pauraque_bk | Assorted nattering + FICRECS.

-Oops, I wanted to point to the

hp_essays HBP read-through before all the chapters were taken, but... I didn't. Well, you can still volunteer to pinch-hit if someone drops out! I snagged Chapter 4.

-I was thinking about

amanuensis1's post about the way JKR writes romance again, and thinking back to something I said to

_hannelore a couple days after the book came out.

I was complaining about Harry/Ginny, and she asked how I thought it could have been better, or something along those lines... And I said that if I were writing it, I'd have given Harry and Ginny at least one scene where they had a real conversation -- shouldn't be too hard to come up with an excuse for them to be alone together. They could start off talking about the Quidditch team, then somehow get around to the potions textbook, which turns it into something more serious -- do more than just touch on their mutual and respective experiences with Voldemort, actually let them talk for more than two sentences. And in the course of this, Harry would realize how much he had in common with her, or she could say something really insightful and he'd be impressed, or whatever seemed natural...

But that's the way I'd write it, because I'm a character-oriented writer. And of course JKR didn't write it that way, because she's a plot-oriented writer. I actually would have been astonished if she'd done a scene anything like that -- it would have seemed strange and uncharacteristic.

Realizing this doesn't change the fact that I didn't enjoy the romances while I was reading them, of course. It's not that I don't like the way JKR writes, it's that I find her style/strategy doesn't work equally well for all types of storylines. "Plotty hints" as

amanuensis1 calls them work fine for a lot of things, but are totally unsatisfying for what (to me) can only be successfully written by spending time on psychological and emotional development.

-You guys have all been reading

black_dog's excellent HBP posts, right? Here, try the HP books as unsolvable puzzles and fallible!Dumbledore.

-My head is starting to hurt from trying to figure out why Voldemort gave Lily the choice to live.

gmth brought it up after the JKR interview, and

fitchersvogel did a thing about it too avec Snape/Lily.

I was considering earlier what it would look like if V had been playing on Snape and Peter's respective feelings to get each of them to give up what they knew about the Potters. Say Snape loves Lily and despises James -- say Peter loves James and despises Lily. Voldemort promises Snape he won't hurt Lily, and promises Peter he won't hurt James. I'm not wedded to this idea, it's just something I was fooling around with as a possibility for fic.

Now, from the interview, we know that V killed James without a second thought, but gave Lily the chance to spare herself. Then it starts looking like he was trying to choose Snape over Peter, reward him.

Heh, I wish I could come up with a more solid reason for sparing her.

-RECS!

Eve(ning) (PG-13, Remus/Sirius) by

imochan [No HBP spoilers.]
When you read an

imochan ficlet you never notice how short it is, because it's so dense, packed with images and sensations that demand to be felt, that stick hard in your mind and on your fingertips. She makes it look so easy. *happy sigh*

As You Were (NC-17, Harry/Draco) by

emmagrant01
Post-HBP. I hear this author is hot stuff in H/D fandom, but I'd never read anything by her before. Very much enjoyed this, though.

Attempt No. 32 (NC-17, Harry/Slughorn) by

biichan
First post-HBP fic I read, and glad of it! Something smuttily delicious to put a smile on your face.

Double Penetration (NC-17, Slughorn/Tom/Dumbledore) by

_hannelore
Mmmm. Love Tom here. So manipulative, playing them off each other. Makes me want to write this threesome too. Also post-HBP, obviously.