The current Personal Canon meme
Jan. 27th, 2007 01:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snorkackcatcherOh, why not ...
This one's a bit tricky since I've tended not to write stories that are explicitly linked, and so I haven't really developed a standard set of characterisations or backgrounds, being quite happy to change them around to suit the current story. Nor am I a shipper in the sense of being especially attached to any given non-canon ship (JKR pre-empted the only one I might have shipped by the simple process of making it canon). However, here goes.
Three key pairings in my own personal canon:
Snape/Lily -- this isn't so much a ship as a theory, just something I think is likely and tend to assume as part of the background. It's about the only such pairing I do assume that's not at least hinted at explicitly in canon (such as Draco/Pansy, say). However, since I've never actually written MWPP-era beyond a brief anecdote from Remus, and rarely write Snape, it doesn't play into things much -- it got a nod in A Really Bad Idea, but that's all. And no, I don't think it was anything other than one-sided on Snape's part and unrequited, if Lily was even aware of his feelings.
Remus/Tonks -- the aforementioned canonised pairing. These two characters do have a habit of popping up in my fics without so much as a by-your-leave, separately or together, even when the main story has nothing to do with them, and in any post-HBP story the relationship is assumed. I like both characters, the dynamic between them, and the potential they have for interesting storytelling -- but although I have written a couple of outright R/T stories (Can't I Like Girls Too? and Change For Me), in both cases the basic idea was really to poke gentle fun at Wolfstar. I'll have to do a straightforward R/T at some point. :)
Ron/Hermione -- can you tell I'm struggling for a third pairing now? At least this is one I genuinely like, and for which I will often read a fic just on spec even if the summary isn't that interesting. It's sort of a basic assumption when developing plots with these characters, even if the main plot wasn't supposed to be shippy (You Tell Her, for example).
Three OCs in my canon:
Now OCs I do have. Hmm, the backgrounds sound really corny when you type them out, don't they?
CassiusScrimgeour Smethwyck -- elderly Auror who appears in NTLJ and Conspiracy Theory. Pure-blood, a "decent Slytherin", avuncular manner, nice chap but with an undercurrent of steel, tons of experience, highly skilled -- probably a total Gary Stu, in other words. :) Married a Muggle woman back in the 1930s to the incomprehension of his family (they weren't "blood supremacists" by any means, but they regarded him as odd and thought he was being ridiculous), now a widower. Partnered with Tonks on her first case during NTLJ, and acts as a sort of mentor in many ways. I've never needed to bring her career background into any other story in which she's appeared, but if I ever did I think it remains canon-compatible for the time being.
Donnacha O'Gregan -- another Auror from NTLJ. Actually got a reasonable amount of development: an Irish Muggle-born, late twenties, good-looking if not a knockout (I mentally tagged Colin Firth for the role), married young to a posh pure-blood in a spate of mutual infatuation that turned into mutual loathing within a few years. Now in a stable long-term romance with a colleague, but unable to marry her because he signed a magical wedding contract that requires mutual agreement for a divorce, and his wife is prepared to let him stew until she has an attractive alternative of her own. (Don and his girlfriend think she's a total cow, and actually she isn't very pleasant, although not as bad as they make out.) Basically he was a throwaway subplot that turned into something that got a fair chunk of screentime. I really ought to get someone to Erin-pick his dialogue, but the trouble is there's probably far too much of it.
Melanie Wilkins -- Ernie Prang's granddaughter in Dangerous Driving. Rather naïve and idealistic, but with her heart in the right place, very keen to join up with wizarding law enforcement despite not really being quite good enough. Lives with her grandparents because her parents were casualties in the first war, one big reason she wants to join up. There was a hint that she knew Tonks from school, so I'll probably edit in a brief reference to that in the revised version of NTLJ to link the universes (hey, I borrowed the characterisation of Robards in DD from that of Dawlish in NTLJ because I was going to use him as a drop-in replacement for Dawlish in the revision, so why not). I never did actually make up a surname for her in DD (she's his daughter's child), so now I have. ;)
Three plot points that are integral to my canon:
Tonks did know Sirius as a kid, but not as well as she thought she did -- in other words, one of the assumptions of NTLJ was that Sirius had visited his favourite cousin Andromeda enough times for the young Tonks to have thought as him as a sort of cool uncle. After HBP and Ron's remark that was hastily changed to say that he actually hadn't visited that often, maybe twice a year after he left school and had his own place, but that this was enough to make a lasting impression.
The future Order members were not all instant best friends -- Kingsley is very suspicious of Tonks (as a Black family offshoot with strong links to escaped convict Sirius) when she first joins the Department, and she thinks he's an arrogant dickhead. Even when they resolve their basic differences she tends to exasperate him with rookie mistakes. Tonks is likewise highly suspicious of Remus and the part he might have played in Sirius's escape from Hogwarts, and he doesn't trust her as she's an Auror and he really is concealing information, and again although they come to a sort of agreement they have absolutely no thought at this stage (about halfway through GoF) that they might one day become colleagues, let alone lovers.
