30-Day Fanfic Writing Meme, Day 10

[geri_chan]

10. Pairings – Have you ever gone outside your comfort zone and written a pairing you liked, but found you couldn't write, or a pairing you didn't like, and found you could?

Yes, I don't especially like Snape/Sirius, but as I mentioned on Day 2, I did write a female-Snape/Sirius fic called Double Date, thanks in part to snegurochka_lee's Least Favourite Character/Pairing Drabble/Drawble & Ficlet Challenge! Sirius isn't my least favorite character, but I do think he's kind of a jerk in canon, so he's a somewhat disliked character--though I do think he had the potential to be a really great character if he had lived long enough to mature--Snape obviously wasn't the only one who couldn't get over a "schoolboy grudge." After reading GoF, I really thought that someday Sirius and Snape would set aside their grudges enough to respect each other as allies fighting on the same side, if not exactly becoming bosom buddies--but that's a rant for another day.

In my Petshop of Horrors fics, I wrote mainly Leon/D. I thought that Papa D/Vesca was an interesting pairing, but never really felt moved to write it until one day I got bitten by the plot bunny for Betrayed. The story also demanded to written in first person, present tense--two things I never do, so that fic really did go outside my comfort zone, but oddly enough, it was one of the easiest fics I ever wrote. It was only a ficlet, but it was one of those rare occasions when the story almost wrote itself, and I finished it in about an hour, which has to be a record for me.

For Haru, Asano and Urushizaki are characters I don't like in canon, but when I saw a prompt for them in the Embracing Spring fest, I immediately got bitten by a plot bunny that resulted in Substitute. I had a great time writing it, and I'd like to return to that pairing again someday. I also wasn't anticipating the hints of Asano/Yoshizumi in my Haru-Shakespeare series, but somehow that spontaneously happened, too. On a slightly different note, I like the characters of Yoshizumi and Kenzaki just fine, but hadn't planned to pair them off in Unmasked until Snapelike suggested that Yoshizumi have a fling with one of the host club guys from the When a Man Loves a Man manga. It was just supposed to be a friends-with-benefits thing, but damn if they didn't start falling in love--which seriously put a crimp in my plans for Yoshizumi/Asano! I also liked reading Mochimune/Miyasaka, but wasn't really planning on writing it until Snapelike infected me with plot bunnies gave me a bit of encouragement.

For my Snupin Always series, Snupin was of course a given, but the supporting characters kept pairing off spontaneously. While writing For Old Time's Sake (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5), I was trying to stick with the canon pairing of Hermione/Ron, but Dylan Rosier (the OC Slytherin student I mentioned on Day 8) kept insisting to me that he liked Hermione, even though he's a Death Eater's son and she's a Muggle-born. I tried to fight it, but Dylan and Hermione seemed to have much better chemistry together (at least in my little fantasy world), so I finally gave in and decided, "What the hell, introducing an OC already makes this an AU, so why not go AU all the way and pair up my characters with whomever I please?" I was a little worried that the readers wouldn't like such a drastic change from canon, but to my relief, no one seemed to mind. And as I said on Day 5, I didn't originally intend to pair off Theo and Blaise--in fact, if I recall correctly, I was going to have Blaise date Lisa Turpin--but now they're one of my favorite pairs to write. And there were a few other OC and minor character pairings that I didn't plan out in advance.

Previous days:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9

Comments

[lysanatt.livejournal.com]

Sirius! Oh, he's horrible and my least favourite HP character. But strangely enough, like you, I found that I could write him... *scrubs brain*

[geri-chan.livejournal.com]

Heh, I do remember you talking about your Sirius hate when you were posting your meme. I don't like canon-Sirius, but I can see him becoming redeemable in fic. James, on the other hand, I loathe with a passion, and I could never ship him with Snape (or anyone else I really liked), not even for hate!sex. I did bring him back as a sort-of ghost in one fic, but just so that he could realize what a jerk he'd been during his life. ~_^

[lysanatt.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on James, unsurprisingly. Mostly, I don't care about him because he seems to be JKs unfulfilled Mary Sue fantasy, and he's a cardboard character to boot. He's worse than Sirius, but he's so... stupidly drawn that I don't even care to hate him. Urgh... James/ Snape? Not in this lifetime - same with his annoying son.

As for Sirius, he's deeper, more interesting, flawed, like Snape. I can... no...yes. I can see it, after a very, very long period of redemption and apologies and hatred and... I don't like it, but it is not as far out as Snape/any Potter, dead or alive. And no, I don't believe in Lily/Snape either. I'd work for two weeks, then one of them would run screaming...