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zelda_queenProjection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
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Chapter 30: Complicated Confrontations
ZeldaQueen: The suethor starts annoying me right off of the bat by beginning the chapter with "There were only two things that people talked about the next few days. The first was the incident in Potions, a fact which had Ron alternating between mortification and anger every time it was mentioned". Okay, why? There are accidents every day and I'm sure that while something like that might be the talk of Gryffindors (if at all), why would the entire school talk about it?
Also, the suethor finds a way to nicely strip Neville of his awesome and funny dealing with the Boggart by having it still be the other talk of the castle, but having it so that Holly never hears about it. Apparently her only sources of information are the twins, who seem to laugh too hard to tell her, and Lupin, who just won't tell her for some reason. No really, he just doesn't. And I fail to see why not, since it's clearly a confidence booster for Neville. I guess Holly can't stoop to asking the icky Gryffindors about it, so "[i]n the end, all she knew was that it involved another Boggart, her Head of House, and something about Neville's grandmother". Bitch. Oh, and of course the Slytherins are all just so understanding about this and think it's all good fun and love Lupin, because clearly shouting that he dresses like a house elf is a canon sign of affection.
Holly, meanwhile, has latched on to Lupin and visits him frequently for tea, as she apparently has been doing with Flitwick. Um...whatever. There's a charming bit of double standards where its mentioned that Malfoy doesn't visit Lupin often as he's not fond of werewolves, and I'm sure that if Ron or Hermione said that, Holly would have their heads on toast.
On the Sirius front, things continue to get more and more stupid. Apparently Sirius is tormented that Lupin still thinks he's a mass murderer, but for whatever reason, refuses to just go and tell Lupin the truth. Seriously, it wasn't that hard to convince him in canon. What makes this even dumber though, is that apparently Sirius is just fine with telling Holly's friends the truth. That's right, he can't go and let his old friend know what's going on, but a bunch of brats he doesn't know from Adam or Eve can be let in. Lovely.
The suethor continues to Sue up Sirius and "improve" canon by having him "filling out with all the food that they were bringing him. Further, he was also becoming even more cheerful as time progressed, the shadows of his imprisonment leaving a little more each day, and Tom and he sometimes spent time together while the others were in class. Though, for the life of her, Holly had no idea what the two could possibly be doing". *peers at that last sentence* So if any of you notice Sirius/Riddle getting popular... yeah.
We also get some boring dreck about Riddle reading up on stuff like his own imprisonment in the diary (good luck, Horcrux books are banned at Hogwarts), how Sirius can untransfigure himself (HE CAN'T!), and the upcoming ritual of that stupid Samhain (OH FUCK, NOT THIS AGAIN!).
We get a cliff notes version of classes. The Slytherins are still being bastards towards Trelawny. Hagrid is bashed for his classes turning boring and Malfoy's attempts to have Buckbeak beheaded are dismissed as "the official inquiry" while Hagrid is painted as a jerk for disliking Malfoy (OH, I WONDER WHY?). Arithmancy and Ancient Runes continue to be Sue classes which of course Holly likes best of all. We're also reminded of the Time Turner and Holly actually seems disappointed that she hasn't "exploited" it for anything besides classes. Actually, she proves herself a liar in the next sentence, when she mentions abusing the thing to get extra sleep and do homework. She then has the gall to act like McGonagall and Hermione's certain disapproval would be overreacting. Yes, because heaven forbid they disapprove of you raping the laws of time and space for your own selfish wants!
The suethor has also begun to crib from the fifth book early, by mentioning that Holly and her little buddies are all in a mostly-Slytherin study group which is naturally better than canon, since they have reached Fourth Year levels in Defense Against The Dark Arts and are now studying every single subject. Gah!
