Dr. GrapeNut

Chapter 3


“Are you there Mandragora?”

“Yeah, what is it CoqTease?”

“Have you ever seen a RW/HG shipper write really good smut? And I mean the really hot toe-curling variety that makes you all sweaty kind of smut?”

“Well, now that you mention it, I guess not. Though, there was this one fic that I thought had a bit of potential, but…”

CoqTease would not justify that statement with even a comment. She just let it go. She was on a roll, almost a sacred mission. “Have you ever wondered why that is? I’ll tell you. Most of the RW/HG shippers are pubescent girls fantasising in a study period at school. They’re not mature women like you and I. No, they’re kids, pure and simple and that is reflected in the writing. You can’t write what you don’t know and they don’t know their own arse or anyone else’s from the proverbial hole in the ground.”

“Not all of them are kids, you know.”

“Don’t use that argument with me, Mandy Baby! I know what I’m talking about. My next door neighbour’s niece used to know someone who was buddies with a lady whose uncle once worked for a major publisher! I know what I’m talking about here, all right? I’d appreciate it if you didn’t constantly question me like this because frankly, it’s irritating and my patience is wearing thin.”

“All right, point taken, but what does any of that have to do with this?”

“My point is that good smut is what attracts more than three-quarters of the readership to this particular ship. SS/HG has always been noted for spectacular award-winning smut. It’s why we’re here. It is the meaning of fic.”

“I guess I never realised.”

“Yeah, you never see what’s directly in front of your face, do you? But, seriously, I bet that over ninety percent of readers come to these archives looking for quality smut involving Severus Snape and Hermione Granger and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what made me come here. Haven’t you ever wondered why I never read at other sites?”

“Well, yeah, I noticed. I just figured you didn’t have time to read a lot of other fics.”

“No, no…nothing like that. It’s about dubious consent fics. Now, I’m not saying there’s not wack-jobs out there who get off on that sort of thing. All I’m saying is that I don’t think a quality site should encourage it. I don’t care how well-written or thoughtfully it may be handled. Some things are just *wrong* no matter how you approach them. These kinds of fics put a stain on what should be good clean smut. Do you follow that? It’s a plot, I tell you! There’s a fiendish plot underway to undermine the entire SS/HG fandom with a vast array of dubious consent fics and that makes us all look bad, every bit as bad as the sick weirdoes who write that rubbish in the first place!”

Just then, the queue at CoqTease’s favourite site went through the roof with new submissions. She clicked on the first one and frowned. She then checked the second and third, but found they were all similar. Each and every one of them featured dubious consent in one form or another. “Oh, you think you can beat me that way, do you? Well, two can play at that game and I have mod privileges here!” She fired off a quick message to Mandragora. “Can you log into the site and help me admin these monstrosities? I’ve got a new rejection file set up that should scare these bumbling wannabes.” When no immediate response came through, she sent the message again. “Come on, Mandragora! In the name of JK Rowling and the Order of the Phoenix, help me shoot down these pervs!”

“I gotta go,” Mandragora responded. “The in-laws are coming over and I have to pick cat hair off the sofa before they get here!” She signed off quickly, but logged in under another name to watch silently from the sidelines.

At that very moment, tempers were flaring at Wank Headquarters. “What in Heaven’s name ever made any of you ladies think that this fic was worthy of a Wank War? Especially after so many people left positive reviews?” Widgy was incredulous.

“Reviews don’t always mean anything, you know. Sometimes we do it just to make the authors feel good.”

“So tell me, why if the fic is not to your liking can’t you just hit the back button and leave well enough alone?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Oh, I don’t believe this!” Widgy clicked over to her MySpace account to calm down with her own circle of sycophants. After a bit, she returned. There was still much to be said and discussed. “Do you know about the Doomsday Fic?”

“Of course,” Fanny Wack typed in, wondering where this was headed. “It’s a fanon legend. It’s a fic so horrific that it could destroy the fandom as we know it.”

