The Ramble Queen_of_Snapes asked for

[therealsnape]

In the 24-question meme, queen_of_snapes chose: just ramble on on something related to fandom - go, go, go. I asked for a bit of time to sort out my thoughts, and she must have despaired of ever getting an answer.

But here I turn up, like a bad Knut, with a not so little ramble. But then, she knows I'm a waffler.



One of the things in fandom that sometimes manage to annoy me a little is the focus on pairings and sex-scenes. There are a great many fandoms in which there might be excellent stories, if only one wouldn't want to come up with a pairing.

I should begin by explaining my ideas of a good fanfiction story. These ideas are strictly my personal opinion; many excellent writers will disagree completely, of course. It's just about what I like to write and read - a personal opinion, nothing more.

I love canon-compliantness - to a degree. I'm not a fan of the kind of stories that JKR once so aptly described as tales beginning with, "Hi, I'm Lily Evans, and you all thought I was dead - but I'm not!" On the other hand, I can live with ignoring the epilogue, since that's so clearly not a part of the 7-year story, but an attempt to rule from beyond the Veil. As to Pottermore and interview canon, I'm firmly of the If you think it's important, write another book school of thought.

But other than that, I like my stories to be possible and believable within the framework of the original story. Which is why I love the Potter-fandom so much: there's this whole set of fascinating older characters, and since the books are told strictly from Harry's point of view, we know little or nothing about their private lives and private interactions. There are a few, small glimpses: Molly and Tonks having a woman-to-woman talk; Minerva who has known Augusta at school; Griselda who is such a great friend of Augusta.

For the others, we are free to make up their relationships as we see fit. But in quite a few other fandoms, in my opinion, the need for pairings leads to 'we must have a pairing; so we'll bed the main characters, regardless of the personal inclination of the character or the intention of the writer'.

And when I say 'intention of the writer' I don't mean: did the writer plan a sex-life for their characters. JKR mostly didn't where her older characters are concerned. It doesn't stop me from writing those relationships, based on what I mentioned above. What I do mean is: given the way the relationship is described in the books, is there any likelyhood that these two might fall in love? This is why I will never write Sybill/Minerva. The books make it perfectly clear that Minerva doesn't even like her - I can't see these two fall in love based on what we know from canon.

Severus/Minerva? Yes. Harry sees the bickering - that may well be UST. Or RST. He just doesn't realise it. What we know from canon doesn't completely preclude the relationship in my eyes.

When it comes to this stress on pairings I mentioned, Downton Abbey, for me, is a case in point. Quite often the discussion isn't 'which stories are worth telling', but 'whom can we pair the character with'. And the downside of Downton as a fandom is that it's rather hard to find pairings other than the canon ones. There's the three daughters of the house, who are at an age in which people usually look for life partners, and sure enough they find one. But those stories are told on screen, and while one may fill in missing moments, and write excellent stories with those moments, one can't change much about the course of things. At least, I, since I prefer to write canon-compliant, couldn't.

And then there's the Downton singletons, but it's not easy to find someone with whom one might pair them realistically.

Carson/Mrs Hughes, yes. I can see how that might work very well.

But O'Brien? Mrs Hughes, possibly, in terms of age and opportunity. Especially since Mrs is a job-related courtesy title - you don't have to explain away a heterosexual backstory and she does refuse the man who proposes. But the downside is, never in the series do I get the impression that Mrs Hughes even likes O'Brien, leave alone that she might fall for her. And on quite a few occasions there seems to be active dislike on Hughes's side.

Or Isobel/Violet? Well, that would take some doing on both sides. Mind, a good author might write a convincing story. But what I'd be really interested in is their back stories. As gen fic. And O'Brien's inner life. Notably how she deals with what she did to Cora, and how it changes her. Or a fic exploring the friendship between O'Brien and Thomas; they are introduced as firm allies from the start, but what makes them so?

Mind, I don't mean to say none of the Downton characters should have a sex-life. But it might have to involve OC's. And for those who don't like to write OC's, there might be very interesting stories if one lets go of the idea of pairing the characters up.

