Fic: A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings - Chapt. 1

[sailorlum]

The skinny: This is a long Severus/Lily fic series, where Severus Snape has some character growth and he and Lily Evans get to stay together for good, and where their lives are explored in detail (with some exploration for their friends and enemies, too). There will be romance, comedy, drama, angst, smut, action, slice of life, shmoop, wizarding

Comments

[scrollgirl]

Please don't feel you have to answer, but I'm curious why you changed the ages of the characters. Is it simply to avoid having Snape and Lily get together while they're still underage? Because the age of consent in the UK is 16, in case you didn't know, so it's perfectly okay for them to be having sex at the end of their fifth year.

(Of course, whether you feel comfortable writing 16-year-olds having sex is another matter!)

[sailorlum]

No problem, I don't mind answering questions. ;)

I decided to age everyone up so I could avoid the whole chan issue. A lot of HP fic archives I’ve come across require that all characters in NC-17 situations be 17 or 18 and up, and I want to keep my archiving options open. Also, I feel more comfortable writing graphic sex for people age 18 and up, than I do for 16 and up, anyway.

Nifty icon, BTW. :)

[scrollgirl]

Thanks for answering! I can appreciate your POV on taking artistic liberties to feel more comfortable with sex scenes :)

I like your icon too!

[sailorlum]

No problem. ;)

Actually, since almost every comment I've gotten about the fic, thus far, is about the age change, I've taken it as a sign to change it back to canon. I can get over not being able to submit my fic to some archives (it turned out it was a group of archives by the same group, so it wasn't that many, anyway), and canon aged Severus and Lily are two consenting people of the same age, who are at the age of consent, and no one is getting arrested for writing "16 and up graphic sex" in written fiction, so...I probably shouldn't worry about writing it. It's not like I bat an eye at other people's fics when they write two consenting people at the age of consent having graphic sex.

I like your icon too!

Thanks, it's one of my favorites. :)

[scrollgirl]

Ooh, I'm sorry you got so many comments about the age change! I do get why you did it, so I hope you're feeling comfortable with changing their ages back.

I can't speak for anyone else, but most AUs I see are canon twists--what if Peter hadn't betrayed the Potters, what if Snape hadn't become a Death Eater, what if Neville had been the Boy Who Lived. It's harder to reconcile changes that don't have much context--why does Hogwarts go from age 13-20?

But as long as you warn for underage sex, I think you should be okay :) ETA: That is, warn for their being 16-years-old, even if 16 is the age of consent.

[sailorlum]

But as long as you warn for underage sex, I think you should be okay :) ETA: That is, warn for their being 16-years-old, even if 16 is the age of consent.

Thanks for reminding me! Eep! *stops to add that everywhere, real quick*

Ooh, I'm sorry you got so many comments about the age change! I do get why you did it, so I hope you're feeling comfortable with changing their ages back.Thanks. :) I was mostly worried about the archive issue, anyway. I think the fact that I saw some archives that would allow all kinds of kinky stuff and horror but drew the line at 16 year olds having sex with each other, worried me that too many people would be squicked, and since I felt fine aging them up, I aged them up. As it turns out, more people are bothered by the big canon change that requires, so back to canon I go. I see upsides and downsides to leaving them at their canon ages and aging them up. I was not really ever squicked by writing them at their canon ages, but the closer they are to my own age, the more comfortable I feel (it's just been a

[scrollgirl]

I don't really get the archive thing, to be honest. I used archives pre-LJ and I've got an AO3 account, but I much prefer posting fic on my own DW/LJ where I can control it. And HP fandom is a bit weird as fandoms go, because of the demographics--I can understand why they're so cautious, even though it annoys me to register just to read fic. (Often I just don't bother once I hit a "must be 18" warning page.)

[sailorlum]

Yeah, I don't blame them for being cautious.

I probably won't bother with archives, since I'd have to reformat and there is the control issue. Some OCD part of me just hated to not have the *possibility* of posting at an archive, LOL.