited for him to catch up and looked curiously up at him. His pale cheeks were flushed pink again from the bout of light exercise, his breath billowed white, and his hair seemed to glow like burnished silver in the harsh light of the street lamps. It was hard to doubt the rumours of him being part Veela in moments like that.  

“What is it, Malfoy?” she asked when he didn’t articulate the reason for his hasty journey. “Did I forget something?”

“No, I —“ he faltered and scratched the back of his head awkwardly. The motion ruffled his hair into something altogether softer and more attractive. He cut it much shorter at the sides now but left the top longer, and it had an attractive wave to it that had once been oiled out of existence in his earlier years at Hogwarts. “I thought — ach, this was a stupid idea.”

“What do you mean? What was a stupid idea?”

“I thought I’d come after you and see if you were alright. You looked fucking miserable back there, Granger.”

“You taught your son foundation spellwork with that mouth, Malfoy?” she countered, slightly staggered by his apparent thoughtfulness. This was not the Malfoy she remembered at all, and it was gratifying to find that her experience of him over lunch had not been a one-off.

He smirked and the effect was disarming in a way it never had been at Hogwarts. “I do try not to swear around him, but if he’s learnt something uncouth, I couldn’t promise it didn’t come from me. Or Theo. Actually it’s more likely to have come from Theo.”

She laughed suddenly. “Your little mandrake,” she sighed.

Something odd passed across his face and he stuffed his hands into his jacket pocket. “Salazar’s balls,” he cursed. “It’s colder out here than I thought.”

Wandlessly, she murmured a spell to extend the radius of her own extant warming charm to surround them both. “Better?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Left my cloak and stuff back at Theo’s.”

Hermione smiled and gestured with the arm holding her coat. “I’d offer you mine, but I’m not sure even you could pull off a Muggle women’s rain mac that’s several sizes too small for you.”

“Oh I don’t know,” he said. “I think I could transfigure it into something… workable.”

“You sound just like Theo and Dan and Pansy,” she groaned. “They’re always threatening to take me shopping. I’m terrified to let them loose on my wardrobe. I’m afraid I’ll never see another pair of comfy jeans again!”

“Don’t listen to them. The way you dress is just fine,” he said easily. “Besides, you give that lot an inch and they’ll take a mile. You should always stand your ground, especially against Pansy…”

“Well, I’ve got Nev on my side too,” she said. “Though even I have to admit that she’s had a positive effect on his wardrobe. Maybe I should let her take me shopping after all... I probably couldn’t afford the places she shops though,” she laughed, then looked up to find an odd light in Malfoy’s grey eyes. “You really came haring through London after me just to check I was alright?”

“And walk you home if you’d like,” he added. “But I’ll leave you in peace if I’m imposing. Heavens know you’ve had one pushy bloke to deal with already today...”

“The last thing I think of you right now is ‘pushy’, Malfoy. I think you’re very kind to come after me.”

He looked away at that and a private smile graced his lips. Bloody hell though; where some people’s looks seemed to have been watered down with age, Malfoy’s features had been honed and refined by time into something akin to a masterpiece, with high, sharp cheekbones and a slim, and clearly very fit and healthy, figure. It made her stomach swoop and ache again in a way she hadn’t felt in years. It also made her feel a little self-conscious of the softer curves she was carrying around her hips, arms, and lower stomach these days. Hefting books around kept her strong, but a largely sedentary life in the bookshop wasn’t doing wonders for her once-svelte figure, it had to be said.  

He nudged his elbow out a few inches and she smiled, taking the offer and sliding her fingers into the crook of his arm.  

They set off and walked slowly, aimlessly, along the walkways of Hyde Park, and for a long time neither of them spoke. A cyclist shot past them at one point, and Malfoy watched him disappear into the distance with an inquisitive frown, as if trying to figure out how it could possibly function. He never said anything though, and they carried on, warmed by Hermione’s spell and encased in an oddly amicable silence.  

It was Malfoy who broke the silence at last. “You find this strange, Granger?” he asked, glancing down at her.  

Her breath caught as she stared up into those full-moon eyes of his; bright and silver and so god-damned intense. Gone was the pinched look of fear and insecurity lingering in the corners. Gone was the cruel, steely glint. The lines of his face were still hard and severe, and he carried a hefty frown most of the time, and that trademark pointy chin was still there, but he really had grown up, inside and out, and it showed.  

“Strange?” she croaked. “What, you and me walking arm in arm through Hyde Park at seven in the evening?”

“Mmm,” he nodded.  

“A little,” she admitted as she looked ahead up the path. “A little.”

.

Part Four

___

As before, if you like where it’s going and want to see more, do let me know! I will post it on Tumblr as I write it, and once it’s all complete, I’ll plop it onto AO3 in one go. That way keeps the pressure off a bit, I think? Anyway, let me know if you’re enjoying it, and why, either by reblogging this or sending me an ask

writing masterlist | Ao3

[lunarfly]

Honestly, you should check out this Dante Wood fella on Quora. He’s this multi potterhead ship hater who asks many rude and insulting questions on Romione, Harmione, Hinny and Dramione shippers. He’s literally become the bane of their existence. I almost would feel bad for them but then I realize these are the same users/shippers that ask insincere questions to the other ship/shipper. Guess karma is a bitch;)

Hello, thank you for the ask!