Still, all is not perfect in Happyland and Holly is still annoyed that Blaise is ignoring her, "refusing even Holly's company". Wow, that's arrogant. We also get that God-awful telekinesis brought up, with the Slytherins of course bending over to cover Holly's ass because no one can find out about it for some reason. Oh, and Holly is constantly having the prefects worry about her. Woe is her, people care about her wellbeing. How annoying. Whatever shall she do?
Oh, and horror of horrors, Ron, Hermione, and Neville are trying "to get into her good graces", which she is pissed off about. Hermione even has the gall to...*gasp* want to use Time Turners together! Okay folks, rant time.
WHAT THE EVER-LOVING HELL IS UP WITH THAT? HMM? WASN'T THE LITTLE BINT JUST COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW THEY WERE BEING SOOOOO MEAN AND NOT BEING NICE TO HER AND THUS SHE WAS SO HURT AND WASN'T TALKING TO THEM? WHY WOULD SHE EVEN BE MAD AT HERMIONE OR NEVILLE? HERMIONE AGREED WITH HER ABOUT RON BEING OUT OF LINE! NEVILLE IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE ONE SHE LIKES! HE KISSES HER SCRAWNY BUTT! AND "GET INTO HER GOOD GRACES"? OH, I SEE! THEY'D BETTER JUST TRY THEIR HARDEST SO THE ALMIGHTY HOLLY CAN SEE IT IN HER GLOWING HEART TO FORGIVE THEM!!! PIG SHIT! BULL, I SAY!!!! GAH!!!!!!
Sorry about that. Anyway, we're told the "good" news - that Malfoy's arm is out of the sling. Okay, let me just break that for him again. Of course, this is all treated seriously, how he's still in pain, and so on. Gag me. He gets the Chaser position of course, and there's some boring drivel about the changing of the Slytherin team line-up. They have Flint back as their captain, if that matters at all. Anyway, their first match against Gryffindor is canceled because of their Seeker having something called "Goblin Flu" - look, I'm just recapping this - and so McGonagall puts the Slytherin team against Hufflepuff. She's treated as a bitch for this, because Malfoy's arm is still injured. Suck it. If he's too hurt to play, he shouldn't have tried out.
This is really dragging on. We're told that it's really rainy and muddy, Titania and Solaris still are trying to talk to Holly (LOOK, JUST TALK TO THEM SO THEY'LL LEAVE YOU ALONE!!!) and...Holly has her period. I think. We're told that "certain biological functions made themselves known that week" and that she goes to Madam Pomfrey and the female prefects for advice on what to do during that. Yeah, I have no idea why that's important either.
Anyway, the Hufflepuff/Slytherin match shows up and it's dreary and muddy. Holly is of course so much better than Harry by thinking to cast the waterproofing charm on her glasses before heading out to the Quidditch pitch, where Titania puts the spell on all their robes. Aren't Slytherins so great? Bite me. Anyway, they all go out and there's pointless description of the scene and how they're all standing on the pitch, getting ready for the game to start. Just as Madam Hooch is about the blow the whistle, Holly feels a "sudden pang of foreboding in the back of her mind" and has "a very bad feeling about this". Annnnnnd...
The fuck?
Scene break to the hospital wing? What? I...oh, you've got to be shitting me!
I mean, really, suethor? Really? You just couldn't stand to let your delicate, little Sue lose one game, so you had her collapse before the game even started? Wow. Well, she sucks. Harry flew around in the storm and played his hardest and survived the fall to the ground.
Anyway, like I said, she's in the hospital wing and of course Blaise is holding her hand and a cat-ified Sirius is sitting on her chest and sneezes on her face. Good on him. She, of course, complains about this. She sees that Luna, Blaise, and Malfoy are all there and of course they're crying and strained, even though she was on the ground when she fell. The suethor apparently forgets this and copies the bit about Dumbledore slowing her fall, but changes it so that her glasses did break, just for angst I'm sure. Even though she was on the ground when she fell, I think that's worth repeating!!! Anyway, everyone's worried about her and Flint congratulates her on a good catch. Wait, what?
