pervy snape fancier

Here's another angle on that whole doe Patronus business, taken shamelessly (but with permission) from a (locked) post by lupabitch who was talking about actual animal totems:

I don't get why Deer is always associated with gentleness. You don't want to fuck with a deer. Especially a buck at rutting season. And if you're taking "Deer" in a broader sense to mean the entire family, just consider the red deer, the elk, and the moose. Antlers are wicked weapons, and all deer have sharp hooves.

Lots of animals are gentle with their young. Lots of tame or domestic animals can learn to be gentle with humans. But I'm not sure there's any wild animal that's so gentle that it wouldn't bite, kick, or sting the crap out of you if you threatened hir.

Reposted with permission from atdelphi, from this thread in persepolis130's journal. I just thought these were some really insightful comments:

Just chiming in as someone who likes to ship Snape with Dumbledore, Filch, McGonagall, Hagrid, or Slughorn. I had to fudge some of my answers - for instance, none of those listed pairings would make me spew, and none of the Lily options really described my view of the relationship (that is to say, looking at the character, I see a difference between how Snape would feel about Lily and how he would think he feels. To me, a defining point of the character is how his position at Hogwarts has kept him mired in his adolescence, living on grudges and wrongs, stunted emotionally and possessing a distorted self-awareness). In short, I think what he's in love with by the end of the series has more to do with ideals, guilt, himself, and lost opportunities than any real woman, but they all go by the name Lily. [emphasis mine]

I've always enjoyed the mirroring in PoA, where we see Snape and Sirius set up as the least mature adults in the series - Snape for his pettiness, Sirius for his recklessness, both for their obsession with the past - and you realise that just as Sirius is emotionally arrested at twenty-one from being locked away at that age, so is Snape. The presence of the Dementors at Hogwarts really needles in that image of Hogwarts as Snape's Azkaban, a place where he's forced to relive his unhappy memories. Then in HBP we get that chilling note of finding out why [emphasis original] Snape keeps asking for the Defence position - because he knows that the Defence professor never comes back the next year.


FWIW what she says about "mirroring" with Sirius is one of the reasons I like to ship those two, actually. :)

raisin_gal: I mean, with Sirius long gone and now Severus dead, Snape/Black fodder is so thin on the ground to begin with... I'd clutch at any straw, at this point, but your idea just sounds so fantastic.

aras_fixation: Unfortunately it is. Lots slashers either tend taking the easy route, sticking to short PWPs with hate sex. Or to their but-they-hate-each-other thesis and then turning toward more easy pairings.

ETA: Writing Snape/Black is a challenge. It often requires from the writer to like both characters in equal way, see all their strengh and weaknesses all at once, while keeping this all in ballance. Not an easy task, since most of the writers are, on a personal level, deeply emotionaly involved either with Severus *or* Sirius to keep themselves in check during their writing.

esmestrella: ( Apparently can pontificate. )


( additional, which I didn't want to ETA when I'd already gone on quite long enough in a hijacked thread )

Push, Pull by Eunike

Every time Severus reaches out for Lily, he ends up pushing her further away from him. A series of melodramatic Snape&Lily moments, set in various times between their fifth year and her death.

~11k angsty/tragic kinda-romance, PGish. ( spring )

I liked the "broken reflection" setup of the two descriptions there, especially. But the fourth chapter made me want to cry: ( autumn )

But then, of course, we know what happens, because of the becauses, and... and... *sniffle*

I am such a huge sap, I tellya.

I think I'm sorting out my thoughts on whether I think this whole "you meet a perfect person when you're a kid and that's who you end up with" theme that plays out several times in Harry Potter (tragically, of course, in Severus's case) is a good thing or a bad thing. I hear a lot of people say "ew, creepy!" and it's true that there's a mode or setup in which it's very creepy. I imagined what my life might be like if I were still with any of the boys I had crushes on when I was about ten years old, and... yeah. No thanks. That would definitely be a sign of a lack of emotional maturation, if nothing else.

But there's also a mode or setup in which it is non-creepy, though goopily romantic and not all that realistic, and that's the What Dreams May Come style. The two main characters in that film are true soul mates, and at the very end they meet again, reborn, as children. This idea is the tear-jerkingest thing that ever jerked tears, for me (partly because, and here's some woo-woo and schmoopy TMI, I think myself and enotsola have this kind of relationship). It is probably inconsistent that I immediately apply this idea to Severus and Lily (and I know it requires a kind of non-canon reading of Lily) and am neutral to slightly negative about pair-ups like Harry and Ginny (after all, they do kind of deserve each other!), but what the hey.

This does mean I am bringing my own "baggage" to the story, as someone who misinterpreted my purposely over-the-top sarcastic thoughts on Deathly Hallows accused me of doing. But don't we all? Isn't that how art and literature work -- everyone identifies with different elements because of their own pasts? This is how it is possible to read things into a piece which the artist or writer may not have intended, but which are nevertheless valid.

"Indeed, one might almost suggest that the best way to appreciate JK Rolwing [sic] is to take her chapter titles and imagine for yourself what actually happens in them. Hmm ... I wonder if any fanfic communities have tried that: re-imagine Potter based only on the chapter headings."

Hmm. That's actually kind of a cool idea. Not that I'm up for attempting such a labour. Nor, in fact, a good writer (not that much of fandom lets a silly thing like that stop them).

( la, a spoiler, still, the same one in fact. bah! )

I really can't. I'm pretty sure it was also a male character but I honestly really can't remember. I don't think it was anyone from HHG or Red Dwarf. It was something else. Maybe even a single movie. Possibly a single book but I'm pretty sure there was a visual image attached to it. But aside from those vague details, it utterly escapes me.

It really is, though, you know. Denial, anger, bargaining, the whole bit. I had twinges of this realization when I found myself starting to see the point of those in the "hey, death in war is teh suxxorz, this kind of shit happens" camp.

"The first book has a feeling of 'Oooh, magic is so cool, I wish I could do that, neat!' And now with this one it's more like, 'NO MORE OWLS AND CUTESY CRAP. MAGIC IS SERIOUS SHIT. If you aren't good at using it you will be TOAST.'"

I dunno why this amuses me so much. Maybe it's an "i r Sirius dog, this r Sirius thread"-like thing.

ETA: LOL!


(more if you clicky it)

More ETA: WTF "Rabastan" Lestrange? Why is it not Rastaban, which is also an astronomical name? cf. Draco, Scorpius, Bellatrix, Sirius, Regulus, Andromeda...? It also leaves one to speculate about possible Arcturus, Antares, Aldebaran, Algol, Capella, Vega, triplets (perhaps fraternal) Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka, and poor unfortunately-named second cousin Betelgeuse. ;)

( so where the fuck is the portrait at? (spoilers) )

I am super-unsatisfied by this answer. Super-unsatisfied! </space-ghost> However, ( more spoiler )

Well, that I can live with, I guess.