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Interview with Acid and Sinick
Below please find our Author Interview with Acid and Sinick. To read our Art Interview with Acid, please click here.
You can find Acid on livejournal atac1d6urn and her stories at ac1dfics. Sinick can be found at sinick. They write both individually and as a team. Sinick acts as a beta for Acid on Acid's wonderful WIP Price of Magic and they have co-written the lovely Snape/Harry stories: Lion About the House and Commonplace Magic. I first fell in love with their work as a team when they unveiled ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif)
hello_hbp. Hello_HBP is a post-HBP WIP that intermixes amazing graphics with great writing. Be sure and check it out if you haven't already.
Aubrem: Hello Acid and Sinick. I've never interviewed writing partners together - should be fun! Can you both tell me your fannish histories?
Sinick: That's fair: I've never been interviewed before!
Heh. I'm afraid I've got rather more fannish history than any one fan should probably have.
As a little kid I'd been interested in Star Trek (this was in pre-TNG days), but my first fandom obsession began at age nine, with Lord of the Rings. At the time Mosaic wasn't even a gleam in CERN's eye, so I joined the English Tolkien Society, and had a poem published when I was fifteen.
My second fannish obsession was Star Wars: it was fun to see the huge impact the first movie had on mundane awareness of matters fannish.
Then the Wrath of Khan (actually Khan himself) dragged me by my gonads into costume-sewing, con-going Trek fandom.
My first net.fandom was Deep Space Nine, specifically the Cardassians. My only previous attempt at collaborative fiction dates from that time: "Mastery", a zineful of BDSM stories written via unscripted emails, wheresnaples wrote Bashir and I wrote Garak and Dukat.
Then Darth Maul renewed my earlier interest in Star Wars, and prompted me to write some stories for Siubhan's Sith Academy parody website.
I'm a serial monogamist as far as fandoms go, and although I'm still fond of my previous fandoms, the release of the Philosopher's Stone movie kindled instant, singleminded interest in all things Snapeish: and this is one fannish obsession that shows no sign of flagging.
Acid: My fannish record is nearly blank, compared to Sinick's. I started off in Xena femmeslash fandom around '99 (and still have a bunch of old sketches somewhere to prove it).
The summer when OotP came out I read all of the books at once, mostly because I was without a computer for a week and had nothing else to do. Never really liked the first five books that much. In my defence, book six, was definitely an exception to that, but back then it was the fandom creativity that drew me in after I checked out some of the fan sites.
HP fandom with its collection of pairings and the amount of new fanfic was quite a change from my old one. I began drawing fanart illustrations for some of the stories I read and liked; never planned to start writing myself but then the first ideas for Price sort of happened and Sinick bravely volunteered to beta-read the beginning chapters. I bet she had no clue back then what she was getting into.
Aubrem: Heh, I'm with you Sinick on the Khan, Cardassians, Sith Lords and Snape. And Acid, the same thing happened to me - I thought the books were good reads but nothing special until I found the incredible creativity in fandom (well, and hotness) and that was it. Ahem. But, this isn't about me ... So can you guys tell me what it is about Snape and Harry and the two of them paired together that you like?
Acid: Snape fascinates me. His ambiguity, his sarcasm, the contents of his mind, his nose. (Er, the nose is fun to draw; the rest mostly applies to written word.) Harry, on the other hand, makes me laugh and inspires me with his every achievement and every mistake; they can be equally grand and terrible. The impossible brat sort of grew on me; I was indifferent to his character in the books until I read his interaction with Snape in some fan fiction stories and my face lit up: whoa, all that potential! Now I like his stubbornness, his optimism, his penchant for trouble, and his easy-going nature.
As for these two together... where do I begin? I like the interaction, the arguments and the banter, the irony of them -- of all people -- ending up with one another. And now I suddenly have an image in my mind of Harry, Snape, and the resulting echoing groans (No, not that kind of image, Sinick.): "Why *me*?" And the follow up: "Why *him*?"
