Fools Walk In

Twelve minutes before I have to ricochet out into the rain, so excuse the breathless tone. There's a fest currently running on Polyjuice Potion, a Russian-language HP fansite, and the wonderful kasmunaut has just posted the first half of her translation of The Lost World. Yay! Translation is such a labor of love, and I've been incredibly lucky in this regard. Included is an illustration by the extremely talented John-n-Mary, whose extraordinary and fantastical artwork is available here on DeviantArt. The picture gave me goosebumps the first time I saw it, because the artist emphasizes the disturbing undertones, the combination of seduction and cruelty, that underlie so many fairytales. It's beautiful and strange, and I adore it.

If you want to go directly to the artwork, it's here.

John-n-mary also drew a pencil version of a scene from When the Rose and the Fire Are One, which is equally lovely and disturbing (I guess my preoccupations are showing, eh?)

Please give them a look if you're so inclined. I'd also urge you to browse john-n-mary's gallery. The artist is very gifted, with a remarkable style that weaves dreamlike and folk-tale influences together into images of dark beauty.

*blows kiss to kasmunaut* Thank you both so much, my dears!

I expect I'm the last person to have seen or heard of this, since I'm impervious to the Oscars and often miss word-of-mouth recommendations. But last night, in the spirit of conspiring to open our own bookstore, two friends of mine sat me down and showed me this film. It won Best Animated Short of 2011, and it moved me almost to tears of delight. Not least because it combines two things I adore, books and Buster Keaton (although the latter is more an inspiration than an actual presence). If you haven't watched this yet, let me tempt you to set aside fifteen minutes and spend it in a magical otherworld where books are a calling and a source of enchantment.

ETA: Huh. Apparently IJ disabled the embed code? Or something. I can't preview, either. Oh, well.

For those interested, here's the YouTube link.

My life scarcely seems my own anymore, and I'm so behind on reading, reccing, commenting, answering comments, having fannish conversations. So before I stumble out the door again (possibly after ripping the phone from the wall and burying it in a nearby field), I want to throw a handful of recs out to my flist. Some of these have been recced before, but oh well. I'm here to rec them again. Because, God. So much love. I must share while I can.

First, because I finished reading it at 2 o'clock this morning, which I shouldn't have done but couldn't help:

The Sin in Your Grin (and the Shape of Your Mouth) by Anonymous, posted last night for the dysfuncentine challenge, totally knocked me down and ate me up. Let's get two small nits out of the way, because they hardly matter: for me, the title doesn't match the tone of the fic, and I'm not known for my taste in Snack. Never mind. This story has shot up into my permanent pantheon on a single delirious reading. Writing like this turns me into an infatuated idiot. It's a marvel, vivid, as darkly beautiful and cynical as film noir, smoky and swift and unsentimental. The characterizations in every case are pitch-perfect, but Sirius and Snape will take your breath away. They're everything you see in canon, but their different versions of darkness and obsession and self-destructiveness blossom here, the way flowers grow in ash heaps. The fic zigzags through past and present, narrowing upon tragedy by way of the relentless cost of war and rootlessness and lost youth. The author doesn't sweeten these boys, these shameless arseholes; the sexual collisions and compulsions between Snape and Sirius are complex and damning and they help nothing and no one, and they compound error with cruelty, but they make perfect sense. And the dialogue? Oh my God. I wish I could write like this.

The first entry posted for dysfuncentine also pressed all my buttons (as an aside, this fest has been chock full of fabulous fanworks). It's an amazing, psychologically acute, elliptical, devastating piece of art, and it mirrors (literally) many of my feelings about the Snape/Dumbledore connection. The perspectives here are like cinematic jump-cuts, the contrast of color panels enclosing a crucial moment from canon rendered in stormy black-and-white, which, combined with the reticence of the artist, allows the viewer to decide what s/he thinks it all means. Their faces are suggestive of more than one interpretation: Snape's unreadable mask on his side of the mirror (and oh, that grotty bog!) in contrast with his abject groveling in the past; Dumbledore's juxtaposed expressions of disgust, and the question, posed by his blackened hand, of precisely who and what disgusts him. It's intense and elusive, and the sexual implications make for an even more complicated, disquieting knot.