Yeah, I checked out his profile and I'm not so impressed. He's hateful and spiteful. But I must admit, he has got a very fair point. Before I talk about that though, I'll just bring up a few things:

Even though he often underlines very important issues with our fandom's "ship wars," his account still shouldn't exist. He's rude and he goes the wrong way about sending his messages. He keeps spitting venom out of his mouth when he should try to be logical and explain his points without any insults and attacks. But when do respectful people ever get anything, it's always the drama and over exaggeration that draws people's attention.

He's hypocritical. He says he hates the fact that shippers constantly generalize the other sides of the fandom but he also generalizes shippers himself. He calls out shippers collectively, as if we were all to blame for a few people's toxic behavior and generalizing tendencies. He generalizes us (the shippers) by saying we all generalize each other (the other shippers).

He hates on Harmione/Romione/Hinny/Dramione and only justifies his hatred by the shippers. But just hating it isn't bad at all, everyone's allowed to hate something. The thing is, he also claims that all of these ships "suck" and are all "garbage." He never presents any arguments or constructive criticism, he just says they're objectively bad ships because they have bad shippers. I'm pretty sure everyone can see the problem with this logic.

Now about his messages. I must say, I agree with him a whole lot. So many people in this fandom tend to generalize everyone. Examples of this?

"Harmione shippers haven't read the books! They only ship it because of the movies!"

"You only ship Hermione with ___ because you use her as a self-insert tool! You ___/Hermione shippers only want to project your own feelings onto her, you don't actually understand her character!"

"All Romione/Hinny shippers are toxic! None of them respect our ship!"

"All Harmione/Dramione shippers hate Ron and Ginny"

And much more.

While many of those claims do apply to many shippers, they don't apply to everyone. And generalizing a group of people while talking about them negatively is obviously wrong and harms both sides of the "war."

The ridiculous argument that "Harmony shippers haven't read the books" started (or gained popularity) in 2005 when J.K. Rowling said this in an interview:

JKR: Well I think anyone who is still shipping Harry/Hermione after this book –

ES: [whispered] Delusional!

JKR: Uh ’ no! But they need to go back and reread, I think.

That one simple comment still affects the H/Hr shipping community to this day, even after JKR admitted the possibility of H/Hr in 2014.. People are still calling us dumb and delusional, people still claim that we haven't read the books - and this argument has been expanded after people started noticing how the movies were sort of pushing a H/Hr narrative - people still make fun of us and many don't take us seriously. But people were shipping Harmione long before the release of the movies and they (including me) have written countless analyses pointing out moments from the books and reasons why Harry and Hermione would make a good couple but this ridiculous generalization, a kind of rumor, is still around and I don't think it's going to leave any time soon.

The Ron and Ginny bashing rumor is more understandable since a huge part of the H/Hr fandom absolutely hate the two gingers and will find anything to tear them down and make them seem as cartoonishly evil as possible. But we still shouldn't apply this to everyone. I, for one, love Ron and Ginny and know many Harmione shippers who feel the same way.

(In the following paragraphs I am talking about the HP fandom generally but obviously these things don't apply to every person individually.)

The majority of the Harry Potter fandom these days only truly accepts book lovers into discussions and their "main" fandom (people who solely make video edits or such are in a different kind of fandom). But everyone who's a book lover and doesn't ship Romione/Hinny or dislikes Ron/Ginny will slowly be forced to either liking these or leaving the fandom. Because, according to most of the fandom, if you don't like these characters/pairings, you haven't read the books, you're toxic and you're stupid. If you like Harmione, you're automatically labeled with "Movie Watcher," "Weasley Basher," "Toxic Garbage." People will start making assumptions about you and your work before they know you. Even if people learn that you're not any of those, these generalizations won't stop. No matter how much you do, no one will take you seriously, no one will care, no one will accept you, no one will explore your work. You will only be acknowledged in the book-loving fandom if you ship Romione and Hinny or if you're an extremely toxic person (that way you'll get mocked for every word that comes out of your mouth, but you'll deserve it if you're really a toxic person). This fandom also tends to misunderstand the words "toxic" and "bashing." Any sort of criticism is labeled with "bashing" and the author of that criticism is labeled with "toxic." Not that there aren't people who are toxic and hateful but our fandom tends to fail to see the difference between constructive criticism and hate.