The same goes for the Inspector Lewis series. There's a strong tendency to pair him with Hathaway. But while a good writer could convince me that Hathaway might be in love with (or have a crush on) Lewis, I can't see it the other way around, because we know too much about Lewis's inclinations. Everything we've ever learned about him, both in this series and in Morse, points to the fact that he's heterosexual and self-identifies as such. Pairing him with Hathaway would make him OOC to me.

There are countless other examples. Wooster/Jeeves stories. P.G. Wodehouse wrote countless Wooster & Jeeves stories, but I very much doubt that either of these two characters would truly prefer the other over all other men (and, in Wooster's case, all other women). Of course, if a writer wants to write m/m within the Jeeves stories, theirs are the first two names that spring to mind. (Although I'd find Jeeves/Roderick Glossop much more likely, and doable within canon.) But Jeeves/Wooster feels to me as a 'we must have a pairing; so we'll bed the main characters' case.

So, yes, this tendency to run an online dating agency is one thing I regret. The other thing is the strong focus on the explicit sex scene. Mind, it can be beautifully done; it can be a vital scene in a story; there are all sorts of excellent reasons for writing sex scenes.

But occasionally the reason seems to be 'must have sex scene'. To the point where people almost apologise if their sign up contains a request for maximum PG-13. Or they very carefully hint that 'it would be perfectly all right to fade out at the sex scene'.

In fact, quite a few sex-scenes in my stories were added because the fest had a mandatory rating (my stories for femmeslash day, Yule Balls, and femmefest notably). I didn't enjoy writing those scenes, and I don't think they add all that much to the stories. These days I carefully limit myself to fests where I can do as I see fit. Sometimes that's explicit sex, when the story asks for it, and sometimes it's not. And when the story asks for it, I suddenly find it the greatest possible fun to write.

Well, that was my not so little ramble.

Comments

[tetleythesecond]

This is such an awesome ramble that, if it were possible, I'd fangirl you even more now than I did already. I've always had a soft spot for backstory-exploring gen, and it often surprises me how little there is in fandom. And I feel like you about the extreme focus on pairings. There is so much else in life, and there is so much more to liberation than sex. (Of course sex is part of it, not to be misunderstood, but yeah ... I've come to prefer fests where you've got a chance of at least a decent percentage of gen -- which can also contain couples and sex, of course, but with a focus on something else.)

Whilst I agree with you about Severus and Minerva than canon doesn't completely preclude the relationship, I must say that there is also a premise under which I could imagine a past Minerva/Sybill. In fact, I the second I read it, a storyline formed in my mind. I'll safely stow it away (take your pick whether that should be for future reference or so I'll never see it again. *g*)

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

If you want to write Sybill/Minerva you certainly must do it, my dear. Certainly.

And thanks for the supportive words!

[kellychambliss.livejournal.com]

And don't think I've forgotten that I owe you a ramble, too! I've actually written bits of one.

What a thoughtful, insightful, perceptive "ramble" you've written here, but then who could be surprised? Not I. This was a delight to read. I'm happy for you to ramble more often!

I'm completely with you on canon-complicity; those stories are by far the ones I like best to read and write. That's not to say that I don't also enjoy the occasional total AU -- when the fully-recognizable canon characters are present. And I also want any romantic relationship to be plausible within the canon universe. I understand that different readers will have different interpretations of what constitutes "plausible," and that's fine. But to me, there are just certain pairings that wouldn't be likely. (Much as I'd enjoy some good Violet femmeslash, for instance, I just don't see it happening with Isobel [or so far, with any of the canon possibilities.] As you say, a fine writer could probably find a way to make it work -- sort of -- but it would be a stretch. Ditto Mrs Hughes/O'Brien.)

And I know you have not suggested otherwise, but I just want to clarify that even an intense fondness for pairings and sex-scenes doesn't preclude an equal appreciation of non-pairing gen. I often enter enthusiastically into discussions of "who can we pair with whom?"and I do write mostly pairing-fic (though with a wide rating range), but I still like gen very much.

I'm of two minds about fests that require a certain rating. On the one hand, I agree totally that being forced to put smut in a story that doesn't need it is a problem -- false to the story and not fun to write. But as a writer, sometimes I enjoy the challenge of writing something that requires me to include a certain element, whether it be sex or something else. But like you, I tend not to sign up if the requirements are too restrictive for whatever stories I have in mind.

