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Fanfiction contradictions/Plus Account
Not meant to be a whiny post by any means, but rather I was amused by the fact that twice recently J.K. Rowling came out with a piece of information that contradicted something I had just written in my ongoing Snupin fic, Scars. Since Deathly Hallows is finally out I thought I'd make a list of all the contradictions I could think of, just for fun. Feel free to ignore if you're not interested.
Starting off with the two bits of information that had me laughing and shaking my head, just because of the timing. First off, in Part 20 of Scars, I wrote something about Tonks being a Gryffindor--right around the time that J.K.R. announced in her FAQ that Tonks is a Hufflepuff--argh! Which a reader kindly pointed out to me right after I posted the fic. ^_^ From her cheerful and impulsive manner in OotP, I had pegged her as a Gryffindor, and since I had already said in previous stories that she was a Gryffindor, I decided not to change her House in "my" universe.
And then, there is the Auror Dawlish who has a supporting role in Scars and also the previous story Aftermaths. He had no first name in OotP, so I named him "Richard". Then, right after I post my Dawlish-centric chapter of Scars (Part 25, which I informally titled in my head "Dawlish has a bad day"), I happened to read on The Leaky Cauldron website that J.K.R. said his first name is "John". Is her timing impeccable or what? Or maybe it's me who has lousy timing. ;)
So I went back and tried to remember the other bits of my fics that were rendered AU when a new book came out or when J.K.R. released new information.
Like many other fans, I naturally assumed that Snape was a pureblood since he had been a Death Eater, and I created a whole background for him complete with a "Snape Manor" and snooty, wealthy parents similar to the Malfoys. (I started writing my Always series post-GOF and pre-OotP.) And then of course we find out in HBP that he is a half-blood. Whoops! But it was a little too late to rewrite his background, which I'd grown attached to anyway, so I just continued on as AU. Oh, and of course it turns out that Snape's mother was named Eileen Prince, but it wasn't like I was expecting Rowling to name her "Selima" like I did.
Similarly, I wrote that his parents were cold and emotionless, but the Occlumency scene in OotP showed an angry father shouting at a cringing mother. So I ended up transferring some of that into Theodore Nott's background for Aftermaths.
OotP also showed that James and Sirius were worse bullies than I had imagined. I had imagined mutual, annoying but fairly harmless pranks where Snape gave as good as he got, not the incredibly cruel way that they humiliated young Snape, not out of revenge for something Snape had done, but just for fun because they were bored. And it contradicted my Always timeline, because I had James and Lily dating by fifth year, which obviously didn't happen in canon. But I wanted to keep the Snape's Worst Memory scene, so I kept it, but in my universe, it happened in third year, to give James time to mature. Which led to a reader helpfully pointing out that I had gotten the year wrong, but that was my fault for forgetting to put in the author's notes that I had changed the timeline.
I created backgrounds for Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini based on what little we saw of them up through Book 5. I knew that Theo was a Death Eater's son, and we saw him talking to Draco in OotP, and I suspected (although it wasn't openly stated) that he was the Slytherin boy who could see the Thestrals, which meant that he had seen someone die. So I borrowed the bit of abusive childhood from Snape and gave it to Theodore, and gave him a bullying, abusive father who had killed the kind uncle who had tried to protect Theodore. And I assumed that as a Death Eater's son, he would probably be part of Draco's crowd. But we don't see him as much as Crabbe and Goyle, so I decided that he was more of a reluctant follower who was only doing what was expected of him because Lucius outranked Theo's dad.
As for Blaise, he was never mentioned except for the Sorting Hat scene in Book 1, so I took that to mean he must be quiet and unassuming or Harry would have noticed him by now. So I decided that he was a Slytherin boy whose family had fallen on hard times because they did not support the Death Eaters, and that we didn't see much of him because (1) Draco thought he was too unimportant to waste time on, and (2) he wanted to keep a low profile to keep the Death Eaters from noticing him and his family. It seemed logical, but it wasn't so much that I thought this was how the canon Blaise would turn out, but because I wanted to show some middle ground--a Slytherin who wasn't a Death Eater supporter, but who didn't exactly support the Order either.
Theodore's character turned out to be contradicted in some "extra" info that J.K.R. posted on her website. We don't learn a lot about him, but we do know that his father is a widower (and I had given Theo a live mother), and he isn't Draco's lackey, but rather a clever loner. And we all know from HBP that Blaise isn't poor, but in fact very rich, thanks to his gold-digger mom. And he's a pureblood snob who seems to support the ideal of blood purity, although I didn't necessarily believe that he wanted to become a Death Eater. Appearance-wise, he was quite different from my Blaise, too--I had pictured fair skin, black hair, brown eyes, while I believe that canon Blaise was described as a black boy with slanting green eyes. And my Blaise came from a pretty normal, loving family with a mom, dad, and little sister, unlike canon-Blaise's string of stepfathers. (Although that sounds like it would make an interesting story!)