And there are also those "big" accounts who are praised for every word they say. They can bash any ship or character they want to and the majority of the fandom (the book-loving, canon-ship-loving one that I explained) will agree with it and spread their words around. When they say something about one shipper, it will automatically be applied to everyone who ships that. If they say that any ship with Harry and Hermione that isn't Romione and Harmione suck, the majority of the fandom will accept it as objective truth and since they have most of the fandom supporting them they feel comfortable repeating and accepting these things. As a result of these things being accepted as common knowledge, the people who don't agree feel isolated from the fandom. For example, I do. I follow lots of people who ship Romione and Hinny or love Ron and Ginny because I also feel the same way about these characters and pairings. But I can't go a day without seeing at least one of them degrade Harmione and send hate to the ship + shippers. The more hate my ship gets, the more these rumors, labels and arguments spread around. And Harmione shippers get called stupid for loving a fictional pairing, so I constantly feel invalidated in this fandom, even if no one addresses me specifically. The ideas that Harmione is a horrible ship and its shippers are toxic and so on are so engrained in our fandom that they're seen as almost "rules" of the fandom and no single person can change that. I constantly feel like I'm invalid for liking Harmione and this isn't normal. Our fandom pushes the idea that the only intelligent people are those who support the canon pairings and disapprove of ships like Harmione, Fremione and etc. I understand the hatred against Dramione and every other toxic ship, but I can't for my life figure out why people feel the need to tear down every healthy fanon ship. But they do it anyway. They consider everyone who disagrees with them "stupid" and unintelligent. I feel like I don't belong every time I see comments like "Ugh, how can someone ship Harry and Hermione? They're like siblings, people! You clearly haven't read the books." or "Anyone who ships this doesn't have a brain, they're too strongly influenced by the movies. They clearly don't understand Harry and Hermione." Sometimes I see my own friends calling H/Hr "strange" and such and they clearly don't help me feel any better. I feel the need to go in Harmony-only spaces to recharge myself and regain the confidence and get the validation I need. Otherwise, I feel completely isolated and invalid.

I can't blame only one side of the fandom though. The shippers have been divided for decades now and they have been throwing insults at each other ever since. It's a never-ending war. The bad side of this today is that the book-loving fandom (the "main" fandom) has merged with the canon ships fandom and now these are inseparable. If you like the HP books, you must also like the canon pairings and dislike most of the others, otherwise you're never going to feel like you belong. So now anyone who ships Harmione won't be able to properly interact with the "main" fandom because nobody thinks their opinions that Harry and Hermione are a better match than Ron and Hermione are valid. Same thing with Dramione shippers. Do you see how Dramiones and Harmonians don't really engage in discussions or just don't interact with the "main" fandom in general (unless they're defending their ship)? They have created their own spaces, separated from the "main" fandom and that's where they are most of the time. That's where I go when I need more positivity and validation. I have the discord server and the Harmione subreddit to go to. That's the only place I'm really comfortable in. If I go to a more "general" part of the fandom like the main HP subreddit or some of the biggest HP books fan accounts, it will affect me negatively because I will mostly see Romione and Hinny be glorified and Harmione treated like trash. Not only my ship but also the shippers. Which is probably the main reason I find the fandom toxic. All of this just ties into the stupid generalization and name-calling that causes the rift between OBHWF and Harmione shippers which leads me to seeing both sides of the fandom be attacked and bombarded depending on which space I choose to spend my time in.

I'm not going to pretend that the Harmione fandom is full of angels who are oppressed by Romione shippers. Because whenever I go to a Harmione-oriented space, I will find anti-Ron/Romione/Hinny/Ginny (and their stans) posts. Harmonians will often call Romiones toxic and hateful and will basically do everything in order to insult them. And they return the favor excellently. This happens with the majority of the fandoms so both of the sides just think every shipper is like the toxic shippers they interacted with, causing generalization and all of the problems I talked about above. And that forms a toxic environment.

I generally just talked about my experiences with generalization and insulting but there are many more things wrong with the fandom, so I definitely agree with Dante Wood in that aspect. But again, I don't think every single shipper is toxic and hateful and I most certainly don't think that Romione, Harmione and Hinny are trash (Dramione just might be). I pointed out all of my reasons for disliking his account at the beginning of my post. I just wish he fixed those problems with his account, then he would have such a great one.

I almost would feel bad for them but then I realize these are the same users/shippers that ask insincere questions to the other ship/shipper. Guess karma is a bitch;)

Here's where I get confused. Why did you send me this message? I am not one of those people who go and attack a part of the fandom I disagree with. I don't constantly attack Romione and Hinny, nor their shippers. I actually love those ships. I might criticize Dramione and other toxic ships but I'm not the one at war with them. I know I wrote a post basically calling Dramiones brainless once and I regret that. I think I'm a better person now. No matter how much I hate this ship I won't send hate to its shippers (P*dophilic ships are a different deal though, those ships are even more serious). So how exactly is this a consequence for what I've done when I've done basically nothing? And even if I did, how is Dante Wood's account supposed to affect me? He talks about the toxicity of shippers while being toxic and hateful himself. Am I supposed to take that seriously? He calls us hypocritical and proceeds to do the same himself. That's not the kind of person I take criticism seriously from (ignoring the fact that many of his posts aren't even criticism, it's just hate).

Anyway, thank you for taking your time to send me that message! Sharing my thoughts on Dante Wood's thoughts and account was fun! :)

[dramionecommentfest]

Reader Profile: Kiwi05622

The Dramione Comment Fest is the fest where readers take center stage! We’re excited to feature profiles of some of our readers throughout the course of the fest. First up, we have the most delightful and lovely @kiwi05622​!

