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geri_chan
Severus and his Men
Snape slash--one of Torino's weekly questions was on "Snape's other women," and I thought it might be fun to do a "Snape's men" question or challenge. Why do we like to slash Snape, and whom do we like to slash him with?
A separate het challenge so as not to discriminate against the non-slashers will be issued next month.
This has the potential to get heated, but I'm asking you to keep in mind that there are good reasons for or against slashing Severus. We don't want to see any 'why Snarry/Snupin/Snucius/Snwhatever" is the best and eeewww, het. Remember: no shipping wars, no disparaging comments about other ships.
What we want to see is an exploration why a certain pairing could work well, or what would be detrimental for an involvement.
Suggestions for future challenges are always welcome. Please leave them here.
geri_chanSeverus and his Men
Snape slash--one of Torino's weekly questions was on "Snape's other women," and I thought it might be fun to do a "Snape's men" question or challenge. Why do we like to slash Snape, and whom do we like to slash him with?
A separate het challenge so as not to discriminate against the non-slashers will be issued next month.
This has the potential to get heated, but I'm asking you to keep in mind that there are good reasons for or against slashing Severus. We don't want to see any 'why Snarry/Snupin/Snucius/Snwhatever" is the best and eeewww, het. Remember: no shipping wars, no disparaging comments about other ships.
What we want to see is an exploration why a certain pairing could work well, or what would be detrimental for an involvement.
Suggestions for future challenges are always welcome. Please leave them here.
Do you mean internally or externally? I.e. pointing out slashy subtext, these are ways in which I think Severus and ____ might come to like each other given what we see on the page, etc., or more meta reasons why people like to see certain pairings at work, such as "Severus and Sirius are mirror images of one another" (to take an example from my own head)?
The most astonishing reason I see given is: "because he had greasy hair." Not sure how to explain all those greasy-haired people wearing wedding rings...
But I will behave. Easy to do, since the present challenge has nothing to do with perpetual virginity! :-D Heh.
Canon indicates strongly that he didn't live as a monk with the hint at 'other women, more worthy'.
;)
Bothering with the Snape-haters, yes; none so blind as those who refuse to see. ;-) It's the ones who call themselves fans yet make such leaping assumptions from the text, e.g., he loved Lily and fought Voldemort to "make amends" to her memory, therefore he LOVED LILY AND ONLY LILY AND DIED A VIRGIN FOR LILY!!! that make me want to scream.
But I can't be personally responsible for making every person on the planet understand that textual interpretation might require a little more effort and between-the-lines reading than so shallow a reading. I know this. I still wish I were All Powerful. :-D
And then there are those who, despite being Snape fans, still think his greasy hair is a bad thing (I don't prefer it myself, but it ain't a sentence of doom, and lots of people can't help it). Someone who attended my workshop on Severus Snape at Writercon twittered a friend of hers, in which they both agreed that between his greasy hair and his "obsession" with Lily, OF COURSE he died a virgin.
You and I, of course, know better. ;-) And that he's not dead, yet.
Canon indicates strongly that he didn't live as a monk with the hint at 'other women, more worthy'.
And of course those are only the ones he told Voldie about. ;-) *peeks into Sev's secret closet of Muggle women and a variety of men*
Unfortunalely, since Mulciber is hardly more than a name it's not that satisfying of a ship. I prefer characters who make me think they'd be a good fit for Snape, and there aren't that many of those. Mostly, other put-upon outsiders like Percy, Filch and Neville. I realize Snape's behaved very badly to Neville and doesn't exactly deserve him, but despite his fear, Neville never seems to have hated Snape. That suggests to me that he's strong and tolerant enough to forgive Snape, and just maybe accept him.
However, the two pairings that feel most canon-compatible to me after DH are Snape/Harry and Snape/Lupin. A relationship as intense as that of Snape and Harry has to have some sort of payoff. I've shipped them since Book 5 and Book 7 sealed the deal. For Snape to transfer his fixation on dead Lily to her living son feels psychologically plausible. Not exactly healthy, but then Snape isn't the poster boy for healthy relationships.
I didn't see Snape/Lupin until DH. PoA, frankly, gave the impression that they were enemies and immature about it to boot. Snape acted like he hated Lupin's guts and Lupin got in a lot of petty sniping under cover of politeness. But over the course of the later books, Lupin grew up a bit. His assessment of Snape in HBP was far more balanced. By DH, I got a strong impression that if he'd known Snape was DDM, he would have started to consider befriending Snape. They were the last of the Marauders' generation, where Lupin's heart belongs (all those golden young men -- so much more brilliant and promising than the current crop). And he needs a pack leader, as well. Snape's changed too since PoA, and I think in the end he'd be okay with Lupin approaching him. I really like the idea of them finding some private peace together after the war.
-L