![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Warnings: Minor HBP spoilers
Will make a limited amount of sense if either of the following apply to you:
1. You are not a Harry Potter fan
2. You are not a slasher
But feel free to read anyway.
Okay, so, following the release of Half-Blood Prince and the Great Remus/Tonks Revelation at the end, all the Remus/Sirius 'shippers exploded. This is understandable, I was a bit miffed myself that JKR felt it necessary to throw in a seemingly random pairing solely to emphasize how not!gay he is. But they were not 'a bit miffed.' They were convinced that the game was over and JKR had effectively sunk their (battle)ship. This view does not make sense to me. And this is why:
1. Remus/Tonks - Is there really a relationship? - We know for certain that Tonks is in love with him, but we don't know for certain how he feels about her. He told her that he wouldn't marry her because she was so much younger, but that could have been simply him being too polite to say 'Back off, bitch, I'm queer!" They were holding hands during the funeral, but that's hardly indicative of loveandbabies!zomg.
2. Remus/Tonks ctd - And even if there is a relationship, how serious is it? - Okay, say he slept with her, then told her he couldn't marry her because of the age difference so as not to hurt her feelings. She pines, she whines, he relents, and thus handholding and happiness (and pink hair). But that doesn't mean she is his OneTrueLove!zomg. As even JKR recognizes, not all relationships are The One (Ron/Lavendar, Ginny/Every-fucking-body).
3. Remus/Tonks ctd - And so what if they are in love? - Okay, say Remus and Tonks are completely in love with each other and following the end of HBP, they ran off to get married and make lots of little transformationally-challenged babies, so what? That hardly erases anything that happened *before* they were together. The fact that he is in love with Tonks *now* does not mean that he could not have had a past relationship with Sirius, even been in love with Sirius, even *still* love Sirius. Sirius is *dead*! Much as fanfic writers might find it convenient, Remus is unlikely to sit around and pine and wait for fic writers to come up with a million different ways to resurrect his lover. How is it a problem that Remus has a girlfriend? You already have to get around the fact that half of your bloody OTP is dead! It can't possibly be more difficult to get rid of an inconvenient girlfriend than it is to fix an inconvenient death!
4. Remus/Sirius - theirloveissocanon - A ridiculous number of normally level-headed people are crushed because Remus/Tonks somehow supposedly 'proves that Remus/Sirius is not canon.' I can't even begin to understand that. Okay, worst case scenario, all it proves is that a) Remus is bisexual, and b) Remus is not an angsty 12-year-old planning to throw himself through the veil after his love and is, in fact, a mature adult who is capable of moving on. While we may not *like* the fact that Remus is moving on, that is an entirely different issue from it destroying his and Sirius' past relationship. Moving on does not mean that Remus loves his dead boyfriend any less! It's not a betrayal of someone who isn't alive to be betrayed! Don't you think Sirius would be upset if Remus spent the rest of his life sitting around crying?
5. Remus/Sirius - Bonus Round! - Come on, people! Remus totally moved on from his dead boyfriend with his dead boyfriend's closest single, non-Death Eater relative! How queer is that! It's practically proof that he was in love with Sirius! Nevermind the fact that while part of Tonks' moping was at not being with Remus, part of it was also guilt over her sense of responsibility for Sirius' death - she felt guilty for taking away Remus' lover, so what did she do? She took his place!
6. Remus/Sirius - It's fanfic, people! - Don't look at this as a setback, look at it as a test of your ability to write your way out of any situation. Just take a second to think of all the wonderful fanfic that can be prompted by these events that would not have been necessary without Remus/Tonks. Without that, we would have spent the rest of eternity doing nothing but coming up with a) new ways to bring Sirius back to life, or b) writing endless Marauder-era first-time fics. Nice though both of those things are, it's also nice to get a little change thrown in every once in a while. Personally, I want to know what would happen if Sirius got resurrected *after* Remus and Tonks got together, I think it'd be pretty interesting to read about. So, who's gonna write it for me?
Note: Of course, none of this means that I am, in any way, *pleased* with the events of HBP and I still think it a rather cheap plot device, but that is not the issue. The issue is that all the shippers have lost their minds and blown things *way* out of proportion. I mean, come on, you're *slashers*, you hardly expected actual validation, did you?
Also? 'Ship wars are friggin' silly. If canon was the only thing that mattered, there wouldn't *be* fanfic! And if canon pairings were the *only* pairings, fanfic would largely suck. So long live un-conventional ships!
