#Sirius & Severus are narrative mirrors | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

saintsenara · 8 months

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Ooh more about the subtext around James/Sirius? I’ve always read the text this way too!

thank you for the ask anon!

this question could have been prompted by any number of posts i’ve made, because i am a great proponent of the idea that unrequited prongsfoot is canon.

why?

i’m so glad you asked…

let’s begin with a small caveat which - regrettably - involves some engagement with discourse.

the things created within fan-fiction aren’t real - an individual fic can’t cause actual, material harm to a reader, even if it contains tropes that would be harmful or distressing if they happened in that reader’s real life; an author’s use of certain tropes or interest in certain characters is not indicative of their actual morals and values in real life; thought crimes are not real crimes - but fan-fiction is produced by human beings who are themselves products of the societies and communities in which we all live, and these societies and communities all have flaws and failings.

which is to say, those of us who prefer to read male friendships like james and sirius’ as romantic do need to be aware that, no matter how enlightened on gender and its foibles we think ourselves to be, we are nonetheless influenced as modern humans by a modern tendency to discourage platonic physical and emotional closeness between men, especially straight men, on the grounds that two men having this sort of relationship is inherently queer and, in being queer, implicitly sexual - another powerful societal influence on our thought, even if we know we don’t agree with it. we should also be aware that reading a friendship as defining and life-altering as james and sirius’ as romantic gives weight to a modern tendency to prioritise romantic love - and one of its expected outcomes, the love of parents for their biological children - over platonic love, and to regard people for whom romantic love is not a priority as not properly having achieved the milestones of adulthood, nor as properly fulfilled, adored, or satisfied.

everything which follows here, then, can be taken to refer just as validly to a purely platonic relationship between james and sirius if the reader prefers. and, indeed, my view is that this is how the canon narrative wants the reader to understand james saw the relationship.

but i also think that the canonical text wants us to infer that, for sirius, his relationship with james was one of unrequited romantic love.

it must be said, however, that the narrative doesn’t show this explicitly. of course, it emphasises sirius and james’ compatibility, their similar personalities, their shared affection for each other, and a certain element of codependency (the thought of these two boys unable to be apart even for a detention without talking through their mirrors! my heart breaks!), but it also sets up these shared elements as - in some senses - fraternal: sirius is quasi-adopted by the potters; harry thinks of him and james as like fred and george, at least until he sees snape’s memories in order of the phoenix. when sirius speaks to harry about james, the profundity of his love for him is obvious, and on the two occasions when we see them physically together (snape’s worst memory and the prince’s tale) it’s clear that each is the primary driving force behind the other’s decisions. but we have nothing which indicates unambiguously that sirius’ feelings for james were romantic.

until we dive into a bit of narratology. because the text does do something to suggest that its intention is for sirius’ relationship with james to be read as non-platonic, and that something is its use of narrative mirrors. the harry potter series loves assigning its characters to narrative pairs - harry and voldemort are the obvious one; ron and draco malfoy are the one which deserves more attention - and it assigns to sirius a narrative mirror whose own story is one of unrequited romantic love.

severus snape.

sirius and snape are incredibly similar, personality-wise. they also serve identical narrative roles, in that they function as the guides who lead harry through an emotional arc which begins in earnest in prisoner of azkaban and concludes in deathly hallows, in which he sheds his childish, black-and-white view of his parents and comes to regard them as real, flawed, and complex people. harry does this with james in order of the phoenix - after the realisation that he was a bully stops the hero-worshipping which has defined his earlier attitude towards his father - with sirius as his guide (sirius is then killed off the second this narrative sub-arc is complete). he then does it with lily - who spends the earlier books as secondary in importance to james in her son’s mind - in half-blood prince and deathly hallows, in which snape (via the proxies of slughorn, the discipline of potions, his textbook, his patronus, and his memories) serves as his guide, until the fact that lily is the key to the whole mystery is revealed just before harry sacrifices himself to save the world.

in the course of this, it comes to be revealed that each of them considers their life to be defined by their relationship with and love for one half of the pair of james and lily (although the series hides this in snape’s case - making it look as though he is also motivated purely by his antagonistic relationship with james - right up until the last moment). their mirrored relationships with harry - while the idea that sirius is incapable of distinguishing him from his father is an invention of the films - is also driven fundamentally by their relationship with one of the two halves of his parents.

sirius and snape’s mirrored motivation-by-love is shown most clearly in their identical approach to guilt and grief, the two things which overarchingly drive their individual character arcs across the seven-book canon (or three, if you’re sirius - rip king).

both sirius and snape indirectly trigger the death of the person they love - and, let’s be frank, if we’re going to excoriate snape for reporting the prophecy to voldemort, exactly the same level of ire needs to be reserved for sirius and his plan to switch secret keepers (what we could do instead, of course, is recognise the life-altering tragedy of making this kind of mistake, which we all have to hope we never experience ourselves, and treat the lads with compassion) - but it’s clear in canon that neither accepts the idea that their involvement was, in fact, indirect. sirius openly tells harry that he considers himself to have ‘as good as’ cast the killing curse on james and lily; snape rejects dumbledore’s (back-handed) comfort that james and lily’s deaths were caused by ‘putting their trust in the wrong person’ by wishing to die himself.

wracked by guilt and hollowed out by grief, both of them then decide to punish themselves in an effort - one which, i think, they both consider futile, since they clearly regard their sins as too great to be redeemed - to atone for causing james and lily’s deaths. both of them do this by subjecting themselves to the pain and humiliation of imprisonment.

in sirius’ case, obviously, this is literal. we know from canon that he refuses to profess his innocence at any point during his show trial - and why would he, when he considers himself to be guilty? - and that he remains in azkaban for twelve years, despite possessing the means to escape before then. he leaves the prison only to attempt the one action which he thinks will redeem him in james’ eyes: murdering peter pettigrew.

in snape’s case, the prison is a metaphor (foucault just sat up). snape entombs himself both at hogwarts - not a place he seems to have been particularly happy - and in spinner’s end, allows dumbledore to repeatedly humiliate him, and risks his life as a spy as a means of self-flagellation. like sirius, he fails to profess his innocence - through ordering dumbledore to tell nobody of his true allegiance - because he considers himself to be guilty. he leaves the self-constructed cell in which he is skulking only when dead - when harry, who has taken on the burden of fulfilling snape’s atonement himself by preparing to kill voldemort, starts screaming his true motivations in the dark lord’s face - although there is some implication in canon that dumbledore’s intention was for snape to end the series by attempting himself the one action which he thinks will redeem him in lily’s eyes: murdering voldemort.

[after all, why does dumbledore say to harry at king’s cross that his intention was for snape to control the elder wand if he wasn’t hoping he’d use it to give the dark lord his death blow?]

snape and sirius mirror each other exactly in their response to the death of the person they love. we can justifiably assume, then, that we are intended by the text to read that love as identical in type.

jkr has been very clear that snape’s relationship with lily is one of unrequited romantic love. we obviously don’t have to accept this in our own readings or in the way we write the characters in our own work - i love a queer snape sacrificing everything for his platonic best friend as much as the next girl - but we do have to acknowledge it as the doylist text’s stated intention. it stands to reason, then, that the text’s intention is for us to regard the mirror-image of snape’s love for lily - sirius’ love for james - as romantic as well.

or, unrequited prongsfoot is canon.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #prongsfoot #it's canon #no delusion here

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ashesandhackles · 9 months

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Yeah, I also struggle to imagine Severus and Remus becoming friends in canon. Remus is extremely passive aggressive and way too loyal to James, while Severus is very open about his disdain for certain people, including Remus and especially James. If I were Severus I would also find it extremely hard to trust Remus given their history. Remus is also the kind of person who’s willing to do anything to fit in and be liked, while Sev is comfortable with his own company. Both make sense given their circumstances. Contrary to popular belief, Sev did NOT hate Remus because he was a werewolf - he hated him because he was and quite frankly remained one of his bullies. Yet at the same time, I love both characters and I’m fascinated by their dynamic. I do think there is a version of reality where under different circumstances, they could have gotten along. Now, I’m wondering, do you think there’s any version of reality where Severus and Sirius could have been friends?

I have answered this somewhere before - but I am going to quote my friend @dragonlordette on this and explain why they are incompatible:

"Snape is unafraid to be himself to the point of being bullied and disliked his whole life, while Lupin is avoidant. These two characteristics don't lend themselves to complementing each other, they just lead to Snape disrespecting Lupin. As an alternative example of a more "complementary" case of opposites attract, Tonks is sociable while Lupin is avoidant. This means she can help him out his shell, but she is not so committed to "staying true to herself" that she would find lupins tendency not to speak up to his friends weak (like snape would). It's a more complementary strength.

I just feel like nearly every trait of Lupin and snape is mutually exclusive, rather than complementary. "

My own take is that, "Remus enjoys being around people who are aspirational - someone whose life he can live vicariously through (James, teen Sirius, Tonks) or someone he can look up to (Dumbledore). Severus is aspirational in a way that won't speak to Remus."

In canon, from the way I read it, Snape is on backfoot by what he considers is Remus' dishonest civility. He cannot effectively argue with Remus when Remus is polite but inwardly hostile/oppositional - see, here: Verbal Fencing Between Snape and Remus , Neither Likes Nor Dislikes Severus

He tries to avoid Remus the best he can, because one, there is genuine fear there from the teenage brush off of the Whomping Willow incident and he is constantly wary and hypervigilant. My reading of Remus is harsher than a lot of the fandom, but I really don't see a scenario of them getting along. (I'm sure other interpretations may make that feasible, but it's not my vision of who these two characters are)

Also, it's clear to me that Remus, while acknowledging that his friend's behaviour with Snape wasn't great, isn't too fond of him himself. (he will try to lighten how James' behaviour looks - see end of POA, OOTP chapter post SWM). He disapproves of Snape as an authority figure - as demonstrated by the Boggart lesson (Snape's jibe about Neville pissed him off - he raises his eyebrows at him, which in Remus language, is "ticked off"), and the fact that while he agrees with Snape that Harry shouldn't be in Hogsmeade, he will not let Harry be in Snape's power to deal with.

Sirius, on the other hand, as hot take it might be - but as my friend @saintsenara pointed out, Snape enjoys baiting him ("how is the cleaning going?"), engaging with him because Sirius is upfront (the entire kitchen scene). Snape knows how to deal with that kind of language, it's batting in a language he knows, whereas with Remus, he is never sure of what he is getting.

Sirius and Snape are narrative mirrors, explicitly in canon. Sirius and Remus are narrative stand-ins for when James is important for Harry's development, while Snape's story becomes more important when Lily is important to Harry's development:

They have much in common:

- people who lost their best friends and the most damaged by it.

- Sirius punishes himself for James' death by staying in Azkaban for 12 years, Snape atones for his own guilt by being a spy.

- Snape and Sirius both live in their childhood homes, and they both act as prison. For Sirius, it is imposed on him, for Snape - it seems to be self inflicted.

- anger issues, to put it lightly.

- intensely loyal, and very very brave. But great capacity for cruelty.

- Snape spent his teenage years running away from his Muggle roots, Sirius spends his teenage years running away from aristocratic pureblood house

As my co-writer and friend @thedreamermusing pointed out: "Also: Snape has father issues; Sirius has Mommy issues. Their lives run parallel more or less- Sirius and Snape both form a formative best friend friendship in their childhood, are both drawn sorted in their houses in an effort to cement their own family complexes (Snape and his mom, Sirius and his family), both base their identities om the basis of belonging to a community (Snape-DEs, Sirius- Marauders), both form their moral complexes by becoming the opposite of their roots (Snape loves the dark arts and blood supremacy, Sirius hates the dark arts and hangs muggle posters), both have a cruel sense of humour (Snape thinking dark magic is just a laugh, Sirius thinking feeding Remus Snape a la Carte being a joke), both of them joining a group to further themselves away from their roots after school, both of them risking their lives to protect their bestfriends, both of them making a terrible mistake by trusting the wrong person that leads to their best friend dying, both of them punishing themselves for the next 12 years to atone, both of them using the memory of their bffs as the one shining light in their miserable lives to keep going on, both of them forced in their childhood homes in the last part of their lives, both of them finally dying for Harry."

Essentially, they have a capacity for understanding each other in a way because there is an intense projection involved in how they interact with each other. I have answered bits of that dynamic here and how their dialogue flows, where they throw words back at each other whereas the one with Remus involves Remus taking the rug from under his feet. So yeah, basically I don't see it with Severus and Remus - but like I pointed out, the way I envision the two characters might not align with others :)

#asks

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broomsticks · 1 year

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I posted 5,998 times in 2022

That's 5,497 more posts than 2021!

101 posts created (2%)

5,897 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

akindplace

@billsfangearring

olderthannetfic

honeytuesday

infected

I tagged 5,968 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#hp art - 620 posts

#words - 560 posts

#on writing - 474 posts

#wolfstar - 338 posts

#lmfao - 331 posts

#keep - 311 posts

#misc art - 299 posts

#fandom meta - 297 posts

#self care tag - 292 posts

#about stories - 257 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#but you don't have to make any of these to belong here! all you need is to share the love we have for these characters and their stories!

My Top Posts in 2022:

my @cruelsummer-ficfest entry!

never in a million years could i imagine writing not only not-angst but straight-up meet-cute (meet-awkward) muggle university/coffeeshop au romantic fluff wolfstar but whew THE DEED! IS DONE!!!

1.8k, T (and also a fill for my @wolfstarbingo2022 prompt lily evans)

Wednesday — hump day — was Remus’ least favourite day of the week. At least today was a good pain day, though. He’d even woken up before his alarm — but the streak of wins had ended there — he’d forgotten he’d used the last of his coffee pods the other day. A good thing, then, that he had time to stand in line at the Hogwarts Expresso — albeit leaning increasingly more on his cane, book bag on his shoulder getting heavier by the minute.

thank you SO MUCH to @kenzlepuff, this fic would not have existed without your advice and reassurance and support and everything ❤️❤️❤️ also much love and gratitude to fest struggle buddy @billsfangearring, @allalrightagain @sleepstxtic and the @hpffwritersguild’s write-a-thon, and of course the fest mods for running this! @femme--de--lettres and @greyeyedmonster-18, you’re such blessings to this fandom.

also, have a bonus established wolfstar at jily’s wedding set to starlight —

Look at you, worrying so much about things you can't change, he chirps, coming up from behind to rest an arm on your shoulder, rather than take his seat beside you.