“Exactly,” responded Widgy. “So you do realise the significance of what your F-list buddies have done by branding this fic the Doomsday Fic?”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Widgy! It’s a legend. It’s all made up, a story, kind of like the fics we write, well the ones some of us write anyway.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, it’s just that some of us write really good fics and shouldn’t be lumped in with the lowly masses of dunderheads.” Fanny Wack was immensely proud of her own work and wanted only to help others, by deeply unpleasant force if necessary, whether they wanted to hear it or not.

“You really have a high opinion of yourself, don’t you?”

“I earned the right to have a high opinion of myself. I’ve got three fics and two one-shots published on reputable moderated archives. I am a moderator myself.” No one had ever questioned her before and she was not pleased to be lumped in with substandard, in her opinion, writers.

“What if I told you there really was a Doomsday Fic?” Widgy knew all about it because she had beta’d it for a good buddy and kept it as a secret weapon, never thinking that it might actually see the light of day. She had had too much faith that the fandom would not allow the wank to ever get that far out of hand. Now it had, and the Doomsday Fic would be published to each and every Harry Potter archive known to exist everywhere around the world. There was only silence, followed by several question marks and exclamation points, but no words printed across her screen. “Yeah, that shocks you, doesn’t it?”

“It’s a legend and nothing more. We all like fantasy, hell, that’s why we read Harry Potter and write it ourselves. It’s a legend, a fairy tale, that’s all.”

“It’s very real and if the wank gets out of hand, which I think by your own admission it already has, a response will be immediate. The Doomsday Fic will be published to every archive in the world, new sites will be set up and it will be published there. It will appear on countless Live Journals and MySpace accounts. A paper copy will be printed and mailed directly to JK Rowling herself, as well as her publisher for good measure. A cry for a century-long moratorium on Potter fics will rise up. That will be extended to Potter fan art because there are quite a few colour illustrations of the Doomsday Fic, too. Legal action will be taken. Lives will be lost. It will destroy the fandom as we know it. There will be nothing left.”

“That’s not true,” LoveBug interjected. “It’s a bald-faced lie and nothing more than a pitiful writer’s attempt to scare decent readers into not flaming substandard fics!”

“I’m inclined to agree with LoveBug on this. It would be absolute madness to write such a fic and seriously consider posting it everywhere. That’s crazy!”

“But it’s all true.” Widgy tried to explain, knowing she was fighting a losing battle. Any attempt to stop the Doomsday Fic would result only in a faster posting of said fic to every archive. It could not be stopped.

“Why would anyone write such a fic in the first place? What possible purpose would it serve?” Fanny Wack was deeply concerned now.

“Oh, there were those of us who argued against it. But in the end, we could not keep up with the other archives. Our authors were being flamed to death and many left the fandom. The problem was that the readers demanded new fics and faster than what we could write. That affected the quality of the fics, which resulted in more flames, causing more authors to flee faster than Severus and Draco off the Astronomy Tower. What could we do? We couldn’t keep doing that. The status quo was killing us. So, a small group of writers took it on themselves to write a Doomsday Fic as a defence against the increasing levels of wank. In the end, that proved easier to accomplish. The deciding factor was when we read a thread at your site about such a fic being written by your authors. We couldn’t allow a Doomsday gap to emerge. You left us no choice.”

“Just a moment,” Fanny Wack typed in and switched to an IM session with a big-name fan known only as Dr. GrapeNut, a secluded figure few knew personally, but who was known and respected far and wide as a fandom analyst as well as a fic expert. Dr. GrapeNut had been known by many screen names, the most recent having been adopted in homage of her preferred ship in the Harry Potter fandom. No one anywhere in the world was as fanatical as she about issues in the world of Granger/Snape fanfic. Dr. GrapeNut was a world-renowned fic expert, having taken great pains to cover up involvement in her previous fandom, that of Velma/Daphne femmeslash.