I think what I like least about those "must be R or NC-17" fests is not the focus on sex and pairings per se, but how often the stories end up focusing JUST on the porn, with little attention to character or motivation, so that while the participants may be called "Harry" or "Severus" or whoever, they bear little relationship to their canon counterparts. They could just as easily be called "John Doe" and "Phil Moe."

Anyway, another fine TRS post. Do consider rambling more often, dear /g/.

[tetleythesecond]

But to me, there are just certain pairings that wouldn't be likely. (Much as I'd enjoy some good Violet femmeslash, for instance, I just don't see it happening with Isobel [or so far, with any of the canon possibilities.]
I'm completely with you here! Though if you don't mind me jumping here with a little train of thought I've been having on just those two, I think that this is perhaps where "femslash" would be too anachronistic a category for those two -- if we consider stories as "femslash" where there is a romantic, sexual, or erotic attachment between women that is understandable to us 21st-century westerners as "lesbian" (rather than, I believe, what has been termed -- not quite fortunately, I think -- "lesbian-like", or otherwise non-heterosexual/queer).

But here we have an opinionated, conservative, aristocratic dowager and an opinionated, value-conservative and otherwise probably liberal-bourgeois upper-middle-class philanthropist, who don't even like each other (but may be drawn to each other in other ways, say, as sparrings partners.) In the hands of a good writer, I can imagine their banter turning towards some unspoken, subtle erotic tension that lies more in the game and the exercise of brains and wits than in physical attraction, but taking it too far could easily make the story implausible. There exists a piece of writing by a bourgeois feminist who lived with a woman (and whose attitudes I'd mine if I were to write Isobel getting a kick out of being with women), and in it she says that she considers it in her interest to establish women not as sexual beings but as persons with brains. She therefore advised sexual ascetisism to unmarried feminists, which however would not mean renouncing to (a) eroticism because that could be had in intellectual contact with other women, and (b) motherhood because that could be had through social work. I'm sure there were English women who thought like that, given that the Germans had those ideas from English and American feminists in the first place.

So no, like you, I can't see how Violet and Isobel could have an "affair" that people today would recognise as one. Physical elation, unspoken and perhaps even unacknowledged attraction, though? I think that could work. But I'm not sure it could be called "femslash"...

[tetleythesecond]

PS -- This does not mean that Isobel's second cousin thrice removed, Amelia Crawley, who has a doctoral degree in Law and wears a shirtwaist and necktie and monocle, and who comes to Downton to look at loopholes in the entail (out of principle, not because she thinks young women wouldn't be better advised to be professionals rather than heiresses), wouldn't succeed if she had her short-haired head set on getting Isobel off this asceticism thing.

The Dowager, I don't think so.

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

Missy, you are now officially a fic-teaser. You've given us so many tantalising possibilities, and you leave us panting and practically screaming, "Yes! Yes! Now, please, now! Oh, god, Tetley, yes, THIS". And then you leave us. It's cruelty. Worse, it's most assuredly NOT consensual.

It's about time you wrote another fic.

[kellychambliss.livejournal.com]

I'm with TRS -- bring on the Crawley second cousins!!

[kellychambliss.livejournal.com]

I think that this is perhaps where "femslash" would be too anachronistic a category for those two

Yes, definitely! It could be a relationship with a strong erotic charge, but I think very, very unlikely that it would be in the sense of a sexual partnership or that they would see themselves as a "couple" or even as having an "affair" in the commonly-understood sense of the term. (That is, I'm not sure I could see Violet/Isobel as having this sort of erotically-charged friendship, but I think either could have one with someone else.)

Your bourgeois feminist sounds similar to things I've read by 19th and early 20th century American women, too -- they recognize a whole world of intense emotional and erotic possibilities (often very consciously politically-defined) that doesn't depend on either genital contact or on "couplehood." Not that the writers state this view as explicitly and directly as I did here -- they would usually put it in mainstream het terms, using "marriage" both as itself and as a sort of shorthand/euphemism for sex in general. But in some ways, they had a wider (or at least different) understanding of "sex" and of the erotic than many people do in the 21stC, who so often see things in genital terms with orgasm as the goal/purpose.