"Draco nodded heartily. 'It was almost like the Snitch flew into your hand.' He paused for a second, a sheepish expression crossing his face. 'Though, he's really sorry about your broom.""
ZeldaQueen: THE GAME HADN'T STARTED! HOW COULD THAT HAVE COUNTED? WHAT THE FUCK???
Oh, and how could the broom have crashed into the Whomping Willow? In canon, Harry was really fucking high, so his broom was blown out of the stadium! Holly was on the ground, and thus her broom ought to have been blown into the bleachers. Or the walls. Or caught by someone. AUGH!
And on one last note for this idiocy, she used her telekinesis to catch the Snitch. In other words, she's a dirty little cheater. How sweet.
*sigh* Anyway, Holly smirks because she won and is special and that's all that matters and Madame Pomfrey demands that they give Holly room to rest and that everyone needs to leave. Holly starts whining and trying to give doe eyes and of course she's a Sue so she gets one person to stay. She immediately is an ungrateful bitch about this because the potion she's told to drink tastes bad. Madame Pomfrey tells her to suck it and that Snape made it just for her. Because apparently Madame Pomfrey is such a terrible nurse that she doesn't have medicinal potions herself. Oh, and Holly still breaks her one guest limit by having her friends leave Sirius (still in cat form) in the room. Because it's not like canon Pomfrey would point out that it's unsanitary to have an animal in a hospital wing and kick him out. No, of course she doesn't.
So Blaise is the one guest that stays behind and as soon as Sirius and Madame Pomfrey wander off, things take a MAJOR turn for the sappy. Blaise starts apologizing to Holly about how he's been a jerk lately to her, but I notice that she doesn't apologize for pestering him about something which was clearly painful and personal. Of course, as a Sue she gets her way eventually, and Blaise spills his guts about why he doesn't like Lupin. First he says he's not prejudice against "his kind", then he says that he possibly is prejudice, but he has a reason so hey, that makes it all cool! Of course, Holly doesn't call him out on this, as you know she would if it where Ron or Hermione. Instead, she's all upset that poor Blaise is hurt and asks what's up. Blaise finally comes clean. A werewolf killed his father. Really.
"He gave a bitter sound, trembling beneath her fingertips. 'Yeah, I do mean that.' Blaise let out a shaky breath. 'He was killed by them… by those things! And you want me to be friends with one. To like the damned beast, but I won't do it!' He shook his head. 'I can't.'
'I… Blaise…' she trailed off, having no idea what to say, not knowing how to fix this at all. Holly just gaped at him, for once not having a clue what to do. Her chest constricted to the breaking point, but it suddenly eased when he finally spoke again.
'When you fell during the match I thought…' He tensed. 'I don't want to lose you, not over this,' he said, opening his eyes and facing her. 'But I refuse to spend a minute more with that thing than absolutely necessary.'
'You won't,' she assured him breathlessly. 'I just… I didn't know.'
He snorted, sounding more like his normal self. 'Of course, you didn't. How could you? Almost nobody knows, not even Draco.' Blaise unclenched his fist, turning his hand over in hers. 'Maker, I don't think even Dumbledore knows.'"
ZeldaQueen: Did you all see that? Did you? Go on, take another look if you didn't process it the first time.
There we are. One of Our Heroes is being a prejudiced bastard towards Lupin. He doesn't know Lupin. Well, he knows that Lupin is a kind person who does his best to make his classes fun and interesting. And he's completely rude about him. No, worse than that, he's dehumanizing towards him. He doesn't refer to Lupin as a person. He calls him a "thing". A "damn beast". And Freudian excuse or whatever be damned, that is just horrible.