Location: Middle East Hogwarts House: Slytherin Pronouns: she/her When did you start reading Dramione? How did you originally find fics to read?  I started reading in 2017… I think. Or was it 18? I'm not sure anymore. But one of those years lol! So yes, I'm still relatively new to the fandom. But I have devoured so much that it's come to the point where all the stories I've read have started to mingle with each other, and I can't tell you which story is which unless it had a massive impression on me and stood out. How did I find fics? I had this friend of mine, who was a closeted fic reader (I will never forgive her for not introducing me to this world sooner) that kept on dropping these obscure hints my way whenever Harry Potter would come up in our discussions, which was often. She would call me and ask what I'm doing, and my answer would either be, I'm reading HP, or watching one of the movies. She never once judged me or asked me why I'm spending so much time re-reading and rewatching, and I love her for that. One night, she got a little frustrated with me when I whined about NEEDING MORE of it, and she snapped. She was like KIWI JUST GIVE ME TWO CHARACTERS THAT YOU LOVE, and I shyly replied Hermione and Draco? She had the audacity to sigh (she is not a Dramione lover by any means). She sent me a link to Ao3 with a message "Welcome to my life, and I wish you luck stepping foot inside this black hole. Bye.” because I didn't know better. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, I clicked on the FIRST link I found, and this is how Bleak Manor by Pushthebutton became the first story that made me -surprisingly- fall in love with Dramione and fan fiction.  How have you gotten more involved in the Dramione community? What platforms/websites have you participated in, and which do you like? I'm not VERY involved in the fandom, if I'm honest. I'm an introvert by nature. Even though I started reading years ago, I only started joining Facebook groups last year. From there, I stumbled onto Tumblr (which was the weirdest platform I've ever been on, but now I LOVE IT), which then led me to Discord. This is where I'm currently stationed. I'm not as active as I used to be on Facebook. I also reached out to many people on Discord and found friends that I no longer call "internet friends," and I find it easier to communicate to authors over there.

Tell us about any reading preferences or practices!  Okay, I won't talk about my past habits, because looking back, it was really unhealthy. But I remember I used to read at every waking hour; I would only *sleep* to generate energy to keep ongoing: Goodbye food and social life. However, now, I dedicate time to reading, and it's usually 2 hours before I sleep. So I'll have dinner, and then open up my kindle and read until my eyes can't stay open. My days are usually spent talking to friends and doing many things that need to get done. I started off reading with my laptop until my boyfriend got annoyed by the bright lights emanating from my screen (honestly I didn't even think about reading from my phone). He later suggested reading from the iPad, and I stuck to that for a fair bit, until one night, I ran out of battery, and I couldn’t find the charger, so I reluctantly read from my phone, which I later obviously loved. I could read on the train, while making dinner, taking a walk (because we all need to exercise at some point). Then, after my boyfriend was SURE this wasn't just a phase, and I'll probably be reading for the rest of my life, he surprised me with a kindle, and the rest is history.  

Do you like to leave comments? If so, what is your advice for leaving comments?  If I'm completely honest with you, sometimes. I'm guilty of moving on from a chapter to chapter without taking a moment to comment. Telling myself that I'll go back and let the author know how much I enjoyed this part or that part. But I forget. Once I'm done with a story, I want to MOVE ON to the next one. However, in the past year, I've made an active effort to write down everything I feel on my phone while I read on my kindle, so I can go back and paste my review. That’s the other thing, I read SO much from my kindle, that it makes it so easy to forget to go back online and submit a review. And with Discord, I usually read with my friends, and sometimes the author will be there while we talk, theorise and flail all over their work. It's a much more interactive experience. I think authors would prefer that over a thank you. This isn't to say that a thank you doesn't go a long way or isn't appreciative, but honestly, how many times can an author say you're welcome? Or thank you for reading? This takes me to the second part of your question. The one advice I would give is, don't expect a response back. Do it because you genuinely liked it. Suppose we keep expecting and wanting the author to respond, especially if a chapter gets SO MANY reviews. In that case, it might seem disheartening to the reviewer, and they're left feeling unseen or that their review was lacking, which isn't the case most of the time. Tell them how it made you feel, which parts did you love, which string of emotion was plucked and left vibrating in your chest. Tell them that. But also, saying a simple thank you is enough. Personally, I would go to the last chapter and tell the author how much I've enjoyed their story if it's a story that was posted years or months back. If it's a story published years ago and they seem inactive, I would slide into their DMs and flail all over the story. You'd be surprised how many actually respond.

What is your all-time favorite fic you’ve read?  ALL TIME FAVOURITE is such a difficult question to answer. So I’ll compromise and tell you which one I really really really LOVE but also list a few that I can't be parted with. If my room was caught on fire and I had all these stories in front of me and I had to only choose ONE I would say Risk Reward Ratio by @MissiAmphetamine and its sequel! Okay, I know I cheated, but *sigh* honestly I love it. And I’m not sorry about it either. It's not what you would typically hear because it's not really a fluffy story and there are some questionable actions, plots and let’s not start discussing their relationship. But you see, I enjoy a story that questions my morals sometimes, where I find myself asking “what would I do in this situation?” Plus, as you’ll see below, I have a thing for angst with a happy ending. That being said, I also love love love these stories and they each hold meaning to me, because I've read them at various stages of my life: 