But seriously, they have a lot to teach and to give each other, intellectually, emotionally, and physically. I like the match (or mismatch) of their individual strengths and flaws and the conflict it creates. Harry's recklessness, impulsiveness, and enthusiasm against Snape's pragmatism, caution, and cynicism. Harry with his persistence and Snape with his eternal grudges. Pessimist and optimist. 'Ugly old git' and a 'scruffy, half-blind, moderately attractive, young idiot with a quaffle for brain and ... er, well, you get the idea.' They already bring out the worst in each other and are very capable of bringing out the best as well. They have the strongest subtle chemistry out of everyone else in the books.
Sinick: I don't really have a One True Pairing, so much as a One True Character: Snape was what piqued my interest in the Potterverse in the first place, and I still find his character, background, motives, personality and problems endlessly fascinating. He's the most layered, mysterious and morally ambiguous character in the entire series, and anti-heroes and shady characters have always intrigued me. I particularly like his intelligence, his self-reliance, his sarcasm and cynicism (I would have chosen 'cynic' for my username, but that was already taken).
The Snape half of Snarry was inevitable for Snape-obsessed me, so your question really boils down to: Why Harry?
It's easy to be annoyed by Harry as he appears in canon, particularly in OotP when the CAPSLOCK-ITIS hits. But although his stupid, self-absorbed moments in OotP irritated me as a reader, as a writer I adored JKR's characterisation of Harry: his behaviour in that book is pure teenaged boy. But I think it would be a mistake to dismiss Snape/Harry because of some annoying moments in canon: almost as grave a mistake as to dismiss Snarry and other cross-generational ships as being the province of closet ephebophiles. While I've read and enjoyed plenty of stories where Harry is still a student, I not only have so little RL interest of any kind in sub-adults I decided to remain childless, in general I'm definitely more interested by the characterisation possibilities offered by an older Harry: seventh-year, a young adult on the verge of leaving school, or even better, an adult, post-Hogwarts Harry. A more mature Harry is more interesting to me because he's more of a match for Snape than a younger student (I'm sorry but I really don't see Happily-Cowed-Sub!Snape).
But I digress. Why are Harry and Snape so good together? They incorporate all the best points of the "Opposites Attract" school of characterisation, while at the same time they are similar enough that I can see a relationship between them working (romantic cliches aside, relationships of opposites rarely last in the real world).
They're strikingly (and I think deliberately) alike in their backgrounds: both halfbloods, both coming from loveless childhoods to a Hogwarts and a wizarding world in which they are basically outsiders (though for opposite reasons: Harry is usually idolised while Snape is universally despised). Yet their personalities develop in basically opposite directions from those similar backgrounds. Harry is extraordinarily good-natured and well-adjusted (at least until fifth year), and it's not until sixth year that he shows any signs of the sarcastic repartee that seems to be Snape's stock-in-trade.
Despite the clear enmity in their pasts, they have the capacity to heal each others' wounds. They share a need for approval and belonging. Snape has never been influenced by Harry's fame; he's saved Harry's life with maximum effectiveness and minimum fuss any number of times. Snape could offer the grounding Harry needs: Harry could coax him out of his shell and share the capacity for optimism and joy that is his most attractive feature.
Aubrem: I am fascinated by the similarities you mention between Harry and Snape - halfbloods, loveless childhoods, outsiders, and no doubt more. I wonder just what JKR was up to in having Harry feel so much affinity for the Half-blood Prince. There was quite a strong link there - what did you two make of that?
Sinick: To me the similarity between Harry's background and Snape's (and Tom Riddle's, for that matter) is very deliberate on JKR's part. In fact, long before HBP came out, I was wondering about the sheer peculiarity of JKR's definition of "halfblood". Why in the world would the wizarding world draw no distinction between (a) offspring of a marriage of a wizard and a witch, one of whom had muggle parents, vs. (b) offspring of a marriage between a wizard/witch and a muggle? This lack of distinction between marriage to a muggleborn vs. a muggle was peculiar because the wizarding world clearly does draw a distinction between a muggle and a muggleborn witch/wizard (or else, why would they have coined the two distinct terms, 'muggle' and 'muggleborn', in the first place?)