You know that's why so many historical women that the 21st-century wants to call (in hindsight) "lesbian" -- women in Boston marriages, for instance -- quite honestly (and sometimes indignantly) repudiated that category when it was offered to them. They really didn't see themselves as woman-loving in that sense. I've seen current writers just dismiss these responses as either flat-out lies or as sad and pitiable self-hatred or denial, but while this assessment may be true for some, it ignores the possibility that women of the past were really working with a different paradigm than the one we're trying to impose on them.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I can so easily see the Downton women (Isobel especially, and maybe Mrs Hughes) fitting so well into the pre-sexologist way of looking.

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

But as a writer, sometimes I enjoy the challenge of writing something that requires me to include a certain element, whether it be sex or something else. That's very true. And it was challenging, to write those scenes. It's just that the fests in question are about non-heteronormative pairings - which is great - but one can write fine stories about those with R-ratings (or even PG-13), where more is left to the imagination.

What I dislike is extending a sex-scene beyond what I feel is right for the story and characters, just to get my story to NC-17 level. For a fest where the point is not porn, but simply non-het relationships.

And, as you say, the result is often porn for the porn.

Also, I'll keep looking forward to your ramble with the greatest possible anticipation!

[queen-of-snapes.livejournal.com]

Yay, a TRS ramble! *\o/* Always worth the wait.

I do agree that there tends to be too much focus on pairings in fanfiction. I remeber from my early fanfic days in the Star Trek Voyager universe that most of what you got was Janeway/Chakotay romance stuff, and that was so not my cup of tea... There were hardly any gen stories around (though I should add that at the time I only read German stories, so the selection was very limited), but judging by the fact that J/C is still the pre-dominant pairing I don't think much has changed.

Downton Abbey is probably the only fandom I don't read any fanfic of, because most of the stories tend to focus on a particular pairing, whether it's the same as on the show or not. I'm fine with the couples we get on screen, but I'm not interested enough in those or any alternatives that I feel the need to read stories about them.

In fact, the only fandom I actively look for stories with certain pairings is Harry Potter; perhaps because there's such an interesting variety of choices. You can be picky, and even rare pairings like Snape/McG have gathered a greater following over the years. But here, too, what I like best are gen stories, or stories that have pairings in the background.

I don't have much fest experience and I never came across fests that had mandatory ratings, but I don't think I'd participate. Sex scenes that were forced into a story just for the sake of fulfilling a requirement are awful. If they're part of the story, if they fit in - great. But otherwise, no.

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

but I'm not interested enough in those or any alternatives that I feel the need to read stories about them. That's exactly how I feel about Downton fic.

And sometimes the mandatory-ratings fests have great prompts - it's when you write the story that you feel like keeping it at R-rated at most. I'm not completely unhappy with the final results, not at all. I just would have had more fun writing if I hadn't been obliged to stretch to NC-17.

[miss-morland.livejournal.com]

I agree that the strong focus on explicit sex/high ratings can get tedious, and I'd like to add that to me, stories with lower ratings but plenty of chemistry/tension can often be sexier than fics that go into detail after technical detail. The emotions and characterisations are what gets to me the most, basically.

As for the obsession with pairings, it's something I've thought about myself from time to time. I do enjoy stories about romance and/or sex -- and I don't mind background pairings in genfic either -- but there's also more to life. If a character's 'pairability' is the only thing considered interesting about them, then that sounds rather boring.

Of course, if a writer wants to write m/m within the Jeeves stories, theirs are the first two names that spring to mind.

I'm not sure how often it actually happens in that order, though? I can only speak for myself, of course, but most often the desire to write about a pairing actually stems from enjoying their dynamics and the prospect of there being more to their relationship than what is shown in canon. I can't remember reading a story and thinking, 'Oh, I want to slash SOMEONE, but who? Oh well, these two guys will have to do...' So my guess is that many most people who read or write Bertie/Jeeves romance do so because they enjoy this specific pairing, and not because any slash ship in that canon would do the job -- I know I don't feel that way about the pairings I like. I couldn't replace Holmes/Watson with Holmes/Lestrade and enjoy it just as much, for instance.

Basically I think the desire to read/write about characters' relationships can often be similar or even identical to the desire to read/write about characters' backstories: wanting to know more about the stuff canon doesn't tell us.

Pairing [Lewis] with Hathaway would make him OOC to me.

