Of This and Other Worlds

Thanks to some helpful comments from logastellus and others, I ended up reworking a couple of scenes in the last post. You may or may not want to check that out, but in any case here's a link to Part One for those who missed it.

And now, on to Part Two:

( "You can't be serious," said Foreman... )

Thanks again to logastellus, and also to lizbee, for early comments. Feedback is my friend.

I've decided to post this in installments, in the hope that feedback will help keep me going. It's hard to find time to write these days, but I really want to get this story written. So, here's the first part:

( The afternoon sunlight streamed through the glass doors of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital... )

Comments and criticisms welcomed, as always.

In the last 24 hours I have written three of the BESTEST HOUSE/CAMERON CONVERSATIONS EVAR.

Well, maybe not that good, but I like them. I'm just extra-happy because up until yesterday my brain was stubbornly refusing to provide me with any actual House dialogue, but now House has taken up residence in my frontal temporal parietal ear -- uh, whatever lobe applies -- and he's on a roll. So is Cameron, which is also a relief because until yesterday all she wanted to do was drink coffee and emote, but now she's talking back.

So yay for potential Housefic! Now I just have to figure out, y'know, the actual story.

That shouldn't be too hard, right?

(Ha.)

Written for the omniocular January challenge, for which I drew the names of Luna Lovegood and Hermione Granger... although a couple of other characters decided to come along for the ride.

"A timely and well-characterized story that explores the confict between duty and compassion, revenge and forgiveness in a frightened and bureaucratic society." - omniocular

Title: "Opportunities"
Author: R.J. Anderson (synaesthete7)
Rating: PG
Length: 2600 words
Summary: The walls have ears, and when the record of Luna's conversation with a wanted man reaches the Ministry, Hermione feels compelled to intervene.
Author's note/Disclaimer: It is surely unnecessary to point out that these characters aren't mine, except for a couple of minor ones that are. Kisses to Jo Rowling, without whom etc. And many thanks to lizbee, cesario and pharnabazus for their beta-reading services.

( Opportunities )

Comments and criticisms welcomed.

In the felicitous absence of my children (they're across the road playing with a friend, and the baby is asleep) I have written Snape/Luna, for which lizbee is entirely to blame. And not only did the universe not end, I find myself dreadfully tempted to fix it up and submit it as an honest-to-goodness fic. Only I won't, because I have to write Hermione and Luna gen for omniocular's January Challenge instead.

In other news, omniocular replied to my post-rejection inquiry by telling me that they like my art, but not so much my fic. My fic, they say, is a bit too prone to telling rather than showing what the characters feel and making general statements rather than giving specific details (this on the basis of "Bewitching the Mind...", "First Impression", "Cold Water" and "Cry", links to which I submitted as part of my application).

I do not in the least reproach them for this, as it's a worthy ambition to avoid an over-expository style, but it's ironic seeing as my just-written Snape/Luna consists entirely of dialogue without any speech tags and only five words of exposition (and I was thinking about cutting those), and I deliberately wrote "Secrets and Lies" in impersonal third without once telling the reader what any of the characters were thinking. So one could say that particular problem has already corrected itself...

I guess the moral of the story is that I need to write more recent stuff in this less expository style. And that it needs to be gen (by the "no romance, please" definition of gen that omniocular seems to be using, anyway -- I know that by the other working definition of "no graphic sex and let there be an actual plot, please" I've never written anything but gen, but that definition appears to be less common).

Anyway, once I've written the Snape/Lily drabble I also owe lizbee and figure out something Houseish to write for cesario, I shall post links here to all the shortfics I've written in the last few days. It doesn't add up to much, but it's still good to be writing again.

Speaking of good and writing, if you haven't seen junediamanti's splendid Snape genfic The Shipping Forecast, go and read it straight away. It's funny and quirky and heartbreaking and a great deal more plausible than the author makes it sound in the summary, and it indulges my long-held belief that Snape's present speech pattern is self-taught rather than the one he was brought up with. So of course I was bound to love it.

More later, since all the children have returned at once and my son is regaling me with the entire plot of Home Alone II.

sannalim, I received your delightful Christmas card/picture and message today -- thanks for the lovely thought and the kind words!

I am going to try to write something today. We'll see how far I get. I'm afraid to even mention what I'm writing lest I jinx the whole process, but I had something of an epiphany about a certain fictional character last night just as I was drifting off to sleep, and it was far too cool for me to just ignore it...

(Hint: The proposed title of the fic is "Galatea". See if you can guess the fandom and the characters just from that.)

