The Sleeper's Den

This was drawn on a whim, prompted by mary_j_59 in a comment to one of my DH-despair entries :-). By all means skip if you don't like the idea of Snape having a daughter, or of him smiling at a child...

( A Little Princess )

My work on pr_rpg is really nearing completion. I guess I have two more entries to go, one for Brynhild and one for Severus. They are supposed to be ready by 30 October, but knowing myself, I'm not sure that I'll make it. *rolls eyes at self*

Anyway: a few people are getting their comeuppance at this point in the story. The set-up can be found in Biscuits and Bombshells; the next important thing happens in this group post: Full Circle. Snape and Harry's paths finally cross! Mwuahahaha!

For those of you interested in Phoenix Rising (pr_rpg, not to be confused with the conference :D), I would like to draw your attention to a few goings-on that are important to Snape but aren’t posted at his own journal – they appear at pr_brynhild and at pr_aerie. Two important little plots are developing that will become relevant in about a month, so don’t miss them if you want to follow Snape’s story to the full :)…

The first involves Brynhild – in fact, this is the part of the story that necessitated my giving her a journal of her own. The second is the Narcissa plot. Both are linked in this pr_snape entry: Abstinence and Exuberance. (Poor Snape, he’s struggling with the women in his life… He wants to have his cake and eat it.)

Brynhild’s reaction follows in At the Ministerium, the first of two (or three) posts that will make up a small story arc. There is going to be some moving back and forth between the pr_snape and pr_brynhild journals because … well, I can’t tell yet :). In any case, these letters link the Ministerium post and the one that is projected to follow.

The Narcissa plot started here, in very my first pr_rpg post. The next part is here – and I’m actually rather happy with it; the tone is better than that of the first Narcissa instalment, I feel.

Finally, I am happy to announce that Desmond Avery, too, has received a journal identity, though he will have to share it with a few others under the rather anonymous username of pr_deatheater2. In any case I made him his own icon, and when the next major plot develops – the really big one in which Snape gets to participate in an adventure that involves a lot of other players – you know that you can expect to see old Avery as well :).

I woke up this morning to find that I am now a validated author at Mugglenet. Just what this means to my posting practice I have yet to discover.

The news cheered me up, of course - whee, I can mod myself! - but actually I'm against the system of validated authors. Even people who generally write good stuff should be checked for quality; there will always be slip-ups big and small, and, for myself, I really want them pointed out to me. I usually have my stories beta-read by several people, but time and again, the severe SH mods pick up mistakes, as do the strict mods at OWL. (That alone, I think, is the reason why I made it to validated status at Mugglenet. I usually post there last of all, meaning that a) my minimum of two betas, b) the SH mods, c) my SQ beta and d) the OWL mods have all scrutinised the text. I get a lot of help, as you can see :D.)

Anyway - now I'll just have to wait until I get a review - at Mugglenet that tends to be ever so slightly problematic for me :).

As I am updating on my writing, I thought I'd also pick up where I left off about pr_snape. This is slightly embarrassing; having pointed out how many people check my regular stuff, I'm a bit annoyed about how quickly I write my PR entries and about how no one checks them at all *blushes*. But I just haven't got the time to polish them. Mostly it's "Come on, Sigune, time to whip up another one!" :/ But as long as they're fun, I continue.

The Spy’s Progress
Customer Relations
A Father’s Duty
The Eldest Snapeling
Paying the Piper (my favourite so far, together with Of Bad Books, Part II)
In London
Wolfsbane

These days, there is a lot of interaction between Snape and his daughter (the one he didn't have when JKR was asked, but has been conceived in the meantime :D). Snape cum family is really something very difficult to manage for me, and I'm not always sure whether I actually pull it off, but it's worth trying. At least, when Rowling kills him off, I'll know I gave Snape a future and can wander out of fandom with my mind at rest ;).

It is not at this point clear to me (nor to anyone else in the house) when the scanner will finally be reinstalled; that means it will probably be some time still until the next page of the comic will be posted. I’m really sorry about the delay. I am currently considering posting the pages at deviantART – this would be without the sketches and explanations, and I have the story scanned till page 10, so updates would be quicker there.

As to fanfic: I toy with the occasional plot bunny and have a few unfinished stories with some potential lingering on my hard drive, so it is possible that sooner or later a short story pops up. My baby is, of course, still the WIP of Doom. I have noticed that everybody and their sister is currently writing their novel-length versions of Snape’s (early) life, so I’m hardly original there. I also realise that I won’t be able to race them to the finish, so I have decided to take it easy. I really want this story to be something good (as in: the best I’ve yet written), and in order for that to work, I will need to devote a lot of time and energy to it. I can’t spare those at the moment, because of RL work and a comics deadline, so I have resigned myself to putting the WIP on hold until such a time as I can devote myself more fully to it.

But… To keep my hand in, I am writing other ficcy stuff, namely as a member of the Phoenix Rising RPG. I think it is sylvanawood who used to sport a great icon that said something to the effect that we should write fanfic in order to give Snape a future, and ever since HBP appeared I have felt the need to indeed write a story in which Snape doesn’t kick the bucket (possibly because I’m convinced that he will - *whine* - and because I feel that actually, even aside from fannish adoration, it would make more sense that he wouldn’t). Now, I gave my scenario quite some thought and established what I guessed Snape might do in the aftermath of HBP and the as yet unseen Book 7, but somehow I never hit on a suitable format in which the story might be written out and posted. Phoenix Rising offered me one.

Phoenix Rising’s overall story arc is not my idea, of course; it’s the game master’s. I also have nothing whatsoever to do with the writing of any other characters than Snape and my OCs. But as for the time being Snape’s story is only marginally interwoven with other playing characters’, I have quite a lot of freedom right now. Consequently, in the unlikely case that you are desperately looking for Sigune fanfic (imagine!) and too impatient to wait another year until the WIP of Doom is ready, I would refer you to Snape’s Phoenix Rising Livejournal. It features characters and backstory from my ‘published works’ (as Lockhart would say) like Brynhild and her family, and whole new ones from Snape’s new environment. It is in some ways ‘the Story Sigune Never Dared to Tell but now Perpetrates under the Cover of a Game’ :D – some of it goes a long way back. The entries build on one another and the journal can therefore be treated like a chaptered fic – which in itself is already a bit of an experiment for me, and hopefully will give me some expertise for the WIP.
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