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moonflower_roseFirst of all, thank you ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
astridfire! I was so pleased with my gift! I felt terrible about my super vague prompt, lol, I’M SORRY D: I hope you were inspired by your own muses, since my prompt was probably nearly useless in terms of inspiration. Once again, my favourite bits were the gorgeous colours, the depth of detail (why am I so fixated on the rug????) and the art deco feel of the poster, along with that classic recruitment theme WE WANT YOU! I couldn’t even get to it quickly enough to have my comment on the first page! Well done, THANK YOU. Totally awesome xoxoxox
Second of all, thank youannafugazzi for the wonderful comments you left on the fic: In Dreams for annafugazzi at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hd_holidays. I was TERRIFIED (I hope that's not insulting) to write for you, and was literally ready to throw up at any given moment while waiting for the fic to be posted. I didn't mention this to anyone, but I actually worked out the time differences then set a series of recurring alarms on my iPhone calendar at the times when new posts were scheduled to be made on the comm, and then frantically checked to see whether mine was up yet. I checked in the middle of meetings...while at dinner with friends...once, I was in a cinema which had no connection, and I could hardly concentrate on the film because I was thinking about whether the fic was posted yet or not. Yes, I am a little ashamed of myself for this. Yes, I have pretty much developed a stomach ulcer and a twitch after being on high alert for weeks and weeks. I drafted an email to the mods asking for mercy PLEASE GOD JUST TELL ME WHAT DAY MINE IS SCHEDULED FOR POSTING AND PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY SHIT SHIT SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT… but then I didn’t send it because I felt like a huge puss for being such a wimp.
Anyway. I wasn't sure whether doing this would be a good idea, as it kind of comes out sounding like a series of excuses as to why my fic wasn't better, lol. Also, I totally believe in people experiencing their own version of the same story, rather than being beseiged with 'corrections' about what the author intended by this or that. However, I ultimately decided I wanted to do it anyway. I blame my entrenched desire to confess on my Catholic upbringing. Plus, I was linked by a mate who knew which fic was mine and who had happened upon a discussion of the plot elsewhere on LJ, and I was intrigued by the discussion which some of the plot points had provoked, so I thought I might put this out there to try to answer some of those questions.
So here we go...
1. But why was it so long, precioussssss?
Would you believe, this fic was actually a shitload longer than the final product? And I actually thought ‘fuck, that’s a long-ass fic!’ until I started seeing 50K and 96-freaken-K fics being posted and I looked and my teeny weenie fic and felt sorry for it for being such a runt. Either way, I had to perform microsurgery on it to remove a lot of stuff because otherwise, I may have been writing until December 25. I don't want to say much more about that, because I think I'll probably find a way to manipulate all of that excised material into a companion piece (and by probably, I mean I'm sort of already working on that now…whether you like it or not!).
2. You kind of went off the reservation there with the prompt…
I personally found it super hard when writing my submission because while I do have likes and dislikes, I didn't want to rule out what could have been the most awesome mpreg veela fic of all time, or something, or to otherwise stifle the creativity of the person gifting to me in any way, and I imagine lots of people find it equally difficult. So, I thought that rather than just relying on Anna's submission alone, I would stalk the shit out of her LJ like a part-ninja, part-weirdo, trying to get an idea of what sort of fics she liked and what her general preferences were on a fannish level.
3. There was het in there, dude. HET. What up?
As a result of thisstalking research, I decided to put more Harry/Ginny in there than I normally probably would have, considering it is a Harry/Draco fic and sometimes slashers don't take kindly to a taco at their sausage party. I'm not ashamed to say, I like Harry/Ginny, and I was pleased to see that Anna was not anti-Ginny herself. I started off shipping it and writing it when I first came to the HP fandom way back in 2004. I feel like there is a lot of Ginny hate out there, so for Anna (and me) I wanted to show a loving relationship that didn't need Ginny to be evil in order for Harry to eventually fall for Draco. Unfortunately for Ginny, my imagination killed her on this occasion, heh.
4. But I had to read ALL that HET and GEN to get to the slash, dude.
It took a lot of narrative for the H/D to show up, and I know that not everyone finds that pleasing. The Harry that sprouted in my imagination is heartbroken, hesitant to put himself back out there again, totally out of practice with matters of the heart, and definitely traumatised by the tragedies in his life so far. He has trust issues and a problem with his temper, which is also a sign of the PTSD, along with the recurring dreams. He has a history of butting heads with authority figures, and while this may have been something he has become better at managing over time, he still struggles with it. Draco, on the other hand, emerged as a man in almost complete control of himself, which I imagined would be a necessity in his line of work.
5. So, Ginny was never meant to be secretly alive and/or evil, and Harry was never supposed to be the sleeper agent, and none of it was meant to be just a dream he was having?