I think there's a significant difference between a story in which Lewis has spent his whole life in the closet, only marrying because of expectations etc., and a story in which he comes to love Hathaway, though that doesn't in any way negate his previous relationships. The first scenario is ooc because we know Lewis loved his wife and that he's attracted to women. The other one doesn't have to be, IMO, given that sometimes people fall in love with a person of a different gender than they'd previously been attracted to. L and H may not be sleeping together, but they certainly care about each other -- I've read several stories in which skilled writers have believably developed their friendship into love.

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

I can't remember reading a story and thinking, 'Oh, I want to slash SOMEONE, but who? Oh well, these two guys will have to do...
Sorry, I explained myself badly. I'm not saying the writers would think like that - it is just that to me the combination feels not only so unlikely, but also so completely against what canon tells us about the relationship, that I can only explain the choice for a slash pairing by the desire to write pairing fic. Which is probably my problem entirely. And my loss. I admire purplefluffycat intensely as a writer, and I love her m/m stories though those are not generally my favourites, but I simply can't make myself read Jeeves/Wooster as a pairing because in canon they are so emphatically not (at least, that's how I read the books) that I can't see the pairing at all.

Jeeves/Wooster friendship or genfic by purplefluffycat? I'd practically kill for it.

And I totally believe you on the Hathaway/Lewis story of the second kind you mention.

[dueltastic (from livejournal.com)]

I think there can be a thing in fanfic of loving the characters so much that you want them to love each other, and it's hard to pair them with someone you're not as emotionally attached to. (Wooster/Fink-Nottle makes a lot more sense in context, but few fan writers have the desire to a) write Gussie, b) not give Jeeves nice things, or c) give Bertie something they think is subpar to the alternatives in an objective sense - before one even gets to the fact that we as viewers and readers tend to subconsciously assume characters are important because they're central, and relationships are important because they're central, both of which emphasize a possible pairing between the title characters even before one reads the works. Which, as a side note, is also a huge part of why leads and villains are so often paired - the side effect of the way they're written about or filmed is the subconscious belief that those characters are both the most important and their relationship is overwhelmingly important in that universe. It doesn't arise - generally speaking - out of a logical sense of the universe, but from making emotional sense of the edited view we get of that universe.)

If you are going in and trying to make logical sense of the universe, sometimes that desire to have the two characters you love fall in love with each other can make for interesting, unexpected pairing fic, and sometimes it's a little hard to get past the canonical obstacles to it. (And sometimes both.) :)

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

I think your point about the love we have for main characters in a story (or we wouldn't read it), combined with their importance in terms of narrative attention, does answer for quite a bit of pairing fic.

You're right about writing Gussie - Tuppy, perhaps, but Gussie? Also, Bertie really likes Tuppy, and he thinks Gussie is the most ghastly whimp. Can't see them bonding over newts, either.
Funnily enough, your B is why the pairing doesn't work. Giving Jeeves Bertie? For crying out loud, the man has a brain. He'd be bored to tears within hours.

But the point about the importance of the character in the original story, and the tendency to pair them with equally important ones, yes, I totally see that.

[cranky--crocus.livejournal.com]

One of the things in fandom that sometimes manage to annoy me a little is the focus on pairings and sex-scenes.
*Offers a big "WHOOP WHOOP!" (fist-waving included) for the beginning of this ramble.*

Totally with you here. The others have said all that I would have said, only better--which is one of the many reasons I love my flist. (:

Sometimes it makes me sad that much of the fic I write would interest most people and that the fic I write that does contain sex-scenes mostly wouldn't interest people either, because it's character-specific with each person (alright, mostly 'woman') involved different: pleasure process, interests, confidence, whatever. It's not going to work to change a few names, some hair colour and some eye colour to have different characters or a self-insert--not in the way that seems common, anyway. And some of my scenes don't even sound particularly sexy, I guess because there are times when, to an outsider, the sex won't look/seem/be that sexy unless one is invested in the pleasure of each character rather than on specific acts, metaphors, euphemisms, vagueness, ambiguity, or the phrase 'down there'.

Down there. I'm a scientist! In the land of science, things have names--especially anatomy. Granted, they aren't very sexy names. But things can be sexy with the right guttural inflection...