Redemption by @anondracomalfoy (wonderfully written story and very enjoyable!!! It’s a memory trope mixed with some suspense)

Revert by SUPRNTRAL LVR (this is when I found out that I can actually cry while reading a story lol) 

Remain Nameless by @heyjude19-writing (I will FOREVER love this story and no one can taint it for me. If you ONLY knew how much this story means to me *cough* I spent every moment I wasn’t reading this making her moodboards that's how much it moved me *cough*)

The Art of Betrayal by @hathawaywrites

Across The Hall by @takingflight48 (this one just hold a special place in my heart)

Thirteenth Night by Nelpher (This is the story that changed my mind about memory loss trope which is my LEAST favourite)

Nightmares and Nocturnes by @olivieblake (one of the most creative and unique war stories ever written)

Hindsight by @floorcoaster (This changed my mind about T rated stories)

Broken by @inadaze22 (this taught me a lesson to READ THE TAGS, but the pain was worth it)

Sugar and Spice by @inlovewithforever (ummmm do I need to say more? This is one of the best triads I've ever read)

Looking Glass by @kyonomiko​ (Every time I'm in a rut I go back to THIS and it never fails to bring me back to life and remind me why I fell in love with these two. It's light hearted, funny and has my second OTP. it's a win-win for me)

Find Your Way Back by @willhavetheirtrinkets​ (Musyc) (I will forever rec this story to everyone)

Pound of Flesh by @pennilynnovus​ (HELLO STRIPPER DRACO! This one tore my heart out, I love it!)

Honestly, the list can go on and on and on. There are just SO many good ones out there that I haven't mentioned yet, but I wanted to list only a few that I will always go back and re-read. Also, just because I haven't mentioned the ones that we keep seeing everywhere, doesn't mean I didn't enjoy them or loved them! 

What fic gave you the most feels? Definitely “Risk Reward Ratio.” It gave me SO much feels. Some were good, and some were pretty bad. It took me on a wild roller coaster ride. I was happy, sad, angry, happy, sad, angry. I laughed hard in some places, I cried even harder in others, I wanted to pull my hair out MOST of the time, and some parts were oh so good the butterflies wouldn't settle the fuck down. But ehh I like what I like, and I'm unapologetic about it. :D

Who is your favorite side character from any Dramione fic? This one is easy! Theo-fucking-Nott! Without a shadow of a doubt. You want to make him the most awesome sidekick character, go right ahead. The best bro, be my guest. The one that has secret feelings for Hermione? GIVE ME THAT TRIAD!!!!! You dare to make him evil? FUCK YES! I'm SO here for it. Even if he is one, I will STILL love him. I always get slightly giddy when Theo makes an appearance, and I tend to enjoy the story that much more. He's an interesting character to me because he's ambiguous. Canon never gave us much about his personality and reading how everyone interprets him makes him one the most versatile characters in my humble opinion. :D

Last question: Do you really like kiwis?? Hahaha!!!! Yes, I really do. This name was given to me by the people who were worried I had a mild obsession with kiwis. You don't have to ask me what I need from the store, because my answer would always be “we've run out of kiwis, BRING ME SOME MORE.” However, let me just make it clear that I'm not a heathen and I don't eat them with their skin on (no judgment if you do).

Thank you so much, Kiwi, for sharing with us! The Dramione community is lucky to have you <3 

Don’t forget, sign ups for the Dramione Comment Fest close February 6, 2021. Check out the rules here and sign up for the fest here.

[olivieblake]

Let me preface this by saying I have always shipped dramione. However, I’m re-reading the Harry Potter series for the first time in years. In that time I’ve become a lot more educated on racism (and it’s many forms, etc...) Also, this is my first time reading it where I didn’t think of mudblood as some made up word for muggle born wizards, but the wizarding world equivalent of the n-word. Given all that, my feelings about the dramione ship have shifted. (1/2)

I often wrote off Draco’s violent racism as the fault of Lucius not Draco, but at what point does it become Draco’s fault. It is chicken soup for my souls when I see racist teens being denied or expelled from schools because of using the N-word or doing something equivalently racist. They probably learned it from their parents as well, but I still blame them. I don’t know what my question is. I just wanted your thoughts

I have a lot of thoughts and here they are in a stream of consciousness format

one is that I think you’re right to recognize that “mudblood” is the wizarding world’s n-word and in a lot of ways there are problems with the dramione ship that we have to be careful about. there’s a reason, for example, that I never write draco using the term “mudblood” in a romantic or sexual way (I really don’t understand why people seek that out) and also a reason I never write historically untenable situations, such as the nazi officer and auschwitz prisoner prompt someone asked for a few months ago. I do think you’re right that there’s a layer of distance we’ve taken advantage of in romanticizing the relationship; it’s hard for us to make the connection to white supremacy because the potterverse is an imaginary world—which is important for children! we feel safe within this world because our imaginations are supposed to be safe and they are children’s books. also, the decision to cast a pretty white actress named emma watson meant that for a lot of us, issues of racism seemed like very distant parallel. should we realize differently now? yes, probably, maybe. I’m still working through my feelings on this, so we’ll come back here