(This whole bit is mainly for the benefit of a couple of folks who were wondering about it, but whose names I’ve totally forgotten – sorry guys!)
In a word: nope. I am not that sneaky! I love Auror!Harry and Unspeakable!Draco, so I’m always trying to look for an angle I can use to get that in there. I wanted to have a plot which would justify their working relationship, but I didn’t intend for the mystery to be the focal point (because that is a load of pressure, lol, good plot is HARD), I hoped readers (particularly Anna) would be sucked in by the dynamic between Harry and Draco, and how it gradually changed, and whether you could believe that this was a world in which Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy could fall in love with each other.
The whole dream concept was entirely to do with my interest in the unconscious mind, and how dreaming can sometimes reveal secrets and truths to you that you’re not yet capable of accepting in your conscious mind. Also, it was a way of anchoring my total demolition of the epilogue to the rest of the narrative. It never occurred to me that it would imply any Inception-esque twists – sorry, I didn’t mean to inadvertently tease! I’d been studying Edgar Allen Poe earlier in the year and some of his stuff stuck in my brain. The more I re-read the opening lines, the more I thought of a Harry who’d lost Ginny:
“In visions of the dark night/I have dreamed of joy departed-/But a waking dream of life and light/Hath left me broken-hearted./Ah! what is not a dream by day/To him whose eyes are cast/On things around him with a ray/Turned back upon the past?”
I did use some OC’s, where I could have used canon characters. Again, that was mainly because getting the plotty facts right with canon villains, without also becoming a huge fannish cliché is HAAAAARD. Waaaaay easier to have some new people show up whose motivations can be all their own and who you can kill on a whim, and who readers don’t have to invest too much time caring about so they can focus all their energy on the H/D (that’s oversimplifying it, but you get me). As far as non-villains go, in the same way that I wanted to illustrate how unglamourous and even tedious Auror work could potentially be, I wanted to show that sometimes as you grow up, your relationship with your schoolyard BFF’s can change dramatically, and that happens sometimes quite profoundly when there’s been a tragedy in the group. Sometimes it’s just too hard to be with certain friends when you feel the loss of the one/s who’ve gone so deeply when you’re with them. Sometimes the best and closest friendships evolve to the point where you might not see each other as frequently as you once did. Sometimes you use ‘sometimes’ too many times in a paragraph, because it’s 1.30am on a Sunday and you’ve lost the ability to use other words. Sometimes.
6. There wasn’t much sex in it.
I know. Sorry. There will be a bunch more in the companion piece, which at the moment is about 20K words of deleted scenes that need to be tamed into something fit for public consumption. It’s from Draco’s POV, too. That’s all I’m gonna say. Aren’t you relieved?
Last but not least, thank youhd_holidays Mods - you guys are awesome.
astridfire! I was so pleased with my gift! I felt terrible about my super vague prompt, lol, I’M SORRY D: I hope you were inspired by your own muses, since my prompt was probably nearly useless in terms of inspiration. Once again, my favourite bits were the gorgeous colours, the depth of detail (why am I so fixated on the rug????) and the art deco feel of the poster, along with that classic recruitment theme WE WANT YOU! I couldn’t even get to it quickly enough to have my comment on the first page! Well done, THANK YOU. Totally awesome xoxoxoxSecond of all, thank you
annafugazzi for the wonderful comments you left on the fic: In Dreams for annafugazzi at hd_holidays. I was TERRIFIED (I hope that's not insulting) to write for you, and was literally ready to throw up at any given moment while waiting for the fic to be posted. I didn't mention this to anyone, but I actually worked out the time differences then set a series of recurring alarms on my iPhone calendar at the times when new posts were scheduled to be made on the comm, and then frantically checked to see whether mine was up yet. I checked in the middle of meetings...while at dinner with friends...once, I was in a cinema which had no connection, and I could hardly concentrate on the film because I was thinking about whether the fic was posted yet or not. Yes, I am a little ashamed of myself for this. Yes, I have pretty much developed a stomach ulcer and a twitch after being on high alert for weeks and weeks. I drafted an email to the mods asking for mercy PLEASE GOD JUST TELL ME WHAT DAY MINE IS SCHEDULED FOR POSTING AND PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY SHIT SHIT SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT… but then I didn’t send it because I felt like a huge puss for being such a wimp.Anyway. I wasn't sure whether doing this would be a good idea, as it kind of comes out sounding like a series of excuses as to why my fic wasn't better, lol. Also, I totally believe in people experiencing their own version of the same story, rather than being beseiged with 'corrections' about what the author intended by this or that. However, I ultimately decided I wanted to do it anyway. I blame my entrenched desire to confess on my Catholic upbringing. Plus, I was linked by a mate who knew which fic was mine and who had happened upon a discussion of the plot elsewhere on LJ, and I was intrigued by the discussion which some of the plot points had provoked, so I thought I might put this out there to try to answer some of those questions.