(1.6k, T, here on AO3)

42 notes - Posted August 13, 2022

my hp trans fest 2022 faves

canon-adherent--canon-plausible--fics are my thing in general -- ones in which writers take key canon events and details and use them as a jumping-off point around which to weave their own narratives. there's something about that that feels very satisfying, reclaiming almost, especially from the angle of trans fest. anyway -

Lay down your armour (be with me forever) by @bluesundaycake (E, 21k, severus snape/remus lupin) [rb the author's tumblr post!]. A story told over a decade of encounters, where a body feels like a graveyard and another like a battlefield, and names are whispered tenderly until they feel real.

a canon-compliant snupin from the hogwarts-era period through to first war. fantastic severus characterization, what a gorgeously bittersweet romance. an absolute masterclass in first-person POV, made me feel so many feelings.

Family Legacy by @thistlecatfics (T, 1.6k, tedromeda, remadora, teddy/victoire) [rb the author's tumblr post!]. Three generations of trans/nonbinary/gender questioning Tonks-Lupins.

canon-compliant, amazing HCs. whatever the opposite of generational trauma is -- generational healing? we do what we do in hopes of building a better world for the people that come after -- and this is sort-of a story of that.

Two-Way Mirror by luna_rapunzel (G, 4k, black family gen relationships). Narcissa and Sirius come out as trans together. Sirius's transition goes smoothly. Narcissa's doesn't. the story behind why they made the choices they did (Narcissa staying in the family but breaking their naming traditions, Sirius running away but picking a name that fit.)

beautiful side-by-side of two parallel trans journeys; intersectionality at its finest. superbly IC black family & black cousins relationship dynamics, even in this AU.

a few more recs and art under the cut! also, i didn't manage to read every fic from this fest, so i'd welcome recs too <3

Growing Pains by bigsadwolf/@remixloonylupin (T, 6k, wolfstar). a pregnant trans male & schizophrenic remus fic written by a trans & schizophrenic author. such a wonderfully sensitive look into his journey, lots of other amazing ND rep here too

wear your heart on your skin in this life by slanted-HP-knitting (SlantedKnitting) (T, 4k, wolfstar). remus is a tattoo artist who runs a studio with tonks, and one day sirius comes in looking to get a tattoo for his brother.

and finally, a bunch of G/T-rated art: - Absolution & Stars Out by Acid: snily, snape and his doe patronus - many wreaths of roses by @babooshkart: parvender's gorgeous wedding - transmasc tonks by rewriter: 😍😍😍

48 notes - Posted May 2, 2022

grey characters appreciation rec list!! (snape, bellatrix, and walburga)

not sure if it’s just me, but i feel like there’s been a lot of grey/dark characters written by people i’d not normally expect to write them recently — which i LOVE and am absolutely living for — so have a rec list! both new fics and old favorites.

note: none of this is character bashing imo, but it’s also not character apologia and may not exactly portray said characters in the best light, so, yk, tread with caution this is especially @ all of the, like, three snapedom people who follow me <;3

snape, bellatrix, and walburga fic recs below. cw for fic snippets containing mentions of violence, and also mentioned blackcest ships.

SNAPE

I. canon compliant, in letter and in spirit

two marauders era with initially close but deteriorating snily friendship, and snape-POV jily get-together:

Arborvitae by Patriceavril (5.6k, T) - snape and lily and their shared language of flowers. superbly written.

She Didn't by @ashotofogdensoldfirewhiskey (10k, M). Snape remembers all of the moments through the years where he suspected Lily might have fancied James back. this was somehow one of the first things i read in HP fandom and i’m amazed how well i still like it every time i go back to it.

a chillingly compelling snape POV of Halloween '81: ch1 of Pieces by @tracingpatternswrites

a post war grieving snape: Pray You, Love, Remember by @nanneramma (1k, M). shakespeare references!!

The Least Enjoyable Task by OgdensOldFirewhiskey (3.2k, T) - a snape POV of the OOTP occlumency lessons. so true to character, genuinely made me feel for snape, and the last line is especially gutting.

Consequence for Cause by cambangst (1,6k, G) - an HBP missing moment, dumbledore & snape. two immensely complicated characters and i love the characterization takes in this!

The Portrait Hole by OgdensOldFirewhiskey (3.8k, G) Snape's version of "King's Cross" — a conversation with Lily, featuring angst, growth, and forgiveness. iconic fic. iconic fic. afterlife resolution, perfectly done, nail on head, wonderfully cathartic.

II. less tightly canon compliant (still reasonably canon setting!) -

may day, mayday! (or, the hazards of love) by @skiamachy (20k, E) - lily character study, lily is dark and fucked up (deliciously so) and so is snape. factually/technically canon compliant, endgame jily.

Where You Belong by @bluestringpudding (6k, T) canon setting, snape centric, horror.

BELLATRIX

this entire reclist was inspired by a bunch of recent bellatrix-centric fic:

And All I Loved by @nanneramma (5.5k, M)

Bellatrix knows how she looks, here in the forest. She has always preferred black, and here she melts into the darkness between the trees like a ghost, like she is bridging the gap between now and then, like she has always been and always will be. She wears the night like a cloak, wrapped in stars and sky and the scent of rain and she feels like eternity.

Born as a Blackthorn tree by @artemisia-black (1k, E)

She’d make his veins burn, and his arteries sear with agony. Every second of pain, penance for his sins. Every inch of his stinking flesh covered in white-hot needles, a baptism of flagellation that cleansed him of his transgressions.

Night Of The Dancing Flame by @only-that-but-that (5k, M)

His command, intoxicating and primordial, seemed to burn through her, heating her from the tips of her fingers to her core. She held out her arm, wrist turned upwards, head bent in supplication.

& some older delightful bella pieces:

Burning Inside by cambangst (3.6k, T)

Tears of joy welled in the corners of her eyes and she collapsed onto the floor of her cell, feeling the rough stone and grit scrape at her fragile flesh. The pain didn’t matter. The Dementors could come if they wished. Bellatrix was unbowed, unbroken.

ch3 Cankerous of Pluto by @bikelock28

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62 notes - Posted September 30, 2022

wolfstar autumn(ish) fic rec list 🐾🍂

*: i tried but not quite

gorgeous bingo created by @moonwalker94 for hpfc!

1 - JUMPER - An Enigma Wrapped in a Jumper by @squidgilator (5k, G) - mwpp-era fluffity fluff, featuring my FAVORITE pining idiot sirius:

He was an inscrutable enigma, Remus was. An enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in a jumper. "Not that much of a mystery," muttered Remus, and Sirius wondered how many of his last few thoughts he'd said aloud. "Just the bit about being an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a—something— wrapped in a jumper," said Remus, curiously. "Why?" "Er," said Sirius, and vowed to keep his thoughts inside his head from now on. "No reason."

bonus rec: The Sweater Bet by Deya (6k, T). silly (extended) marauders shenanigans: why is your boyfriend wearing a sweater at the beach and how do you get him to take it off??

-🍁-

2 - STORM - The Weather Inside by earlybloomingparentheses (43k, E)

The bright beam of sunshine that spilled into the compartment on the Hogwarts Express at the start of first year just as Sirius stepped through the sliding door (…) an accident of timing. The freak snowstorm the day after the Incident, when Remus was curled gut-punched on the floor of the Shrieking Shack (…) a trick of air currents and cold fronts. And now, Sirius at the window of his and James’ flat, the storm outside roaring and Sirius turned to face the rain lashing the pane, dressed in black and looking from this angle like a Sturm and Drang painting, all heroic isolation and inner turmoil—why think anything of it?

bonus rec: How to Suffer a Storm by gayagape (11.6k, T), lighthouse au from the 2016 r/s games.

-🍁-

3 - BIKE RIDE - This Is Not Your Year by montparnasse (17k, E). first war angst and pining, montparnasse - that’s it that’s the rec. so many quotes i wanted to pull.

“Holding onto your favorite bits?” “Remember there’s ice on the roads. Also we’re possibly being hunted.” “I’ll go slow.” “You’re so sweet,” said Remus, “always with all my extremities and orifices in mind.” On the seat he pressed very close to Sirius, hips first, the way he always did. “It’d be nice if someone around here ever thought of mine.”

bonus rec: There Is a Light That Never Goes Out by @wanderingbandurria (2.6k, T). a summer road trip (coughahem getaway car whomst?) leads to the Realization of Feelings.

-🍁-

4 - FIRESIDE CHATTER - Goetia by @biremus and @kember-writes (44k, T). regency au, monster/horror au, Not Your Everyday fireside chat 👀 (also, some incredible art!)

The red coals in the fireplace provided just enough illumination for Sirius to watch as Dorcas lifted the silver bell in her hand, and rang it once. “Lord of Hell, we call you forth.”

bonus rec: Your Little Head by @paulamcg (1k, G) for, appropriately, r/s fireside tales. such a fascinating outsider pov wolfstar. no fireside warmth to be found here 😈🔥

-🍁-

5 - BAKING - The Great Biscuit Calamity of 1978, and Other Such Disasters by @lunapwrites (8k, T). also hinny. post-second war, our favorite disasters being properly domestic.

"How did you even manage that, anyway? Like, I'm equal parts horrified and impressed, I am." "I was only trying to open the bag--" "With what? An Exploding Charm?"

bonus rec: A First Taste by LuminousGloom (3.8k, T) - a fluffy mwpp-era cooking at hogwarts!

-🍁-

6 - STAR GAZING - this ficlet for meee by @tahtahfornow, for the tumblr prompt game things you said under the stars and in the grass. your writing your writing 😍😍🥰🥰 (also thank you for putting this on ao3 and not making me have to ritually sacrifice something to tumblr search)

Damp grass scratches against the napes of their necks, presses into the backs of their Oxfords; the star-soaked night sky blankets them like a soft flannel. The moon is waning, a fat yellow grin pasted above them, and Remus thinks maybe, wildly, that for once it is not mocking him, that its smile is true, that tonight—just tonight—it is on his side.

bonus rec: star talking, atop the astronomy tower. The things that lurk in the dark by TheDivineComedian (4.7k, T). one of my absolute favorite mwpp era, incredible marauders characterizations and character-insights in a slice-of-life.

-🍁-

7 - HOT CHOCOLATE - Tight Spaces by @krethes (3.2k, T) - mwpp-era remus-trauma / remus’ werewolf childhood. lots of hurt but tons of lovely comfort after, and delightful marauders friendship.

Instead, he was jostled in a bone-crushing hug, sloshing hot-but-not-scalding cocoa on the blanket in the suddenness. Sirius buried his head into his shoulder and held him so tightly Remus thought he might snap in half. Remus's cheeks were wet and, embarrassed, he realized he was crying. He hadn't expected such a response from Sirius, who was usually joking or brooding, never something so gentle, so sincere.

bonus recs: naturally - Did You Miss Me? (600k, E) by @krethes and @fantismal, and Power the Dark Lord Knows Not (300k, E) by @fantismal and Jormandugr (nearly perfect chapter timing, too, hahaha)

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93 notes - Posted October 4, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

hi!! if its not a bother, i was wondering if you had any recommendations for older(second war or post war) wolfstar. i wanted to get into WS since its very popular and there are many fics but i dislike the idea that they dated at all pre PoA. you have such good taste in fics i thought i should ask!

hiii oh my gosh what a compliment, not a bother at all!!! gonna be brief because i really should not be doing this now want to get this answered timely-ish hahah:

some LLAL (lie low at lupin’s):

Like Tinder for Ghosts by montparnasse (8k, T)

Lie Low At Lupin's by shessocold (5k, unrated/i’d say M)

Come and Find Me—Lying in the Bed I Made by @femme--de--lettres (6k, T)

Hold On to Whatever You Find by fallovermelikestars (10k, E)

i can tell you the telling gets old by misandrywitch (6k, G)

AND other LLAL recs by the @wolfstarlibrarian! i get a ton of my recs from them honestly.

these are multi-era with a good amount of second war older wolfstar and so good i absolutely have to rec -

To Fill A Gap by berhanes (sqvalors) (8k, T)

watching stars collide by hydianway (17k, T)

Adagio by lupinely (6.5k, M)

I look at the world and I notice it's turning by kaydeefalls (10k, T) - wolfstar AND remadora, canon compliant, non linear vignettes, blended gorgeously.

have not read this one in its entirety, but i’m confident reccing @tracingpatternswrites’ OOTP canon compliant sirius POV fic The star and the moon (93k, M)

OOTP but canon divergence - if you’re open to it, @lunapwrites’ Louder Than Love absolutely sold me on remus/sirius/tonks. super obsessed with the worldbuilding and canon rewrites here - just cuz we’re Fixing or at least Addressing problematic canon elements doesn’t mean the characters have it easy! often the opposite!

post war everyone lives AU:

firstly @krethes’ Give Quarter to Old Men series - Fics that feature older Sirius and Remus, anywhere from late 30s to their 70s. - tons of incredible 🔥 smut, and lots of lovely growing-old-together HCs in the first two especially.

ALSO One to Speak, Another to Hear by seventymilestobabylon (60k, T) - one of my absolute top favorite wolfstar fics.

The Wizarding Wars are over, but the work of recovery has only begun. Remus Lupin is trying to find his place in an ever-changing world, and when he is invited to serve on a truth and reconciliation commission, he has to confront the truth that lives there—in the past and within himself.

in fact you know what, have a sneak peek of a totally self indulgent thing i might be working on hahahah

108 notes - Posted October 21, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#leftsidedown tag #o mg. a million people were tagged in this one #im so sorry #tumblr year in review

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idreamtofmanderleyagain · 3 years

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Hot takes about Severus Snape are a wierdly decent glimpse into how a person with progressive values analyses things. Literally every time someone talks about Snape, it’s like this tiny window into how one-dimentionally people actually think.

Recently saw a twitter post that was a fantastic example. Here’s how it goes (paraphrasing):

Person A:“Snape is POC and Queer coded, that’s why you guy’s hate him uwu lol.”

Person B: “Actually I hate him because he was mean and abusive to children under his care uwu but go off I guess lol”

Both of these takes are designed to be dramatic and/or reactionary. They each use partial truths to paint very broad strokes. These are get-em-in-one-hit quips. This is virtue signalling, if you’ll excuse that loaded phrase. Nobody had a substantial conversation, but now everyone who sees their statement knows the high ground they took.

At least a hundred other people chimed in to add their own little quippy hot takes into play, none of which add anything significant, but clearly made everyone feel very highly of themselves.