With her bubbling cauldron icon, Dr. GrapeNut logged into the forum chat. She considered it a pity that no one could see her. Whenever she wrote fanfic or logged in to any forums, she was always in costume…the perfect black wig made her hair look like Severus’ hair (shiny not greasy), her multi-buttoned frockcoat held in the excess pounds from her last baby and a billowing black cape that she sewed herself so that it was perfect in every way, completed the look. Her wand rested on her desktop in plain view when she wrote; otherwise she held it lovingly in her firm grasp. It reminded her of Severus.

“Dr. GrapeNut, what can you tell us about this Doomsday Fic?” Fanny Wack needed advice on how to proceed and none came more highly recommended than Dr. GrapeNut.

“I can confirm that there is such a Doomsday Fic in existence. Of that I am absolutely certain.”

“But how can you be so sure? You can’t believe everything you hear on the internet.”

“My dear little friend, we had considered writing such a fic ourselves. After lengthy and very involved consultations with SHAG and SNOG, a secret closed membership group whose acronym name cannot be explained to the uninitiated, we came to the conclusion that it was inherently pointless, impractical and not worth the risk. We decided it was a bad idea for reasons that should be all too apparent right now. Such a Doomsday Fic could never be a practical deterrent to bad fics and so we abandoned our own plans to write one.” No one dared to type anything. Dr. GrapeNut was pleased with the deference she inferred from their silence.

“Allow me to explain further. The skill needed to write such a fic is possessed by nearly everyone who can pound a keyboard. It takes no special talent. Such ability is well within the reach of even the most pathetic writers in the fandom. It requires not skill, but only the will to do it. The very essence of the Doomsday Fic is that a certain level of wank will trigger its publication and any attempt to untrigger it will be viewed as additional wank, thus serving only to hasten the inevitable publication of the worst fic monstrosity ever conceived of in any fandom. How do we deter pitiful writers from posting bad fics? We can post lengthy well-written reviews, which are probably not understood nor are they appreciated by the writers of whom I speak. We can flame them mercilessly, but many laugh off flames. Hell, I wouldn’t put it past some writers to deliberately write mindless pabulum in the hopes of unleashing some wank. I’ve done it myself once or twice for shits and giggles. No, the whole point of real deterrence is to produce in the mind of the bad writer the fear of posting. What this Doomsday Fic does is remove the fear of bad reviews or flames. There is no human element left because it can be automatically triggered by a set of criteria, say a certain level of wank within a set time frame, programmed into a hidden archive somewhere within an enormous framework of computers, in other words the internet. With no human debate possible once a certain level of wank has been reached, nothing can stand in its way. It will be posted no matter what anyone in the fandom does or tries to do and for that reason, it is absolutely terrifying. So simple to understand, magnificent to contemplate and so utterly damning to any who stand in its path.”

LoveBug responded cheekily, “I wish I had written such a fic! Just picture the notoriety that would come with that. The after-shocks would be felt worldwide in every fandom.”

No one paid any attention to LoveBug, who seemed to have missed the point. Dr. GrapeNut had one final question. “Widgy, tell me…the whole efficacy of a Doomsday Fic as far as wank-prevention goes depends on everyone knowing it’s real, yet it was kept secret. The whole fandom believed it to be an internet myth. Why did you never tell anyone that it existed? Why all the secrecy?”

“We intended to announce it at the next chat. You know how Asphodellyn loves to surprise people.”

At that very moment at another site, CoqTease was exchanging harsh words with the writers of the dubious consent fics that continued to flood her beloved site. Mandragora had relented and signed back in to check on her dear friend and co-conspirator in so many wank-fests of the past. In short, CoqTease was not having a good day. In fact, she was cracking up. Her room was a complete shambles, hardly surprising since she’d been hurling objects in every direction after noting each new dub-con fic. She’d tried to fire off nasty personal attacks against the authors, but they all responded with more wank of their own and she had neither slept nor read any decent fics since spotting the one that had launched this whole episode in the first place. LoveBug tried to offer words of comfort and solace as best she could under the circumstances, but it appeared to be all in vain.

