miss i, gin pen
24year-old writer with two degrees and no fucks to give.
movies worth watching | velvet goldmine (1998)
Okay, here’s the thing. Following this post, I was talking to Claire, and mentioned that it’d be easiest for me to dress up tomorrow night as Tonks, but I really hate Remus/Tonks, so it’s, you know, a dilemma. Her immediate response was, “Ah, a Remus/Sirius shipper, I see?”
And, no, I’m not. That got me into fandom when I was about 14. I got back into HP from my childhood because of really poorly written fanfic that involved Remus, Sirius, and a lot of glitter and Velvet Goldmine references. But I grew out of it. If I ship Sirius with any male Canonically, it’d be James, and honestly, I don’t even ship that. I am pretty content with Lily/James. I don’t think I ship Sirius with anyone Canonically, because one gets the impression that he was not much for long-term relationships as a youth, and after that, you know, he’s on the run and dealing with the after effects of over ten years in Azkaban.
I think the main reason Remus/Tonks bugs the shit out of me is encapsulated in my reaction to possibly dressing up as her: I can’t really see myself dressing up as Tonks without tacitly endorsing Remus/Tonks, because after Rowling started out giving us this awesome, hilarious metamorphmagus Auror, who was Moody’s clumsy, unlikely protege, who was the product of a major blow to the Black family, who had personality and so much potential, she did away with all of it by opting to send her the route of “and then she fell in wuv and moped when boys didn’t like her and had a baby and died!!!”
And really, I think better things could have been done with the character. Frankly, I think she would have been better off if Rowling had just shuffled her off to the side to serve as the minorest of minor characters, because SERIOUSLY? This awesome Auror becomes nothing more than an accessory to Remus Lupin’s angst?
Fuck that. That is a feminist fuck-up on par with the filmmakers’ decision to have Hermione worry about her cunting hair in Prisoner of Azkaban in a life-or-death situation. It’s nauseating.
…and, finally, there is always the fact that Remus/Tonks is seriously equivalent to Sirius/Harry. I know Sirius gets his shit mixed up with Harry and that there is a not insignificant part of him that has a very real desire to have Harry be his replacement James, and that on some levels, it makes sense for Remus to give in to an attraction to Tonks, who has that association with one of his best friends, who is young and full of promise and so obviously wants him, but… age differences are one thing, and dating the kid cousin of your dead best friend’s another.
Just sayin’.