Dumbledore was quietly mobilising the Order all through GoF -- because he realised from Trelawney's second prophecy and the disappearances of Bertha Jorkins and Frank Bryce that Voldemort was probably on his way back soon, and so it was important to have reliable people such as Lupin ready to take immediate action if necessary. This is how Tonks became a member of the Order so quickly when it happened -- the attitudes she'd shown in her personal investigations into her cousin's case had marked her out as a likely candidate for recruitment.
Three concepts that are integral to my canon:
The Metamorphmagus power is topological, and not indefinitely extensible -- in other words, a Metamorphmagus can change the shape (and colour and texture) of the anatomy they have more or less ad lib, but they can't grow things they didn't already have. So Tonks can imitate a man providing it's just the face and general body shape that's needed, but would be less than convincing if subjected to a medical examination -- and she can mimic other basically humanoid creatures such as a house-elf fairly well, but not turn herself into a centaur or anything like that (wrong number of limbs for a start). Also, there are size limits -- going a long way away from the natural size is uncomfortable, and going beyond half or double natural size becomes dangerous. So Tonks could imitate a child or Madame Maxime at a pinch, but not a baby or a full giant.
Wolfsbane has a cumulative action -- in other words, it's not all-or-nothing if a werewolf misses a dose, they'll still retain some degree of control (the more they've had and the closer to the full moon it's taken, the more control they have). This was a background point in NTLJ and a key point in The Wolf Covers Its Tracks. I wouldn't claim it's the only possible interpretation of PoA, but I certainly think it's a defensible one.
Wizards were freaked out by the advances in Muggle technology -- a concept I've used both seriously (Blood Lines) and semi-seriously (Conspiracy Theory, so it technically forms part of the NTLJ background too). The idea here is that such things as flight, atom bombs, and Moon landings, things that they never expected the Muggles to come up with, scared many wizards so badly that they reacted as if to the old days of active persecution before the Statute of Secrecy and became more likely to show prejudice against Muggles and Muggle-borns.
Lyrics: The last one was Venus, originally recorded by Dutch group Shocking Blue in 1969 (a 1970 US #1, UK #8, and Netherlands #3 according to Wikipedia). It was of course covered by Bananarama in 1986, with more or less the same chart success (US #1, UK #8, and Netherlands #4). I think on the whole I prefer the original, even if I did hear the cover first! :) It was spotted by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dolorous_ett, tree_and_leaf, and the_jackalope.
Something completely different, but probably equally easy (!):
She's got a smile that it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
Where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky
Now and then when I see her face
She takes me away to that special place
And if I'd stare too long I'd probably break down and cry (1980s)
This one's a bit tricky since I've tended not to write stories that are explicitly linked, and so I haven't really developed a standard set of characterisations or backgrounds, being quite happy to change them around to suit the current story. Nor am I a shipper in the sense of being especially attached to any given non-canon ship (JKR pre-empted the only one I might have shipped by the simple process of making it canon). However, here goes.
Three key pairings in my own personal canon:
Snape/Lily -- this isn't so much a ship as a theory, just something I think is likely and tend to assume as part of the background. It's about the only such pairing I do assume that's not at least hinted at explicitly in canon (such as Draco/Pansy, say). However, since I've never actually written MWPP-era beyond a brief anecdote from Remus, and rarely write Snape, it doesn't play into things much -- it got a nod in A Really Bad Idea, but that's all. And no, I don't think it was anything other than one-sided on Snape's part and unrequited, if Lily was even aware of his feelings.
Remus/Tonks -- the aforementioned canonised pairing. These two characters do have a habit of popping up in my fics without so much as a by-your-leave, separately or together, even when the main story has nothing to do with them, and in any post-HBP story the relationship is assumed. I like both characters, the dynamic between them, and the potential they have for interesting storytelling -- but although I have written a couple of outright R/T stories (Can't I Like Girls Too? and Change For Me), in both cases the basic idea was really to poke gentle fun at Wolfstar. I'll have to do a straightforward R/T at some point. :)
Ron/Hermione -- can you tell I'm struggling for a third pairing now? At least this is one I genuinely like, and for which I will often read a fic just on spec even if the summary isn't that interesting. It's sort of a basic assumption when developing plots with these characters, even if the main plot wasn't supposed to be shippy (You Tell Her, for example).
Three OCs in my canon:
Now OCs I do have. Hmm, the backgrounds sound really corny when you type them out, don't they?
Cassius
Donnacha O'Gregan -- another Auror from NTLJ. Actually got a reasonable amount of development: an Irish Muggle-born, late twenties, good-looking if not a knockout (I mentally tagged Colin Firth for the role), married young to a posh pure-blood in a spate of mutual infatuation that turned into mutual loathing within a few years. Now in a stable long-term romance with a colleague, but unable to marry her because he signed a magical wedding contract that requires mutual agreement for a divorce, and his wife is prepared to let him stew until she has an attractive alternative of her own. (Don and his girlfriend think she's a total cow, and actually she isn't very pleasant, although not as bad as they make out.) Basically he was a throwaway subplot that turned into something that got a fair chunk of screentime. I really ought to get someone to Erin-pick his dialogue, but the trouble is there's probably far too much of it.