So many layers of nuance and complex analysis is completely lost in this kind of discussion. On tumblr, you get more of this kind of bullshit, but you don’t have a word count limit, so you guys just spew endless mountains of weak overblown evidence backing up your bullshit arguments, none of which was really about engaging in a real conversation anyway.

Here’s the thing about Snape.

He is a childhood domestic abuse victim. His abuser is a muggle.

He becomes a student at a magical school that takes him away from his abuser and immediately instills in him the idea that being a part of this magical world is a badge of self-worth, empowerment, and provides safety and security - provided that he keeps in line.

There is a war is being waged in that world over his right to exist (he is a half blood).

He is a marginalized person within the context of the narrative, forced to constantly be in the same living space as the children of his own oppressors who are being groomed and recruited into a hate group militia (the pureblood slytherins). They are in turn trying to do the same to him.

He is marginalized person bullied by children who are also part of his oppressor group, but who have “more liberal” leanings and aren’t direct about why he’s being targeted (the mauraders are all purebloods, Sirius, who was the worst offender, was raised in a bigoted household, the same one that produced Bellatrix.).

He had a crush on a girl who is a muggleborn, and therefore she is considered even lesser than him and carries a stigma to those who associate with her. That girl was his only real friend. In his entire life.

For both Snape and Lily, allying themselves to a pureblood clique within their own houses would be a great way of shielding themselves from a measure of the bigotry they were probably facing. There would have been obvious pressure from those cliques to disconnect with one and other.

Every other person who associates with Snape in his adulthood carries some sort of sociopolitical or workplace (or hate cult) baggage with their association. Some of them will physically harm and/or kill him if he steps out of line. He hasn’t at any point had the right environment to heal and adjust from these childhood experiences. Even his relationship with Dumbledore is charged with constant baggage, including the purebloods who almost killed him during their bullying getting a slap on the wrist, the werewolf that almost killed him as a child being placed in an authority position over new children, etc. Dumbledore is canonically manipulative no matter his good qualities, and he has literally been manipulating Snape for years in order to cultivate a necessary asset in the war.

He is a person who is not in the stable mental state necessary to be teaching children, whom has been forced to teach children. While also playing the role of double agent against the hate group militia, the one that will literally torture you for mistakes or backtalk or just for fun. The one that will torture and kill him if he makes one wrong move.

Is the math clicking yet? From all of this, it’s not difficult to see how everything shitty about Snape was cultivated for him by his environment. Snape was not given great options. Snape made amazingly awful choices, and also some amazingly difficult, courageous ones. Snape was ultimately a human who had an extremely bad life, in which his options were incredibly grim and limited.

In fact, pretty much every point people make about how shitty Snape is as a person makes 100% logical sense as something that would emerge from how he was treated. Some if it he’s kind of right about, some of it is the inevitable reality of suffering, and some of it is part of the cycle of abuse and harm.

Even Snape’s emotional obsession with Lily makes logical sense when you have the perspective that he literally has no substantial positive experiences with other human beings that we know of, and he has an extreme, soul destroying guilt complex over her death. Calling him an Incel mysoginist nice guy projects a real-world political ideology and behavior that does not really apply to the context of what happened to him and her.

Even Snape’s specific little acts of cruelty to certain students is a reflection of his own life experiences. He identifies with Neville; more specifically, he identifies his own percieved emotional weaknesses in his childhood in Neville. There’s a very sad reason there why he feels the urge to be so harsh.

Snape very clearly hates himself, in a world where everyone else hates him, too. Imagine that, for a second. Imagine total internal and external hatred, an yearning for just a little bit of true connection. For years. Imagine then also trying to save that world, even if it’s motivated by guilt. Even if nobody ever knows you did it and you expect to die a miserable death alone.

There are more elements here to consider, including the way Rowling described his looks (there may be something in there re: ugliness and swarthy stereotyping). These are just the things that stand out the most prominently to me.

J.K. Rowling is clearly also not reliable as an imparter of moral or sociopolitical philosophies. I don’t feel that her grasp of minority experiences is a solid one, considering how she picks and chooses who is acceptable and who is a threat.

All of that said, this is a logically consistent character arc. Within the context of his narrative, Snape is a marginalized person with severe PTSD and emotional instability issues who has absolutely no room available to him for self-improvement or healing, and never really has. And yes, he’s also mean, and caustic, and verbally abusive to the students. He’s also a completey miserable, lonely person.

There are elements in his character arc that mirror real world experiences quite well. If nothing else, Rowling is enough of an emotional adult to recognise these kinds of things and portray something that feels authentic.

In my opinion, it’s not appropriate to whittle all this down by comparing him directly to the real world experiences of marginalized groups - at least if you are not a part of the group you are comparing him to. There have been many individuals who have compared his arc to their own personal experiences of marginalization, and that is valid. But generally speaking, comparing a white straight dude to people who are not that can often be pretty offensive. This is not a valuable way to discuss either subject.

Also, I believe that while it’s perfectly okay to not like Snape as a character, many of the people who act like Person B are carrying Harry’s childhood POV about Snape in their hearts well into their own adulthood. And if nothing else, Rowling was attempting to say something here about how our perspectives (should) grow and change as we emotionally mature. She doesn’t have to be a good person herself to have expressed something true about the world in this instance, and since this story is a part of our popular culture, people have a right to feel whatever way they do about this story and it’s characters.

The complexity of this particular snapshot of fictionalized marginalization, and what it reveals about the human experience, cannot be reduced down to “he’s an abuser so he’s not worth anyone’s time/you are bad for liking him.”

And to be honest, I think that it reveals a lot about many of us in progressive spaces, particularly those of us who less marginalized but very loud about our values, that we refuse to engage with these complexities in leu of totally condemning him. Particularly because a lot of the elements I listed above are indeed reflected in real world examples of people who have experienced marginalization and thus had to deal with the resulting emotional damage, an mental illness, and behavior troubles, and bad decisions. Our inability to address the full scope of this may be a good reflection of how we are handling the complexity of real world examples.

Real people are not perfect angels in their victimhood. They are just humans who are victims, and we all have the capacity to be cruel and abusive in a world where we have been given cruelty and abuse. This is just a part of existing. If you cannot sympathise with that, or at least grasp it and aknowledge it and respect the people who are emotionally drawn to a character who refects that, then you may be telling on yourself to be honest.

To be honest, this is especially true if you hate Snape but just really, really love the Mauraduers. You have a right to those feelings, but if you are moralizing this and judging others for liking Snape, you’ve confessed to something about how you’ve mentally constructed your personal values in a way I don’t think you’ve fully grasped yet.

I have a hard time imagining a mindset where a story like Snape’s does not move one to empathy and vicarious grief, if I’m honest. I feel like some people really just cannot be bothered to imagine themselves in other people’s shoes, feeling what they feel and living like they live. I struggle to trust the social politics of people who show these kinds of colors, tbh.

But maybe that’s just me.

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yletylyf · 3 years

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Severus Snape/Voldemort

"I thought you must know about it!" said Narcissa, breathing more freely. "He trusts you so, Severus..."

Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 2: Spinner's End

Snape said nothing, but walked forwards and pushed Malfoy roughly out of the way. The three Death Eaters fell back without a word. Even the werewolf seemed cowed.

Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 27: The Lightning-Struck Tower

[Voldemort's] red eyes fastened upon Snape’s black ones with such intensity that some of the watchers looked away, apparently fearful that they themselves would be scorched by the ferocity of the gaze. Snape, however, looked calmly back into Voldemort’s face and, after a moment or two. Voldemort’s lipless mouth curved into something like a smile.

Deathly Hallows, Chapter 1: The Dark Lord Ascending

"You are a clever man, after all, Severus. You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret what must happen.”

....

“I regret it,” said Voldemort coldly.

Deathly Hallows, Chapter 32: The Elder Wand

Intro

This ship sounds doomed from the start: Snape is a traitor to Voldemort's cause, and Voldemort is the man who murdered Snape. Most fans prefer to ship Snape with "the good guys": Harry being far and away the most popular; Hermione appearing to be about half as popular; Remus beating out the canonical love of Lily (!!); and Lily and Sirius trailing behind somewhat distantly. Conversely, fans who care about Voldemort as a person and write fics centered around him tend to dislike Snape and write him as someone who will inevitably betray or hurt Voldemort.

When people discuss this ship in meta spaces, they tend to assume it is problematic from a "moral purity" standpoint: an excuse to write torture porn or kinky sex with abusive dynamics inside the bedroom mirroring those outside the bedroom. (Don't get me wrong: a lot of fics are in fact this way. Including some of mine!)

The canon evidence supports none of these narratives. Snape is not abused by Voldemort; Snape and Voldemort have some fundamental similarities and natural reasons to sympathize with one another; and the canon evidence suggests he was not completely on the side of the "good guys," as he did no real harm to Voldemort but acted only to protect Lily or her son.

1. Snape had Voldemort's trust. Snape had Voldemort completely convinced that he was on Voldemort's side. Voldemort valued him so highly that Narcissa, a non-Death Eater, knew he was trusted completely; that other Death Eaters on the Astronomy Tower feared Snape; and that Voldemort, who expresses regret for nothing else in the entire series, apologizes to Snape for murdering him. We see a lot of Death Eaters randomly tortured, but never Snape. Rather, Voldemort entrusts Snape with running Hogwarts—his "beloved castle, his first kingdom, his birthright" (DH, ch 24).

Most fans suggest this means Snape is a master spy and the most skillful Occlumens on the planet. I contend it suggests something else: that there was something Snape and Voldemort truly valued about each other, something that endured until the end.

2. Snape and Voldemort are a lot alike. They are both extremely intelligent. They both obviously love experimenting with magic. They are both the only characters who can perform unaided flight. They are both powerful duelists. They both have pureblood mothers and Muggle fathers. They both had disadvantaged childhoods: one raised in a Muggle orphanage, abandoned by his Muggle father; the other raised by a Muggle father who abused his mother and probably abused Snape as well. They were both sorted into Slytherin despite not being purebloods. Dumbledore was breathtakingly unfair to both of them: he set Tom's wardrobe on fire and spied on him his seven years of school despite no proof of wrongdoing; he let Sirius continue his education at Hogwarts after attempting to murder Snape, and he told Snape he was disgusting when Snape wanted to switch sides.

3. Snape is not a "good guy." We all know Snape is a bully, unjustly hates Harry Potter and his friends, and makes himself as unpleasant as possible to Dumbledore. He does this from the moment we meet him until the moment of his death. I contend that this is genuine behavior, rather than an act he put on ever since he went to Dumbledore to switch sides—somewhere around 1979 or 1980. That is much too long to live a lie without slipping up. He does hate Harry. Is it because Harry looks like James Potter? Because Harry is the son that should have been his, as he was in love with Harry's mother? Perhaps. But perhaps it is also the manifestation of his anger at the boy who defeated the Dark Lord.

The fandom generally accepts that the reveal at the end of Deathly Hallows proves that Snape was on the side of the "good guys" all along. The fandom speculates that maybe he became a Death Eater because he was sorted into Slytherin; because he was weak and sought protection; because he thought it would impress Lily. We don't know. But we do know that he did become a Death Eater, and that it permanently cost him his friendship with Lily. To me, it seems unlikely that Snape is so self-absorbed that he didn't realize that the Death Eaters target people like Lily for death. Their political platform was anti-Muggle-born and must have been from the beginning. Lily knows it, at the age of 16; surely Snape does too. No. He joined the Death Eaters for some other reason aside from their political platform. Perhaps personal hatred for his Muggle father played a role, but Lily was proof in his life that Muggle-borns are talented, brilliant witches. So it must have been something else.

From this, and based on point (2) above, I conclude that Snape joined the Death Eaters because he saw something in Voldemort that was worth pledging himself to for life. It's canon, after all, that Death Eaters "sw[ea]r eternal loyalty" to Voldemort (GF, ch 33). Voldemort is magically powerful and impressive, something that teenager Snape would have been desperate for. Voldemort's attention and favor is flattering; he has charisma and presence when he puts in the effort ("If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed." (CS, ch 17)). I see his Death Eater recruitment as primarily taking place with classic cult tactics: making you think you are important to him, flattering you, targeting you for personal attention.

Of course, I acknowledge that Snape turned on Voldemort. He tells Dumbeldore that Voldemort has targeted the Potters for death, and that is probably not something Voldemort authorized. Why? This intelligent man had to know that people like Lily were in danger from Voldemort, as I earlier concluded. I would answer that there is a difference between being aware of something as a general concept, and knowing a specific thing for a fact: yes, the Death Eaters targeted "Mudbloods" for death. But finding out that Voldemort is personally "hunting down" Lily and her family? That was a pivotal moment for Snape, and he acted on impulse. Voldemort had promised to try to spare Lily's life but he probably would not; the Ministry was useless; Dumbeldore was Snape's only hope.

The fandom sees this moment as Snape turning his back on Voldemort's cause fully. But why? We have no evidence of that. Snape does not do anything in canon that seems to particularly damage Voldemort. Sure, he tells the Order that Harry ran off to the Department of Ministries. But the Department of Ministries mission was fucked long before the Order showed up. The ingenuity and stubbornness of Harry and his friends saw to that: Lucius had given the game away and Harry would have destroyed the prophecy every single time before he would have handed it over. In Half-Blood Prince, Snape sits on the information that Harry is a Horcrux, and he permits Harry to stay unharmed in Hogwarts instead of kidnapping him and taking him to Voldemort at the end of the book. However, these are acts to protect Harry's life specifically and not calculated to be harmful to Voldemort's cause. Likewise in Deathly Hallows: he tries to protect a Harry lookalike during the flight of the seven Potters and he delivers Harry a sword he is supposedly in need of while out camping. Not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

I posit that Snape acted to protect his former best friend, the person who embodied the beauty and innocence of a lost childhood in his mind, but never fully committed to being a spy for Dumbledore. There is no evidence he felt personal loyalty to Dumbledore. He reluctantly shared information to protect Lily, and understood that this stuck him in an awful place with Voldemort forever, but in his heart, he never truly switched sides. Even during the second war, he does what he must to protect Lily's son—but ever so reluctantly, and with intense bitterness and spite.

The most damaging thing Snape did to Voldemort was pass on the message to Harry that he must die in order to defeat Voldemort. May I observe, however, that Snape passed on his message after Voldemort had acted to kill him. Perhaps he felt it was only fair at that point. Readers frequently question the timing and manner of Snape's decision to pass on Dumbledore's message to Harry. Perhaps it was not a coincidence at all.

