The Lupin/Snape Lurve Community

Tomorrow is the big day! For some of you in other parts of the world, it may already be December 1 or close to it, and I apologize for the delay, but it's not December 1 for (Mrs.) Snupin Santa Claus yet. I promise I'll stay up and post the first story at midnight my time, however, because I'm just as eager to launch this year's Fest as you guys are. *G*

There are just a few things I want to go over before we get started.

First, let me remind anyone who has not used eFiction before and might have missed my post the first time around, if you don't like the look of the site, you can change it. There are detailed instructions on how to change the appearance of the site temporarily or permanently here. There are five other "skins" to choose from, so everyone should be able to find something they like or at least can live with if they don't like the default skin for whatever reason, but if not, they're welcome to go out, find an eFiction 3.0 skin they do like, and send me the zip file of it.

Next, unless I need a pinch hitter, I will not be posting Snupin Santa updates or gift links to the LJ community. As of December 1, all Snupin Santa activity will switch to the Fest website with gift announcements posted to lupin_snape on Insanejournal. All Fest-related news will be posted to the News section of the website (scroll down until you see the red bar reading "Site News"). The most recent news posts will be on the main page, and all news posts, including older ones, will be in the News archive.

The gifts posted most recently will appear on the main page (scroll down until you see the red bar reading "Most Recent"), and all gifts posted within the last 7 days will appear on the Recently Added page. All gifts posted for the 2007 fest will appear on the Snupin Santa 2007 category page.

I will post gift announcements on lupin_snape on Insanejournal (yes, with links included). If you don't want to visit IJ, you can keep up with the gift announcements via the lupinsnape_ij feed on your LJ flist or you can check the website.

Unfortunately, the syndicated feed I created for the Fest website doesn't work. I tried three different URLs without success, so I give up. If anyone wants to undertake the task of creating a working feed of the Snupin Santa Fest website, be my guest. Drop me an email with the link if you get it to work, and I'll let everyone know, but please do not comment or email suggestions on how to fix it to me. While I'm happy to add it as an option if someone else makes it work, I don't have the time or inclination to keep messing with it myself.

All gift announcements, regardless of rating, will appear on lupin_snape on IJ, not divided between lupin_snape and bymoonlight. I've been given special dispensation by lore to post gift announcements to lupin_snape even though R and NC17 material isn't allowed there under normal circumstances. So basically, you can keep up with the fest one of three ways:

Snupin Santa Fest website
lupin_snape on Insanejournal
the lupinsnape_ij feed on LJ

I think that should be flexible and convenient enough for everyone.

As I've said before, anonymous commenting is allowed at the website, so you don't need to register and/or log in to access the gifts or leave feedback there for our lovely authors and artists. Certainly I encourage people to register because it allows you to customize the website for your viewing convenience and gives you the option of being notified when someone replies to your comments, but it isn't necessary.

NOTE TO PARTICIPANTS:

1) Once the gift you created is posted, whether it's a story or art, if there are any changes needed in the header information, please email me the necessary info at snupin_santa @ yahoo.com, and I'll make the corrections or additions asap. If you don't receive a response within 24 hours or so, try scribbulusink @ gmail.com. This includes things like genre, additional pairings, warnings, etc. I went with what was in the header provided to me and what I could glean from looking over the story or art, but my guess might not be what you want, and sometimes, I didn't make a guess at all and left things blank.

2) Writers might also want to check the text of their story to make certain it's all there. I double-checked to make certain there weren't copy/paste errors when uploading long stories, but accidents happen.

3) DO NOT leave any comments on IJ or the website that might reveal who you are! This is an anonymous exchange, and we want to keep everyone guessing until the master list is posted in January. I'm not sure if you can answer feedback comments anonymously on the website, so you might have to wait until January to reply, but I'm sure in the interest of maintaining the anonymous fun, no one will be offended by the lack of a speedy response.

4) I still have a couple of people who are not pinch hitters and who have not submitted their gift yet. You have until midnight to get it to me; if not, you're out of the Fest. You've had all of September, October, and November to get it done, and I'm not giving anyone who is not a pinch hitter any extensions into December.

That's all our preliminary business out of the way, so all that's left now is to wait for the Snupin Santa sleigh to arrive! There will be over 90 new RL/SS stories and graphics posted between December 1-31 - all eras, all ratings, threesomes, long stories, short stories, smutty art, sweet art, romance, dark themes, holiday cheer, tear jerkers, and happy endings. No matter what flavor of Snupin is your favorite, I guarantee there will be something for everyone!


Ho ho ho!
Snupin Santa

CHAT!!!!

We're all in chat! Come and wait and bite your nails with us!

Stasia

I originally wrote this up on my own LJ, and lore pointed out that I'd just inadverntantly made a meta post. So I thought some cleaning up was in order so I could repost in time for meta-month. *grin* The things we contemplate after a sleepless night...

The reason I am so hurt by fics where Severus loves Remus more than Remus loves him (if Remus loves him at all) is that Severus' life has been so dreadful already. I know life isn't fair, but I confess, in fanfic, I want it to be. I don't care if they have to face adversity, as long as, in the end, I know they have each other, and they are equal partners in it.

Don't get me wrong, I know Remus' life hasn't exactly been a picnic. But he's had a bit more control in some respects than Severus, at least over the past fifteen years or so. Not to mention that in my mind, Remus is more emotionally mature than Severus--because he's had more of an opportunity to experience positive emotions as well as negative ones.

All too often, I've been the one who loved more, in a relationship. I know how much that hurts. I know those constant fears that someday you won't be enough, that someday someone else will offer more than you can, even if you're offering everything. I know what it feels like to tell someone you love him, and not hear it back. To know that somehow you're too flawed to be given his commitment. That you're good enough to mess about with but not good enough to show off to his friends.

(Lest you think this is a self-pity party, I'll also say that I've had at least one serious relationship in which I was the one who loved less, so I've been on that side of the fence.)

But what we saw of Severus in canon through HBP was a picture of a man who had been bullied in his youth, made a probably impetuous decision to serve Voldemort, repented, and then spent the next 17 or so years of his life making up for that one mistake. In the meantime, he was still seen as someone to be hated and called names like greasy, even by students, who ought to have respected him, if not for his personality, at least for the knowledge he could impart. And Remus Lupin is one of very few people who actually treats him with equanimity, amiableness, even polite friendliness. Who else does that? Dumbledore, and perhaps Minerva.

Of course, DH made things worse. Oh, JKR tells us Snape is inexcusable because he was once loved. Right, okay, he had friendship from a girl named Lily Evans who obviously hadn't learned what unconditional love is when she refused to forgive him. Sorry, I don't buy it. If I look too closely at DH, I get angry for Severus all over again, so I'm just not going to go there, except to say that Lily's "love" for him wasn't much of a favour. And Dumbledore...well, if I look at DH, Dumbledore didn't even treat him as well as Remus does.

I suppose what it comes down to is why I read fanfic, and I'll be very frank: at least 90% of the time I read fanfic to be happy. Generally speaking that means I want the characters to come out of everything happy in the end, or at least with the promise of happiness. And Severus couldn't be happy in a relationship where he was treated as inferior or second best. I don't see the point in shipping Snape with anyone if he's not given at least equal treatment, after a lifetime of being second best in almost every respect.