You Disgust Me

snapecase has concluded this year's run, and I haven't had time to read and rec much, but I did want to single out verdeckt/caecelia's fic The Azote Principle, because it cast a spell that still haunts and preoccupies me. The author possesses an alchemical ability with language; she conjures a poetics of decay and renewal, a scientific metaphysics (if I may risk an oxymoron) of unstable combinations (Snape and Dumbledore, Snape and the ghost of Lily, Snape and the promise of Harry -- in short, Snape and everyone and everything) and the Frankensteinian obsession with life raised from death, the emotional consequences of premature burial, the grotesque sensuality of passion driven inward and burning itself out. Caecelia makes Snape's ugliness the paradoxical source of his fascination, layering suggestion upon mystery and endowing him with a bitter, experimentally-informed philosophy that is exactly right, a kind of essence of Snape. She places him at the intersection of magic and science, self-sacrifice and autonomy, and creates a lyric portrait of this brilliant, acidic, half-mad, self-loathing, contradictory character that is dark with power and strangely heartbreaking. The portrayals of Dumbledore and Sprout are equally persuasive. This fic starts amid disintegration and then dips lower, but by the end the upward arc has begun, and by sheer happenstance a spark has caught in Snape's heart and begun to flare again. Whether this is good or bad is left up to the reader to decide. *g*

Enough words. Oh good God, I'm late again. As usual.

Yes, that's right. And I'm going to foist it on the world. In honor of Severus Snape's birthday.

For the last few months my focus on writing has been at an all-time low, so I did the next best thing: I decided, under the tutelage and encouragement of the delightful fire_juggler, to try reading one of my stories aloud. I have some confidence in my skill at putting words together, none at all in my vocal prowess. Any form of (good) acting (which is how I'd classify reading aloud) is beyond me, but the whole experience turned out to be diverting and even soothing — once I got over the predictable weirdness of listening to my voice in playback.

This is my shortest fic, written for the accio_is_love com, in gratitude to accioslash for her tireless devotion to the Snape/Harry community, her generosity as a mod, artist, and cheerleader, and her personal warmth and loveliness. For her sake, I tried my hand at a somewhat different version of Snape, and this was the result.


( For those who are curious )

So, the day started out well (golden autumn, two whole days off, no family crises) and deteriorated as it went on (no family crises ha ha, said the universe, wrong again!). Now it's late and dark, and I sat me down at my computer to scroll through my flist in a desultory fashion, seeking something to distract me. And whoa!

I got my wish.

sarkysue, who wrote the lovely four-part Snarry fic Revealed, Gently (links to the ending with the chapter list), is also, as it happens, a talented artist. Earlier today, she posted a double nude portrait of Snape and Harry based on When the Rose and the Fire Are One, a fic I wrote in 2008. There are two versions of the portrait, a pencil drawing and a watercolor, and both are beautiful-ugly, strange and almost confrontational, the painting exquisitely tinted and the drawing flowing with clean lines and sharp bones. Snape is rendered in a style that pays tribute to Egon Schiele, while Harry's body is more classical, with the slight hip-tilt common to ancient Greek statuary. Their faces are amazing. There is nothing romantic about these two except for their clasped hands -- and for this fic, that's perfect.

I'd highly recommend clicking through to sarkysue's gallery, where you can click again to enlarge the pictures. For some reason posting them to her journal ended up blurring the images, while the Scrapbook versions remain clear and true.

Thank you so, so much for the wonderful surprise, sarkysue. I know I've said it before, but truly, the talent in this fandom astounds me.

The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly

Title: If the Seas Catch Fire
Pairing: Snape/Harry, some Harry/Ginny
Rating: NC-17
Word count: this section ~9000
Warnings/spoilers: (highlight to view) Minor bondage, major character death, also character afterlife, although be warned the deaths are treated seriously.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Written for entertainment, not profit.
Summary: Severus creates a prison of his own making, and the stars bear witness to it. He cannot speak of love, but as always in his life, it becomes the key to both freedom and death.

This time, to his dismay, love goes by the name of Harry Potter.

A/N: Canon compliant (book canon). I started this fic for the Snarry Games 2009 and to my great distress failed to get anywhere near finishing it. Now, years later, I'd like to dedicate it with affection and gratitude to djin7, The Snarry Games, and all the authors who participated and whose works I adore. You have made Snape/Harry a permanent part of my internal world.