Coda

Why do I like Sniddle? I think they are the best candidates for making each other happy if given the slightest chance. They have so much in common, as discussed above. They are damaged. They both love the Dark Arts and are murderers. They do not need to "change" in order to understand and affirm the other person's right to be who they are. I love both of their characters and believe they can develop a loving relationship of mutual trust and affection. In a world where they are allowed to exist together without treason, spying, Horcruxes, or war... they will find peace.

#severus snape #tom riddle #sniddle #snoldemort #sevmort #sevtom #ship manifesto #pro snape #pro voldemort #severus x voldemort #snape and voldemort #about my fic

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lytefoot · 6 years

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The HP Epilogue, Amatonormativity, and Ron and Harry’s Friendship

Now, I’m not someone who has strong objections to the Harry Potter epilogue. I am 100% at home to One Big Happy Weasley Family. I’m even… let’s say fascinated… by the names that Harry and Ginny gave their children. I don’t necessarily agree with their choices, but I’m interested in what those choices tell us about their characters. (Actually Harry’s character, honestly. I don’t think Ginny has any responsibility for Albus Severus beyond not talking him out of it.) No, there are only a couple of things that really bother me about the epilogue. One of them is some of the business about Teddy—that’s for another essay. The other one is this exchange (DH p. 755):

“Parked all right, then?” Ron asked Harry. “I did. Hermione didn’t believe I could pass a Muggle driving test, did you? She thought I’d have to Confund the examiner.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Hermione, “I had complete faith in you.”

“As a matter of fact, I did Confund him,” Ron whispered to Harry, as together they lifted Albus’s trunk and owl onto the train. “I only forgot to look in the wing mirror, and let’s face it, I can use a Supersensory Charm for that.”

It took me a long time to figure out why this bothers me.

It bothers me because it’s the stilted chit-chat that you see with your old school friend that you see occasionally. It suggested that Harry hasn’t seen or spoken Ron since before he took the driving test. As if “find out what happened with Ron’s driving test and mock, praise, or console him” wouldn’t be high on Harry’s list of priorities. Like Ron married Hermione, Harry married Ginny, and they both withdrew into their nuclear families, coming out occasionally for awkward chit-chat.

And it’s, like, no.

Ron Weasley is the most important person in Harry’s life. He was the thing Harry would miss most when he was 14, and nothing that’s happened since is going to change that.

I’m really writing this discussion’s from Harry’s point of view, because I think Ron’s perspective on this relationship might be different. I think Harry might be less important to Ron than Ron is to Harry, and that’s okay.

Harry’s defining relationships are these. His parents die for him. The Durselys despise him. Dumbledore mentors him (possibly, Dumbledore uses him). And Ron loves him. There are other relationships, of course, but Harry would be fundamentally Harry without those. He could be himself without Hermione, for example, or without Sirius. Without Ron, he would be an entirely different person, a colder, more distant person. Ron, who reached out to him unprovoked, who always had his back (or rather, when Ron didn’t have his back, it was apocalyptic), who gave Harry someone in the world he could trust for the first time.

Listen. Ron was Harry’s first friend. Ever. And Ron immediately invited Harry into his family, into his world. He wrote to his mother that Harry wasn’t expecting anything for Christmas. One of the few things the movies did right was to make Ron be physically affectionate, too. He’s always up in Harry’s personal space, when they’re small, and I love it. They are the kind of friends that hug each other, that casually drape their arms around each other’s shoulders. The scene the Sorcerer’s Stone movie added (and then deleted? I haven’t watched Sorcerer’s Stone in over a decade) where Ron talks to Harry about the mirror is just beautiful.

And then Ron turns up and rescues Harry from the Dursleys. More than once. Enough times to build the association of Ron’s here, I’m safe now. (Technically, in GoF it’s a party of Weasleys at Ron’s prompting that rescue Harry. The point stands.) If one of these people was a lady, we would be well on the way to building the sweet stable person saves poor broken wretch from despair type romance narrative.

Their interactions in OotP are intense, too. Harry is a mess in OotP, and Ron handles him beautifully. Ron is the only person capable of supporting Harry, but also setting boundaries: we support you, but you can’t take it out on us. He’s remarkably gentle. And Harry is able to hear that from him, too, and at least try to respect those boundaries.

And the reunion scene in the Forest of Dean… let me quote this at length.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a thick voice. “I’m sorry I left. I know I was a — a —”

He looked around at the darkness, as if hoping a bad enough word would swoop down upon him and claim him.

“You’ve sort of made up for it tonight,” said Harry. “Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life.”

“That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was,” Ron mumbled.

“Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was,” said Harry. “I’ve been trying to tell you that for years.”

Simultaneously they walked forward and hugged, Harry gripping the still-sopping back of Ron’s jacket.

For those of you following along at home, if this were a romance, that was the moment when they would have kissed. This is also a major turning point of the book. It marks an end to a long period of hollowness, of purposelessness.

One response to the closeness of Ron and Harry’s friendship is to pathologize it. I see this, unfortunately, in a lot of Ronmione and/or Hinny-centered fic. To treat this intense closeness as something they need to grow out of, or something they were driven to by their strange childhoods and need to move beyond in order to heal. To write Ron and Harry growing apart, and treat it as a good thing, makes me intensely uncomfortable. This is a rare case (rare as far as emotional vulnerability is concerned) in which I don’t think women get off a lot better than men. Married men who have close, intense friendships with one another are unheard of; but married women who have close, intense friendships with one another are immature, distant from their spouses, and probably shrewish.

Another response, of course, is to ship it. This is, frankly, a lot better. At least we’re not pathologizing affection.

But that brings me to my new vocabulary word. (Literally, I spent some time reading, trying to find the words to describe this issue.) The word I want to introduce to the discussion is amatonormativity (it’s in the title, I hope nobody’s surprised). This word comes out of ace discourse, and it describes the notion that the most important, meaningful relationships are romantic ones. The notion of the “friend zone” is amatonormative: the idea that moving from “friend” to “romantic partner” is an upgrade that one is being denied.

In a lot of ways, the entire shipping culture, and in particular, the friends-to-lovers trope, is amatonormative. “These two characters are friends, they are so close… the must be secretly pining for one another.” Interestingly, the shipping culture is a staunch rejection of heteronormativity. Specifically, shipping culture explicitly rejects the notion that people (well, characters; non-consensually shipping real people is weird and creepy) are default heterosexual, and therefore, close relationships between same-sex characters are fair game to be romantic. But what if… what if they just aren’t romantic? What if characters can have deep, defining relationships that are emotionally fulfilling and physically affectionate… but without sex, and without romantic love?

These are the kinds of relationships that the ace discourse refers to as queerplatonic, but I’m… not sure that a new word is required here. We’re talking about a close friendship. [Note: I mentioned that these are my new vocabulary words. If I’ve missed a nuance of the meaning of queerplatonic here, please forgive me. I’m happy to be corrected, and also, if you feel like that’s not your job, that’s fine, too.] The only reason we need a new word for it is that, as a society, we’ve agreed that a romance is somehow “more than” a friendship, rather than merely different in kind.

So… why can’t Ron just be Harry’s Wheezy? (I’m sorry, that’s just the cutest f***ing thing.) They’re just friends… but they’re friends who crawl into each other’s beds when one of them has nightmares. Harry lies on the sofa with his head on Ron’s lap or sits with his feet up leaning against Ron’s shoulder. Ron hugs Harry when he makes it back from a field mission, or just because it’s Tuesday and hugs are awesome. And they don’t have to retreat into their nuclear family bunkers just because they happen to have gotten married.

It won’t have gone unnoticed that I like coming up with dark!AUs. If I were to try to construct a scenario where Harry just wants to burn the world? I would do it by hurting Ron. I mean, if someone hurt Ginny, or Hermione, or the other Weasleys? Harry would be quite upset. But if someone killed Ron, Harry wouldn’t leave one stone on another. If I wanted to get a dark!Harry going, I’d do it by killing Ron, and that would be enough.

I don’t want to fault anyone who wants to make that relationship a romantic one. (As long as you don’t do it by throwing Hermione under the bus, because really, she has her faults but she isn’t a bad person.) But I also love this friendship that’s central to someone’s emotional life without being romantic.

Notice that I haven’t made any reference to sexual orientation here. You don’t need to have either of these boys be straight to have this relationship not become romantic, just like you don’t need to make either Harry or Hermione gay to keep their relationship from becoming romantic. (Harry and Hermione’s friendship is significantly less intense than Harry and Ron’s friendship, but the point stands.) I mean, Harry is quite clearly bi in the text, I don’t make the rules. Seriously, if we go by mentions of attractive boys vs. attractive girls, we’re looking at a Kinsey 4. (And yes, also I know that the Kinsey scale has numerous faults; it’s crude, but effective here.) On the other hand, Ron… well, I high-key ship Ron with Hermione, and I feel like both of them tend toward monogamy, so I’m not sure that his actual sexuality is… relevant to the question of whether he’d take a romantic interest in Harry. For purposes of this discussion, Ron’s sexuality seems to me to be “taken.” Further, approaching the discussion this way—what keeps the relationship from becoming romantic—is inherently amatonormative, as if the relationship becoming romantic would be somehow “better.”

#harry potter #ron weasley #ron and harry brotp #platonic friendship #shipping culture #discourse #this is the essay i was planning to write tonight #before the ambush by dark!hermione fic

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wrockingwriter · 5 years

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To Be, or Not to Be: Canon

Before we dive into everything, I want to be sure that we’re all on the same page when we discuss what is and is not Canon. So, a couple definitions:

Fanon is the collection of widely agreed upon information that has little, if any, supporting evidence in the source material. Think things like Hermione’s Parents’ names, or calling Harry, Ron and Hermione the Golden Trio.

Canon is the collection of information found in the source material or from the author/scriptwriter directly. Character names, romantic pairs seen in the books/films, etc.

This panel comes from there being too many different sources of information (original books, film adaptations, side books (Beedle the Bard, interviews (pre 2009, post 2016, etc) twitter, Pottermore, video games, the Play (which is a debate all its own), the new film franchise) where not all the information adds up. There is conflict, or a character acts in a wholly different way between mediums (Ron) and if you haven’t interacted with all of the material (or sometimes just not enough, or in the same order, as someone else) you could have an entirely different opinion of a character or situation. SOmetimes to the point that you could be having two entirely different conversations at the same time about a single subject and BOTH be correct.

So I’m going to use a few character examples, and a couple object examples of things that vary wildly between the various pieces of the Wizarding World we all know and love; then I’ll turn the floor over to you guys!

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I think there are two examples of film-to-book differences that make me the most angry when it comes to characters. First, easily, is Regulus Black, and through him Kreacher. These I’m counting as my first example, as you can’t have one without the other- they’re too connected.

Regulus Black is often referred to as a more acceptable example of a Slytherin who became a Death Eater and regretted it than Severus Snape (though honestly I don’t see them as particularly similar outside of that). In the films, Regulus is barely a footnote in a conversation, but in the books (despite how similarly brief his story really is) there is so much more depth.

In the film, Kreacher says Regulus ordered ordered him to destroy the locket and he couldn’t. That’s it. I watched that scene a dozen times. What a disservice.

In the books there’s more to it than that. We get a picture painted for us. Sirius had told Harry that Regulus had joined up young, gotten cold feet, and been killed for it. We’re brought into his bedroom, still obviously done in the style of a kid- and one trying to emphasise just how much he was a ‘proper’ Black compared to Sirius. Regulus’ room is entirely done in Slytherin colours, a mural of the Black family crest and motto above his bed, a collection of Daily Prophet clippings about Voldemort… a fanatic.

Kreacher, under duress from Harry’s orders to answer everything truthfully, reveals that Regulus joined Voldemort at 16 and tells the story of the locket. 17 year old Regulus telling Kreacher that he’d volunteered him for a special task, and he was to come home after. We, as readers, know what happened in the Cave- and Kreacher told Regulus all that transpired, and Regulus’ reaction was to be worried for Kreacher, order him to stay hidden/not leave the house, and then go research. Some small time later, Regulus came to see Kreacher while ‘strange, disturbed in the mind’ and ordered him to bring him to the Cave.

Kreacher tells the trio that Regulus sacrificed himself in the Cave. He drank the potion himself, has Kreacher switch the lockets, and ordered Kreacher to leave without him and to never tell his mother what happened.

Regulus Black learned of the Horcrux, and made the choice to not only take what he thought was the ONLY Horcrux and replace it with a fake, or simply ensure (or so he thought) its destruction, or just save his elf from having to endure the potion twice, but he ensured that Voldemort would never discover what he had done via legilimency of himself or his family by dying in the act and ordering Kreacher to never tell his family what had happened.

And, because of all these actions on Regulus’ part, at the battle of Hogwarts Kreacher rallies the House Elves of Hogwarts in Regulus’ name.

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In the same vein, I’m going to talk about Severus Snape. The films did a great amount of lightening of Snape’s horrid actions- and also did a great disservice to his character with their adaptation of The Prince’s Tale.

So let’s start with the ugly.

Snape is a childish, surly, bully; he took the awful things of his youth and instead of acting against them he allowed himself the awful actuality of becoming that which had so tormented his youth. Instead of refuting, or rising about the bullying, he went to the opposite extreme: make others suffer as I have suffered. He’s worse to some characters- the easiest to name are Harry, Neville, and Hermione. Harry, the (seeming) spitting image of his his bully father; Neville, the other choice for Voldemort that may have spared Lily’s life (though, as we know, the fate of the Longbottoms was no less gruesome, and in some ways more tragic); and Hermione, a brilliant muggleborn witch that likely reminds him very much of Lily.

There is no excusing the deplorable way he treats children. There are reasons, but no excuses, and certainly to forgiveness. The films took great care to not portray some of the worst actions Snape takes with these characters: telling Hermione that he ‘sees no difference’ from the effects of Draco’s curse, telling/instructing Neville to test his Shrinking Solution on Trevor while saying it would likely be poisonous if improperly made; honestly, he was a child’s BOGGART for fuck’s sake. The films made light of these things.

I’ve held lots of Snape panels about Snape’s character; how his morals and emotional maturity (or lack thereof) were shaped by his past, but that’s an entirely different talk. But what makes me most angry is how they handled The Prince’s Tale. The film pretty much erases all of his growing up with Lily, the ways he interacted with Petunia- it gave the very bare bones and then interspersed it with these bits of him cradling Lily’s dead body. Let’s ignore the moments before, of Lily telling infant Harry that he’s loved, as they literally make no sense as he wasn’t there.