And Holly, Our Heroine, the one we're supposed to cheer on? She doesn't point out a single one of those things. And no, don't try to tell me that she feels sorry for Blaise. Like I said, what if it was Ron or Hermione saying that Lupin is a werewolf and thus an evil and non-human creature? She'd tear them to bits! She knows Lupin! She's been corresponding with him! She ought to know that he's a nice person who hates what he is, who is terrified of turning into a wolf and killing someone, and who never had a good shot in life because of something he could never help. He's forced into a perpetual state of poverty because of his condition, despite being a good and intelligent person. He was her parents' friend who stood by them. Holly was going on and on about how glad she was to know him and be friends with him.
AND SHE'S JUST FINE WITH BLAISE CALLING LUPIN "THAT THING"! She doesn't make an effort to remind Blaise that Lupin has no control over what he is! She doesn't tell Blaise that Lupin hates himself. She doesn't inform Blaise of how Lupin was her first steady correspondence, who wrote to her and gave her presents and cared about her. Nope. Blaise says "Lupin's a disgusting creature and I don't want to be near him" and what does she say? "Okay". SHE MAKES NO EFFORT TO CONTRADICT HIM OR CORRECT HIM!
I swear to God, if she even thinks about yelling at someone else over treating Lupin's condition badly after this, I am going to start listing the most painful and longest ways to kill a person. Because I am writing a story about killing her. And it will be long and sweet.
God. The rest of this scene is sap and equally infuriating, as Holly implies that Dumbledore already knew about Blaise's past when he hired Lupin, because of course Dumbledore should think about the random history and sensibilities of one random student instead of filling an important post and providing a poor guy with gainful employment. Also, Blaise recommends that Holly stop being friends with Lupin. Keep in mind that we're supposed to see this scene as sweet. Let's move on, before I violently destroy something.
Next scene has Holly leave the hospital wing and even though it was only one night and Blaise stayed well past curfew, she still bitches about it and acts like Madame Pomfrey was being a shrew for daring to enforce visiting hours. Holly is, for the first time, told about her shattered broomstick. And, as I said before, that makes zero sense. Oh, and Holly's reaction? To get pissed off about it. Yeah, Harry felt like he lost a best friend and was depressed and kept the remnants of it. Holly just scowls and storms off. Malfoy, who told her the news, starts going on about her fantastic catch. You know, the one that makes no sense and which she cheated to get? Oh yeah, speaking of which, Malfoy still doesn't know about her telekinesis and thinks that it's a mite strange that a Snitch flew straight into Holly's hand. No, you think? Anyway, they get to talk about Holly being special, so she of course smirks and cheers right up and, after mentally seeing if anyone else is around, tells Malfoy about her telekinesis. Amazingly, he agrees with me and calls her out on cheating. She insists that she didn't, because no rule says that one can't use Mind Magic. *sourly* Oh, so that just makes it dandy that you're exploiting a power that no one else can compete with. You know, in The Incredibles, I highly doubt that the rules say that it's illegal for someone to use super-speed in a race. So if Dash did, would you say that it was fine? Bah, you probably would.
Anyway, Malfoy is of course happy as hell and starts praising Holly and Holly forgets about the Bad Stuff that happened recently because she's getting praised, dammit! She goes on about how, oh woe is her, she must be discrete because she is always having people watch her, the poor thing! I really want to take a hammer to her face now, because she's starting to remind me of Alice Cullen being all cutesy mysterious about how she knows what Bella's getting her for graduation.
Thank God, this is interrupted when Luna shows up. Luna says she has something important to say about Holly's Mind Magic and I'm praying for this chapter to end soon. Luna announces to Holly "Blaise is your bonded". What.
Okay, the suethor has somehow managed to cram one last bit of idiocy into this chapter. Apparently Mind Mages, especially young, powerful (oh, you knew that adjective was coming) ones, need someone to stabilize their powers. Apparently these people are usually parents or older family members. Luna says that her dad is her bonded and he keeps her "grounded in reality". We're told that someone snorted but Holly doesn't know who, which is kind of silly since there appear to only be three of them there. Holly starts going on about how OH WOW, this makes SO MUCH SENSE, "why they had become close so quickly, why he was so protective and affectionate, why he was so sensitive to her needs and moods. Why he knew her better than she knew herself". And here I thought it was because she's a Mary Sue. Oh wait, it is.