point two: this is the problem with so-called cancel culture, though, that you seem to be implying that at some point draco’s “racism” becomes unforgivable. but it’s not just within the dramione ship that he realizes his wrongs—canonically he shows evidence of awakening, if not actual repentance. isn’t the idea that we want people to wake up and realize they’re wrong, regardless of how long it takes? I would LOVE for donald trump to wake up tomorrow and be like oh shit I’m a racist misogynist, fuck!! that’s obviously not going to happen and it wouldn’t undo anything he did prior to that—but the whole point of dramione is to write draco’s process of 1) realization and 2) contrition. I would argue that every dramione fic (certainly every dramione fic of substance) involves him facing his prejudice and perceiving his error. does it matter that he doesn’t figure this out until his life is threatened at age 17? I mean yes, of COURSE you can blame him for his prejudice (and his prejudicial actions) whether it starts with his parents or not. 

but isn’t THE WHOLE POINT that he changes his mind? 

I mentioned in our AMERICANAH discussion that I think the author was right—the only way to “cure” racism is romantic love. “Not the kind of safe, shallow love where the objective is that both people remain comfortable. But real deep romantic love, the kind that twists you and wrings you out and makes you breathe through the nostrils of your beloved.” I think the dramione ship has this concept at the root of it: that draco falls in love with hermione and in valuing her over himself (which is what love is!), he begins to not only understand her trauma and the way he caused her pain but also begins repenting for it with his choices. this is always at the heart of it. we always want draco to feel that crushing devastation of knowing exactly what he’s done, and then we want him to be on her side, unconditionally.

is it EXTREMELY ICKIER when you think about this within the frame of a nazi loving a jewish woman or a white supremacist falling for a Black woman? YES, immensely so, I hate it and I would never write an AU for either of those scenarios. I would absolutely not touch that at all. so I think that distance I mentioned earlier is pretty crucial here, because yeah, this is a fake world with magic that doesn’t exist and “mudblood” isn’t the n-word because it isn’t preceded by centuries of slavery, imperialism, or punitive institutional bias. well, there’s obviously institutional bias once voldemort pops up and wrecks shit, but historically? it’s unclear

—which is not to excuse anything. I do think intellectually there is a line to be drawn between these comparisons, though it’s a fine one. if I could choose to unship this at this point in time... maybe I would. personally I have always been diligent about the way I address morality in my fics, but was I ever considering it in terms of racism? no, not really. would I have romanticized this relationship if it felt even remotely like a real prejudice that existed in the world? I don’t believe so, no.

ultimately... I stand by the way I have written this ship. can I stand by the ship in general? I think that’s much more questionable, and also the reason I have avoided so many dramione fics and tropes in the past. because sure, you can romanticize the bad guy for the thrill of the angst, but at a certain point there has to be a moment where we question what, exactly, we’re romanticizing. while I do think there’s an argument for making the intellectual distinction (again, these are children’s books, and also as a first gen immigrant american who was neither british, white, nor magical, I already felt extremely distant from literally everything in these books, so at 11 years old I would not have made the connection between the n-word and “mudblood”) there is also a strong argument for being more conscious of what you read. if you seek out fics where draco is the one who saves hermione, are you seeking something akin to a white savior narrative? if you like fics where draco fetishizes muggle culture, is that the same as fetishizing Black culture? or are you just normal and horny and interested in reading fantasy romance using characters you already know from a fiction series you grew up with??

in conclusion: I think, as in all things, there are gradations to the morality of what we romanticize, and being aware of what we consume and why we consume it is what’s important right now. on a broad scale, however, there are no definitive answers as to whether something is wrong or right, and I will definitely have to think about this when I approach it in the future.

[pebblysand]

[the thoughts on canon-compliance you did not ask for.]

last night between 2 and 3 in the morning (look, i couldn’t sleep, got up to write, then got caught up, okay? don’t judge me for my terrible sleeping patterns please) i had a super interesting discussion with a few people on the hinny discord channel about the definition of canon-compliant-ness. i think this is fascinating because to be honest, before getting into the hp fandom, i didn’t even think this was something one could disagree about. to me there was what was canon, and what wasn’t. a very black-and-white sort of system. i’m finding that it’s not.

through the discussions that i’ve had both on my fics and other people’s fics, it seems that i can narrow down - in the hp fandom - three elements of canon.

i. the events of the books/films

now, as a general disclaimer, you can obviously argue about whether the films are ‘canon.’ you can also argue whether cursed child is canon. there’s a lot of elements which differ between those and lots of opinions about how to look at them. personally, i tend to ignore cursed child. as to the books v. films, i pick and choose what suits my story more. generally, that’ll be the books. but for instance, i’m writing a harry&hermione friendship one shot right now, and there are a lot of movie-isms in that story because that is an aspect that was more explored in the films. however, for the purposes of this post, i’m mainly considering the source material to be the seven books. nothing more or less.

having said that, to me personally, that’s what ‘canon’ is: the events of the story and the characters that gravitate around those events, as described in the source material. things like: tom riddle killing lily and james, or harry, ron and hermione rescuing the philosopher’s stone. anything departing from that is, de facto, an ‘au.’ the whole world of what-if scenarios: what if Harry was sorted into slytherin, what if dudley was a wizard, all of those, to me, are aus.