Actually, the whole sequence makes no sense. But the memories they chose to keep tell a fraction of the story. They shift the viewer’s opinions from being based upon his actions with the kids/sacrifices in the wake of the Potters’ death to being about his ignoring a crying infant child to cradle the body of his dead ex-friend which didn’t actually happen.

Yes, I have some strong opinions about this.

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We also, going by the films, know literally none of the essential information about Tom Riddle. We’re also robbed of the moment the Wizarding World sees the monster they’ve feared all this time was only a man all along. There is no explanation of the Defense Against the Dark Arts curse, or how the Horcruxes were chosen.

By this point in the films, they assume that the viewer has read all the books and can fill in the (copious) holes they’ve left themselves. Merope who? Morfin? Mrs. Cole? Hepzibah Smith? Hokey?

The films made Voldemort into an inhuman monster, which completely derailed so much of the series’ messages about growth, humanity, choice, and change. From Dumbledore to Harry to Voldemort, we are shown all these moments that shape them and those just don’t exist in the films.

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What about items?

I’m skipping over the Horcruxes entirely to jump to the item whose entire existence in the films frustrates the crap out of me: the Mirror. Sirius’ mirror, the ‘small, square, old-looking mirror’ that Sirius and James would use to talk to one another while in separate detentions. The one that’s supposedly the size of a book.

What the hell is the serving tray that’s hanging on Aberforth’s wall in the Hog’s Head?? Even more importantly, where did movie!Harry even get the Mirror shard in the first place?

Time Turners! Let’s not forget the Time Turners that were all destroyed FOR A REASON in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. If we go by Pottermore information, (which I do so lightly) the Hour-Reversal Charm that’s encased in the sand is an incredibly unstable bit of magic. Realistically, how could 19 years not only stabilise the Charm but amplify it exponentially to the point we see in The Play? We don’t know how long it took to develop the Charm in the first place, but with Croaker’s Law forming the 5-hour limit, why/how could someone have developed a device that went that much farther back without notice if the 5-hour limit is due to serious harm befalling both the traveller and time itself?

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Though not items, the repeatedly Ghosts and House Elves are entirely ignored by the films until they were needed in a way that couldn’t just be passed on to another character (cough, Neville having all of Dobby’s important moments, cough) and Peeves is erased entirely. These characters were important and helped shape out characters into people. Dobby and Winky’s lives brought forth Hermione’s anger at perceived injustices; Harry’s talks and overall odd relationship with Nearly Headless Nick display his wanting to be as kind and helpful as he can be; Peeves’ relationship with the Weasley Twins was just… so much.

It’s understandable that things got cut, it’s natural, there is no way to tell both a complete narrative from a book-perspective in a film and have a decent film. It’s just not possible to have it all in there. But the problem is WHAT got cut- Helena Ravenclaw was important. Hokey the House Elf, Merope- they were important. Why didn’t they just ask JK more often what was important to keep??

Any gravitas and heartbreak you’re supposed to feel for Dobby when he dies just isn’t there because we don’t know him.

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But enough on that end- let’s get to the other layers of this talk.

How many kinds of informational sources are there for the Wizarding World?

*This is MY breakdown:

Tier 1: Word of God (circa early-2009 and before), books 1-7, Quidditch Through the Ages, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them textbook, Tales of Beedle the Bard, JK site reveals (WOMBAT, family trees, etc) and the current Fantastic Beasts films.

Tier 2: HP film adaptations, Pottermore, JK interviews post-2009, video game information

Tier 3: Cursed Child, JK Twitter, deleted scenes from the films that were not in the books.

FOR ME this works, because I feel like things like interviews and such depend so much on the context and timing of being said. Is the author in that headspace, where they know all the extraneous information that never made it into print? Or are they making snap decisions without research into their own world? Even Philip Pullman (Golden Compass) needed to refer to an outside compendium of information while writing the newest books in the series.

As a writer I know that it’s hard to keep track of everything in my universe at whim, so I take timing into account. Especially when things conflict- like Minerva McGonagall in Crimes of Grindelwald but I’m hoping there’s a better explanation for her presence than JK not knowing how time works a la Prisoner of Azkaban.

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The question, from what I can see, becomes less of a ‘what’s true’ and far more of a ‘what counts.’ Do we go by what was said, or what she’s saying? Where do we, the community that’s taken the World and made it ur own, draw the line between Canon facts and Fanon fiction? And how can we bridge the gap between people whose core Canon understandings differ hugely from our own?

In a circumstance like this, where the universe is still an ever-expanding thing, to know Canon from Fanon is incredibly difficult. Adaptations alone are both blessing and curse, but at least there one can say that there is a definitive source material- or make very clear that one is vastly different from the other (like Walking Dead, by having the series take a different choice at a crossroads).

But with a creator who continuously expands the world, and reimagines the things that we know (or assume to know) as true, there seems to e no way to say that something is 100% true- even once it’s been recorded in black and white.

It seems, to me at least, that the only real solution is for each of us to make the decision for ourselves- and that isn’t really a solution at all. But until a least the things we could consider to be common knowledge stop changing, I don’t see another solution.

But do you?

#leakycon 2019 #wrockingwriter #canon #discussion of canon #wizarding world

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saintsenara · 10 months

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rare pair tag game

thanks for the tag, @said-snape-softly :)

i'm pretty sure everyone has done this by now, but if you'd like to, please consider this a blanket tag.

apart from all the tomarry and the odd dabble in remadora, i am a rare-pair enthusiast, so i am delighted to spread some propaganda here... the criterion i've used for a rare-pair is less than 2500 works on ao3.

pairs, little metas, fic recommendations, and some suggestions for authors to follow under the cut.

sirius black/severus snape

why i ship it:

this one can just about claim to be a rare-pair.

sirius and severus are narrative mirrors, whose complicated relationship to themselves and to each other is crucial for driving several of the most important arcs in the series.

in particular, sirius - constantly haunted by guilt and grief over his role in the death of the man he loved [you can decide if his love for james is platonic or not, but i definitely think the text thinks it isn't...], trapped in his childhood home, unable to have his real loyalties acknowledged before his death by the fact he's on the run - leads harry through his journey in hero-worshipping, then being disappointed in, then forgiving james. and then promptly dies.

this is one of harry's most significant areas of personal growth - it begins to chip away at his rather black-and-white morality, which is finally destroyed by his ability to confront the complexity of dumbledore in deathly hallows - but it is also key narratively: harry coming to understand james starts to hint to the reader that it is lily - otherwise absent from her son's conception of himself - who is the key to the mystery...

which brings us to severus - constantly haunted by guilt and grief over his role in the death of the woman he loved, trapped in his childhood home, unable to have his real loyalties acknowledged before his death by the fact he's a spy - who gives harry, and us, the final piece of the puzzle. and then promptly dies.

put them together, though? well, you get the delicious tension of two fundamentally broken people - who cannot comprehend the possibility of their own redemption - bound to each other. can they forgive each other and themselves? is it a disaster? the story can go either way.

and even in fluff there is so much potential for d r a m a between sirius' recklessness and severus' cunning, sirius' emotional control and severus' temper, the fact that sirius is canonically hot and severus is canonically not, how they react to harry and draco [i don't usually accept the fanon that severus is his godfather, except when it means snack can be fighting about it], and so on.

and i'm a sucker for two bitter old men getting a happy ending. sue me.

want to give it a read?

if you trust nothing else i say in my life [and why should you] you can trust this - second life by nwhiker and cassandra7 is one of the greatest pieces of writing i have ever seen, not only in this pairing but in this fandom full stop. it's a profound and solemn meditation on loving and grieving, choice and chance, and the great pain caused by the divide between the magical and the muggle worlds.

then, for gorgeous angst with a happy ending - two boys kissing by @writcraft and the merit in trying by brightened

albus dumbledore/tom riddle | voldemort

why i ship it:

the facetious answer is because they wouldn't be so obsessed with each other if there wasn't some sexual tension underneath it.

the facetious and nsfw answer is because it appeals to the part of me whose favourite book aged 11 was lolita

the serious answer is that they should be horrifying together: they're both liars; both incredibly self-righteous; both living behind masks which conceal their true emotions and motivations; dumbledore took one look at tom as an eleven-year-old, said "he reminds me of gellert", and then did nothing about it; tom thinks dumbledore's a hypocrite and is right, although not for the reasons he thinks; there is a colossal age gap; there is virtually no scenario in any timeline where they could be openly in a relationship unless one of them is concealing his identity; and - really, this seems quite minor in the grand scheme of things - they are constantly trying to destroy each other.

but.

intellectually, they are the only two characters in the series who could be the other's equal - i'm sure that violent arguments about the twelve uses of dragon's blood trigger the majority of their sexual encounters, and a man who's passionate about your research is hot.

if either of them ever fancy being honest - so, no - there is a shared cavernous [although, in tom's case, unacknowledged] grief in their lives which has shaped their not-as-divergent-as-the-text-thinks-they-are views on death, love, duty and so on. their active refusal to understand each other [i.e. dumbledore entirely misreading voldemort's motivations in the job interview scene] and commitment to constantly underestimating each other [i.e. voldemort bouncing around like an idiot in the chamber of secrets instead of using his brain and remembering what a phoenix is] could, in time, lead to something almost resembling acceptance. i mean, just imagine the hurt/comfort sex which happens when voldemort finds out about grindledore.

the way dumbledore describes the young riddle - "self-sufficient, secretive, and, apparently, friendless" - is also an exact description of him. that each sees himself in the other canonically drives their hatred of each other, but it could also appeal to two very vain men in a much racier way. after all, who doesn't want to bang their narrative mirror?

and being an orphan probably doesn't seem so bad when you realise your boyfriend's family is aberforth.

want to give it a read?

i can't recommend concordance by @laeveteinn enough, particularly for one of the best-written dumbledores i've ever seen. i find dumbledore is often written either as far more whimsical than i'd like, or far more fiery and radical [when one of his most interesting personality traits in canon is his tendency towards inaction], but this dumbledore is the perfect balance of contradictions, while tom is his canonical feral self, longing to perceived, rather than the emotionless sociopath of so many other stories.

i also recommend as an entire ocean in a drop by eldritcher, which really leans into just how similar these two are underneath all the artifice.

albus dumbledore/severus snape

why i ship it:

well, we've had dumbledore with one lost boy, let's have him with another [i haven't been brave enough to venture into dumbledore/harry yet, but i'll take recommendations...]

as with riddledore, we have the potential for horror here: a vast power imbalance; enormous age gap; the fact dumbledore sends snape out to potentially die every time he goes off to voldemort; and - this is the crucial one - the fact that dumbledore's recognition of himself in snape is pure self-loathing ["you disgust me"] manifested in punishment [allowing snape to be humiliated in front of fudge, not stopping the presumed-to-be-real moody searching his office, making him give harry occlumency lessons, not letting him teach defence against the dark arts].

but then this stops, when snape does the tremendously brave thing of agreeing to kill dumbledore, and their dynamic equalises, as dumbledore recognises that snape is courageous, steadfast, and redeemed. i'm always struck in half-blood prince by the fact that dumbledore has it with harry's sniping about snape and straight-up tells him to shut up, as well as by the fact that he very nearly gives the game away and confesses why snape switched sides [the thing he promised not to do] when harry finds out it was snape who gave voldemort the prophecy.

and within this equalised dynamic - so this hot geriatric sex is happening in the afterlife, i guess - we have two men who are intellectual close-to-equals, who understand grief and guilt, whose aesthetic senses are charmingly mismatched, who are rarely honest but might be for each other, and who have lots of profound similarities which might lead somewhere...

want to give it a read?

cheerfully disregarding everything i've just said about how snumbledore could work, i highly recommend in infinite remorse of soul by @perverse-idyll, which is a chilling look at how dumbledore uses the power imbalance between the two to assuage his own guilt through snape's humiliation.

for something much more wholesome, i'm a big fan of byzantium by eldritcher

petunia dursley/severus snape

why i ship it:

because vernon is a dick.

i'm fond of petunia, who i think is one of the most interesting characters in the series because of how full of contradictions she is, and who i think is also a victim in fandom spaces of how the adult cast was aged up for the films [in canon, she's only in her early twenties when lily dies, and the implication is that vernon is a good deal older than her)] which makes her inadequacies, such as her inability to truly care for either child in the household, seem much more nuanced than they do if she's pictured as a middle-aged woman with considerable life experience.

like snape, she teeters on a knife edge between various chasms: she is a working-class girl from the midlands made good in middle-class surrey, he is a working-class half-blood boy who spends most of his life in pureblood circles; she ends up with her whole life wrapped up in a square little house when she's barely out of her teens, he ends up with his whole life wrapped up in spying at the same age; she hates the wizarding world and yet covets it, he hates the muggle world and yet cannot escape it; she loves lily and she hates her and she loathes her for dying, he... well, you know the rest.

want to give it a read?

i was first convinced by this pairing by the lovely regretfully yours by @maria-de-salinas, which takes both snape and petunia's awkwardness and bitterness and moulds it into something really tender.

i also highly recommend barking at the moon by rinsbane, the summary of which speaks for itself.

merope gaunt/tom riddle sr.

why i ship it:

our first canon pairing, and probably the most problematic of the canon relationships, since the series never acknowledges that tom sr. is a rape victim.

but i have found myself recently in my merope era and, in particular, in an attempt to give her more nuance than she gets in canon. as i've said to anyone who'll listen in the three broomsticks discord server, i loathe the implication in canon that merope dies because she just cba to live [since it directly justifies voldemort's belief that her death was shameful] and prefer to see her as someone who was desperate to escape a truly horrifying life [the fact she's going to be forced into an incestuous relationship with morfin is right there in canon...] and so did something she didn't have the capacity to understand the implications of [this is not a woman who's ever heard of consent] because she thought it would give her the first chance to be happy in her life, watched it all crash and burn around her, and would have very much liked to have lived to raise her son.

i doubt there was anything real or tender in her relationship with tom sr., of course, and his escape - while merely a brief stay of execution from his son's perspective - is tremendously brave. it's impossible to write tom/merope fluff [although i respect you if you're inclined to try] but fanfiction gives a space to explore the intricacies of their relationship which canon doesn't allow, and i'm obsessed.

want to give it a read?

