Sirius's sexuality

[jain]

It's only fanon that makes Sirius the "straight" one, right? I don't have the books with me to check, but the only scene I can recall that touches upon his romantic interests is the one in OotP where he's too focused on his friends to notice the girl crushing on him, which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of his heterosexuality.

If I'm right about that, then it would appear that people are making a rather ridiculous assumption based upon Sirius's personality and modern gay stereotypes. This isn't to say that all of the stories that portray him as more straight--or more confused--than, say, Remus are wrong; many of them are brilliant and believably characterized and I love them. But I also love the idea of Sirius being unapologetically gay as a student at Hogwarts.

I'm thinking there ought to be an icon of Sirius with the text "Not all pansies are shrinking violets" or something similar, though that's rather beyond my artistic capabilities at this point. Someday, maybe.

Comments

[throughadoor.livejournal.com]

mmm, fandon does so many bad things to sirius, but yes, i would say that making him the "straight" one is at the top of the list.

somewhat relatedly, though, i think there's a whole case to be made for sirius being sort of majorly stunted in the romantic area. the only thing you really see of him in ootp is what you mentioned before, and i think that's sort of normal teenage boy behavior, but he really wasn't that far out of high school (just a couple years, right?) when he went to prison, and then he spent the next thirteen years cut off from, well, everything. i think a lot of the way sirius is characterized in the books stems from some arrested development (and this, of course can lead to some pretty awful fanon and caricature-type behavior).

all the things he does post-break-out sort of play into this, the way he's so intent on protecting harry, his continued close relationship with remus (i could write a little essay about their one true love here, but i'll just assume you've heard it all before). i really like the idea of sirius being this really sort of fucked-up thirty-five year old who doesn't really know how to be anything other than seventeen, but it's got to be done carefully, yeah?

[jain]

That makes a great deal of sense. Azkaban aged him in many ways, but that's not the same thing as maturing, as he would have done if he'd been free to participate in increasingly adult interrelationships with other people. And a lot of his character flaws--especially his tendency towards recklessness/irresponsibility--are traits shared by most children to some extent, only Sirius never had the chance to grow out of them.

[kittywitch.livejournal.com]

I wish I had a better picture...

[jain]

Those are awesome. You rock! Not so incidentally, what font did you use that lets you have a black outline around the lettering? (That's one of the major problems I ran into when trying my hand at making icons before; anytime I made the font small enough to fit more than one or two words on the icon it blended with the background and became illegible.)

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

in no particular order:
1.yes, it's all fanon. You are free to choose whether you think Sirius is straight, gay, bi, only interested in Remus, there's honestly no textual support except the bit in OotP where he doesn't notice the girl.

2. We wrote each other's presents on merry_smutmas? That's TOO funny! I loved my story, if you didn't see my comment there, it was the perfect blend of cute/hot/funny, and then to add in eyeliner!Sirius and nipplyshirt!Remus? obviously a big winner. Thanks so much!

3. I'm completely Friending you. Hope you don't mind!

[jain]

You are free to choose whether you think Sirius is straight, gay, bi, only interested in Remus

Marvelous! Thanks for the info.

I actually thought you might have written my present when I read it--something about the phrasing and the power dynamics, and of course the fact that I received my present late enough for it to be plausible you'd written it as your second story. Thank you very much for writing such a wonderful story on short notice; I'm impressed and appreciative.

As to the friending: I don't mind in the slightest. In fact, the only reason I hadn't friended you months ago was that I couldn't risk revealing myself as your secret slasher.

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

I actually thought you might have written my present when I read it--something about the phrasing
I think its fair to say I have a fairly distinctive style, esp when it comes to Remus because I write him so often (he always seems to bring up 'chewing' somehow, whether I want him to or not...), although yours was a bit darker than my fics tend to be. I'm usually a go-right-for-the-obvious-joke person, hence the little comments like "that's right up your alley, professor...no pun intended."

It was fun though to do something different. Maybe there'll be a bit more Remus/Draco in my future ;)