generally, both as a reader and a writer, those are not scenarios i’m particularly drawn to. my default answer to those what-if scenarios is: ‘well, if harry is sorted into slytherin, there’s no story.’ or at the very least, there’s no story as i know it, and if there’s no story as i know it, then i’d rather read/write original fiction. it’s obviously a very personal preference and there are exceptions to this preference. i loved the changeling [1] for instance, and love the self-aware style of dirgewithoutmusic’s aus [2]. but as a general rule, that is not my preferred genre.

now, aside from the what-if scenarios, there’s also the question of filling in the gaps of the story itself. like, i find it interesting that we only make tsunamis [3] is labelled as ‘canon-compliant’ because i get the feeling that a lot of people would disagree that a fic in which hermione is harry’s first kiss is canon compliant. but, by exploiting the silence sometimes left by the author and turning it to your advantage, are you writing an au? is a negative space canon? is silence canon?

again, as a matter of personal opinion, i would not push my definition of canon-compliance as including blank spaces. to me, as long as it does not contradict the letter of the text, adding in events to the books to suit your story (i’ll address character in point ii) does not make your fic an au. to give another example that was brought up to me regarding my own work, i don’t believe that the events described in chapter nine of castles [4] are au because they exist in a blank space of the books. the fact that harry didn’t notice the 1:1s between ginny and amycus doesn’t mean they didn’t happen, it just means that they’re not in the positive space described by the books.

ii. the characters/characterisation

(as a quick vocab note, please note that below, i’m using the terms ‘ooc’ to mean that the characterisation of a character in a fic is not canon-compliant. they’re synonyms to me.)

now, while the above was pretty straight forward, i believe that this is where i perhaps differ from the masses in my interpretation of what “canon-compliance” means. more i discuss with people, the more i realise that i don’t really think there’s a real ‘canon’ characterisation. or at least not in the big things. like, yeah, it’s canon that harry likes treacle tart, because that’s a fact. but anything that is down to psychology or perspective of the character is, to me, generally up for grabs.

as a human, i believe that there’s things that people do, events that they go through, that condition them to act a certain way. while there is a core to every human being, i personally believe that in life, anyone would basically be capable of doing anything, given the right circumstances. i’ve recently - rightfully - been told my writing is all about the power of choice in our life, the reasons why we make those choices and the people those choices lead us to be. for example, do i think i might murder someone tomorrow? probably not. do i think i might be capable of murdering someone in wartime? perhaps? i don’t know, that’s not the world i live in and my life choices have not lead me to find out the answer to that. however, my point is: to me, good ‘characterisation’ is down to the circumstances and choices outlined in any work of fiction. hence, good characterisation is essentially, to me, equal to good writing.

i often say that good writing could make me believe anything and i mean it. i don’t tend to gravitate towards these fics because these ships are not my personal taste but i genuinely believe that good writing could make me believe in drarry or rarry if it tried. it’s funny because over the course of the discussion yesterday on discord, this was brought up ‘well, no one tags drarry as canon compliant,’ and i’m kind of like, i don’t know whether or not they do because i don’t read it but if they did and none of it contradicted the events as detailed in the books, perhaps it could be? like, that would take really good writing (imo), but good writing has - on occasion - made me believe in dramione a couple of times, so why not? in ‘til the sirens come calling [5], good writing made me 100% believe that harry and hermione would have an affair together. in we only make tsunamis [3], it makes me believe that they had this quiet little relationship building throughout hogwarts that we never knew about.

now, though, i suppose the question isn’t: do i believe it? the question is: is it canon? and, i think that’s where i differ from most people because to me, it is. to take ‘til the sirens come calling [5] as an example, i believe the fic is an au because hermione marries victor krum in the end. that’s going against the hard fact presented by the epilogue, and thus makes it an au. but i don’t believe the concept of a harmony affair is inherently au, because nothing is inherently au, character-wise. it’s about how you write it. how those people get to that place. that’s what makes canon-compliantness, in my opinion.

for example, for that fic, truth be told, we don’t know what those nineteen years include per canon, so they could very much include an h/hr affair. and whilst i don’t believe that the characters as they are in the books would have an affair together, i believe that the characters as they are presented in the fic, with the events and hardships that they go through, definitely would. good writing, to me, is - in part - recognising that characters are moving on a spectrum and that whilst their decisions/actions might not make sense in book-verse, they make sense in fic-verse. good writing is convincingly moving your characters from book-verse to fic-verse, and it not feeling ‘off.’

if it does feel off, that is bad writing to me, and that is also ooc-ness/non-canon compliant. it means that for whatever reason, the writer has not successfully transitioned and explained said transition through the events outlined in the story. with the right prose, you could make me believe draco decided to take on a career as a ballerina dancer after the war, and it would still be ‘canon-compliant’ to me. on the other hand, i have read fics (i won’t name them because that would be shit and also i don’t keep track of my ‘bad’ reads) where harry, ginny, hermione, or ron all act according to book canon and yet, their motivations felt off to me and completely ooc because the writing didn’t successfully lure me in. specifically, there was a lack of character evolution that i found uninteresting. i read mostly post-war stuff because i want to see my characters grow up [6].