i'm recommending myself here, and assuring you that you will enjoy: enchanter's nightshade, which explores how merope's attempts to keep her husband enslaved fail; the snow child, which treats the relationship as folk-horror; and the shack at the end of the lane, in which there is redemption, in the end.

the best exploration of tom sr. dealing with the fallout of the relationship is @phantomato's exquisite ganymede, which feels so truly embodied that you can't pull yourself away from the page.

bellatrix lestrange/tom riddle | voldemort

why i ship it:

our second canon pairing, i am obsessed with these two and the tragedy and - to some extent - tenderness bound up in their relationship [which can be proven to be there because noted softy @whinlatter loves them].

i've written before about my conviction - in contrast to a lot of bellatrix fans - that her relationship with rodolphus is utterly miserable, and that voldemort is the only man in her life who can understand her desire to make a life for herself which is not constrained by the gendered expectations of her social class.

obviously, lord voldemort is not a shining paragon of a boyfriend [and he is an awful choice as a baby daddy, bella, get it together], but i think the enormous power imbalance is perhaps slightly less enormous than is sometimes assumed - certainly, she tells him to his face in half-blood prince that he's wrong to trust snape [she's a clever woman], voldemort never physically punishes her for anything [rip to lucius malfoy, who seems to get picked for this in her stead], and voldemort tolerates a surprising amount of nonsense from her which shatters his mystique.

all of which is to say... the scream when she dies isn't just because he's losing the war.

want to give it a read?

tee hee, i'm recommending myself again, and encouraging you to take a look at: atramentum, bellamort's last afternoon together before voldemort goes to the potters; nor all that glisters gold, bellatrix's life - including her relationship with voldemort - through sirius' eyes; and death (eaters) in paradise, because murderous psychopaths deserve crack fics too.

draco malfoy/tom riddle | voldemort

why i ship it:

because the ship name is taco.

these two are a pairing which i enjoy with my tongue firmly in my cheek [and tom's tongue firmly in draco's], as i do with most other things in which draco is a main character [do i want to read drarry angst? no! do i want to chuckle? absolutely!], although this should not be taken as saying that many of taco's fabulous authors don't manage to make the pairing entirely plausible.

in fact, consensual taco [non-con is, of course, its own beast] often has some of the best characterisation of both tom [fretful, mercurial, stubborn, and nowhere near as charming as he thinks he is] and draco [prissy, a very good judge of character, someone who likes being taken care of, and much braver than he appears if he absolutely has to be] i've seen in the fandom, largely because - unlike other voldemort-centric ships [especially tomarry, but also voldemort + any of the adult death eaters] - there's no sense of inevitability there. these two aren't connected by a shared bit of soul, or a prophecy, or having gone to school together, or having been hooked in by voldemort in the first war when he was unassailable.

they have to choose each other. or, more accurately, draco has to choose tom, and tom has to get chosen.

and the results have me entertained.

want to give it a read?

then you will want to have a look at the travelling cabinet by @the-paper-monkey [and its sequel, bluebeard], truly the gold standard of taco content with an absolutely brilliant draco, whose sheer capacity to cling on and make himself an irremovable part of tom's life may just end up changing the course of history.

narcissa malfoy/severus snape

why i ship it:

because i am in deep with the conspiracy theory that it's canon. i am absolutely certain that narcissa is the person that voldemort is referring to at the end of deathly hallows - "he desired her, that was all, but when she had gone, he agreed that there were other women, and of purer blood, worthier of him". it seems highly unlikely to me that the canonical voldemort would give a shit about snape fancying any random pureblood [although the snapemort version is, naturally, hugely jealous], but snape having had some sort of liaison with narcissa, and the ability knowing this gives voldemort to humiliate snape, narcissa, the memory of lily, bellatrix, lucius, and draco is definitely information he would go out of his way to remember...

plus, how do you know where he lives, babe? v suspicious.

want to give it a read?

if you want some fluff, you will very much enjoy the incredibly sweet the reformed man by gingertart50, which features narcissa nursing snape back to health post-nagini and is a favourite re-read for me when i'm drunk and it's christmas.

if you want some very-much-not-fluff, other women and of purer blood by yours truly will scratch the itch...

minerva mcgonagall/severus snape

why i ship it:

because i'm an equal-opportunity age-gap fan, and there is far too little older woman/younger man in the fandom.

and look, i'll admit it, i'm a fan of the fanon that snape and mcgonagall are friends prior to dumbledore's death - i'm not sure it's canonically plausible, but this sign can't stop me because i can't read - and i like the idea of that blossoming into something more, especially in fics where snape survives the second war. after all, he is a man who definitely needs to be treated quite strictly [and i don't just mean in the staff room], there is a shared loneliness and grief to them both, they're intellectual equals despite the age gap, and bickering about quidditch is absolutely fine as a method of foreplay.

plus, you can't tell me dumbledore's portrait doesn't ship it.

want to give it a read?

for a fic which shows minerva at her acerbic - and yet still sensual - best, always but not necessarily forever by gingertart50 is an old, fluffy, and very funny, favourite.

for something much more bittersweet, that good night by kelly_chambliss has my heart.

severus snape/tom riddle | voldemort

why i ship it:

because voldemort is canonically down bad for it - there is no need to believe snape's ridiculous cover story for not attending his resurrection, to try and spare lily as a treat for his man, and to give him a nice, painful death which allows the narrative to move on and harry to defeat him if the dark lord isn't firmly in his simp era.

more seriously, they obviously have an enormous amount in common, particularly in terms of their backgrounds [harry draws a connection between all three of them, but actually the fact that harry is rich in the wizarding world, not a slytherin, and with a muggle mother, therefore giving him a pureblood name, means he can't relate to the post-childhood experience of both halves of snapemort].

as a result, i think snape is the death eater who comes the closest to understanding voldemort's motivations - above all, the fact that he's not seeking an oligarchy, which the malfoys etc. obviously believe - while voldemort is someone snape feels understands his intellectual interests and his creativity.

want to give it a read?

boy, are you in luck, because i myself have a snapemort wip - scylla and charybdis. it is not wholesome.

tom riddle/myrtle warren

why i ship it:

because it started as crack and now i love them.

in particular, i just have so much respect for being incredibly annoying as a method of seduction, and i think myrtle's commitment to just following tom around chattering at him - and, therefore, without her realising it, preventing him from committing all sorts of crimes - is iconic.

want to give it a read?

then my unhinged rom-com - bookbinding - shall provide.

tom riddle | voldemort/ginny weasley

why i ship it:

because i enjoy seeing my dear friends who ship hinny shake and cry.

but also because ginny and tom have an enormous number of similarities, right down to the fact that they both have yew wands [if you're sick of people saying harry has an oedipus complex, you'll be delighted to be confronted with the mountain of evidence ginny reminds him of the villain who keeps trying to kill him instead].

they are both very good liars, quick thinking, remarkably resistant to shame, possessed of nerves of steel, predisposed to violence, brown-eyed, so hot they have harry gagged, and the profound enemy of someone whose surname is smith.

despite what he claims, tom was absolutely not just sat politely in that diary gritting his teeth while ginny complained about having second hand robes and idiot brothers. as he says, he opted "to start feeding [her] a few of my secrets", and i think it's justifiable from canon that they were at the very least half-truths [for example, i would not be shocked to discover he tells her he's a half-blood orphan brought up against his will in the muggle world - there's no other reason, i think, for him to successfully make her tell him these things about harry without it], which means that ginny has lots of lovely emotional leverage over him.

plus, as with tomarry, you have the element of "this is kind of inevitable" in the relationship, and the mysteries of fate are always sexy.

want to give it a read?

this is a tommary/hinny/tominny triad, but it has had me in a chokehold since the first time i read it - shameful company by merrivale, which, truly iconically, manages to be epilogue compliant.

#asenora fic recs #rare pair tag game #starprince #snirius #snack hp #riddledore #snumbledore #petunia dursley x severus snape #merope gaunt x tom riddle sr #bellamort #tom riddle x draco malfoy #snarcissa #minerva mcgonagall x severus snape #snapemort #tom riddle x myrtle warren #tom riddle x ginny weasley #lots to read

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saintsenara · 1 month

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Snape/James

Snape/James/Lily

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

james potter/severus snape

i have read it - and i've received some very interesting recs for it, which do make me see why people would be into it as a concept - but snames isn’t really a pairing i vibe with.

this is largely because - in my view - the two of them don’t have any particularly interesting points of narrative convergence or divergence in canon which can serve as a hook to grab the reader's attention as a non-canon pairing. snack - snape and sirius - is a hot ship because they’re narrative mirrors within the text: they have identical experiences of and attitudes towards grief, duty, atonement and so on, caused by the fact that they are both indirectly responsible for killing the person they love the most; they both have complicated relationships with their families; they are both outsiders among their peer groups; their differences are polar opposites - sirius is rich, snape is poor, sirius is an outsider within gryffindor, snape is an outsider within slytherin, sirius is attractive, snape is ugly; and so on.

but snames doesn’t have that spark. their differences don’t exist on a scale, like snape’s do with sirius, they just exist as separate categories of experience. james is uncomplicatedly beloved by his happy family, snape is not. james is an inherent insider, whose whole pureblood family have been in gryffindor, snape is an inherent outsider within slytherin on account of his poverty and blood-status. james is rich, but his wealth doesn’t come with strings attached, whereas sirius’ is obviously only something he’s permitted to access if he conforms to his parents’ restrictive social views and snape has none at all. james is a physical everyman - neither as ugly as snape nor as good-looking as sirius - and, therefore, someone who has no idea how it feels to stand out because of your looks [or name, or choices].

that said, james’ obvious sexual jealousy of snape could definitely be because he wants to bang him. i think we can all see him trying to get to lily by befriending her bestie, only to end up in love. good for him.

james potter/lily potter/severus snape

my thoughts on this can be distilled into a fic rec - the gorgeous the loves of the plants by eldritcher.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #snames #james potter #severus snape #asenora fic recs

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saintsenara · 7 months

Note

What are your guilty pleasure tropes?

thank you for the ask @sarafina-sincerity!

forced proximity of any kind

i've answered specifically about one example of this - marriage law fics - here, but the main trope i'm a slut for is absolutely, one hundred percent, without a doubt anything which requires two people who don't want to have to spend time together having to spend time together. with sexy results.

enemies-to-lovers

let's all be honest, one's emotional investment in one's enemy is often more profound than in one's friend. let's also be honest, people become enemies because they have things in common. combine those similarities with the emotional investment? sexy results.

narrative mirror pairings

unsurprisingly, there's often quite a lot of overlap between this and the above. the harry potter series loves assigning its characters to narrative pairs whose roles in the story are the mirror images of each other, but whose personalities, dreams, desires, experiences, motivations etc. are often very similar. and the narrative mirror pairings which fall under this category are always exceptional: harry potter/tom riddle; draco malfoy/ron weasley (getting slept on because of drarry); sirius black/severus snape and so on... sexy results.

magical worldbuilding which feels magical

a lot of fan-fiction falls into one (or both) of two categories: it deals with considerably darker or drier topics (especially when it comes to thinking about how the wizarding state actually works and/or how it changes after voldemort's death) than the canon series; and it serves as a vehicle for the author to talk about aspects of muggle culture they enjoy (this is particularly the case in marauders fics and it drives me mad - none of those children have heard a single piece of cool music in their lives).

but the canon series feels so magical because the worldbuilding is incredibly whimsical, even in the darker later books. something is lost, i think, when wizarding clothing isn't ostentatious and colourful, or wizarding hobbies aren't exaggerated pastiches of muggle hobbies, or wizarding houses are devoid of eccentric kitchen appliances which talk back to you, or all wizards are immediately familiar with the muggle world. i can't express how much i respect it when authors invent their own radio plays or wizarding bands or children's toys.

and that whimsy can exist with a look at deep topics - indeed, it does frequently in one of my favourite literary genres: golden age detective fiction. in fact, i think it makes the dark themes and how they're being interrogated stand out all the clearer. which brings me to my next point...

allowing the characters to be funny

by this i don't mean crack fics - although crack treated seriously is definitely a trope i adore - but finding space for the fact that almost all of the main characters in the series - all the way along a spectrum from the main trio, to ginny, to sirius, to dumbledore, to snape, to voldemort (he's so camp! lean into it!) - are extremely funny, even when in serious situations or discussing serious things.

unfortunately, it is all too common to find - especially in things dealing with the immediate aftermath of either war - that everyone is in their widow's weeds and speaking like they've swallowed a psychology textbook. but actually, harry and ron aren't going to be sitting down for a deep and meaningful using all sorts of 'i feel' statements. they're going to be chatting shit.

[there's a bit of unsolicited advice here, which can, like all unsolicited advice, of course be ignored: this sort of therapy-speak, every-emotion-is-articulated conversational style is something which immediately gives away an author as american (generally, the sort of emotional openness which, in the usa, indicates authenticity will be read as the opposite in the uk - being very earnest is typically perceived as rude, expressing your emotional reaction to everything as fake). if you're looking for a way to make your writing sound more british, the best thing you can do is read ron, and see - as @whinlatter says in this post about him - that his sense of humour isn't evidence of immaturity or an unwillingness to confront tough topics, but evidence that he's the most emotionally mature of the trio. by quite some distance.]

ron and dumbledore being allowed to be real people

i loathe ron and dumbledore bashing. let my kings live.

and let ron be madly in love with hermione. his final form is wife guy.

redemption

i am a villain enjoyer, and i think there's nothing wrong with liking characters who remain unambiguously, unrepentantly evil.

what i like rather less is the idea that villains don't have traits, emotions, experiences, and motivations which aren't anything other than similar to the good guys.

and what i like least of all is the idea that there are some people who are so divergent from the good guys that they are unworthy of one of the most sincerely magical human abilities: the ability to redeem oneself.

yes, even draco malfoy, even snape, even voldemort. unless all of us are capable of redemption then none of us are. this is an important lesson to learn.

how these people redeem themselves, how redemption is complex and painful, how they atone, how they cope with the unmooring experience of forgiveness, how they take to their second chances, and how they stumble on the way are the topics of some of the best fics i have ever read, and i will never get free of the chokehold.