The prompts I chose for the fest were 'Tongue-Tied' and 'Falling Star.'

Many thanks to loupgarou1750, who always comes through for me. Posting today, at the last minute, in honor of the snape_potter Fix It Fest.

NOTE: this is a work-in-progress, so if you have suggestions I'm happy to hear them, up to and including for the title and summary.


( If the Seas Catch Fire )

part two

Title: If the Seas Catch Fire
Pairing: Snape/Harry, some Harry/Ginny
Rating: NC-17
Word count: this section ~7700
Warnings/spoilers: (highlight to view) Minor bondage, major character death, also character afterlife, although be warned the deaths are treated seriously.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Written for entertainment, not profit.
Summary: Severus creates a prison of his own making, and the stars bear witness to it. He cannot speak of love, but as always in his life, it becomes the key to both freedom and death.

This time, to his dismay, love goes by the name of Harry Potter.

A/N: See Chapter One for the full author's notes.

Many thanks to loupgarou1750, who always comes through for me. Posting today, at the last minute, in honor of the snape_potter Fix It Fest.

NOTE: this is a work-in-progress, so if you have suggestions I'm happy to hear them, up to and including the title and summary.


( Part Two )

part three

Title: If the Seas Catch Fire
Pairing: Snape/Harry, some Harry/Ginny
Rating: NC-17
Word count: this section ~5800
Warnings/spoilers: (highlight to view) Minor bondage, major character death, also character afterlife, although be warned the deaths are treated seriously.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Written for entertainment, not profit.
Summary: Severus creates a prison of his own making, and the stars bear witness to it. He cannot speak of love, but as always in his life, it becomes the key to both freedom and death.

This time, to his dismay, love goes by the name of Harry Potter.

A/N: See Chapter One for the full author's notes.

Many thanks to loupgarou1750, who always comes through for me. Posting today, at the last minute, in honor of the snape_potter Fix It Fest.

NOTE: this is a work-in-progress, so if you have suggestions I'm happy to hear them, up to and including the title and summary.


( Part Three )

part four

Title: If the Seas Catch Fire
Pairing: Snape/Harry, some Harry/Ginny
Rating: NC-17
Word count: this section ~5200
Warnings/spoilers: (highlight to view) Minor bondage, major character death, also character afterlife, although be warned the deaths are treated seriously.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Written for entertainment, not profit.
Summary: Severus creates a prison of his own making, and the stars bear witness to it. He cannot speak of love, but as always in his life, it becomes the key to both freedom and death.

This time, to his dismay, love goes by the name of Harry Potter.

A/N: See Chapter One for the full author's notes.

Many thanks to loupgarou1750, who always comes through for me. Posting today, at the last minute, in honor of the snape_potter Fix It Fest.

NOTE: this is a work-in-progress, so if you have suggestions I'm happy to hear them, up to and including the title and summary.


( part four )

part five

Title: If the Seas Catch Fire
Pairing: Snape/Harry, some Harry/Ginny
Rating: NC-17
Word count: this section ~6700
Warnings/spoilers: (highlight to view) Minor bondage, major character death, also character afterlife, although be warned the deaths are treated seriously.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Written for entertainment, not profit.
Summary: Severus creates a prison of his own making, and the stars bear witness to it. He cannot speak of love, but as always in his life, it becomes the key to both freedom and death.

This time, to his dismay, love goes by the name of Harry Potter.

A/N: See Chapter One for the full author's notes.

Many thanks to loupgarou1750, who always comes through for me. Posting today, at the last minute, in honor of the snape_potter Fix It Fest.

NOTE: this is a work-in-progress, so if you have suggestions I'm happy to hear them, up to and including the title and summary.


( part five )

part six

Title: If the Seas Catch Fire
Pairing: Snape/Harry, some Harry/Ginny
Rating: NC-17
Word count: this section ~3200
Warnings/spoilers: (highlight to view) Minor bondage, major character death, also character afterlife, although be warned the deaths are treated seriously.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Written for entertainment, not profit.
Summary: Severus creates a prison of his own making, and the stars bear witness to it. He cannot speak of love, but as always in his life it becomes the key to both freedom and death.

This time, to his dismay, love goes by the name of Harry Potter.

A/N: See Chapter One for the full author's notes.

