If Snape showed up in a post-DH fic...

[summerborn]

Snupin-centric, I suppose, but anyone with thoughts on the subject is welcome to participate. I've been away a while - what are your thoughts about warnings and labels for post-DH Snupin (if that isn't a contradiction in terms)?

Poll Regarding older Snupin (Post-War, Post-DH) fic...

Comments

[marginaliana]

I want a label as to canonicity just so I can get into the mindset of the story. If it's AU after OotP and doesn't tell me that up front (either explicitly or by having been written before the other books) - it's not that I won't read it, but that I'll have a moment of "wait, what?" that breaks me out of the story. Whereas if I'm prepared by a label, I can dive straight in.

And I do want at least a handwaving explanation of the canon (like, "previously presumed dead" is fine and "Tonks and Remus decided to split" is fine - I don't need detail) rather than pretending it never happened. In fact, I think that unless it's important to the plot of the story you're telling, I'd rather have a handwaving explanation than a detailed "why they're not together anymore" thing.

Also, hi!

[summerborn]

Hi!

I think I'm with you - without at least a *mention*, I'm going to be a bit confused about what I'm supposed to be expecting. But I'm not so much into reading details of exactly how Remus and Tonks split - unless that's the point of the fic. I'm glad to know this attitude seems to have generally relaxed since the immediate aftermath of DH (good Lord, don't tell me how long ago that was because I won't believe you).

[elsajeni]

I'm inclined to say that Snape being alive needs more of an explanation than Lupin being alive does. The reader sees Snape's death, in great detail and from very close up; if I don't get an explanation beyond "He was just kidding!", I am totally unconvinced. But Lupin's death is sort of handwaved to start with, so a fic writer can get away with handwaving his non-death, too.

[summerborn]

That's a good point. Although, if I went with that logic, the whole romance with Tonks was pretty much handwaved in also :D

[r_grayjoy]

If Remus/Tonks + Teddy never happened, I suppose you really have to call that AU -- but I don't mind it in the least!! I loathe Remus/Tonks, and I'm not at all fond of small children, so any passing excuse to get that stuff out of the way is sufficient for me.

However, I don't feel the need for an AU label on fics in which Remus and/or Snape is still alive after the war. There are lots of ways to bring them back that don't directly conflict with canon.

At this point, enough people have written detailed descriptions of ways in which those characters managed to live/came back from the dead that I don't need more than a passing reference in a new fic to find it believable.

[summerborn]

That sounds like my take on it, too. I suppose it *must* be AU, although that seems to be my preference - this very specific brand of AU, anyway :). It just seems so much like canon that it feels odd branding it "alternate" in any way. But that's what I get for being in on the HP scene since before DH was out, I guess.

[dracofiend]

Well hi there! How've you been and everything?? :D

[summerborn]

Hiya! I've been... mostly busy! Hoping to start reading some and maybe writing some too if I'm lucky. How've you been?

[snegurochka_lee]

Oh look! I just did a new quibbler_report and had to add AU labels where there weren't any. :((( [/poss. biggest fandom pet peeve]. If Snape or Lupin is alive and your fic is set postwar, it's AU. It just is. I suppose I might entertain a "Snape really lived and crawled out of the Shack and got awesomesauce treatment" thing if the fic really focused on making me believe it as a central plot thing, not fangirl wishful thinking. But Remus, alas, is just dead. :(

I'll read a variety of post-DH scenarios, but I do want to be warned for AU. I'm a stickler like that.

As for Teddy... I'm rather interested in him lately, but rarely with Remus or Tonks also alive. For my own writing, in fact, my characterisation of Teddy is completely dependent on his parents being dead and him having a bit of an orphan complex. I've read good fic where Remus is alive and they're hanging out and stuff, but I don't think I'll be writing it. Teddy = orphan. :)

Also, I am wildly inconsistent and want things both ways:

If you don't call it AU, then you have

[summerborn]

Wildly inconsistent is perfectly understandable :)

Interesting take on Teddy, too. I must say I haven't been reading much for the past *mumble mumble* and I haven't seen much of him. I'd love to have those next-genners get some personality of their own in the hands of some good fic writers, though!