Did you ever read Copperbadge's fics? He went through a similar journey of writing an epic-length series, basically a parallel version of the entire HP series, that then became more and more AU as the later books of canon were published. He also was increasingly frustrated with the later books, unfortunately to the point that he abandoned HP fandom entirely. But he's still one of my favorite fic writers, especially of Remus/Sirius.
I've definitely had a different trajectory than what you describe, especially in terms of reaction to HBP; I was always a hewing-exceedingly-close-to-canon fic writer (the fun of fic to me, especially at first, was that delightful challenge of delving deeper into a character, but making it work within the framework of what we already knew from canon; I'm literally the kind of person who spends days researching the exact layout of 12 Grimmauld Place, or compiling an enormous timeline of the exact order in which every single thing happened in OotP...) and only more recently did I dare to branch out into (magical) AUs at all, or even to write pairings that aren't technically canon. So because I loved Remus, of course I wrote Remus, so naturally my main pairing of interest was Remus/Tonks, because I was coming to this after the canon was complete and that's the canon pairing. (And honestly there's so much there to write, if you're interested in exploring characters but making it work within canon... e.g. there is a LOT of work to be done in order to take the awesome characters we were given earlier in canon – and Tonks is awesome when we meet her in book 5, incredibly awesome – and keep them their awesome selves despite the travesty JKR made of them, plot-wise, in book 6. I spent years of my life doing exactly that, writing a fic that worked to stay true to Remus and Tonks as characters, and making something better and more believable out of the often stupid plot of the way JKR wrote their romance.) So in the process of that, I totally fell in love with Tonks as a character in her own right, and I still love R/T and do consider that canon. BUT I've always loved R/S too, and have somehow managed to hold both of those worlds in my head, equally beloved but not allowed to overlap at all, because neither S nor T should have to suffer in order for the other to benefit. If that makes sense.
(Post-canon fics in a separate comment, because this got accidentally long!)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-12-02 04:46 pm (UTC)I've definitely had a different trajectory than what you describe, especially in terms of reaction to HBP; I was always a hewing-exceedingly-close-to-canon fic writer (the fun of fic to me, especially at first, was that delightful challenge of delving deeper into a character, but making it work within the framework of what we already knew from canon; I'm literally the kind of person who spends days researching the exact layout of 12 Grimmauld Place, or compiling an enormous timeline of the exact order in which every single thing happened in OotP...) and only more recently did I dare to branch out into (magical) AUs at all, or even to write pairings that aren't technically canon. So because I loved Remus, of course I wrote Remus, so naturally my main pairing of interest was Remus/Tonks, because I was coming to this after the canon was complete and that's the canon pairing. (And honestly there's so much there to write, if you're interested in exploring characters but making it work within canon... e.g. there is a LOT of work to be done in order to take the awesome characters we were given earlier in canon – and Tonks is awesome when we meet her in book 5, incredibly awesome – and keep them their awesome selves despite the travesty JKR made of them, plot-wise, in book 6. I spent years of my life doing exactly that, writing a fic that worked to stay true to Remus and Tonks as characters, and making something better and more believable out of the often stupid plot of the way JKR wrote their romance.) So in the process of that, I totally fell in love with Tonks as a character in her own right, and I still love R/T and do consider that canon. BUT I've always loved R/S too, and have somehow managed to hold both of those worlds in my head, equally beloved but not allowed to overlap at all, because neither S nor T should have to suffer in order for the other to benefit. If that makes sense.
(Post-canon fics in a separate comment, because this got accidentally long!)