Many thanks to loupgarou1750, who always comes through for me. Posting today, at the last minute, in honor of the snape_potter Fix It Fest.

NOTE: this is a work-in-progress, so if you have suggestions I'm happy to hear them, up to and including the title and summary.


( part six )

So, this is a radical idea for me. I've been toying for a while with the possibility of posting a work-in-progress, and I think I'm finally desperate enough to resort to trying it.

Lo, these many years ago, I pulled out of the last Snarry Games because I suck the idea for my fic exploded in size and ambition, and I finally had to admit I wouldn't be able to do it justice in the allotted time. Then, because I apparently can't finish my own work without someone standing over me with a whip, or at least a deadline, my forward momentum lapsed and the fic languished.

Fast-forward two years, ( and it's seized my imagination again. )

This fic is the most romantic thing I've ever written. It's also the angstiest. This worries me a bit, whenever I stop to ponder world-peace-level questions of "woobiefication" and "out of character-ness," but I'm too heavily invested in the imaginative world of the fic to care. ;)

As a kind of semi-entry in the snape_potter Fix It Fest, I hope to start posting the first section after the 15th, uploading chapters over several days until I reach the point at which I left off and have to forge onward again one word at a time. There's no question I'll finish this, by the way; the ending's already written, as is most of the final section leading up to it. But there's a vast deal of middle to pull together, and I need an incentive and a commitment to push forward.

This is a lot of verbiage to say, "I'm posting a WiP, yay!" or "OMG!" but I'm a bit dithery about it, as I'm sure you've noticed. *g* Plenty of people won't consider reading such unreliable things until the last sentence has posted, but for those of you who might decide to follow along I should make it clear this isn't the final version. Knowing me, I'll overhaul and revise in light of the finished product, and I wouldn't mind constructive comments along the way. If anyone has criticism to offer, I'll welcome it. If I freak out, it won't be at you, I promise.

So I have one chapter to change and bring narratively in line, and I'll be ready some time within the fest's posting period. Also *headdesk* I need a title, damn it. As usual. Stupid titles.

delphi posted five questions given her by a friend, addressing the process of writing and how it -- and how she -- relates to her own work. She in turn gave me five different questions. This is probably only of interest to other writers, because, well, it's not a story and it's not fandom-related meta, so it is, as Delphi points out, a way of talking about writing rather than doing it.

( Navel-gazing under the cut )

If any writer -- or reader, for that matter -- wants five questions along similar lines, I'll do my best to steal them from others come up with a few.

I just saw this linked on fiercelydreamed's journal, and it stirred up that sense of a whole fictional world reaching its end, the cast and characters growing up, the underlying themes flashing and threading before our eyes in magical and melancholy images. I don't even like most of the movies, but I think this vid touches the heart of the series rather nicely and sets us up for the very last film.

Apparently IJ doesn't allow embedding? In that case, here's the link to my Dreamwidth entry if you'd like to watch it.

I just saw cesperanza's post about Joanna Russ's death. I am way more upset about this than I would have expected. I'm actually sitting here crying over the news. Damn it. Damn it. I never got a chance to tell her how much she meant to me, how much I loved her work, how absolutely brilliant I thought she was, how no one wrote stories like she did, how she helped shape who I am. She's always been a necessary part of my world; in the background, of course, because I didn't know her personally, but essential and irreplaceable to me. A one-sided long-distance love affair.

Oh man, this sucks. She hasn't even written much in the last 20 years, but I already miss her like blazes.

Thank you, Joanna. For your incisive eye and inimitable voice and your unflinching ability to cut through bullshit. For your intensity and breathtaking smarts and love of women. For your ability to make me laugh out loud. I'm glad you existed; I can't even imagine the void it would have left in my youth if there had been no you. It makes me desperately unhappy that there's no possibility now of further books from your hand. I hate it that you're dead. I hope you're at peace.