(I know you understand this, because I recall a line with the anatomy of fingers and other interesting locations. :B)

I like my readers to know what's up, perhaps sometimes more than they would like to know. Many others seem to like a few name drops, some hair descriptions, a few vague acts, and some metaphors for the body at climax--and pillow talk in which the fluff is in the dialogue and not in the headrests.

And, again, that's only if I get into the sex at all. Which is only if the characters decide, or decide to let me in rather than giving me teasing looks and disappearing behind some object or another that inevitably slams in my face. There was one fest I signed up for that required sex and I completely forgot, so I ended up writing another story following a similar line to the first. Thankfully I like having two similar stories that focused on slightly different things; it reminded me of the "tragedy vs. comedy" idea and the fact that there can be endless ways to focus a similar story--or even the same series of events (however unfortunate or fortunate).

That turned into a bit more of a rant. Alas, earwax. (Sorry, I've started saying that when things turn out differently from my expectations.)

Yay gen!

[twisted-twister.livejournal.com]

Better late than never...

I think you raised here very important and valid points and I'm very happy that you posted this 'ramble'. Seeing all the comments only makes this an awesome discussion; thank you for that. This is one of the things I love most about fandom and about this group of amazingly smart authors I am lucky to follow.

I totally agree with you on the 'must-have-sex' issue; I remember looking at the profile of fests and communities that any of you guys recced and promoted, thinking again and again: this is not for me; they want sex and I can't write that. This is one of the reasons I love Hoggywarty so much - thank you for creating this fest with gen writers in mind; knowing that gen option is not only there but also encouraged, makes writing so much easier and encourages the insecure (i.e. me)!!! And of course, the new addition to the calendar, HP friendship, also helps a lot.

Re canon complicity: I think most of us here are with you on this, and we differ only on what we define non canon moments/situations. [I know you said it yourself and so did others, but let me give my own way of reading the canon]

For me, for example, MM/SS (or SS/anyone) is non canon compliant not because (only yesterday I managed to put my finger on it) the age gap or the rival houses and different backgrounds, but because for me, if I read the canon literaly, he stayed loyal to Lily until he died, and my head canon can't see him looking/touching onother (male or female). But as I was trying to crystalise those thoughts so I can voice them here, I discussed them with Duel, who made just as valid point that Snape's loyalty, to her, is posession more than anything else, and therefore can not contradict any relationship - love or otherwise (sorry, Duel, if I misquote you here). I still stick to my own interpretation, because of Dumby's speech about love and all, but discussing this with Duel made me see how different people, who both place canon above all, and who read the same canon, see canon itself differently. Since my reading of the canon puts Snape's love until death to Lily and his murder by the snake as focal points and essential plot devices for the whole series, I personally can't see how he survives in so many fics, and happily shags (and even become domesticated) in others. What isn't spelled out in canon, like Poppy's private life for example, is fair game. But this, spelled out by JKR as the highlight of the seventh book? Can't pass on that one.

As a side note, let me repeat something that I think was said, not necessarily in those words, somewhere above me here. No matter how my personal canon reading is, as long as the characters behave in a believable way and the situation can fit into the universe with reasonong and creative thought, I think I'll enjoy any fic. Because canon is very important to me, but excellent writing - like all of the people who commented here do an a festly basis - is the key to enjoying a fic.

Thanks again for this interesting discussion.

[dueltastic (from livejournal.com)]

Duel, who made just as valid point that Snape's loyalty, to her, is posession more than anything else, and therefore can not contradict any relationship - love or otherwise (sorry, Duel, if I misquote you here)

It's close enough. :) That's sure part of it: I think he's desperate to hang onto her even as he's leaving her behind himself in many ways, because she's the only good thing he's ever had in his life - that makes her awfully precious to keep, even if it's obvious to everyone else that the friendship is realistically falling apart. I do believe he loves her. I don't think it's a simple romantic love, let alone a lifelong exclusive-of-all-others romantic love - first, he's too damaged a kid to understand love well, and second, the role she has in his life is too much the savior of the small innocent child he was, and she was lost to him when he lost his innocence, so I don't think she represents an adult love. (She's almost literally the symbol of his childhood innocence, really. Even her name; lilies generally symbolize innocence.) He continues to need her his entire life, because she's the only person who cared for him and made him truly, innocently happy, and the only person he was ever a good person with - what she represents, his lost innocence, is too critical to his redemption, too critical to the man he's trying to be, for him to ever treat her as unimportant.