Melanie Wilkins -- Ernie Prang's granddaughter in Dangerous Driving. Rather naïve and idealistic, but with her heart in the right place, very keen to join up with wizarding law enforcement despite not really being quite good enough. Lives with her grandparents because her parents were casualties in the first war, one big reason she wants to join up. There was a hint that she knew Tonks from school, so I'll probably edit in a brief reference to that in the revised version of NTLJ to link the universes (hey, I borrowed the characterisation of Robards in DD from that of Dawlish in NTLJ because I was going to use him as a drop-in replacement for Dawlish in the revision, so why not). I never did actually make up a surname for her in DD (she's his daughter's child), so now I have. ;)
Three plot points that are integral to my canon:
Tonks did know Sirius as a kid, but not as well as she thought she did -- in other words, one of the assumptions of NTLJ was that Sirius had visited his favourite cousin Andromeda enough times for the young Tonks to have thought as him as a sort of cool uncle. After HBP and Ron's remark that was hastily changed to say that he actually hadn't visited that often, maybe twice a year after he left school and had his own place, but that this was enough to make a lasting impression.
The future Order members were not all instant best friends -- Kingsley is very suspicious of Tonks (as a Black family offshoot with strong links to escaped convict Sirius) when she first joins the Department, and she thinks he's an arrogant dickhead. Even when they resolve their basic differences she tends to exasperate him with rookie mistakes. Tonks is likewise highly suspicious of Remus and the part he might have played in Sirius's escape from Hogwarts, and he doesn't trust her as she's an Auror and he really is concealing information, and again although they come to a sort of agreement they have absolutely no thought at this stage (about halfway through GoF) that they might one day become colleagues, let alone lovers.
Dumbledore was quietly mobilising the Order all through GoF -- because he realised from Trelawney's second prophecy and the disappearances of Bertha Jorkins and Frank Bryce that Voldemort was probably on his way back soon, and so it was important to have reliable people such as Lupin ready to take immediate action if necessary. This is how Tonks became a member of the Order so quickly when it happened -- the attitudes she'd shown in her personal investigations into her cousin's case had marked her out as a likely candidate for recruitment.
Three concepts that are integral to my canon:
The Metamorphmagus power is topological, and not indefinitely extensible -- in other words, a Metamorphmagus can change the shape (and colour and texture) of the anatomy they have more or less ad lib, but they can't grow things they didn't already have. So Tonks can imitate a man providing it's just the face and general body shape that's needed, but would be less than convincing if subjected to a medical examination -- and she can mimic other basically humanoid creatures such as a house-elf fairly well, but not turn herself into a centaur or anything like that (wrong number of limbs for a start). Also, there are size limits -- going a long way away from the natural size is uncomfortable, and going beyond half or double natural size becomes dangerous. So Tonks could imitate a child or Madame Maxime at a pinch, but not a baby or a full giant.
Wolfsbane has a cumulative action -- in other words, it's not all-or-nothing if a werewolf misses a dose, they'll still retain some degree of control (the more they've had and the closer to the full moon it's taken, the more control they have). This was a background point in NTLJ and a key point in The Wolf Covers Its Tracks. I wouldn't claim it's the only possible interpretation of PoA, but I certainly think it's a defensible one.
Wizards were freaked out by the advances in Muggle technology -- a concept I've used both seriously (Blood Lines) and semi-seriously (Conspiracy Theory, so it technically forms part of the NTLJ background too). The idea here is that such things as flight, atom bombs, and Moon landings, things that they never expected the Muggles to come up with, scared many wizards so badly that they reacted as if to the old days of active persecution before the Statute of Secrecy and became more likely to show prejudice against Muggles and Muggle-borns.
Lyrics: The last one was Venus, originally recorded by Dutch group Shocking Blue in 1969 (a 1970 US #1, UK #8, and Netherlands #3 according to Wikipedia). It was of course covered by Bananarama in 1986, with more or less the same chart success (US #1, UK #8, and Netherlands #4). I think on the whole I prefer the original, even if I did hear the cover first! :) It was spotted by
dolorous_ett, tree_and_leaf, and the_jackalope.Something completely different, but probably equally easy (!):
She's got a smile that it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
Where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky
Now and then when I see her face
She takes me away to that special place
And if I'd stare too long I'd probably break down and cry (1980s)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 11:36 am (UTC)I see this as one of the underlying causes of Voldemort's climb to power.
MM
no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 01:02 pm (UTC)I really need to find time to sit down and read NTLJ. I'm looking forward to reading some of your OCs, especially. (I like OCs, when done well, which yours are.) Time, time, time. ::Sigh::
no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 01:29 pm (UTC)I agree. I didn't think it made sense that Sirius would never have visited his favourite cousin. With the information that 'Tonks never knew Sirius before' coming from Ron, I find it possible that he'd got the whole thing wrong, seeing that none of the trio even saw R/T coming. I also believe that Tonks knew Remus beforehand as well.
I agree with your Metamorphmagus theory - it makes a lot of sense!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 04:36 pm (UTC)