&hearts

I'm squeezing in a rec before too much more time passes, because work has me hopping like a flea on a griddle and I've been too tired this week to give all the recent fest fics and art their proper due. Even so, I'm totally squeeful over a piece inspired by one of my own fics, and not one I would ever have expected to appeal in that way. cabepfir has taken a crucial scene from In Infinite Remorse of Soul and captured one of the showdowns between Snape and Dumbledore, a moment when Snape confronts Dumbledore with the unavoidable erotic tensions and unpleasant truths that lie twisted between them.

cabepfir has given me exactly what I want, a fierce, betrayed Snape, naked and furious and demanding a response, and a nonplussed, almost prim Dumbledore, gazing upon what he craves but unwilling to concede an emotional inch. It's an astute crystalization of a scene that changes the terms between them and sets Snape upon a different course. It's very true to the way I see these two in this fic, specific to that one irreversible moment.

Go take a look if you're curious. I love Snape's snarl and refusal to be ashamed. And thank you so much, cabepfir! It made my day. :D

Snape and Dumbledore by cabepfir

You know, the initial thrill of finding fandom becomes old hat after a few years; it's easy to start taking things for granted once the first burst of pleasure dies down. Then there's the wank, which always seems to be happening in some corner or other.

But then something comes along that surprises me into realizing, yet again, what an incredibly generous place fandom is. This morning I received a message from vintu1 informing me that they've translated my fic No Room for the Weak into Russian! I'm seriously flattered and filled with inexpressible delight. I can't imagine how much work must go into translating idiomatic fics from one language into another. The dedication, unpaid and given purely out of love, is mind-boggling.

Thank you so much, vintu1! It's bewildering, in a buoyant way, to know that something I wrote now exists in a language I can't even read. It's like magic. :D

No Room for the Weak in Russian translation.

( A couple of HP_Beholder recs )

Nothing of note here, mostly a record-keeping post for myself. After my mini-meltdown last weekend (I am old enough to know better, but oh well) it occurred to me that linking my latest crack_whatever recs in my own journal would help me keep track of them. I could use Delicious, of course, but pigs will fly before I get myself that organized. So, the first of two rec round-ups.

Many of these fics involve other pairings besides Snape/Harry, since I intended to spotlight stories that might otherwise get overlooked because Snape and Harry were either a subplot or embroiled in other affections. If you click, you'll see what I mean.

1. This Moratorium on Life by lotrwariorgodss.
10,300 words, Severus/Lily, Severus/Harry, PG-13.

2. Sadness of Eros by loupgarou1750.
62,289 words, Snape/Harry, Harry/Ginny, NC-17.

3. Interpretations by solvent90.
5100 words, Snape/Harry, NC-17.

4. Playing Azkaban by fuschia.
6200 words, Severus/Lily, hint of Severus/Harry, R, possible incest squick.

5. Precious by literaryspell.
1,026 words, Snape/Harry, NC-17.

6. Faint Indirections by girl_tarte.
~11,500 words, Neville/Percy, Snape/Harry, PG-13.

7. by the light of lesser stars by nothingbutfic.
~5,622 words, Snape/Harry, NC-17.

8. In Loco Parentis by dolores_crane.
81,072 words, Snape/Harry, Harry/Hermione, Hermione-centric, NC-17.

Just to be clear, the links go to my recs, not directly to the stories themselves.

A sequel to my snapecase story. I need to stop fiddling with it, so I'm just going to say "To hell with it" and post.

Title: And Mine the Gall
Characters: Albus Dumbledore, Albus Severus Potter, Harry Potter, a touch of Snape
Rating: R
Word count: ~5540
Contains: Hints of chan, incest
Disclaimer: Not mine. Written for entertainment, not profit.
Summary: It's one thing to deny oneself; it's another to be denied. In which Albus learns (again) that sins of omission have consequences, even unto the next generation; and that what he denied to Severus shall be visited upon Harry.
A/N: This is a sequel to my snapecase entry In Infinite Remorse of Soul and won't make much sense if you haven't read that one first. The title is taken from the Millay poem Renascence quoted at the beginning of that fic.

Many thanks to loupgarou1750 for patiently re-reading the revisions. All mistakes mine. All constructive criticism accepted in the spirit in which it's given.

***
( And Mine the Gall )

Title: In Infinite Remorse of Soul
Characters: Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~10,700
(Highlight to View) Contains: D/s overtones.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Albus Dumbledore never makes the same mistake twice. Certainly not in love.
A/N: I wrote this for the wonderful snapecase 2011. I've added a sequel here: And Mine the Gall. Many, many thanks to loupgarou1750 for superlative betaing.


( In Infinite Remorse of Soul )