How do you play your characters: Part 2

[dinosaurman.livejournal.com]

A while ago Stephen Maturin-mun wrote up a wonderful post wondering how close characters in Hogwarts_Hocus stick to canon, and how much fanon or personal interpretation bleeds into characterization. Many long essays were written by all.

Time passed, and now we have a lovely collection of new characters, plus older characters that have changed over the months. The question remains: how do YOU play your characters? How much do you take from canon?

Comments

Sirius, Part 2, because I suck at conciseness

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

The last ingredient in the batter is exaggerated fanon, mainly to do with Sirius's sexuality. Fanon!Sirius is extremely gay and very randy, especially when it comes to Remus. I like to think of H_H!Sirius as flagrantly bisexual. He'll fuck anything that walks (or blibbles). Part of that is me just having fun with fanon, but the other part is that all of the shagging is Sirius's way of trying to achieve intimacy in the absence of James and as a way of helping himself deal with all of the loneliness he had to cope with in Azkaban, during his two years on the run, and during the year he was "imprisoned" in his parents' house. I've deviated a bit from the fanon, though, in making Sirius a switch hitter, so to speak. In fanon, Sirius is almost always a top, especially with Remus. H_H!Sirius could take it any which way, and he's definitely a willing bottom, as Cooper could attest to. (Homsar's another story... ;) )

Another interesting detail--one on which James-mun and I agree, thankfully--is that between the two of them, James and Sirius, James is the leader. I think a lot of fanon portrays Sirius as the ringleader, mainly because we know more about him in general and we know he's a strong personality in particular. However, I see Sirius as being content to let James, Quidditch star and all-around cool guy, lead while Sirius instigates. An interesting example of this is the Levicorpus scene, in which Sirius is the one who "sniffs out" Snape for James and then lets James execute the actual "hazing." In H_H, we've exaggerated this to a bit of a dom/sub relationship. Further supporting that relationship is Sirius's sheer ecstasy at having James back from the dead. He's so thankful his best friend has returned that he'll sit, heel, roll over, and, of course, play dead for James; all James needs to do is give the command. Remus is also able to calm Sirius down, to some degree, but James is the one person who pretty much has complete control over Sirius if he wants it.

If anyone's interested in my take on a strictly canon!Sirius, you're welcome to look at my WIP fanfic Yellow (http://miss--sophia.livejournal.com/6381.html) (yay shameless self-promotion!). I draw a lot of H_H!Sirius from the thinking and writing I've done for this fic, but exaggerated out to sometimes ridiculous extents. Hey, you need exaggeration to bring the crack, especially for such a tragic character. ;)

Re: Sirius, Part 2, because I suck at conciseness

[toujours-sirius.livejournal.com]

Another thing I supposed I should add about my approach to playing Sirius is that I purposely try to get caught up in his emotional state. It makes his reactions more genuine, and despite the fact that he's been involved in a great deal of angst, I get a big kick out of going through all that shit with him. Although I'm not a nutjob nearly as intense as he is (I swear!), I identify with a lot of his values, and I like putting myself in his shoes and thinking about what he's going through, really trying to feel it. That's my approach to writing in general, actually. For me, if I can't make myself understand a character's emotions and beliefs (even if I don't agree with them), then I'm not sure I've got enough empathy to write believable reactions for the character. Therefore, I really try to put myself in the scene. Some of this may result in self-insert, I dunno. But since I genuinely like and identify with Sirius, I imagine it works out OK in the end.