Oh, and of course there is the whole Snape-loves-Lily thing in DH, but it isn't so much that I didn't see it coming, because I did, but that in my little fangirl heart, I didn't want to believe that Snape could ever fall in love with anyone but Lupin. ^_^
Of course, with such long gaps between books, fanfiction is bound to get contradicted by new information, and I threw in so many OCs that my series would have been AU anyway, so I'm not complaining. But I find it interesting to see how J.K.R.'s vision compared to what I had imagined. Obviously my sympathies lean much more towards the Slytherins than her, and I took the opportunity to fill in the gaps that she left blank. I would have liked to see her write more about the Slytherins, but in a way, the lack of information gives us more freedom to play around in fanfiction. I was browsing LJ today, and it was interesting to see that some fanfic authors are a little upset about the news that J.K.R. is planning to write an HP encyclopedia, because the gaps in the stories give them more freedom to write, and they'd rather not have the details filled out by J.K.R. Personally, I don't mind; I would love to find out more about the HP universe, and I don't have a problem with writing AU if canon contradicts my stories.
EDIT 7/28/07: *Slaps forehead* Man, I can't believe I forgot to list the big thing from HPB--Lupin and Tonks getting together! I must be subconsciously trying to block it out of my head. ^_^ Obviously contradicts the Lupin/Snape romance, although a good writer can work around it. I remember when I read it, I was wondering if J.K.R. was aware of the Snupin ship (or the Remus/Sirius ship, for that matter) and if this was her way of saying, "Lupin is NOT gay!" Then I decided that I was probably just being paranoid, but it was still sad. I didn't expect her to write a gay couple in the book, but it would have been nice if she had left them both single so that we could pair them together in our minds if we wanted to. Ah well, like I said, my series was already AU anyway.
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On a more serious note, if you're still reading, I was wondering if anyone out there has a Plus Account, or has an opinion about it. I wanted to keep my journal ad-free, so I was planning to stick with a Basic Account, but I wanted to add pictures of the characters to some of my stories, and the most convenient way to do that is to use ScrapBook, which is only available to a Plus or Paid Account.
It's not that I can't afford to shell out the money for a Paid Account, but I'm reluctant to give LJ money unless they can clarify to my satisfaction what is or isn't obscene, and I can be sure that my account won't be suspended without warning. As a Snupin and Petshop of Horrors writer, I don't generally write about underage sex anyway, but it disturbed me that in their recent official "clarification," they said that text (and not just images) can be considered obscene.
I could sign up for a Photobucket account, but according to their privacy policy, they request your real name, address, and phone number, and I'm a bit paranoid about giving out real life information, as I've been a victim of identity theft before. (I was lucky in that I didn't lose any money and things are ok now, but I suffered a lot of stress, and it's left me a bit jittery.) I know I can't avoid the risk completely, but I'd at least like to limit the amount of people and vendors that I give out sensitive information to. I feel like I already have too many accounts and passwords to juggle as it is.
So what I'm wondering is, do people find the ads on a Plus Account intrusive? I've only come across one or two since I've joined LJ, and they don't seem any more annoying than the ads on my Yahoo Groups sites. Do you find it really annoying to find a bunch of ads on someone's LJ, or would you just ignore them? It would be nice to have ScrapBook (and more icons, for that matter), but it isn't really that big a deal, and I'd prefer not to annoy my readers.
I do have a Gmail account, and I know that Google has a Photos service, although I haven't signed up for that feature yet. Does anyone know if I can link in my LJ to a picture in a Google (actually, Picasa Web) photo album? I had tried linking to photos in my Yahoo Group photo album, but it doesn't work unless you're signed in as a member.
Thanks for your help if you reply to this; I appreciate it! ^_^ If not, no biggie--pictures are a nice extra, but the text should be able to carry the story on its own. I just thought it would be nice to share my vision of some of the OCs with my readers. (I have specific actors in mind to play the roles of some of the Japanese characters.)
no subject
I totally adore your Theo and Blaise, so I'm glad you wrote them the way you did. I like your Selima, too. I'm just glad you haven't thrown up your hands and given up your story at the new canon over the years. Your universe is at least as real to me as JKR's is.
no subject
And I'm glad that you like Theo and Blaise! Theo in particular is one of my favorite characters to write aside from Snape and Lupin. I will definitely stick with the series, in fact, I have the basic plots for the next 3 sequels already planned in my head, although I may venture out and try writing a couple of canon-based things, too.