I would never have written her sympathetically, unless it was to get sympathy for her plan to raise Lucifer.

I think it's possible to write the bad guys sympathetically--or at least in a way that makes them understandable--without glossing over the fact that they're Evil. It's just hard.

It depends on the bad person. I hate Ruby, so maybe it's just me. But I'm never going to be on her side, which is what I think of when I say sympathetically. I can understand her motivations, but she's definitely adversarial through and through. She's no Snape, for instance.

I also think it reasonable to write AU where one character good or evil is fundamentally different than in canon. I don't know why I draw the line at one character but I do. One character fundamentally changed while rest are canonical can be an interesting exploration to me. Change multiple characters and I don't see the relation to the source and probably lose interest. So good!Crowley or Good!Ruby is fine as long as that is the pivot point where the AU branches. Of course in the case of Good!Ruby I think a Ruby who was genuinely on the side of team free will and more important was actually more or less on the side of good could have been genuinely interesting. Because once the apocalypse was over she would have been so screwed. Huge opportunity for tragedy and angst. But definitely not the Ruby of canon. A true AU Ruby.

When someone writes a story they don't tag AU, and make Ruby supportively and self-sacrificingly in love with Sam, or Crowley a demon that stands by his deals and that Bobby would get into a relationship with, then I think it's apologia and it doesn't sit well with me.

If the story summary says "Imagine a world in which Lisa is evil or Ruby is good or Sam goes evil", then I get it's the point, and not just a fixit or an interpretation of canon that I disagree with.

Perhaps it's two-faced of me, but I don't care if you write current Castiel as insane megalomaniac or confused tweaker-of-souls right now. We don't really know, and both are interesting. Ruby and Crowley, we know. Sam's motivation in S4, we know.

Yeah, I wrote a sympathetic!Ruby at one point (for Coffeeandink's birthday, IIRC), but she was still kind of evil, and it was before we knew what her game was. Don't think I could do it now, in part because later information made her less interesting, not more.

I think a Good!Ruby would have been a lot more interesting than actual Ruby. Not just for the end game but how a demon keeps enough of her self to become good. Or how a demon evolves from "people are clothing and playthings and tools" to seeing people as real.

Harry hates Tonks and Hermione

That makes me so sad, I can't even. *cries for Hermione, who is my favourite* I don't read much slash, but this phenomenon is just as prevalent in het. In any Hermione-centric het stories, Ron is invariably an insensitive, philandering bastard. I'm all for people exploring non-canon pairings, but must they character-assassinate everyone who stands in the way of their OTP? I don't care how good the writing or the plot is -- demonization of canon love interest gets an automatic back button from me.

Edited 'cause you'd think I'd know how to spell my favourite character's first name, but noooo....

In any Hermione-centric het stories, Ron is invariably an insensitive, philandering bastard.

Yeah, because canon supports that. wtf? He's a bit clueless, but all fourteen-year-olds are.

I don't care how good the writing or the plot is -- demonization of canon love interest gets an automatic back button from me.

Yeah, I should have saved those hours and spent it doing my own writing. I got the first set of beta back on Carpetbaggers, and thank god for having a beta who can both Brit!pick and history!pick for me. Although I'm astonished at her announcement that Brits do not say, "Huh."

Huh.

What would they say in its place though?? "Huh" strikes me as fairly universal to me. Come to think of it, I use it to express puzzlement when I'm speaking to my family in Korean.