#asks answered #asenora on writing

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saintsenara · 10 months

Note

I have really enjoyed reading your answers to the rare pair tag game. I have added a lot of the fics that you recommended on your latest answer to my 'Marked for Later' list on a03 to enjoy over the weekend. I was wondering your honest thoughts are on the following ships: Tom/Ron, James/Snape, Tom/Hermione, Molly/Bellatrix, James/Regulus and Snape/Lily and Dudley/Draco. I apologise for the number of ships and I am really curious on your opinions.

thank you so much for the ask, @sarafina-sincerity - and for continuing my recent tradition of offering opinions nobody else wanted to hear on an increasingly unhinged list of pairings.

[i know you sent a message apologising for sending some ships which were asked before, but i love to chatter, so i'm going in to answer the original...]

tom riddle | voldemort/ron weasley

obviously this is the crack pairing when it comes to voldemort + a member of the trio - while tomarrymort and tomione/volmione stories number into the thousands on ao3, voln/ton/rom/ronmort/whatever we're calling it has a grand total of... ten tagged works.

i think this is a tremendous shame, but not - it's important to say - because i agree with the tedious fanon idea, particularly prevalent in ships which feature hermione with anyone else, that ron would make a good death eater [as you will see below, i think that honour belongs firmly to hermione herself...] - even in a voldemort wins au, ron isn't going over to the dark side. it sounds too much like hard work.

instead, i'm into this pairing because ron is... kind of mother. he likes to look after people and he channels his negative emotions into doing this [he wouldn't have left the tent if harry and hermione had learned how to shoplift properly and he could be settled in front of a nice pot, i'll die on that hill]. just imagine little captive ron - maybe the snatchers recognised him, maybe voldemort's won and everyone else is dead - bustling around his gilded prison in malfoy manor making the dark lord a cup of tea when he turns up to psychologically torture him. voldemort would - as i am - be intrigued.

and if, in fact, you'd like to see almost exactly this situation play out, you will definitely enjoy wind tunnels by @mrmxlemons. ron isn't having a good time, but his cooking is.

james potter/severus snape

i've not read much snames, so this is mostly just based on general vibes: i think it's fine but not fantastic.

as i've said in literally everything i've ever posted about sirius black/severus snape, snack is a great pairing because they're narrative mirrors, something which creates so much drama that it makes me scream.

severus and james don't have this - if anything, they're narrative opposites. james is adored by his parents, he's rich, he gets the girl, his best friend is in love with him and not the other way round, he's the ringleader of his gang rather than a follower, his whole family have been gryffindors, and so on and so forth. obviously opposites attract, but you haven't got the immediate potential for connection that you have between severus and characters such as sirius, lily, and - let's all be real - voldemort.

i'm not really going to get into the bullying debate here, but it seems to me that severus would regard james - had he lived - in a similar way to how he regards the adult lupin; that is, that he would completely disassociate from any situation in which he's present, rather than love getting in his face as he does with sirius. i don't love snupin for this reason [i'll read it, of course, but it always feels extremely ooc to me] - the fissure caused by their conflicting personalities simply runs too deep, and my suspicion is that snames is the same.

hermione granger/tom riddle | voldemort

so, this is the one where I think I'm likely to deviate most significantly from the opinions of my dash...

i think it's entirely plausible, but only from hermione's side.

the argument i've seen most against tomione/volmione is that hermione's moral code would never permit her to accept anything less than a voldemort who was transformed into a man she would want - which means the whole murder thing needs to get thrown in the bin.

i... disagree. the canonical hermione is someone who is very morally inflexible in relation to how she expects others to behave, but incredibly morally flexible - and often quite immoral - in pursuit of things she herself wants or thinks she wants. she is also the cruelest and most ruthless member of the trio. she thinks herself rational and would - therefore - be the easiest for anyone cleverer than rita skeeter to manipulate. she is very lonely, and would, in a situation in which she was captured, be the member of the trio most swayed by basic demonstrations of kindness [lord voldemort only needs to endure a brief conversation about hogwarts: a history and hint that harry and ron aren't coming to look for her and he's golden]. she always thinks she's right - if she's convinced just by harry and ron not telling her otherwise that her knitted hats are freeing house elves in their droves, i am certain she could be convinced that she won concessions for muggleborns under voldemort's regime through her own skill and not because he wanted to grant them anyway. and so on.

whether the relationship is something she has to do or wants to do, i think she'd be able to justify it to herself as a necessary evil which doesn't actually go against her standards for herself. that she would never think this for harry and ron if they shacked up with the dark lord is part of the fun...

from voldemort's perspective, while he definitely has a weakness for dark curly hair [bellamort nation, rise up], i cannot see him going for it as anything other than a tool of psychological warfare [whereas i think you can write e.g. tomarry based very much in mutual attraction]. intellectually, while hermione is very clever, she doesn't have the interest in experimentation which voldemort has [this is why snapemort and riddledore both always slap - they have the same views on magic], she's extremely condescending, which is his thing, she obviously grew up incredibly rich, and her dour, whiggish empiricism doesn't align very well with his late-antique-emperor's view of the world.

she doesn't give a shit about dead rabbits though. maybe they could bond over that.

bellatrix lestrange/molly weasley

yeah why not. they canonically went to hogwarts at the same time and bellatrix is definitely giving off jilted ex vibes in that final duel.

would molly put up with bella's nonsense? absolutely not. bellatrix would have exactly the same reaction as fleur to the burrow - nothing to do except cooking and chickens - and the ensuing argument would burn the place to the ground far more interestingly than that dogshit scene in the half-blood prince film.

regulus black/james potter

i don't know her, sorry.

lily evans/severus snape

as i said here, i'm into it in a post-james world where lily is trying to rebuild her life by connecting with her past.

so let's take it from a different angle: do i think it could work in the pre-james era?

absolutely not. i think these two need something as seismic as catastrophic loss to force them to actually engage with each other as they are, rather than as the versions they've constructed in their heads. at school, where they're both just dancing round each other, never seeing eye-to-eye on anything, they're never going to be able to get to that place.

i also think james needs to be out of the picture - she's clearly into him long before the mudblood incident, and that knowledge would only ever make severus astonishingly unpleasant to have as a boyfriend. rip king, but you were lost in service of shipping.

dudley dursley/draco malfoy

yeah it's hot. boxer!dudley is enormous and ripped, what's not to love. draco deserves a huge boy who also hates harry.

plus imagine narcissa vs petunia on the topic of their darling boys. or lucius vs vernon when the former pulls up to privet drive in a flying rolls royce. i would be seated.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #unhinged and deranged ships

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saintsenara · 6 months

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Your ships opinions are at the same time so funny and so interesting I'm like rolling on the floor howling in laughter and nodding my head in appreciation at the same time xD

I'm wondering now, since you posted ur opinions of snegulus based on Scylla and Charybdis (great fic btw! It's been a while since I got that invested in a fanfiction!), what are your opinions on: James/Severus, James/Lily and Tobias/Eileen?

Also, for the sake of crack, what do you think of Severus/Peter, Marvolo/Albefort and Umbridge/Fudge/Scrimgeour?

thank you very much, anon, both for the very kind shoutout to scylla and charybdis and for the selection of ships.

james potter/severus snape

snames isn’t really a pairing i vibe with, because - in my view - they don’t have any particularly interesting points of narrative convergence or divergence. snack - snape and sirius - is a hot ship because they’re narrative mirrors: they have identical experiences of and attitudes towards grief, duty, atonement and so on, caused by the fact that they are both indirectly responsible for killing the person they love the most; they both have complicated relationships with their families; they are both outsiders among their peer groups; their differences are polar opposites - sirius is rich, snape is poor, sirius is an outsider within gryffindor, snape is an outsider within slytherin, sirius is attractive, snape is ugly; and so on.

but snames doesn’t have that spark. their differences don’t exist on a scale, like snape’s do with sirius, they just exist as separate categories of experience. james is beloved by his family, snape is not. james is an inherent insider, whose whole family have been in gryffindor, snape is an inherent outsider. james is rich, but his wealth doesn’t come with strings attached, whereas sirius’ is obviously only something he’s permitted to access if he conforms to his parents’ restrictive social views and snape has none at all. james is a physical everyman - neither as ugly as snape nor as good-looking as sirius - and, therefore, someone who has no idea how it feels to stand out because of your looks (or name, or choices).

lily evans/james potter

i don’t really care about jily, beyond saying that james deserves our respect for bagging a baddie.

i don’t subscribe to the common anti-jily position that if they’d lived they wouldn’t have stayed together - nor that they weren’t sincerely compatible - i’m just not particularly interested in them because i think that there are far more engaging first-war characters, and that fics in which both of them live always kind of flop. harry is just much less interesting if he’s just from a happy home.

what i do like about jily is thinking about the other marauders’ reactions to it. the fact that sirius and lupin never mention lily is - of course - a narrative necessity, since the harry potter series needs to keep the fact of her centrality to the mystery hidden until the very last minute, but i am committed to ignoring that and being sincerely convinced that neither of them liked her. in sirius’ case, because she took the man he obviously loves from him. in lupin’s, idk, who cares about him.

eileen prince/tobias snape

my view on this is informed by the fact that i simply do not accept the fanon that eileen is from an elite pureblood family - she can’t be! her marriage to a muggle man is announced in the daily prophet! what purebloods are doing that?

the only person who ever suggests she might be is harry, who does so on the basis of no evidence, in order to force a comparison between snape and voldemort as a way of soothing his furious grief over dumbledore’s death. but one of the central jokes in voldemort’s background is that he is - by far - the most aristocratic character in the entire series, in both the magical and muggle worlds, but he is denied access to the social cachet this brings in the muggle world because he’s raised in an orphanage and never acknowledged by tom riddle sr. and in the wizarding world because he has a muggle name which means he’s denied access to the lineage-based hierarchy of wizarding society, even though he’s descended from slytherin. it doesn’t make sense, then, for snape to be in the same position - the uniqueness of voldemort’s parentage is the point.

i think of eileen, then, as a half-blood. i also think of her, regardless of her blood-status, as being from a working-class background herself, rather than raised in ancestral majesty. [after all, we have andromeda for that.]

i also think of her and tobias as childhood friends - from the same class background and the same area - with magic the only difference between them. i love this as a trope, because the canonical series does far too little interrogation of the fact that - for all dumbledore and the order’s grandstanding over the inherent goodness of the muggle world - all but one of the mixed muggle-magical relationships we see in canon fail*, all muggleborn children extract themselves totally from the world of their birth, and the two worlds are as completely segregated by the good guys as they are by the death eaters. eileen discovering that magic - which looked so unlikely to cause an issue when she fell in love with toby aged ten - causes the man she adores to despise her, the son she loves to resent her, and the poverty in which she lives to continue unabated is something i think is really valuable to explore.

plus, the idea that eileen - in her son’s eyes - threw away her prestigious magical education to return to a cotton-town slum and marry a poor man provides the perfect explanation for why severus snape makes the choices he makes in his adult life.

[*we hear of four muggle-magical relationships in canon - jkr has added several more in her post-series writing, undoubtedly because she realised how this looks: tom riddle sr. and merope gaunt, tobias and eileen, dean’s parents, and seamus’ parents. we all know what happened to tom and merope, tobias and eileen are canonically a violent, unhappy marriage, dean’s dad leaves his mum when he’s a baby, and seamus’ parents may or may not still be together.]

peter pettigrew/severus snape

so, can we all agree that making snape and wormtail live together for a summer is a god-tier petty move from lord voldemort? imagining him rocking up at spinner’s end with wormtail in tow and saying ‘he’s doing my head in, so he’s your problem now’ sends me every time.

i think they fuck once or twice - what else is there to do in cokeworth? - but neither of them enjoy it.

aberforth dumbledore/marvolo gaunt

i’m sorry, but i can’t stand the disrespect being shown by this question towards one of my favourite canon couples… aberforth/goat.

cornelius fudge/rufus scrimgeour/dolores umbridge

hot!

after all, scrimgeour is gassing her up to harry when he visits him in half-blood prince, and you only do that if the sex is good.

my theory, though? fudge isn’t on board with it - his vibe in canon is that he appreciates umbridge’s bureaucratic loyalty to him but he’d love to stop getting raunchy letters from her, and when rufus suggested that they add a third to their bedroom activities it never occurred to him that she’d be in contention. he wishes he’d known. he’d have vetoed.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #snames #jily #and others

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saintsenara · 1 year

Note

We share so many terrible faves! I've selected five per pairing:

Sirius/Severus:

6. How do they make up/apologize after an argument?

14. Do they enjoy PDA, or are they more private with affection?

24. How do their personalities affect their relationship? Do their characteristics compliment each other, or clash often?

38. Who’s got a quicker temper?

32. Do either of them drink? If so, who’s the lightweight, and how does their partner care for them?

41. What would they do if they lost the other?

Severus/Voldemort:

5. Do they argue often? If so, what do they argue about?

8. What do they love most about the other? Why?

17. How well do they communicate? Are they open with their feelings/thoughts or more reserved? Why?

33. How do they flirt? Who’s the worse flirt?

18. How do they care for each other when one of them is wounded/sick?

Bella/Voldemort:

4. Who initiates affection? Why does the other not initiate affection as much?

9. What do they dislike most about the other? Why?

19. Do they wear each other’s clothes/jewelry?

48. Do they talk about their future together? Why or why not?

34. Do they have any inside jokes?

Tom/Harry:

12. Do they have a difficult time when separated from each other, or are they fairly independent?

20. How do they comfort each other when one of them is upset? Is this method of comfort effective?

22. Are they comfortable joking around with each other and being silly/playful?

30. What are their respective love languages? Do their love languages work well together?

37. Who’s more emotionally sensitive/cries more often?

Tom/Dumbledore:

10. Do they share any hobbies or interests? How do these things bring them together?

35. Is their relationship a secret? If so, why?

49. Do they keep secrets from each other?

27. How do they say “I love you” non-verbally?

44. Do they cuddle often? Why or why not?

thank you for the ask, anon! it's so nice to meet someone else cultured...

this ended up being enormous, so i've put the answers under the cut [thank you for giving me a very fun way to spend my breaks at work writing this out]. read on for snack, snapemort, bellamort, tomarry, and riddledore nonsense.

[ship game here.]

sirius black/severus snape

6. how do they make up/apologise after an argument?

by fucking.

to the extent that the first time they sleep together without arguing beforehand frightens them both so much - because, oops, you actually like each other boys, it’s not just hate-sex, sorry about that - that they have an argument afterwards instead.

