Indeed,

[my_tara_tory]

I have been doing the fannish thing for, gods help me, more than 40 years. The slash thing I've done since...um. 1979? That sounds right. I started with K/S. Spock, you know, and I adored Spock for years before I found fandom. One of the canon/fanon words Spock used was "Indeed." A lot. Now the problem with this is, all of the sudden I am seeing 'indeed' come out of...Snape's mouth. Every time I read that, it smashes me right out of the story and into another universe. It's like being drop-kicked through a series of fannish goalposts that stretch back in time, right back to the first one. I drop right out of the narrative flow, stop, shake my head a few times to get the rocks of the past out, and then I climb back on the ficcish horse and ride on. Only the word is quite popular for some writers. There was a story recently where I had to climb back on more than a dozen times in one story. I still enjoyed the story, but I bet I would have liked it even more if I hadn't been jerked out of the story so often. (It doesn't help that both Snape and Spock are similar in appearance-- all that dark brooding mystique and noble nose-- and similar in name--five letters, strong, starts with S.)

So here is something I want to know. I am not up on my Potter canon for the last books as much as I should be. Is 'indeed' actually canon, somewhere? Does Snape say it? Does he say it more than once? Often, even? If he does, then I must accept my fate and resolve to face my continued involuntary dismounts with a brave face. Maybe I'll get used to it and it eventually won't have as much effect. If the phrase is canon, I am going to go about pleading with authors to use it sparingly. It's a matter of enlightenment, right? If they weren't there for the beginning, they can't know it is having this effect on old fogies like me.

I'll cross post this to a list or two if I can figure out how....