Rec! Rec! Rec!

[sigune]

While I'm hanging around, I must take the opportunity to pimp two gen rec lists:

ani_bester is setting up a Gen Art masterlist

and

chthonya is setting up a Gen Fic masterlist.

Please, dear flistees, help Gen survive in this harsh world of fandom, where the poor phenomenon is threatened by strangulation with smut, kinky hanky-panky and other porn. Please recommend any Gen gems you may have encountered during your roamings on the web, and vote for those you like that are already on the list, so that we may all share in them!

Comments

[sscrewdriver.livejournal.com]

I find good gen writing really, really hard to find. It's a lot easier to find good porn (and romance, for that matter). I don't know why this is. Perhaps the smutty writers have a just higher output, so automatically their standard increases just through practice? But it does mean that I started reading the porn, just because I was so impressed by the standard.

The multifaceted awards out recently gave me a great list of gen stories to try.
http://multifaceted.creative-musings.com/main.htm
I'm really enjoying 'A Year Like None Other' by aspeninthelight.
http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=5036

There's loads of good gen art out there though. No problems there.

A Gen Fic masterlist is a great idea, but it would only be really useful if there's some kind of review or quality control of the fics listed.

[sscrewdriver.livejournal.com]

I just had a quick scan of the thread and stuck it in my memories.

Thanks so much Sigune for bringing this to my attention! This ensures me much reading pleasure for many months to come. There's quite a few stories there I've already read, those that you've recced (mouse and a_t_rain) and that I came across through being recced on other people's LJs. I would simply have not found most of these stories without this masterlist, though.

You are an absolute darling.

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Aww. *grins*
You're a darling too, for reccing Prodigal Son!

[sscrewdriver.livejournal.com]

The others had forgotten to rec my absolute favourite of yours! What an oversight.

Glad you liked anneline's take on Snape and the other Slytherins in 'This Masterpiece of Nature' http://anneline.livejournal.com/43966.html. I can't think of any other story about this subject that does it so well - the interplay of the different characters. Of course, it would be of interest to you because of your comic... I should have recommended it to you earlier but the sex in it might have put me off.

She also wrote a really good story about the Longbottoms which has the best duelling sequence I've ever read - with Alice Longbottom, heavily pregnant. lunafish put me onto it because she's a Neville nut.

'Sweeter This' http://anneline.livejournal.com/58032.html
It's got an unhappy, violent ending, of course. Not giving anything away there.

[seaislewitch.livejournal.com]

I've been over to both! I'll go back again tomorrow!

[thirteen-ravens.livejournal.com]

Aha, more gen fics!

Yes, I have read my fair share of Harry Potter slash fics (And have been responsible for a couple of them myself...*coughSnape/Blackcough*) But the majority of ones I have written have been gen, and the majority of my favourite fics have also been gen.

"In Blood Only" remains my favourite Snapefic of all time, I guess with the amount of reviews it got most Snape fans have read it, but just in case:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2027554/1/

If this fic is not already on one of the lists I will post it! :o)

[sigune.livejournal.com]

I have to confess I haven't read it... Will do when I finally have more time! Thanks for the rec!

[thirteen-ravens.livejournal.com]

You haven't read it? Ooh the scandal! ;o)

I'm of the opinion that E.M.Snape's version of His Snarkiness is one of the most canonically faithful I've read. (Pre Half-Blood Prince...yes, there's the predictable Snape Manor!)
It's quite a dark fic, and Snape is dry, witty and cruel, and sometimes he's so nasty to Harry it makes you cringe.
And it's completed.

Saying that, I think I may well have to go read it again! XD

[sigune.livejournal.com]

NO, not Snape Manor?!?! Honestly!
...Well, I suppose I say that because I never ever would have connected Snape to any manors, even prior to HBP :P. I should give it a try...

[thirteen-ravens.livejournal.com]

Lol - and he's a Pure Blood in this fic too... Just thought I'd warn you of that as well! XD

But of course, we knew he couldn't be a pureblood because of the matchbox quote.... (*snicker* Do you remember that old PRESTO discussion back in 2003?)

But yes, the "Snape Manor" thing has always been quite laughable. (As if whatever he owned was going to be grand and in good condition!) I always thought he would be in either some old and tatty 1930's semi-detached house in suburbia somewhere, or some dilapidated house in woodland (Like Mr Rochester's "Ferndean" in Jane Eyre...the Gothic Character rears it's head again it seems...LOL :P)
But then Mr Rochester is probably also to blame for all the Manor ideas....
*sigh*

[sigune.livejournal.com]

LOL! No, I can't remember the matchbox discussion - I made my début in fandom in February 2004 :D. I'm not sure how to explain it, but from my earliest fandom days I never could believe that Snape was a pure-blood, was rich, or was in any way aristocratic, though I was always firmly convinced that he must have been jealous of those who were. I didn't even think about the matchbox quote, though it does have a point; it was just a hunch based on his general behaviour (and the spitting, perhaps?).

It sounds unforgivably vague, I know, but I cannot pinpoint what made me think that way. Maybe it was also the fact that I found no interest in writing about a rich pure-blood aristocrat; there was much more conflict and irony in a poor young man of mixed blood who pretended to be one, and Snape fitted that so well. From the first I gave him a pure-blood mother (okay, I have to admit she was pretty aristocratic, but very poor :D), a father with a Muggle mother, and a small house in a suburb of London (yes, I was obviously totally wrong geographically, but as I wanted to know what I wrote about I had to make him live either in London or in Oxford, LOL).

I have to admit being allergic to Rochester- or any other Byronic Snapes XD. Frankly I can't see where they come from either. That's why I joined that excellent institution, PRESTO!

[thirteen-ravens.livejournal.com]

I agree about the spitting too. Aristocrats don't spit. As far as I remember Draco never ever does anything like that. But me, I went to a basic state school where a lot of the guys (and some of the girls) spat because for some bizarre reason it made them look "well hard" and tough.
My current idea is that Snape's father was definitely a manual labourer, perhaps a steelworker. Definitely a tough Muggle, though not half so horrible as fandom often depicts him. (I still think he married Eileen for genuine love - no trickery involved.) If we ever get to hear about him I'll bet Snape inherited a lot of his father's hardworking attitude.

I was just looking back at the old threads for the matchbox and came across this very interesting point made by Dark griffon.

"It is not his name that makes me 'tick' and by the way>>>>>also 'sever' in Russian means 'the North'"

Knowing what we know now...that Snape's a Northern Lad....that's quite interesting!

And it appears I started the mint sauce debate back on PRESTO IV. (Because people were arguing about Snape's culinary tastes) *snigger* I totally forgot about that.

And I also said, "I see him as a red wine drinker, though. - so maybe he has the odd urge for the continental stuff."

adred agreed with this too, (she of PRESTO lurkdom, and also the stories about Snape/Narcissa in a relationship.) We got together to read book six and we both almost spazzed out when we got to Chapter two...red wine and Snape/Narcissa in one chapter!!

(But back then I was also convinced that Snape was polyjuicing as Lucius for Death Eater meetings. Er, how about...no... XD )

Ooh....long reply....bit like my PRESTO posts...*snerk*