My name is DeiStarr. I like to ramble. A lot. I have slight ADHD, which might have something to do with it. So if you attempt to contact me, you can't say I didn't warn you.

I've never been big on fanfic. I always considered myself An Original Writer With Original Ideas, and I've always had very firm opinions about Messing With Canon or Stealing Someone Else's Genius. I mean, when the Fellowship of the Ring movie came out, I went into fits of rage over each and every deviation from canon; so I think it's understandable that I wouldn't have thought I'd ever find fanfiction attractive.

On the other hand, the very first story I ever wrote was a Tom Sawyer fanfic, written in crayon and featuring my dolls as OCs. I think I may hold the record for World's Youngest Fangirl. So when I started reading fanfiction out of boredom, it probably shouldn't have been that much of a shock that I liked it.

It was an even bigger shock to me when I started writing it.

I'm a bit obsessive in my fandoms, and they are many. So I may crop up in random places; but if I take the time to review anything, it means either I like the story, or I admire your writing skills. Actually, I try to review everything I read. I'll favourite and follow if I love your work enough.

For the most part, I exclusively write Drarry. I only write other pairings on request/for contests, and only if I choose to do so (You can ask but I won't guarantee I'll say yes). If you have a Drarry prompt request don't be afraid to message me. I love to write requests! :D

I was raised to be a grammar nazi, but I've learned to reign it in a lot over the last few years. I'll be nice, I promise. If I'm in any way critical, you can still take it as a compliment. I won't bother to comment on bad writing - in fact, part of the reason that I used to look down on fanfiction is because I can't stand reading other amateur writers' writing, just in case it's bad. Because I'm not very good with criticism, giving or receiving it. More than anything else, I can't handle criticising people very well, in any aspect of my life.

Seriously; anytime I meet another writer I'm filled with equal parts excitement and dread - because after we've talked about writing long enough and soul-bonded to a degree, we'll want to read each other's writing. If their writing is good, that's exciting - but what about when it's written with an complete lack of respect for grammar, and filled with flat characters whose dullness and and uninteresting-ness is exceeded only by that of the plot? Then there's your new friend, waiting patiently for you to finish reading it and praise him/her. If it's an outfit or haircut I don't care for, I can still avoid hurting your feelings. But when it comes to writing... I can't give insincere praise.

I'd rather hear fingernails on a blackboard every day for the rest of my life than go through that again. So, if I offer any criticism it means I think you're already good, but you could be even better, and it excites me both as a reader and fellow writer. It means that I went out of my comfort zone because I had enough respect for you as a writer. If I didn't like your work, I wouldn't say anything.

Cheers!

Look me up on LJ - I post everything there eventually as well.

On AO3 (where I post everything at the same time as on FF):

On Tumblr:

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeiStarr

My Blog:

My FB Author Page - https://www.facebook.com/DeiStarr

I'm one of the admins on a Drarry page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeWontForgetDrarry

And on this page: https://www.facebook.com/DrarryTension

I post lots of pictures and do HC's and PHC's. :D I also do daily fic recs.

"I DeiStarr have challenged myself! I'm proud to be a part of the HPFC forum."

BTW - Drarry is my OTP. I ship them so hard; the Titanic was a bathtub toy compared to the size of my ship. I'm also particular about not breaking up Romione and Gui/Lan (from 1/2 Prince). However, my emotions on those two couples pale in comparison to my fanaticism about Drarry. Harry and Draco are just so Romeo and Juliet. Err, Julius. Actually, I ship them harder than I ever shipped Romeo and Juliet. I'd sooner break those two up than Draco/Harry.

~ On the Character of Draco Malfoy ~

~ Part One: Characterization ~

Draco Malfoy is my favourite fanfiction character, and he's tied with Harry as my favourite canon character - HBP and later DH took him from being a two dimensional minor antagonist to being a much deeper and more complicated and complex character. The last two books show that up till then he'd been speaking in sheer ignorance, parroting his fathers words without truly understanding them or their implications, and never giving much (if any) thought to the consequences or reality of the things he proclaimed to want or believe in. Death and torture were abstract concepts for him; things to laugh about without actually understanding what they were like.

When he was thrust into the middle of the war and placed under enormous pressure, rather than collapsing under the strain or acting like the spoiled brat and ignorant bully he'd always been, he grew up; and he proved to be intelligent, clever, cunning, and resourceful. He was terrified and under a great deal of stress, having a small breakdown now and then in Myrtle's bathroom when he absolutely needed to talk to someone, but he kept going and proved to be stronger than anyone would have ever given him credit for.

I'm not saying he was in the right or made the right choices; just that in his younger years he was the product of his upbringing, and in his older ones he did the best he could under the circumstances with the information he had and the options that he was aware of having - and that he demonstrated greater strength and moral fibre than one would have expected him to have, considering how he'd been raised.

And really, why should he have risked his life and his parents' lives on the off-chance that the Light would be able/willing to help them? Think about it from Draco's point of view for a moment.