“Do you realise that it’s not just dubious consent in M or NC-17 rated SS/HG fics that’s threatening us? No, there’s a plot underway to flood the fandom with dubious consent in all possible ships and ratings!” She was on a roll now. “Oh yes, it’s now in Ron/Hermione, Harry/Ginny, Neville/Ginny…it’s even in Neville/Luna! Neville/Luna for crying out loud! How can there be a dubious consent fic about Neville/Luna? And they’re finding ways to insinuate it at lower ratings. I’ve even seen a G-rated fic involving Arthur and Molly Weasley that featured dub-con as a primary focus!” She paused to fire off a few more volleys to shameless writers the world over. She intended to go down fighting. “Yes, they’re introducing this dub-con into every facet of the fandom. That’s the kind of people they are.”

“Can I ask you something, CoqTease? How did you find out about all this stuff?”

“I first realised it while reading a particular fic that sounded good in the summary and even had quite a number of positive reviews. It seemed like a really good and uplifting fic, but the more I read the more dejected and sick I felt. I tried to ignore my feelings, but they demanded to be heard. They would plague me day and night, even in my sleep. There was no escape and so I let my thoughts roam and let my fingers do the walking over my keyboard and I realised what was happening. The loss of clean smut, the complete and utter absence of fic purity in other words, was affecting my ability to really enjoy reading fic, if you know what I mean. It drains the ability to appreciate a fic climax. But I recognised what had led to that state of affairs and I’ve been more careful since then. It has never happened again. No, I don’t avoid the allure of smut fics, but I do deny the perpetrators of dub-con the climax they seek, namely my stamp of approval.”

The assault of dub-con fics continued like a torrential downpour. CoqTease’s F-list buddies began logging out one after the other until only she and LoveBug were left. “It’s over. They’re gone. You know, those gals were like family to me, but this time they just let me down.” Symbolically, and most tragically, CoqTease had allowed her wand to fall from her limp fingers to the floor.

“Maybe we could still try to call off the Wank War and things will go back to the way they were before all this got started. We could start anew; maybe even collaborate on a new fic together? What do you day, CoqTease?” Mandragora tried valiantly to interest CoqTease in a new joint fic full of good clean smut. “It doesn’t have to end like this, CoqTease. Take me, for example, I read some dub-con, as long as it comes highly recommended and it is handled sensitively, and I can still get off reading fic. Probably at least once per week, I can overlook a questionable content fic and move on to a good raw and raunchy smut scene, no problems whatsoever.”

“Have you ever been tortured by a fic, Mandragora?”

“Well, back when I was new to the fandom and got my first admin position, we used to have to read the most puerile pabulum this side of a Goo Goo Gazette. I mean, there were some Draco/OFC stories that could have been really hot in the hands of a skilled author, but ended up as limp as raw bacon. Reading those was torture. The funny thing is that some of those authors were such good artists. They had some amazing artwork!”

“You know, they’re all gonna rake me over the coals to get the code. They’ll drag my name through the mud. I’ll be a persona non grata within the fandom. They’ll do whatever it takes to make me divulge the secret password. I don’t think I could withstand having my name be held in lower esteem than the ones writing the dub-con in the first place. I just don’t think I could deal with that.”

Mandragora sensed an opportunity to negotiate with CoqTease and tried to take it. “Well, no one enjoys that kind of thing. I mean who could? So, you could just tell me the password…the incantation…right now. It could be just like the old days, Coq! You writing a fic and me squeeing all over the fandom about how wonderful it is. Just me and you again, writing and reccing good fic!”

“I have to tell you, Mandy, I believe in a fandom after this one. I think I’m ready to move on. I know I’ll have to answer for what I’ve done.” As Mandragora began guessing possible incantations, CoqTease calmly deleted all her stories from every archive and unsubscribed all her groups. As Mandragora tried desperately to head off the final disaster, CoqTease committed fandom suicide.