How long has it been since I even read HP fic that wasn't written by somebody on my LJ friendslist, let alone recced it? But I came across this one today and having mentioned it to two people already, I figure I ought to post something about it here.

As I just finished explaining to lizbee, it's a clever, well-written, HBP-compliant Snape genfic -- WiP, but the author seems to be updating pretty regularly. I have a few niggles, but that's inevitable. The best thing about the fic is how dryly funny it is, and how the author manages to portray Snape's interpretation of certain events and people as being eminently logical -- even brilliant -- yet at the same time completely wrong. She also shows a plausible flip side to many of the events we're familiar with from canon, as well, which gave the story a freshness that it might otherwise have lacked.

Anyway, enough of my promotional blather: The Diary of the Half-Blood Prince, Part I by CareCrystal.

ETA: I originally said that this fic had some bits in it that were movie rather than book canon, but I've since realized that said bits were in the books and that I am an idiot, so I withdraw the objection. Also, the latest chapter explains everything I thought was slightly "off" in the fic and the rationale is sheer brilliance, so all I can say is -- GO READ THE FIC.

I must say, this is rather good:

Firelight trembled of the space beyond concerning its properties, that reveals the superb black eyes, hitched nose, and dilute, almost bloodless lips of Severus Snape.

This came from translating the paragraph from English to Dutch and back again. I have to agree with hedda62 -- the amusement is endless. It's like Markov all over again.

Here it is at last -- the promised post-HBP Snapefic. A very early draft of the first few paragraphs appeared in this LJ a few months ago, but there have been quite a few changes, not to mention additions, since then... hope you enjoy it!

( Secrets and Lies )

Author's Note: Heartfelt thanks to my betas lizbee and especially cesario, whose shrewd and practical observations about characterization, tone and structure helped make this story a great deal better than it would have been otherwise. Any shortcomings that remain in this final draft are entirely my own fault.

This story follows the events of "The Potions Master's Apprentice" and "Personal Risks", and is meant to stand as a more canonically viable alternative to the popular but now unfortunately AU "If We Survive". I have tried to take into account Snape's character as presented in OotP and HBP, for whatever that may be worth. I have not addressed the question of Snape's apparent megalomania in announcing himself to Harry as "I, the Half-Blood Prince!" but my take on that scene* would be better served in essay form, or perhaps in a brief genfic.

As always, comments and criticisms are welcome. Thanks for reading!

------
* The short answer is that I think he was simply trying to let Harry know in the quickest and most direct way that it was his textbook he'd been cribbing off all year. Vain as Snape undoubtedly is in some respects, I really can't imagine that he'd still be preening himself on a ridiculous self-bestowed (or possibly Lily-bestowed) title that he'd used as an adolescent, especially as the term "half-blood" isn't that prestigious and any fool would know he wasn't really a prince...

Oh hey, now I don't have to write the essay or the genfic. Go me!

I just watched this again to see if it was as eyebuggingly, earwormingly horrific as I remembered, and yes, yes it was. I think the cracked-out dancing girls may actually be the worst bit, because dude, the choreography. Anyway, the only way I could make the pain go away was to share it, once more, with the rest of you:

The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.

In other and completely unrelated news (unless you think that Leonard Nimoy reminds you of Snape, which is possible in a random sort of way), I have actually started writing a post-HBP Snape/Maud fic, to serve as a more canonical alternative to the now-AU If We Survive.

I've been moving toward a less romanticized portrayal of Snape for a while -- you can see it in "Cold Water" and "Bewitching the Mind, Ensnaring the Senses", both of which were written after OotP. But the "Spinner's End" chapter of HBP was, in a strange way, comforting and confirming to me: it showed that I hadn't been that far off the mark in guessing what Snape might be like, how he might converse, in a situation where he was on reasonably civil terms with the others present and his hatred of James Potter & Co. wasn't uppermost on his mind. (Plus, so totally Snape pulling the wool over Bellatrix's eyes and manipulating the situation to play out with his and Dumbledore's planned endgame, but I digress.) So while Snape is certainly not any normal person's idea of a good date, and I can no longer imagine him in a situation like the one I wrote in IWS Ch. 3 (pity, as I rather liked that crimson turtleneck), I still don't think he is hopelessly screwed up when it comes to all human relationships.

Anyway, the fic. Don't worry, it's short -- I have not completely parted ways with sanity. But the challenge of writing Snape again, given what we now know of his personality, was too tempting to resist. lizbee and cesario have seen the little bits I've written so far and seem to think they're all right, so I shall continue as time and responsibilities permit, and hope to have something to post here soon.