Dear Exchange Gifter (or anyone else taken with the urge to shower me with gifts),
(Because if you are anything like me, I know you are probably reading this right now.)
I can be sold on almost anything, if it's done in a way that I like. Really. But if I asked you not to do it on the sign-up post, then it would be best avoided.
Instead of dwelling on the things you can do wrong, I will .
Underused minor canon characters. Make me love them. Or love to hate them. They are such a delightful amount of fun, and I love seeing someone that we don't see much of, either in fanfic or canon, get fleshed out a bit (or at least be given an intriguing backstory). Like, whatever happened to Padma and Terry Boot? And why doesn't Hannah Abbot ever get page time?
Slash is cool. Femmeslash is even cooler because it never gets written.
My two other OTP-ish things are Ron/Pansy and Harry/Draco, but I'm not averse to seeing these characters paired off with other people (*cough* especially minor characters). This has a number of implications: I'm incredibly fond of Ron and like seeing him paired off with someone who doesn't heighten his insecurities. Draco is basically my favourite character ever, not because he's sexy and suave and Slytherin, but because he's whiny and spoiled and really, really bad at being evil (and doesn't particularly want to be), which is far more interesting. As for Pansy, well, I love a good bitchy woman with taste who isn't afraid to claw someone's eyes out if it comes down to it. And Harry's cluelessness brings me great joy.
On that note, please, please, please make Harry, Hermione, and Ron still friends. There can be awkwardness resulting from failed relationships. There can be drifting. But you don't spend your formative years in deadly peril together only to stop caring the second someone acts like a jerk.
Lucius is all right, but I'm a bit over the aristocratic suave thing. If he's going to be in the fic, I'd like him to be canonical and pathetic and broken. Also, like his son, he's really bad at being villainous, even though he tries much harder (bless). Narcissa is the shit, though. If any Malfoy gets to be aristocratic and cunning, it's Narcissa.
I like Hermione to have a bit of life experience under her belt. A couple of boyfriends post-Ron. Some one-night stands. Something to give her some sexual confidence. A bit of genuine heartbreak. (For example, if Snape is the first amazing sex she's ever had and she promptly falls in love with him and that's it, I'm not going to buy it. I'm going to assume that what she is experiencing is sexual satisfaction for the first time. Maybe he really is the first amazing sex she's ever had, but I'd hope she is intelligent enough to know the difference.)
I see Snape as fundamentally insecure, and therefore love fics that portray him in a more vulnerable light. (You may have noticed a pattern in which suave = dull.) He's also a bit of a tool and, based on canon, doesn't really understand how to interact with women. Or, well, people, generally. However, I'd also like it if Hermione wasn't his One True Love/Lily replacement.
Basically what I'm saying is, I'm more than happy to see either Snape or Hermione or both paired off with at least one other person over the course of the story (or prior to the story's beginning), who isn't a complete insult to humanity. I think I even prefer it. For all that Snape/Hermione is an OTP, I'm not really an extreme OTP-er in that I can't see them with ANYONE ELSE, EVAR.
This is devolving into a passive-aggressive rant about my fandom pet peeves. Oh, dear. Anyway, if you don't do the things listed, that is fine. They are mostly just delightful seasonings that, when added to fic, make me smile extra hard, but if you don't like them, you do not need to include them.
I can be sold on almost anything, if it's done in a way that I like. Really. But if I asked you not to do it on the sign-up post, then it would be best avoided.
Instead of dwelling on the things you can do wrong, I will .
Underused minor canon characters. Make me love them. Or love to hate them. They are such a delightful amount of fun, and I love seeing someone that we don't see much of, either in fanfic or canon, get fleshed out a bit (or at least be given an intriguing backstory). Like, whatever happened to Padma and Terry Boot? And why doesn't Hannah Abbot ever get page time?
Slash is cool. Femmeslash is even cooler because it never gets written.
My two other OTP-ish things are Ron/Pansy and Harry/Draco, but I'm not averse to seeing these characters paired off with other people (*cough* especially minor characters). This has a number of implications: I'm incredibly fond of Ron and like seeing him paired off with someone who doesn't heighten his insecurities. Draco is basically my favourite character ever, not because he's sexy and suave and Slytherin, but because he's whiny and spoiled and really, really bad at being evil (and doesn't particularly want to be), which is far more interesting. As for Pansy, well, I love a good bitchy woman with taste who isn't afraid to claw someone's eyes out if it comes down to it. And Harry's cluelessness brings me great joy.
On that note, please, please, please make Harry, Hermione, and Ron still friends. There can be awkwardness resulting from failed relationships. There can be drifting. But you don't spend your formative years in deadly peril together only to stop caring the second someone acts like a jerk.
Lucius is all right, but I'm a bit over the aristocratic suave thing. If he's going to be in the fic, I'd like him to be canonical and pathetic and broken. Also, like his son, he's really bad at being villainous, even though he tries much harder (bless). Narcissa is the shit, though. If any Malfoy gets to be aristocratic and cunning, it's Narcissa.
I like Hermione to have a bit of life experience under her belt. A couple of boyfriends post-Ron. Some one-night stands. Something to give her some sexual confidence. A bit of genuine heartbreak. (For example, if Snape is the first amazing sex she's ever had and she promptly falls in love with him and that's it, I'm not going to buy it. I'm going to assume that what she is experiencing is sexual satisfaction for the first time. Maybe he really is the first amazing sex she's ever had, but I'd hope she is intelligent enough to know the difference.)
I see Snape as fundamentally insecure, and therefore love fics that portray him in a more vulnerable light. (You may have noticed a pattern in which suave = dull.) He's also a bit of a tool and, based on canon, doesn't really understand how to interact with women. Or, well, people, generally. However, I'd also like it if Hermione wasn't his One True Love/Lily replacement.
Basically what I'm saying is, I'm more than happy to see either Snape or Hermione or both paired off with at least one other person over the course of the story (or prior to the story's beginning), who isn't a complete insult to humanity. I think I even prefer it. For all that Snape/Hermione is an OTP, I'm not really an extreme OTP-er in that I can't see them with ANYONE ELSE, EVAR.
This is devolving into a passive-aggressive rant about my fandom pet peeves. Oh, dear. Anyway, if you don't do the things listed, that is fine. They are mostly just delightful seasonings that, when added to fic, make me smile extra hard, but if you don't like them, you do not need to include them.