I also think that as a teenager, he probably believed it was (or wanted it to be) romantic love, because it was a way to hold onto Lily forever. From his life choices, it's pretty clear he never put serious thought into a long-term relationship with her, let alone marrying Lily and having kids; that's just not compatible with what he was doing with himself. He never seems to have come onto her or asked her out. It seems like he needed her possessively far more than he was attracted to her. But when he was 15, he just couldn't get enough of her in his life to make him feel loved and good, and that would have been a way to get more of her to himself. He's a needy guy. :)

Fundamentally, though, even if I thought it was primarily and solely a romance - and this is where I disagree significantly with JKR, given her preferred backstory for Dumbles, Snape, and McG - I don't believe in The One True Love, the one you pine for the rest of your life. (In fact, I think it's antithetical to a lot of what Dumbledore wanted to teach about love, which is that love is not a rarity, something that's gone if you miss out on it, but that connecting with and caring for people is what we as healthy human beings do. So I think JKR contradicts her own message there.) Snape may not be the world's healthiest human being, but he does belatedly grow up and want to rescue people rather than hurt them, and likewise I think he becomes capable of connecting and caring for people like a slightly less damaged person, at least. He may always have too much needy-child inside him to ever really love healthily, but I think that's part of why he hangs onto Lily after all these years - it's belated, but he can love selflessly and be that less damaged man that he should have been, and it's not necessarily about romance at all. It's about what's left of his innocence, and his ability to love. (And less abstractly, I think losing someone you love doesn't mean you don't acquire fuckbuddies, friends with benefits, people you're attracted to and fond of, or maybe grow to love someone else, too. People who lose someone they love continue to have human relationships, sexual needs, and even emotional needs that they fill with other human beings.)

And that is my tl;dr about Snape and Lily. :)

[dueltastic (from livejournal.com)]

In fact, the more I think about your phrasing of it, the more I think that, in his teenage years, it was more purely possession than it was for the child or the grown man. The fact that he went to Voldemort to have her spared when James and Harry were killed, and was still willing to trade them for her when he went to Dumbledore, and thought that'd all work out for him... that's very purely possession of an object by that point, she's thoroughly objectified in his head. The child loved her, the grown man loved her, but 15-21-year-old Snape wasn't capable of it, he did just want to possess her. She became the tool that Dumbledore was able to use to teach him that once, as a young child, Snape had been capable of much more humanity, in part because it was so clear that something had gone very wrong in the way he cared for her.

[dueltastic (from livejournal.com)]

And back to the meat of your comment:

different people, who both place canon above all, and who read the same canon, see canon itself differently

and

as long as the characters behave in a believable way and the situation can fit into the universe with reasonong and creative thought, I think I'll enjoy any fic

Those are really the key points, I think. Very few people are going to interpret canon identically, but the fic will still largely work if the reasoning and the fic seem well-constructed, even if it's not a view of canon that's necessarily mine. One can suspend disbelief for the length of a fic, and take on an interpretation of canon one ordinarily wouldn't. (Heck, sometimes that's an interesting challenge to do while writing.)

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

This is so absolutely true. For instance, while I don't see canon in such a way that I think Snape/McGonagall pregnancy fic believable, I could, for the duration of your story, suspend disbelief and read it with immense pleasure. It worked for me during reading.

[dueltastic (from livejournal.com)]

Oh dear, the Highly Embarrassing Epic... yes, it is sort of the epitome of a canonically difficult event taken on for the challenge of writing it. :) But I think that, as a premise, it works much better when you specifically address the implications of canon and characterization in the story, rather than dodge them, and that was sort of what I set out to prove.

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

As a side note, let me repeat something that I think was said, not necessarily in those words, somewhere above me here. No matter how my personal canon reading is, as long as the characters behave in a believable way and the situation can fit into the universe with reasonong and creative thought, I think I'll enjoy any fic. Because canon is very important to me, but excellent writing - like all of the people who commented here do an a festly basis - is the key to enjoying a fic.

Great point - in fact, I just used it in a comment on a story I'm betaing right now. Thank you for making it!