So here we go...
1. But why was it so long, precioussssss?
Would you believe, this fic was actually a shitload longer than the final product? And I actually thought ‘fuck, that’s a long-ass fic!’ until I started seeing 50K and 96-freaken-K fics being posted and I looked and my teeny weenie fic and felt sorry for it for being such a runt. Either way, I had to perform microsurgery on it to remove a lot of stuff because otherwise, I may have been writing until December 25. I don't want to say much more about that, because I think I'll probably find a way to manipulate all of that excised material into a companion piece (and by probably, I mean I'm sort of already working on that now…whether you like it or not!).
2. You kind of went off the reservation there with the prompt…
I personally found it super hard when writing my submission because while I do have likes and dislikes, I didn't want to rule out what could have been the most awesome mpreg veela fic of all time, or something, or to otherwise stifle the creativity of the person gifting to me in any way, and I imagine lots of people find it equally difficult. So, I thought that rather than just relying on Anna's submission alone, I would stalk the shit out of her LJ like a part-ninja, part-weirdo, trying to get an idea of what sort of fics she liked and what her general preferences were on a fannish level.
3. There was het in there, dude. HET. What up?
As a result of this
4. But I had to read ALL that HET and GEN to get to the slash, dude.
It took a lot of narrative for the H/D to show up, and I know that not everyone finds that pleasing. The Harry that sprouted in my imagination is heartbroken, hesitant to put himself back out there again, totally out of practice with matters of the heart, and definitely traumatised by the tragedies in his life so far. He has trust issues and a problem with his temper, which is also a sign of the PTSD, along with the recurring dreams. He has a history of butting heads with authority figures, and while this may have been something he has become better at managing over time, he still struggles with it. Draco, on the other hand, emerged as a man in almost complete control of himself, which I imagined would be a necessity in his line of work.
5. So, Ginny was never meant to be secretly alive and/or evil, and Harry was never supposed to be the sleeper agent, and none of it was meant to be just a dream he was having?
(This whole bit is mainly for the benefit of a couple of folks who were wondering about it, but whose names I’ve totally forgotten – sorry guys!)
In a word: nope. I am not that sneaky! I love Auror!Harry and Unspeakable!Draco, so I’m always trying to look for an angle I can use to get that in there. I wanted to have a plot which would justify their working relationship, but I didn’t intend for the mystery to be the focal point (because that is a load of pressure, lol, good plot is HARD), I hoped readers (particularly Anna) would be sucked in by the dynamic between Harry and Draco, and how it gradually changed, and whether you could believe that this was a world in which Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy could fall in love with each other.
The whole dream concept was entirely to do with my interest in the unconscious mind, and how dreaming can sometimes reveal secrets and truths to you that you’re not yet capable of accepting in your conscious mind. Also, it was a way of anchoring my total demolition of the epilogue to the rest of the narrative. It never occurred to me that it would imply any Inception-esque twists – sorry, I didn’t mean to inadvertently tease! I’d been studying Edgar Allen Poe earlier in the year and some of his stuff stuck in my brain. The more I re-read the opening lines, the more I thought of a Harry who’d lost Ginny:
“In visions of the dark night/I have dreamed of joy departed-/But a waking dream of life and light/Hath left me broken-hearted./Ah! what is not a dream by day/To him whose eyes are cast/On things around him with a ray/Turned back upon the past?”
I did use some OC’s, where I could have used canon characters. Again, that was mainly because getting the plotty facts right with canon villains, without also becoming a huge fannish cliché is HAAAAARD. Waaaaay easier to have some new people show up whose motivations can be all their own and who you can kill on a whim, and who readers don’t have to invest too much time caring about so they can focus all their energy on the H/D (that’s oversimplifying it, but you get me). As far as non-villains go, in the same way that I wanted to illustrate how unglamourous and even tedious Auror work could potentially be, I wanted to show that sometimes as you grow up, your relationship with your schoolyard BFF’s can change dramatically, and that happens sometimes quite profoundly when there’s been a tragedy in the group. Sometimes it’s just too hard to be with certain friends when you feel the loss of the one/s who’ve gone so deeply when you’re with them. Sometimes the best and closest friendships evolve to the point where you might not see each other as frequently as you once did. Sometimes you use ‘sometimes’ too many times in a paragraph, because it’s 1.30am on a Sunday and you’ve lost the ability to use other words. Sometimes.
6. There wasn’t much sex in it.
I know. Sorry. There will be a bunch more in the companion piece, which at the moment is about 20K words of deleted scenes that need to be tamed into something fit for public consumption. It’s from Draco’s POV, too. That’s all I’m gonna say. Aren’t you relieved?
Last but not least, thank you
hd_holidays Mods - you guys are awesome.
