InsaneJournal

fannish five + one-liners + waffle = this post.
Yesterday's fannish 5:

Name five minor characters whose lives and histories you'd like to see explored more (in canon or fanfic).

1. Regulus Black
   
2. James Potter
   
3. Neville Longbottom
   
4. Narcissa Malfoy
   
5. Peter Pettigrew

1. Regulus didn't hate his brother; he just didn't understand why Sirius had done some of the things he'd done -- why he worked so hard to distance himself from their mother, why he let himself be led away, why he chose those three (of all people) as friends, why he destroyed the family without a second thought, why he loved Potter more than his own flesh and blood.
   
   
2. It was a game, really, at least in the beginning -- James asked because it flustered her, because it irked her, because if he cornered her at precisely the right (wrong) moment she would fly into a rage, and she was quite fetching with spots of colour blossoming on her cheeks -- and the more he asked the more she refused so he asked again and again and again, but there was a problem: he really did fancy her; just a little at first (awkwardly and quietly), then more (loudly), and more (desperately), which was mainly why he asked again and again and again, and the more she refused, the more it started to hurt.
   
   
3. Bruises faded eventually, and scraped healed, and bones mended, and once you learned how to deflect them, words didn't hurt, the really didn't, and; it hadn't been heroism -- despite what Dean and Seamus had said, or what Fred and George had thought, and despite the fish-slapped look that had crawled across Harry's dirty face -- it hadn't been heroism; it had simply been a matter of principle.
   
   
4. Yes, she came from a wealthy, influential family, and she'd married a powerful man who was often self-serving and cruel, but that did not mean she loved her son any less that Lily Potter had loved hers.
   
   
5. The train was strange and large and loud, and Peter had never been so scared in his life; he didn't want to do this, he didn't want to go there, he wasn't sure he belonged there, anyway; it wasn't like he'd done any magic, because he hadn't -- not really, unless you counted that bit with the toad and the pail of water, which he didn't -- and if the train was strange and large and loud the school would just be worse, he'd just be more scared -- if that was even possible -- and when he got scared he stuttered, and he sweat, and it was rather embarrassing, really, and this was probably a bad idea; only, the boy with the glasses and messy hair was smiling, so maybe it wouldn't be that bad.

1. I took an interest in Regulus from the off, which was sort of strange. I'm all for minor characters, but prior to HBP, Regulus was really just canon fodder. He was a name on a tapestry and two paragraphs of bitter (and possibly booze-laced) dialogue from his estranged brother. Of course, Sirius' rancour may have been what did it. I just knew there was a story there. I just knew, and I was very, very pleased when that turned out to be the case. My early Regulus fics were really just gratuitous Siriusporn, but I've since written some heavier stuff focused solely on him, and yeah. Still love him. He's complicated -- there's no way he couldn't be, growing up in that house with that mother and those expectations -- and a little confused, but very determined.
   
   
2. Oddly enough, James didn't really interest me for a long time. I didn't hate him, or anything. He was just sort of... there. Then I wrote Apocrypha. It ran really, really long, so I spent a substantial amount of time inside his head, and while I was in there, he endeared himself to me. I know some people don't like him, because of business in Snape's Worst Memory, and I understand that -- I really do -- but that's not all that James' is about. He certainly can be arrogant, or cruel, or whatever, but there's a lot going on underneath that. He likes kneazles, but he couldn't have one for a pet because his mother was allergic. And he's a little insecure, particularly around Sirius, because he thinks Sirius is better looking than him -- at least in a 'classical' sense -- and because Sirius is really good at Charms. Really good, in that it-probably-shouldn't-be-allowed sense, and James is just as good at Transfiguration, but he doesn't always realise it. And he's really conscious of his glasses. And by conscious I mean he hates them.
   
   
3. Neville's story is a lot like James', actually. I didn't care about him one way or another -- I didn't like him, I didn't not like him -- until I wrote a fic about him. Now, I love him. I believed in him hard all the way through DH, and he delivered. In spades.
   
   
4. I've never written Narcissa, and more's the pity, because I find her fascinating. The first glimpse of her in GoF was so stark and calculating -- I just knew there had to be more to her. HBP was such a long, winding ramble for me, but I ate the Spinners End sequence up with a spoon. And that bit with Harry at the end of DH, where she's basically holding the next five minutes of his life in the palm of her hand, and weighs it against information on Draco? Yes. Just like that.
   
   
5. My squicks are far and few between, but the handful I have are solid. I just don't go there. However, on a few occasions, I've managed to write myself out of one. Take felching, for example. For a long time, the idea kinda made my skin crawl. Until one day, I was writing this incredibly fucked up fic, and I realised in the middle of it that felching was the logical conclusion -- Sirius was trying to clean up the mess he'd made, more figuratively than literally -- and then it didn't bother me any more. Well, Peter was the same deal. And I'm not kidding when I say Peter was a squick for me. My hate for Peter was white-hot and pure, and I didn't want anything to do with him. Over time, I got to a point where I could stomach Peter cameos in Marauders fics, as long as he was quiet, studious, and James eventually sent him to the kitchens. Yeah, well. I'm in the middle of a fic right now where Peter gets a lot of page time. I'd intended to exclude him as much as possible when I set out, but writing him in quickly became unavoidable. And now, I'm sorta ok with him. Sorta. With Marauders Peter, anyway. Although, I still don't understand him -- or why he did what he did -- and I probably never will.