I believe that JKR's definition of 'halfblood' is so oddly inclusive, solely because only thus can she put Harry (son of a wizard and a muggleborn witch), in the same category as Snape (son of a muggle and a witch) - and, for that matter, as Riddle (another son of a muggle and a witch).
As for the link between the Half-Blood Prince and Harry: ohhh, I loved, Loved, LOVED it! I think it was JKR's single greatest gift to the Snarry ship: even greater than the "on all fours in Snape's office" Occlumency scenes in OotP. (I know I'm far from the first person to observe that the very title "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" is a long way of saying "Snarry".)
I remain stunned that there haven't been more stories written capitalising on the juicy plot thread that was left hanging at the end of HBP: where Harry knows that the book is Snape's, and still has to resolve the conflict between his hatred of Snape and his gratitude, admiration, even fanboying, of the Half-Blood-Prince (without whose bezoar tip, Harry would have been unable to save Ron from poisoning). Of course, that sympathy that Harry felt for the Half-Blood Prince was the inspiration forhello_hbp.
I'm hoping against hope that JKR will pick up that dangling plot thread and use it to draw together the two of them before the end of the last book. The antipathy between them has been sizzling for six books: in the seventh, it's time that Harry (and by extension, the reader) is finally shown the moral lesson behind the character of Snape: that one need not be a handsome, attractive, sympathetic, nice or even a polite person, in order to be a courageous, heroic, good person.
Acid: Despite the chuckle I got out of the title of the sixth book and the idea of Harry smitten by Snape's diary, I can be a realist on rare occasions. I imagine that the similarities and Harry's (POV character’s) affinity for the Half-blood Prince were put in for the purpose of distracting the readers from the big conclusion of book six. At least that's how I would've written it. Who knows why JKR did it.
As for the resolution of that developed character link, I can only guess that she is setting up Snape to teach Harry a lesson, one that Harry would never expect to learn from him of all people. Most likely the lesson would incorporate Snape's death in some major way but let me ignore that possibility just awhile longer.
Aubrem:hello_hbp is truly a thing of beauty. I can remember squeeing for real and out loud when I first saw it. Can you tell me how you two came up with the idea and how your partnership works?
Sinick: Because I'm a hopeless packrat (I keep emails and IM logs) I can trace back exactly how and whenhello_hbp all began. The first episode was posted Nov 24th. The day before, Acid emailed me with a plotbunny that she'd been bitten with for a challenge at snape100: "Harry sending notes to Snape after killing Voldemort written on the pages ripped out of HBP's textbook." Acid included some initial plot skeletons in the email as well, (which I won't repeat here for fear of possible spoilers).
That morning we IMed: in the course of which I came up with the other half of the idea behind the community. (Various ideas for spells/potions/pages have been edited out, again for fear of possibly spoiling upcoming episodes.)
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:33:35 AM): Anyway, I think the book thing is a terrific idea.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:33:44 AM): Loads of interesting potions that could be used to send a message.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:34:57 AM): http://www.hp-lexicon.org/magic/pot
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:35:10 AM): Oh my, this might just grow into something bigger than I expected.
ideas snipped
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:36:00 AM): *bookmarks*, grins. Ohh, yep!
ideas snipped
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:37:19 AM): See what I mean? Yepyep this is a nice story length (certainly not a novel like PoM but a much better idea than can be crammed into a drabble
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:38:22 AM): And it's post-HBP compatible too! Wow. Reminds me of that old short story about Harry writing a letter to the Prince.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:38:32 AM): Yes! That came to my mind as well.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:38:42 AM): Could be viewed as a sort of sequel to that.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:39:05 AM): Very true! Will probably have the same humorous mood too.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:40:19 AM): *nodnods*
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:40:21 AM): Exactly.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:40:33 AM): *grins, starts looking through the list of potions to use . . . not just potions, spells too*
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:40:47 AM): Oh that's true, because he was writing spells in the margins.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:41:06 AM): Snape can use his 7th year textbook to reply, bet he has all sorts of interesting things there!
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:41:23 AM): Or just random pages out of encyclopedias
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:41:24 AM): http://www.hp-lexicon.org/magic/spe
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:41:48 AM): Seventh-year text would be cool. Especially since it'd have the same sort of notes.