(This message brought to you by Ron/Squid, the new ZOMGtheirloveissocanonOTP)
Will make a limited amount of sense if either of the following apply to you:
1. You are not a Harry Potter fan
2. You are not a slasher
But feel free to read anyway.
Okay, so, following the release of Half-Blood Prince and the Great Remus/Tonks Revelation at the end, all the Remus/Sirius 'shippers exploded. This is understandable, I was a bit miffed myself that JKR felt it necessary to throw in a seemingly random pairing solely to emphasize how not!gay he is. But they were not 'a bit miffed.' They were convinced that the game was over and JKR had effectively sunk their (battle)ship. This view does not make sense to me. And this is why:
1. Remus/Tonks - Is there really a relationship? - We know for certain that Tonks is in love with him, but we don't know for certain how he feels about her. He told her that he wouldn't marry her because she was so much younger, but that could have been simply him being too polite to say 'Back off, bitch, I'm queer!" They were holding hands during the funeral, but that's hardly indicative of loveandbabies!zomg.
2. Remus/Tonks ctd - And even if there is a relationship, how serious is it? - Okay, say he slept with her, then told her he couldn't marry her because of the age difference so as not to hurt her feelings. She pines, she whines, he relents, and thus handholding and happiness (and pink hair). But that doesn't mean she is his OneTrueLove!zomg. As even JKR recognizes, not all relationships are The One (Ron/Lavendar, Ginny/Every-fucking-body).
3. Remus/Tonks ctd - And so what if they are in love? - Okay, say Remus and Tonks are completely in love with each other and following the end of HBP, they ran off to get married and make lots of little transformationally-challenged babies, so what? That hardly erases anything that happened *before* they were together. The fact that he is in love with Tonks *now* does not mean that he could not have had a past relationship with Sirius, even been in love with Sirius, even *still* love Sirius. Sirius is *dead*! Much as fanfic writers might find it convenient, Remus is unlikely to sit around and pine and wait for fic writers to come up with a million different ways to resurrect his lover. How is it a problem that Remus has a girlfriend? You already have to get around the fact that half of your bloody OTP is dead! It can't possibly be more difficult to get rid of an inconvenient girlfriend than it is to fix an inconvenient death!
4. Remus/Sirius - theirloveissocanon - A ridiculous number of normally level-headed people are crushed because Remus/Tonks somehow supposedly 'proves that Remus/Sirius is not canon.' I can't even begin to understand that. Okay, worst case scenario, all it proves is that a) Remus is bisexual, and b) Remus is not an angsty 12-year-old planning to throw himself through the veil after his love and is, in fact, a mature adult who is capable of moving on. While we may not *like* the fact that Remus is moving on, that is an entirely different issue from it destroying his and Sirius' past relationship. Moving on does not mean that Remus loves his dead boyfriend any less! It's not a betrayal of someone who isn't alive to be betrayed! Don't you think Sirius would be upset if Remus spent the rest of his life sitting around crying?
5. Remus/Sirius - Bonus Round! - Come on, people! Remus totally moved on from his dead boyfriend with his dead boyfriend's closest single, non-Death Eater relative! How queer is that! It's practically proof that he was in love with Sirius! Nevermind the fact that while part of Tonks' moping was at not being with Remus, part of it was also guilt over her sense of responsibility for Sirius' death - she felt guilty for taking away Remus' lover, so what did she do? She took his place!
6. Remus/Sirius - It's fanfic, people! - Don't look at this as a setback, look at it as a test of your ability to write your way out of any situation. Just take a second to think of all the wonderful fanfic that can be prompted by these events that would not have been necessary without Remus/Tonks. Without that, we would have spent the rest of eternity doing nothing but coming up with a) new ways to bring Sirius back to life, or b) writing endless Marauder-era first-time fics. Nice though both of those things are, it's also nice to get a little change thrown in every once in a while. Personally, I want to know what would happen if Sirius got resurrected *after* Remus and Tonks got together, I think it'd be pretty interesting to read about. So, who's gonna write it for me?
Note: Of course, none of this means that I am, in any way, *pleased* with the events of HBP and I still think it a rather cheap plot device, but that is not the issue. The issue is that all the shippers have lost their minds and blown things *way* out of proportion. I mean, come on, you're *slashers*, you hardly expected actual validation, did you?
Also? 'Ship wars are friggin' silly. If canon was the only thing that mattered, there wouldn't *be* fanfic! And if canon pairings were the *only* pairings, fanfic would largely suck. So long live un-conventional ships!
(This message brought to you by Ron/Squid, the new ZOMGtheirloveissocanonOTP)
