On losing Luna...
Jan. 18th, 2019 05:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roselightfairyI don't talk about her as much these days, but it was once (and still is, among those who know me in person) widespread knowledge that Luna Lovegood is my favorite character ever. I fell in love with her slowly and then all at once: with her perception and her wisdom, her kindness and her joy in the people she loves; with her matter-of-fact honesty about her own loneliness, but her refusal to become someone else merely to assuage it-- her knowledge that loneliness is preferable to living a lie about who she is. I identify with that on a soul-deep level: that inability to perform, that determination that the person I appear to be is the person I am, on all levels and all platforms. Even here, where I'm shy about sharing my real name or telling details, I'm still determined that the me all of you know is the me that I really am. I've been this way since I was a child, and Luna touched me for that reason.
I used to ship her with Neville a lot, and in many ways still kind of do. It's too easy to say it's "pairing the spares," though no doubt that's at least somewhat part of it. But what I loved was the way they found one another quietly, whether as friends or more; the way their loyalty drew them together and they found togetherness in their solitude and strength in one another through the most difficult time any of them could have imagined. I love "seventh-book-at-Hogwarts" fics, and though I never wrote one myself, I did write Luna's perspective from being kidnapped at Christmas all the way through the end of the seventh book.
I used to be good at Luna's POV. Maybe not the version of her that works for everyone, but I had a Luna in my head: intuitive, self-aware but not self-conscious, creative and intelligent and achingly lonely. I wrote her with ease, perhaps because I was looking for somewhere to fit, and I found it in her. But it's been a while and a few fandoms since then.
The other day, an idea for a minific popped into my head: a little rumination from Luna's POV. I wrote it on the bus on the way to work (that's where I am all the time now, on the bus either on the way to work or home), longhand in the journal I carry with me just in case, and I thought I'd look at it later.
So I did.
And it's... bad.
I'm not talking about usual self-consciousness about my fic and the quality thereof. I'm talking... bad. The voice was wrong, the writing was off, and characterization was not right. I knew that it was wrong, but I didn't know how to fix it.
For someone who so identifies with this character, that was a massive blow.
I wonder if it's that I've become too self-conscious in a way she's not. By this I mean both anxious and cynically self-aware. Luna's aware of herself-- she knows people think she's weird; she knows that the things she says don't make much sense to other people-- but not in a cynical way, not in a way that looks for the worst in what she's said. Luna is the odd combination of sad about what is and relentlessly optimistic... and I think I used to be more like that, and yet now I am not. I've gone too long picking every little thing apart, listening to and involving myself in discourse until I don't know which end is up and what's right anymore, and let all my foundational beliefs be shaken. Luna isn't like that. She knows who she is. And, unlike me, she doesn't worry about she's perceived.
You know what I said above, about how I'm so concerned about being perceived as exactly who I am? I joke sometimes that I'd love to be someone not myself, but I'm simply incapable of doing it. Even with this online platform, where very few people know me as I am, I find that I feel deeply, fundamentally wrong when someone has an inaccurate perception of me: that the stress of being anyone other than who I am is worse than the benefits. But I'm ashamed of it, in many ways. I'm self-conscious about the person I am; there's many things about her I don't like. Luna isn't like that. She is who she is, and she embraces it and loves it-- loves herself almost enough to make up for any deficits from others. I admire that so very, very much, and I think I used to be more like her... and I'm just not anymore. I've grown too anxious, too cynical, too self-ashamed. It's like in growing up, I've lost some of my Luna, and I can't help mourning that loss.
I used to ship her with Neville a lot, and in many ways still kind of do. It's too easy to say it's "pairing the spares," though no doubt that's at least somewhat part of it. But what I loved was the way they found one another quietly, whether as friends or more; the way their loyalty drew them together and they found togetherness in their solitude and strength in one another through the most difficult time any of them could have imagined. I love "seventh-book-at-Hogwarts" fics, and though I never wrote one myself, I did write Luna's perspective from being kidnapped at Christmas all the way through the end of the seventh book.
I used to be good at Luna's POV. Maybe not the version of her that works for everyone, but I had a Luna in my head: intuitive, self-aware but not self-conscious, creative and intelligent and achingly lonely. I wrote her with ease, perhaps because I was looking for somewhere to fit, and I found it in her. But it's been a while and a few fandoms since then.
The other day, an idea for a minific popped into my head: a little rumination from Luna's POV. I wrote it on the bus on the way to work (that's where I am all the time now, on the bus either on the way to work or home), longhand in the journal I carry with me just in case, and I thought I'd look at it later.
So I did.
And it's... bad.
I'm not talking about usual self-consciousness about my fic and the quality thereof. I'm talking... bad. The voice was wrong, the writing was off, and characterization was not right. I knew that it was wrong, but I didn't know how to fix it.
For someone who so identifies with this character, that was a massive blow.
I wonder if it's that I've become too self-conscious in a way she's not. By this I mean both anxious and cynically self-aware. Luna's aware of herself-- she knows people think she's weird; she knows that the things she says don't make much sense to other people-- but not in a cynical way, not in a way that looks for the worst in what she's said. Luna is the odd combination of sad about what is and relentlessly optimistic... and I think I used to be more like that, and yet now I am not. I've gone too long picking every little thing apart, listening to and involving myself in discourse until I don't know which end is up and what's right anymore, and let all my foundational beliefs be shaken. Luna isn't like that. She knows who she is. And, unlike me, she doesn't worry about she's perceived.
You know what I said above, about how I'm so concerned about being perceived as exactly who I am? I joke sometimes that I'd love to be someone not myself, but I'm simply incapable of doing it. Even with this online platform, where very few people know me as I am, I find that I feel deeply, fundamentally wrong when someone has an inaccurate perception of me: that the stress of being anyone other than who I am is worse than the benefits. But I'm ashamed of it, in many ways. I'm self-conscious about the person I am; there's many things about her I don't like. Luna isn't like that. She is who she is, and she embraces it and loves it-- loves herself almost enough to make up for any deficits from others. I admire that so very, very much, and I think I used to be more like her... and I'm just not anymore. I've grown too anxious, too cynical, too self-ashamed. It's like in growing up, I've lost some of my Luna, and I can't help mourning that loss.
