Snapecase Rex
Jan. 30th, 2011 08:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kelly_chamblissWell, I accomplished half of my fannish goals for the weekend.
Goal #1: Catch up with![[info]](https://stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
snapecase reading.
Done! Except for today's SSHG fic, I've read everything and have enjoyed myself thoroughly. Last year's fest (about Snape's birthdays) yielded three of my all-time favorite Snape fics. This year's fest hasn't had me leaping out of my chair quite so often, but it still contains any number of fine stories and artworks. My only disappointment is that there hasn't been much Minerva action, just one MM/SS story, Mutability. She has a secondary role in a couple of others, but, well. . .I guess I'm just going to have to go ahead and do a Snape/McG fest at some point.
***Let me start with the best fic of 2011: In Infinite Remorse of Soul (Severus, Albus, NC-17). Yeah, I know the year still has a long way to go, but it will need a long way if it's going to top this masterpiece. And I'm not speaking hyperbolically. I'm not going to be able to do this fic justice, but it's beautifully-written and imagined, and it will absolutely leave you breathless. The author uses a lot of effective conceits of opera, music, conducting, and orchestration, and that's exactly what this story is: an opera of words, lush and soaring and intense and larger-than-life.
You've never seen manipulative!Albus until you've seen this manipulative!Albus. Talk about orchestration. And Snape is here in all his raging, compelling glory. Not the slightest edge has been smoothed. You'll be fascinated by how the mystery author makes use of the leitmotif of "disgust," among other things. Here's just a sampling of the great lines: Snape has a body like a freshly peeled twig; when he's summoned to Albus's office, he spins aside and paces as if to the end of a leash, jerking about to stalk back the other way until obedience has yanked him ten times across the carpet. And I adore what the author has done with that common dub-con trope of "on your knees." As used in this story, it goes far beyond the sexual to become a metaphor for all sorts of relational dynamics -- those between Albus and Severus, between Severus and the world, between Albus, Severus, and Harry, etc.
If you read nothing else fromsnapecase, you'll want to read this.
Other fics I really enjoyed:
Penultimate Acts (Severus/Lily, various professors; PG)
A compelling retelling of the DH year.
No PepperUp for the Brave (Severus, Lily; PG-13)
First-years Severus and Lily are given detention with Hagrid in the snow-filled Forest; it turns into a revealing allegorical journey (or so I read it). Severus is shielded and canny, with the worldy awareness you might expect from a child of Spinner's End. The author does an excellent job of putting paid to any romanticized notions of idyllic, innocent childhood; the politics of the Hogwarts students are very well-delineated.
(Previously fromsnapecase, I've recced
Art -- Step On (Snape/Emmeline Vance; PG but NWS). Previously recced here
Fic -- ** To Dwell on Dreams (Snape, Dumbledore, Lily; PG-13). Previously recced here
After "In Infinite Remorse," this story is my favorite.)
There are other good ones, too, in pairings that aren't usually my favorite, but that I've quite enjoyed reading: The Northern Sky in Winter, a lyrical and painful Severus/Hermione set in Snape's old age, and Unbreakable, a well-written and imagined Severus/Draco.
Goal #2: Write a lot of fic.
Well, um, in this area I was, shall we say, less successful than with Goal #1. As in -- I didn't write anything. Not a damn word. I feel like slamming my ears in the oven door or something. Or maybe somebody needs to get after me with Narcissa's voodoo doll.
Goal #1: Catch up with
snapecase reading. Done! Except for today's SSHG fic, I've read everything and have enjoyed myself thoroughly. Last year's fest (about Snape's birthdays) yielded three of my all-time favorite Snape fics. This year's fest hasn't had me leaping out of my chair quite so often, but it still contains any number of fine stories and artworks. My only disappointment is that there hasn't been much Minerva action, just one MM/SS story, Mutability. She has a secondary role in a couple of others, but, well. . .I guess I'm just going to have to go ahead and do a Snape/McG fest at some point.
***Let me start with the best fic of 2011: In Infinite Remorse of Soul (Severus, Albus, NC-17). Yeah, I know the year still has a long way to go, but it will need a long way if it's going to top this masterpiece. And I'm not speaking hyperbolically. I'm not going to be able to do this fic justice, but it's beautifully-written and imagined, and it will absolutely leave you breathless. The author uses a lot of effective conceits of opera, music, conducting, and orchestration, and that's exactly what this story is: an opera of words, lush and soaring and intense and larger-than-life.
You've never seen manipulative!Albus until you've seen this manipulative!Albus. Talk about orchestration. And Snape is here in all his raging, compelling glory. Not the slightest edge has been smoothed. You'll be fascinated by how the mystery author makes use of the leitmotif of "disgust," among other things. Here's just a sampling of the great lines: Snape has a body like a freshly peeled twig; when he's summoned to Albus's office, he spins aside and paces as if to the end of a leash, jerking about to stalk back the other way until obedience has yanked him ten times across the carpet. And I adore what the author has done with that common dub-con trope of "on your knees." As used in this story, it goes far beyond the sexual to become a metaphor for all sorts of relational dynamics -- those between Albus and Severus, between Severus and the world, between Albus, Severus, and Harry, etc.
If you read nothing else from
snapecase, you'll want to read this.Other fics I really enjoyed:
Penultimate Acts (Severus/Lily, various professors; PG)
A compelling retelling of the DH year.
No PepperUp for the Brave (Severus, Lily; PG-13)
First-years Severus and Lily are given detention with Hagrid in the snow-filled Forest; it turns into a revealing allegorical journey (or so I read it). Severus is shielded and canny, with the worldy awareness you might expect from a child of Spinner's End. The author does an excellent job of putting paid to any romanticized notions of idyllic, innocent childhood; the politics of the Hogwarts students are very well-delineated.
(Previously from
snapecase, I've reccedArt -- Step On (Snape/Emmeline Vance; PG but NWS). Previously recced here
Fic -- ** To Dwell on Dreams (Snape, Dumbledore, Lily; PG-13). Previously recced here
After "In Infinite Remorse," this story is my favorite.)
There are other good ones, too, in pairings that aren't usually my favorite, but that I've quite enjoyed reading: The Northern Sky in Winter, a lyrical and painful Severus/Hermione set in Snape's old age, and Unbreakable, a well-written and imagined Severus/Draco.
Goal #2: Write a lot of fic.
Well, um, in this area I was, shall we say, less successful than with Goal #1. As in -- I didn't write anything. Not a damn word. I feel like slamming my ears in the oven door or something. Or maybe somebody needs to get after me with Narcissa's voodoo doll.