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consistentsquash · 1 year

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Fic Meta Friday

But like budget/mediocre meta. Not deep and probably pretty wrong.

Thinking about three Snape centric shortfics which flip/subvert gender roles and “birth” by using magic in super creative ways I found really interesting.

Birth in quotes because it’s definitely not the biological concept but more like creating life with magic.

Like a tree giving birth to a lamb!!!

Anyway I saw this pattern of magically creating life w/o biology in three fics by eldritcher over the last year. The concepts and how that affects the gender roles are super interesting! For me ofc. YMMV.

Idk why this is super interesting for me. Pregnancy fics are a squick for me but I really love how the process of creating life is deconstructed/changed. It just feels like a really cool/novel exploration of what magic can do, but also why this is taboo/forbidden.

Also really love the ethics/morality/consent implications. I actually feel creation/resurrection of another life is more interesting in magic fics compared to immortality like the Philosopher’s stone which doesn’t really have the same type of ethics/morality/consent problems. Of course Voldemort is a different case because his immortality happens by killing folks.

Trope - Creating life from Clay

Golem

TL;DR - Snape creates McGonagall.

Snape creates a McGonagall golem and brings it to life. With the power of love. Also with the power of some really creepy dark magic. He creates a golem with clay from a marsh which contains bones/remains of dead people/animals + sleeps with it which makes the golem come alive. But not just that! He uses Polyjuice with her hair and becomes “her” when making/making out with the golem. A statue coming alive is the obvious trope. But I found it super cool how the creation needs this more feminine magic from the creator to “birth” life in the golem.

Trope - Death pays for life

The Lone and the Leveled

TL;DR - Snape tries to birth Lily.

I mean birth in a super vague sense. Because it’s definitely not the biological concept. Snape sacrifices himself with some ritual to “birth” Lily based on how a tree births the lamb in the Lamb of Tartary myth. Of course this backfires. Which is something I really like. Because magic of this type should come with serious consequences. Also never forgetting Snape as The Lamb of Tartary stuck on a tree!!!!

Also check out this really cool art about The Lamb of Tartary myth by McGill/Hannah Comb.

Trope - soul birth

Soul birth? Spirit? I don't actually know what this trope is called. Sorry.

Womb

TL;DR - Portrait!Phineas births Snape.

Super Slytherin Phineas cares about his legacy going on. He tries to resurrect Sirius from the Veil and it doesn’t work. Maybe this is about how blood legacy isn’t the most important thing? Next attempt is him resurrecting Snape and it kind of works. Because they are the last Slytherin headmasters and they both have that as a big part of their identity. The process is really interesting. Like one portrait having this umbilical connection to another portrait and then feeding it magic to the point where it can become “life”.

Anyway. Love it when fics gets so creative especially about using magic to subvert biological things like pregnancy.

I don't think this type of magic is actually in character for the magic in the HP series. But maybe? Like the resurrection stone concept in the Hallows? I actually like this type of sneaky take on gender which is kind of feminist and totally opposite to exclusionary takes. Idk. The gender expression feels really not about the labels but also really not a thing you notice in text because it feels pretty organic? Idk if I am explaining this right.

!!!ALSO!!! I am definitely 100% interpreting this wrong so don't quote me on this stuff. I got most of this from comments + author notes + Google.

Other cool concepts which get subverted in fics with magic!

Also feel like there is a whole another category of really creative, brilliant fics where it’s about giving someone between life and death the choice. Like the Harry and Dumbledore conversation in canon but ofc it gets 100x more interesting when it’s somebody who didn’t have a lot of good stuff in their life… like Snape. Snape being given the choice to live/die is super interesting. Maybe when I get better at analysis I can think about analyzing some of the fics which are more about the life/death dynamic... like literally every single Perverse Idyll fic.

mediocre meta fridays :D

but check out this really cool Lamb of Tartary myth art by zooophagous.

#fic meta #fics with magic #hp fic #hp #queer as fuck #gender as fuck #fics which are pretty idgaf about biology #shitty meta #not really meta #pro snape #snape fandom

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