Consider who the figureheads of the Light were - Dumbledore; whom his father had opposed, fought, and worked and schemed against openly and viciously for years, and Harry Potter; whom his father had tried to kill twice, and whom Draco had declared his personal enemy at the eleven and bullied relentlessly (along with Harry's friends) ever since - and who had begun suspecting, stalking, and spying on him from the very start of their sixth year. They knew who his father was and what he'd done, and hated him for it. Everyone was aware of the way Draco had talked and gloated and proclaimed Death Eater opinions and support since his first year at Hogwarts. Why in the world would they trust him, if he went to them? Why wouldn't they throw him into Azkaban alongside his father the moment they saw the Mark on his arm, and laugh at his plight? Why on earth would they ever lift a finger to help Draco's parents, even if they were willing to protect Draco himself? What possible reason could Draco have to think that there could be any hope or salvation to be found for his family in running to the Light for help? Draco hadn't really been raised with the concept of mercy, particularly towards enemies.

Not to mention that Voldemort and his insane Aunt Bellatrix had taken over his home, and he'd seen for himself just how powerful Voldemort was. He had no reason to think resistance could be anything but futile. His life and his parents' lives were hanging on by a thread - Voldemort was furious with them, and warned that one more mistake would mean their deaths. His mother was virtually being held prisoner, which meant he couldn't just try to run - and even if there had been a way for them to flee together, one had only to look at Karkaroff to see how ineffectual that course of action was. Not to mention that his father was an actual prisoner in Azkaban, which had already proven ineffective at keeping Voldemort from retrieving whomever he wanted from there.

Snape might have helped him, but Draco had had Bellatrix around to share her suspicions about Snape's true loyalties, and telling Snape anything was taking too big a chance for him. If Snape was loyal to Dumbledore, then Draco and his plans would be exposed. If Snape was a loyal Death Eater, there was a chance he might steal the credit for Draco's success in order to boost his position in the ranks of the Death Eaters and provide undeniable proof of his loyalty. Perhaps the vow would protect Draco; but he couldn't take the chance of Snape getting around it somehow, and it didn't cover his parents, regardless.

So, really, he was just a sixteen year old who'd never had to deal with responsibility of any kind before, just doing his best in an untenable situation. When you consider everything at the conclusion of DH, he didn't do that bad, in the end.

Despite how short-sighted and foolish his childish efforts against Harry had been in the past, he came up with a clever and ultimately successful plan to infiltrate the school; recalling the vanishing cabinets and realising their implications when no one else had, repairing the one in the school without training or assistance, holding Madam Rosemerta under the Imperius Curse for almost a year to use as a contact with the Death Eaters and to pass him information (such as if and when Dumbledore left the school), figuring out how the DA had been communicating the previous year on his own, then remembering it later and figuring out how to create and use some fake galleons of his own (without even having one to examine and use as a prototype) to give him an undetectable way to communicate with Rosemerta, Crabbe and Goyle, and the Death Eaters, realising that he could ask the RoR to keep Harry out when providing him with the Room of Hidden Things, and having Crabbe and Goyle polyjuice into innocuous-looking little girls while guarding the 7th floor corridor to keep Harry from guessing who they were and why they were there while they notified him when Harry showed up and when the coast was clear to leave.

He was shown to be a loving and devoted son who was afraid for his mother as much as for himself, terrified of Voldemort and - once he realised what Voldemort and the Death Eaters were really like - only serving him because he felt trapped with no other options, desperate to protect his family, sickened when he realised he'd unwittingly released Greyback into a school full of children, unable to kill an unarmed and unresisting opponent whom he despised (he lowered his wand, after all) - even under the threat of torture and death for him and his family - and willing to consider changing sides; to join the side he'd been raised and conditioned his whole life to hate (and believed was unlikely to win) if it meant getting away from Voldemort - even if it meant bending his pride to ask his enemies for help once he really thought they would give it and there might be a chance they could help him.

In DH Harry's visions showed him to be terrified, miserable, and humiliated; a prisoner in his own home, forced to torture disobedient Death Eaters for Voldemort's amusement and taking no pleasure in their suffering. He performed a couple of small, almost insignificant acts of bravery (seemingly pathetic, but buying the Trio enough time to make their escapes later on and probably requiring more courage than anything else ever had in his entire life - even though he only did what there was a chance he could avoid being exposed for doing); refusing to identify not only the disguised Harry in Malfoy Manor in front of Bellatrix, Greyback, and the Snatchers, but an undisguised Ron and Hermione as well; and calling out to Harry in the Room of Hidden Things rather than cursing him in the back while in the presence of Crabbe and Goyle, then shouting at them not to kill Harry (justifying it as 'The Dark Lord wants him alive!').

Those are only the things that Harry was aware of - there may have been other small things he did at other times for others. Even if there weren't, those small actions showed that despite everthing, his spirit hadn't been completely broken; there was still a tiny spark of fight left in him that wanted to rebel against Voldemort in the only ways he thought he could get away with.

There was so much about him that's left open to interpretation, speculation, and exploration; he's a literal characterization goldmine for fanfiction writers. Even when writing an AU taking place during Harry's Hogwarts years, fanfiction writers can take what was shown about him in later canon and use it to expand and explore his character in new ways, while keeping him in character with his likely actions and reactions in their AU situations. They can interpret his likely thoughts, feelings, and motivations for various scenarios and write him as something more than a two-dimensional bigot and bully.

I guess it's just a huge disappointment to me when fanfiction writers don't acknowledge that there's more to his character than that. There's so much untapped potential to be used in writing him; ignoring that seems like a tragic waste.