DLP would still be around I just think it would be a more kinder gentler version of what we have today.

People just wouldn't have so much to get annoyed over.

 

Oops, My mistake

 

I don't mind reading femme!Blaise but I do think it's ever-so-slightly silly to continue when, frankly, Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis are just as useable (even if Tracey doesn't get a mention in the books). Maybe people just dig the name Blaise because it sounds like Blaze and, as we all know, fire always makes it better.

Personally, I'd like to see Harry get involved with more Ravenclaw girls. Where's the love for Morag MacDougal and Su Li? More (well executed) Harry/Luna wouldn't go amiss either.

Quoted for motherfuckin' truth. FFS! Why? WHY is Draco/canon!Blaise/Hermione even a genre of HP fic? Ugh! An entire genre of stories where the only thing these two Slytherins love better than reaming each other's various orifices, is raping Hermione until she 'falls in love' with them. You know, despite the fact that they both despise mudbloods and at least one openly supports Voldemort... and they rape her. But those are such small issues, I can see how she overlooks them. It makes me want to bathe in battery acid until the tainted skin falls away. Isn't there an island without net access where we can put these authors? They could still trade stories with people who share their sickne- er, interests and we wouldn't have to read the ignorant crap.

'Shucks, you went to so much trouble raping me, you must really love me, despite so clearly being a gay couple. I guess I love you too.' uke:
That shit makes me wish Blaise had never been mentioned in the books at all. Wow, sorry, apparently that rant has been bottled up for too long. Anyway...

I've only seen canon!Blaise used in a halfway constructive manner a few times. Usually as a neutral (though still somewhat racist and elitist) Slytherin that plays it close to the vest like an ideal Slytherin should, unlike Malfoy who screams his plans, threats and allegiances down the Hogwarts corridors for all to hear.

Sadly, she supposedly has boxes upon boxes of notes with detailed background for a lot of the characters, she just hasn't used them because it would 'bloat' the books. Dean is the one that usually gets mentioned. He has a whole background that's never really mentioned in the books. Not that I give two shits about Dean Thomas, canon!Blaise probably holds more interest for me than him. He's just another Gryffindor. He's a black, Seamus Finnigan and Seamus is... well, Seamus.

 

But that's even worse, because Blaise is a male name:

Behindthename.com

 

To the original thread question:
It's all in the name 'Blaise', on the surface it has a feminine ring to it but if you go deeper it sounds like a name you might hear in your french class in high school(something Mordac alluded to). I am not trying to say that just because it is French it sounds nice and romantic but you have to agree that most people would associate French(language) as a nice sounding language ( maybe even romantic) compared to say, German(no offense),an unabashedly psuedo-American perspective . Similar reasoning applies to 'Zabini'.

But overall I think the question is rather pointless. 'Harry gets knocked up by Lucius Malfoy' deserves much more analysis, just to do a Freudian psychoanalysis of the authors and readers of that genre would be a worthy task.

 

Oh believe me, I know it's a male name. It's a moot point, since it was a male name even before JKR revealed who Blaise was in HBP. It didn't fuss people before that it was a male name, so that hasn't much to do with anything.

Prior to HBP, there was basically no difference between Daphne and Blaise's characters, except for their names. So the only reason to prefer one character over the other is the name. And, as I said, Blaise sounds more exotic than Daphne and calls to mind certain images because it sounds like Blaze.

The only reason people would have a marked preference for using Blaise as a female character in their stories, even though the name now has the extra baggage of being attached to a canon character that is the complete opposite of femme!Blaise (black, male, Draco part 2), is that they prefer the name.

In my private scribblings, whenever I need a Slytherin girl outside of Pansy and Millicent, I use Daphne. If I didn't use her, I'd probably use Tracey Davis. I will probably never write a HBP compliant story but I will write Blaise as a male. Less confusion that way, as far as I'm concerned.

 

HP fanfic authors tend to go for ambiguous characters. Since Blaise was quite the controversy till proved otherwise, the name seemed to appeal to masses. Also Daphne Greengrass wasn't mentioned until the OWLs. Where she took them at the same time that Hermione did (Lexicon reference). So she kind of escaped non-critical notice.

Also, from my readings I see that the authors seem to like linking the name Blaise Zabini to being either of French or Spanish descendant hence, in their opinion giving her more of an Oomph factor.

Since it has been confirmed otherwise I think it is quite a moot point unless fangirls decide to jump at the new Pseudo-Draco and have him get intimate with some of Harry's orifices which should under normal circumstances only be touched frequently by tissue paper or if they have some weird ass spell for that none at all.