There's some Dursley-bashing as Luna explains that someone needs to be trustworthy to be bonded with and Holly actually sniffs "disdainfully" when she thinks about them. We're told that Blaise subconsciously agreed to this and how Tom probably hasn't bonded with anyone, and how Luna can be apart from her dad but Holly and Blaise probably can't since their connection is so much better, God this is boring, let it end! Finally, there's a stupid cliffhanger with Holly angsting about how to tell Blaise this. Um, why would he care?
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AN: I know that in canon Halloween came before the Quidditch match, but it works better for me if it comes afterwards.
ZeldaQueen: Why are you bringing that up? You didn't see fit to apologize for trashing Ron in the last chapter. So why say your sorry for changing something so pointless?
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ZeldaQueen: *ahem* So, before signing off, anyone have any good suggestions for torture practices to use before killing Holly? Yeah...
Onward to: Chapter 31: Grim Mistakes
Back to: Chapter 29: Dancing With Wolves
Return to: Table of Contents
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-11 03:13 pm (UTC)And on the killing front, I can only help if you're willing to do a bunch of insane and pointless crossovers and cameos by characters from anime and video games. So, yeah.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-12 02:37 am (UTC)Which ones? I'm considering bringing in Leah, Zyn, and Link.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-12 02:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-12 02:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-12 02:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-12 03:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-12 03:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-11 03:35 pm (UTC)If you want to give your Sue super-special-awesome Sue powers, just bung them in Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, because the fact that Harry doesn't witness these classes during the books makes them exempt from the rules of the universe. It doesn't even matter if these super-special-awesome Sue powers have nothing at all to do with arithmancy or runes.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-11 05:13 pm (UTC)'You won't,' she assured him breathlessly.
That's not just not contesting Blaise's prejudice. That is actively indulging it, making it out like it's his right to think that. Bleagh.
Y'know, I really want to like this author's writing. She's a med student who writes fanfiction, like me, and I want a kindred soul I can like and appreciate, dammit.
However, this story is so infuriating I can't even read the sporking/recap without disgust at her characters and writing.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-11 06:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-01 12:50 am (UTC)But he doesn't say that. Despite his bullshit about the oh-so-tolerant "Old Ways" he thinks Lupin is a piece of garbage because some other werewolf killed his parents. Lupin locks himself away from people every full moon, even knowing that his werewolf form will resort to self-mutilation, since there's nothing else to hurt. He never complains or whines about it (as opposed to Holly "Woe is me" Potter). The man's a goddamn saint!
But Blaise goes farther than that. He gives Holly permission to still be friends with Lupin, but recommends that she shouldn't.
So, to summarize, Blaise is fully aware that he's unfairly judging Lupin, and is not only perfectly okay with this, but actively encourages Holly to adopt his prejudices.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-01 12:58 am (UTC)What does Draco's arm have to do with anything? Would it have hurt less if they were playing against Gryffindor?
Looking over the actual fic... I think that between "She had a very bad feeling about this." and "Sometime later, Holly opened her eyes, blinking slowly." the game started, Holly flew up, was affected by the Dementors, caught the snitch anyway, then passed out. The author does love to skip over things and tell us after the fact, and I think this was just her doing so in a way that inadvertently made it look like she passed out before the game even started.
Her actual defense of her cheating just makes it worse. She fully admits that she knows where the snitch is at any given moment, meaning the other team literally cannot win because of her amazing powers. She even says that the only reason she doesn't just b-line it to the snitch right away is because people would figure out that she's got awesome powers and hate her for it.
And on one final note, nobody mentions how furious Dumbledore was. I don't know if this was deliberately left out because Dumbledore doesn't appreciate what a special snowflake Holly is, or if it's just her tendency to rush through anything that actually matters in order to spend more time on Holly's angst.