I've been reading these posts with fascination. Thanks for doing the work!
I'm a multishipper rather than specifically a H/D person, so I don't have any insights into shifts in fanon that could account for the changes — I just don't read enough H/D to gauge it. But it does strike me that in general, as HP has passed its peak of popularity and continued on (I've been in the fandom since 2003), people's beliefs about characters and pairings have become less set-in-stone than they used to be. I think it's a combination of people being in the fandom for long enough that they want to write something new (maybe you've written a dozen bottom!Draco fics and trying it the other way around makes a well-established pairing feel new again?) and new people coming to the fandom without preconceived notions of how things must be.
no subject
I'm a multishipper rather than specifically a H/D person, so I don't have any insights into shifts in fanon that could account for the changes — I just don't read enough H/D to gauge it. But it does strike me that in general, as HP has passed its peak of popularity and continued on (I've been in the fandom since 2003), people's beliefs about characters and pairings have become less set-in-stone than they used to be. I think it's a combination of people being in the fandom for long enough that they want to write something new (maybe you've written a dozen bottom!Draco fics and trying it the other way around makes a well-established pairing feel new again?) and new people coming to the fandom without preconceived notions of how things must be.