14. do they enjoy pda or are they more private with affection?

when they’re pretending to have no interest whatsoever in each other, they avoid anything which could even remotely be interpreted as pda. it’s this - the fact that they immediately stop getting in each other’s space, and coming up with witty insults, and jabbing their wands in each other’s faces [behave] - that means everyone else knows they’re sleeping together. lupin tells sirius this and enjoys watching his old friend almost faint.

once they’re forced to accept - very much against their wills - that they’re in a real relationship, and that people know about it and the world hasn’t ended, i think sirius is very keen on pda, entirely because he thinks it annoys snape.

he’s wrong. but snape isn’t going to admit that.

24. how do their personalities affect their relationship? do their characteristics compliment each other, or clash often?

the reason why snack is such an intriguing ship is because they’re narrative mirrors - and, particularly, because they’re both men whose relationship with the world around them is driven by a desire for forgiveness which they are never able to offer themselves.

that shared underlying faithfulness, steadfastness, capacity to endure, and the shared understanding of grief - and not only grief, but grief you brought directly upon yourself - and unrequited love [the implication of canon is absolutely that sirius’ love for james was not simply platonic, and i’ll die on that hill] forms the bones of their relationship, and is the thing which helps them survive the fact that the more surface-level aspects of their personalities - sirius’ recklessness, snape’s massive victim complex, sirius’ fits of melancholy, snape’s intolerance for those who find life hard or unfair, the fact that they’re both capable of being incredibly cruel - clash constantly.

32. do either of them drink? if so, who’s the lightweight, and how does their partner care for them?

in the canon timeline, they both survive the misery of the second war by using alcohol as a crutch [although snape is less destructive, since he needs to remain sober enough to deal with voldemort]. should one overindulge, the other just leaves him in misery, believing it to serve him right.

after the war, however, i think both of them eventually come to the realisation that part of their long-overdue healing processes involves going tee-total. snape gets very into brewing interesting cordials. sirius becomes an expensive loose-leaf tea snob.

38. who’s got a quicker temper?

their argument over this destroyed the kitchen at grimmauld place.

41. what would they do if they lost the other?

continue on in silent grief, as they were already doing with the memories of lily and james.

severus snape/lord voldemort

5. do they argue often? if so, what do they argue about?

so, obviously, in most cases, attempting to argue with lord voldemort will be the last thing you ever do, but there must be an established frankness to the way that snape speaks to him which meant he could get through his "here’s why i was hours late to your resurrection" explanation without being murdered. voldemort appears to dislike sycophancy [or, at least, to think that he does] and he abhors liars [snape: lmao], so i do think - controversially - that he would regard a bit of pushback from his favourite death eaters as evidence of him being correct to rank them so highly.

as for what they argue about? well, snape was pissed that he had to host pettigrew in his home. voldemort was paying for that for months.

8. what do they love most about the other? why?

"love" might be pushing it, but…

snape’s reasons for joining the death eaters are varied and complex, across a whole spectrum from misguided to contemptible, but it’s very clear that none of them were ever the conviction that "the dark lord will put the purebloods in charge" that hooked in characters like regulus black or lucius malfoy.

what gets him, instead, is clearly a belief that voldemort can offer him a way to transcend a background which he hates and which - given the way we know the wizarding world works - will actively hinder him in his adult life. [as an aside, i think this is the reason for his view, which otherwise seems nonsensical, that lily is overreacting to his interest in the death eaters: he thinks that they could offer her opportunities otherwise restricted to her as a muggleborn.]

and, in this, i think he comes closer than many other death eaters to understanding how voldemort actually thinks, and this is the reason for voldemort’s obvious - and unusual - affection for him. voldemort clearly has a great desire to be perceived, and the sense that snape is someone like him, someone who understands him, someone he has given the opportunities denied to him and essentially made in his own image, is meaningful to him.

similarly, snape feels seen by voldemort - and, in particular, seen for the intellectual creativity of which he is so proud. voldemort describes himself in goblet of fire as a keen inventor of spells and potions, as well as someone with an insatiable academic curiosity and extremely flexible morals on how that curiosity is sated. even once he switches sides - since dumbledore is, sensibly, wary of his undiminished interest in the dark arts - i can see voldemort remaining the only person snape feels truly understands just how much his intelligence and creativity matters to him.

17. how well do they communicate? are they open with their feelings/thoughts or more reserved? why?

on the one hand, given that - canonically - snape spends the majority of their acquaintance lying to voldemort and voldemort kills him and only half says sorry for it, obviously they don’t communicate well at all.

but, on the other, there must - as i’ve said - be a frankness to their communication style. a common gripe i have with fanon!snape is that his skill as an occlumens is portrayed as the result of granite emotional repression - occlumency, instead, requires manipulating your emotional responses to questioning in a way which enables you to lie fluently, and snape’s skill in the medium comes from the fact that his authentic self is incredibly petty.

indeed, he displays this in front of voldemort - his interaction with yaxley in the dark lord ascending is uncomplicatedly spiteful, and voldemort doesn’t seem surprised by it; the way he speaks to wormtail in spinner’s end suggests that voldemort has given his tacit approval for snape to humiliate pettigrew; the fact that he tells bellatrix to report what he says in the same scene to others suggests that voldemort would not be angry to hear him insult his erstwhile favourite.

similarly, snape’s emotional volatility must have been displayed to voldemort at other points - he is implied to have begged desperately for lily’s survival, for example, and it’s clear that a great deal of voldemort’s opinion on harry [especially the fact that he mentions more than once in the later books that harry has been pampered and protected] must come from snape’s unhinged dislike of him.

so, while snape’s communication style with voldemort is dishonest, i don’t think it can be described as inauthentic. in fact, voldemort is, like dumbledore, probably one of the only people who sees the full emotional range of snape.

[voldemort, of course, communicates only in half-truths - i think he’s probably more open with snape than with most other people, but that’s not saying a lot.]

18. how do they care for each other when one of them is wounded/sick?

when snape is sick or wounded, lord voldemort convinces himself that the only reason he is brewing healing potions, and watching carefully for how they interact with orange juice and chicken soup, is because he has a readily available test subject in the vicinity.

being immortal means you never get sick, and no amount of "you have a fever, my lord, and you should rest" will convince him otherwise. snape, since he’s fond of his limbs, doesn’t force the issue.

33. how do they flirt? who’s the worse flirt?

by arguing about potions theory. voldemort once described himself as "quite impressed" by one of snape’s modifications to a common poison. snape considers it the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to him.

if by "worse" we mean most incorrigible, it’s voldemort - although that’s only if you consider being threatened to be flirting. snape, with his latent humiliation kink, does.

if by "worse" we mean least sophisticated, it’s also voldemort. a menacing aura is not the same as having game.

bellatrix lestrange/lord voldemort

4. who initiates affection? why does the other not initiate affection as much?

she’s more casually tactile, which drives him round the bend, because someone constantly trying to stroke your arm at death eater meetings doesn’t do great things for your "evil and unapproachable" vibe. the absence of passing affection - hand-holding, cuddles etc. - upsets bellatrix [who, whatever else was wrong with her childhood, did grow up with that sort of openness with her sisters], although she is careful never to mention this to him.

but, this being said, voldemort is clearly a man who is, deep down, desperate for affection, and i think on occasion the dam must burst - only ever behind closed doors, only ever when there is plausible deniability [he was drinking, she had done something she was being particularly rewarded for etc.] of his feelings for her - and he must reveal himself as deeply, and probably oddly tenderly, passionate.

9. what do they dislike most about the other? why?

i’ve answered this here.

19. do they wear each other’s clothes/jewellery?

bellatrix thinks his dress sense is too ascetic, voldemort thinks hers is too ostentatious. neither would be seen dead in the other’s clothes.

she will never understand the significance of him lending her a large gold locket - which, if she’s honest, she thought was quite ugly - to wear to a new year’s eve party in 1978.

34. do they have any inside jokes?

bellatrix does a fantastic impression of fudge seeing them in the ministry atrium.

48. do they talk about their future together? why or why not?

she does, he only half pays attention, convinced that she is in such awe of him that she would never make a decision that impacted them both without his express permission. this comes back to bite him, when he discovers he was thinking about a rare curse he wanted to try on some muggle prisoners while bellatrix was talking about how her youthful desire to never have children had been changed by her experience in azkaban.

in a voldemort wins au - with or without delphini in it [i’m quite fond of her as a concept, but perhaps that’s because i’ve neither seen nor read the cursed child] - i think that bellatrix does snap and demands that he acknowledges their relationship in some way, since his go-to excuse of "nothing is certain in war" no longer applies. rodolphus is shuffled off to become the ambassador to some faraway place and bellatrix gets to hear overcautious ministry underlings refer to her as "my lady" at state events.

he's never a good father, though. i just can’t see it.

harry potter/tom riddle

12. do they have a difficult time when separated from each other, or are they fairly independent?

both harry and voldemort are very self-sufficient, so i don’t think they would be the sort of people who went mad with pining if they were apart from each other for a while. voldemort’s enormous ego means he can’t see a reason to be the jealous type [canonically, rodolphus would be dead if he were, i'm sure], while harry’s commitment to just suffering through stuff means he endures separations without temptation. their shared mental connection - exploited by hundreds of authors for porn reasons - helps there too.

however, one of the issues with your boyfriend being a terrorist [even if, occasionally, he’s reformed] is that it’s very difficult to leave him alone without worrying what he might get up to. harry prefers it if they’re joined at the hip, just for his own peace of mind.

20. how do they comfort each other when one of them is upset? is this method of comfort effective?

voldemort awkwardly pats harry’s head and tells him to get over it. harry says something which voldemort decides to take as colossally insensitive. in the ensuing argument, they forget what they were upset about.

22. are they comfortable joking around with each other and being silly/playful?

yes. harry spends canon roasting the death eaters, why not scale his operations up to the big boss? he regards pointing out that he won literally all of their encounters/that voldemort didn’t realise he was a horcrux/that he stabbed the diary/that his body isn’t ⅓ wormtail/that he knows more than one offensive spell/that he has a nose as foreplay.

30. what are their respective love languages? do their love languages work well together?

tom "magpie" riddle’s love language is gift-giving. harry, who is shown in canon to understand the childhood trauma behind voldemort’s hoarding, takes the theory that this is something he would like seriously but is not a great gift-giver in practice. he makes hermione give him lots of suggestions, and sees it as a net positive that this forces voldemort to be nice to her.

harry’s love language is acts of service. voldemort’s belief that he alone knows how to do everything properly and so harry shouldn’t be forced to do anything without his help, fulfils this surprisingly effectively.

37. who’s more emotionally sensitive/cries more often?

harry is probably the more emotionally sensitive one - which is a damning indictment on how emotionally damaged voldemort is - and the one who, as he comes to terms with the griefs of his childhood, is least afraid to show his feelings.

however, harry is very good at compartmentalising his feelings and, outside of order of the phoenix, has a remarkable capacity to just let things go. voldemort, in contrast, is canonically someone who has a very mercurial temper - he feels things much more suddenly and deeply than harry, and holds grudges so profoundly that he tanks generations of students’ education to indulge them. part of their relationship is him learning that, sometimes, harry’s willingness to not fester in emotion is good, and harry learning that screaming at people is, on occasion, very cathartic.

albus dumbledore/lord voldemort

10. do they share any hobbies or interests? how do these things bring them together?

although by the later books the idea that voldemort has an interest in anything other than dark magic [or, if you go by the films, an interest in anything other than shrieking] has gone out the window, it’s clear that he and dumbledore are the characters in the series who can best be described as polymaths, and that voldemort is one of the few people alive who is dumbledore’s intellectual equal [and, maybe, in some areas, superior]. i like the idea of them competing to out-do each other with huge displays of set-piece magic [dumbledore is unimpressed by the horcrux cave, voldemort takes that personally] and bickering constantly about new techniques or theories which would enable that, both enjoying - but never admitting to enjoying - the fact that the other actually understands what they’re talking about.

i also like the idea of dumbledore finally getting his grand tour, somewhere on the albanian riviera.

27. how do they say “i love you” non-verbally?

by not murdering each other. and by voldemort keeping quiet about the mistake he found in the formula for the eleventh use of dragon's blood.

35. is their relationship a secret? if so, why?

my preferred riddledore dynamic is either student/teacher [don’t judge me] or both of them growing so tired of their spies’ incompetence during wartime that they just start communicating directly with each other. so yes.

but even in a hypothetical happy-ever-after, i still think the relationship would be kept secret - not at voldemort’s request, but at dumbledore’s. dumbledore’s relationship to his own sexuality is defined by denial - while i don’t think at all that he's ashamed to be gay [or bi, or pan, or however else you think he might identify], i think he does view desire itself in a negative sense, since it was allowing himself to give in wholeheartedly to desire in his relationship with grindelwald that led, as he sees it, to ariana’s death. we can get hints of how this might work in the specific context of his relationship with voldemort in canon - dumbledore views love as sacrificial and noble, rather than pleasurable; he has a low tolerance for hedonism or indulgence; he is, in his manner of relating to others, distant and ascetic. while voldemort is similarly self-controlled, his obvious need for comfort, recognition, and affection is something i think dumbledore would find it very difficult to provide openly, and i think - in a situation where the whole thing didn’t crash and burn - they would live entirely separate lives, punctuated periodically by some very creative sex.

44. do they cuddle often? why or why not?

no, of course they don’t. that would be emotionally healthy and healing for two such touch-starved people. they have to refuse on principle.

49. do they keep secrets from each other?

they don’t do anything but, at first. in particular, dumbledore goes out of his way to keep his relationship with grindelwald secret, until rita skeeter decides to break the story one afternoon because she’s just feeling silly that way. the ensuing argument - "how dare you judge me for murdering my father when you killed your own sister!"/ "it was an accident!"/"so was the basilisk!" and so on - is legendary and destroys half of godric’s hollow.

but it brings about a reckoning too. it’s clear in canon that one of the things voldemort particularly dislikes about dumbledore is his belief that dumbledore is a hypocrite - "you do not seek to kill me, dumbledore? above such brutality, are you?" from the ministry duel always stands out to me, given that voldemort knows dumbledore has sent half the order to risk death without a second thought, as does the fact that the death eaters tell harry that voldemort was genuinely shocked to discover dumbledore hadn’t told him about the prophecy. the cause of dumbledore’s complicated relationship with honesty - profound childhood/teenage trauma - is something voldemort can understand, and it gives them something to relate to each other with which helps there be a little, teeny-tiny bit less lying in the relationship from that point.

#asks answered #ship ask game #asenora's opinions on ships #starprince #snapemort #bellamort #tomarry #harrymort #riddledore #i have a lot of feelings

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