as a last, additional note on characters, i also think that the characters in a story only exist within the prism of how we view them. this means that to me, locking my own understanding of a character's personality as 'canon' is particularly difficult because my understanding of a character is unique. i believe there are as many harry-s or ginny-s or hermione-s as there are readers. so i think saying someone's interpretation of a character isn't canon-compliant is odd because i don't actually believe there's any wrong or right answer. as i said, do i believe it likely that draco would become a professional ballerina? no. but if that works within your understanding of his character as described in the books, who am i to say that is or isn't canon compliant? i'll admit, the idea makes me sort of lol though.

iii. tone

lastly, i’ve come to find (in potter particularly) that canon-compliance might include tone. as in: hp is a story that is a) written in a certain style and b) written for children/young adults.

regarding style at a), this is honestly the main reason why it took me 15 years to write potter fic, despite the fact that i’ve been a fan for even longer than that. i genuinely thought you had to write like jkr. and i, well, don’t write like jkr. i love the books, but i don’t even particularly like her style. i like: camus, and sorj chalandon, and sally rooney, and dirgewithoutmusic and copper_dust [7]. i have zero ambition to write like jkr and don’t particularly want to read stuff that is written like her stuff either. it’s a style that imo works for her, but it doesn’t work for me as written by other people. i don’t particularly think you need to stick to her style to be canon-compliant.

which brings me onto my actual point: b) hp is a story written for children. young adults perhaps, for the later books. it sometimes explores dark themes but the writing style, the tone, etc. is lighthearted enough that it appeals to a younger audience. there’s snogging but there’s no sex, there’s violence but the torture is mostly off-screen, etc. issues like sexual assault, substance abuse, etc. aren’t explicitely brought up in the books, although they would one hundred percent fit in a book about a war that wasn’t necessarily aimed at children. the question is whether this setting and tone is part of what we call ‘canon-compliance.’

honestly, i don’t know. i didn’t think so until it was brought up to me that castles might be a dark!au and i was like: maybe? like, if you want it to be? i know what i like to read in fanfic: i love the exploration of serious themes that were not explored in the books, or explored differently due to the fact that they were written for children. one thing i will say and insist on is that i don’t think castles is all dark. i actually make a point of having lighthearted moments in each and every chapter, even just a notch, because i am attached to the fact that life as a concept is a mixture of good and bad, and you could laugh at the funeral of someone you loved, again in the right circumstances. but yeah, to me the post-war world is dark. so if tone is part of canon-compliance, then yeah in that way castles (as well as most of the stuff i read, to be honest), is a dark!au.

as a last side note, i’m not sure what that means for my other, lighter stuff though. like are the wolf’s just a puppy [8] or slipped [9] more canon-compliant than castles? i never thought about it in those terms but perhaps? it really opens up a world of questions in my mind and i don’t really have the answers to them.

conclusion:

so in sum, as a reader, what i mean as ‘canon compliant’ is basically a) the events as described in the source material and b) the characterisation of characters as they are at the start of the fic. if character evolution is sufficiently justified and well-written in the following thousands of words that the fic has, then said characterisation can still be canon-compliant, even if the characters act different than they would have in the source material itself. i’m a fan of good writing and good writing can make me buy into literally anything. it takes me places that i've never been before and convinces me that those places are the ones i should be in.

as a writer, i hope that regardless of 'compliance,' whatever i write at least makes ‘sense’ to people within the universe, even if they don’t consider it canon-compliant, per se. i feel like i can’t really be the judge of that. from the discussions we had last night, i feel like there are as many versions of what is and isn't canon-compliant as there are people.

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[1] the changeling by annerb

[2] the boy with a scar series by dirgewithoutmusic

[3] we only make tsunamis by disOrdely

[4] castles by yours truly

[5] ‘til the sirens come calling by vexmybones

[6] as a side note and to take my own stuff as an another example, i totally agree that harry in castles isn’t harry in the books. i don’t think there’s much debate to be had in that assertion. i wrote him like this frankly because every other fic i’d read didn’t. they often had him sort of continue to be perfectly himself after the war, which i felt wasn’t speaking to me on a deeper level. imo, i think the war’s done a lot of scarring and the fic is about him growing into a new version of himself. so, to me, if i get a comment that says ‘i don’t think harry would act this way but i really love your writing’ it’s somewhat flattering but also confusing because i don’t really understand how one can enjoy the writing but not the characterisation. to me, they’re so intrinsically linked. what the comment tells me is: i think you did a very poor job at explaining character evolution and justifying character x’s [harry’s] choices but i still like your writing, somehow? i suppose that’s nice, but it doesn’t particularly compute in my brain. like, if the character feels off, it means the writing feels off and thus, why are you still reading? i appreciate all and every comment that i get but it doesn’t mean they always make sense in my own brain. if i’m honest, these comments often send me into an ocean of self-doubt about how shit my writing must be.

[7] copper_dust’s work and profile.

[8] the wolf’s just a puppy (and the door’s double locked), again by yours truly

[9] slipped (and said something sort of like your name), same.