LOTS of ideas snipped
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:54:47 AM): Eep. Channelling Price!snape: I am only at C's and there's a whole lot to this alphabet . . . ."
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:54:56 AM): Perfect!
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:55:23 AM): Ohhh you know what this would need?
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:55:30 AM): What?
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:55:32 AM): Posting in instalments. With gifs of the pages.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:55:55 AM): OOOOOHHHH. The thing is . . . I have the book. The pages, I mean!
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:55:59 AM): You are so right!
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:56:08 AM): OH YES YES YES I'd forgotten about that cool parchment.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:56:14 AM): Ohh you are a genius!
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:56:23 AM): This needs another comm!
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:56:25 AM): I was thinking just do the pages up in Word and use a nifty script font for Snape's notes.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:56:48 AM): *grins* YESSSS!!! Images and text.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:57:04 AM): Oh holy hell. .Combine them. Do the text up in Word and print it on that cool paper.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:57:50 AM): I'll need a ton of help on Snape's notes and contents of the pages, you know. YESSSS. Hmm. *considers* Yeah, will end up ripping out pages anyway, so would work. Will put them back in
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:58:23 AM): Wow. WOW! Great idea!
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:58:30 AM): *nods* Course I'll help out.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:58:37 AM): *bounces* Oh this is going to be so GREAT
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:59:43 AM): *got the book* hmm, lemme see if there is an image of it online soemwhere . . .
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:01:03 AM): Would probably be easier if I printed out the pages. Got this colour printer arms' length away. And a flatbed scanner at work I can use anytime.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:01:49 AM): Or, no, wait.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 10:01:53 AM): Ohh, true. I might have to send you the journal or the pages piece by piece
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:02:10 AM): SIMPLEST thing to do would be to scan a page of the paper and use that as the background. Composite the text over the top in PS
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 10:02:18 AM): Or might have to send back and forth.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 10:02:42 AM): Hmm, see, I am not sure if I'd want to handwrite the whole thing with actual ink & watercolour stains.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:03:07 AM): That's what I mean, that way if you just scan a page, use that as the background, write the text over the top in another layer.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:03:19 AM): I agree, writing all that out by hand would be a LOT of work.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:03:32 AM): By writing the text, I just mean use the Text tool.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:03:39 AM): Type it in in a cool script font.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 10:03:54 AM): True. Photoshop text might be better, plus some additions in openCanvas. Easier.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:04:01 AM): Exactly.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 10:04:10 AM): Ahhh, this is going to be great!
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:04:14 AM): *NODNODS*
...And off we went. The comm was created and the first post appeared the very next day.
And that should give you some idea of how we collaborate as well. Lots and lots of Y!M chat and emails flying back and forth, mad plotbunny pingpong, a feedback loop of ideas building on ideas with loads of mutual inspiration and energy. It's invigorating, often hilarious, and fun as hell. We share a silly sense of humour (and, quite often, a single brain: coming up with the same idea at the same time so often I've had to explain to Acid all about the kids' card game of "Snap" ;) )
Acid: Oh, I'm so glad to hear that! I think Sinick covered everything about the initial idea forhello_hbp but I can talk more on how we collaborate. I've noticed a pattern so far. Usually we have a brainstorming session over the messenger. Pretty much anything can trigger it: an idea, by either one of us, or a back-and-forth dialogue exchange. First half of Lion About the House was based on an RP transcript, for example.
After we discussed and established the basics, I begin sketching out the initial outline of the story. When I'm sick and tired of staring at the text and can't add another word (which means done) Sinick takes over and returns the document covered with virtual red ink.
What she actually does is takes my basic layout and expands it into something often twice the size of the original. She is usually responsible for a lot of Snape’s characterisation; she expands a lot of scenes with details, and adds all those lovely turns of phrase I'd otherwise (as a non-native English speaker) have no clue how to use. I do better with basic scene layouts, straightforward dialogue, vivid imagery, and silly humour. I've gotten pretty good at Harry's thought and speech patterns, since they're so simple and I can relate to his age and mindset. Sinick, on the other hand, has years of experience writing Snape.
It's a vice versa process on the pictures forhello_hbp. First Sinick sets up the layout of the notes and the fonts, then I take over her Photoshop file and add some images, textures, borders, and the final 'handwritten' tweaks to the text.
In the end we both go over the drafts and give them a few rounds of merciless editing. After that we call it done.
We fell into this routine (with me starting the draft layout and Sinick taking over it later) because it was familiar to us since our writer/beta-reader days of The Price of Magic and it worked out really well so far. Although nowadays Sinick is doing a lot more writing and I've learned to do more editing.
Since our strengths and weaknesses in writing tend to be the exact opposites of each other, they balance each other out. What you see at the end is a blend of two very different writing styles which often provides a nice variety in the final text and lets us switch between two distinct viewpoints.
Aubrem: So do you think that because you've found this partnership that works so well for you that you are both writing more fic than you would have individually? And Acid, does this cut into your time for art? Or does the partnership actually inspire more art?
Sinick: No question whatsoever: teaming up with Acid has definitely got me off my blunt end and back into writing! One glance at my LJ is enough to see how sparse my output in the Harry Potter fandom was before our collaboration began.
And what’s more, I’m sure that the quality of my writing has improved right along with the quantity. As you’ve probably noticed from my replies, I tend to be wordy, and working with Acid has helped me concentrate more on tightening my prose.
I had fancied myself something of a grammar maven, but I’m thrilled to admit that on more than one occasion, when I dug out the references to settle a question, it turned out that I was the one who was wrong. A writer’s skills never get that sort of honing from working in grand isolation.
Acid was a joy to beta for, and she’s a delight to collaborate with: she’s got a mind sharp enough to shave with. I’ve never needed to nitpick any issue with her writing (whether stylistic, grammatic, canon-compliance or whatever) more than once: she learns that fast. If I’d had more students like her I wouldn’t have climbed down from the Ivory Tower. It continues to amaze me that English is not even her native language.
Acid: A simple 'yes' to all three would probably be an understatement. I don't think I would be writing at all on this level in the fandom without Sinick. I've learned a lot about writing just from the process of her beta-reading Price early on and I've learned even more from collaborating with her.
Art is something I've been involved in for as long as I can remember. However, I didn't try writing until very recently and it's a skill I am trying to improve on daily basis. I have to push myself to be good as a writer while the art skills seem to come naturally at times. Writing is more of a challenge while art is an outlet.
I don't really have a set time for art. There are times I want to write, and times I feel like drawing (and then there are days I want to do both so I make comics) but there are really not enough hours in the day to do even a small part of everything I have in mind. Ever had that feeling? It must be common. So yeah, art takes away time from writing, writing cuts into time for art, and there is also reading and other projects and family and life and, well, it's a gamble. :)
I'd say that without Sinick, I'd probably be writing anyway but in very small (and unposted) amounts since I simply won't be able to trust my abilities enough to attempt anything bigger.
Inspiration, wow, that's a tough one. I'd say that Sinick's work affected a lot of my recent art in subtle ways. For example, many of my Snape portraits are based on her vision of the character in RPGs andhello_hbp just because nearly everything I know about writing Snape I learned from her by either example or trial and error. Not to mention the illustrating I've done based or for our collaboration work. So yes, I believe it does.
Aubrem: Well, I for one love the way you two work together. Just yesterday you posted Commonplace Magic, your new The Price of Magic AU story. I have to say that the story is exquisite: full of intense, sharp emotion and some of the hottest sex I've read in a long time. Combined with your usual amazing scene-setting, it's an unforgettably beautiful story. I'd like to ask two questions about it. First, much of the scene setting of course comes from The Price of Magic, is that something you researched and have a particular interest in, Acid? How did you research it? And second, the amazing sex in Commonplace Magic, is, I think new to your partnership. I'm curious as to whether one of you took the lead in writing that.
Acid: To answer your first question, early on when I was researching London as a setting for Price, Sinick surprised me by telling me some of the first-hand experiences of her trip there. I must've overloaded her brain with all the follow-up questions.
She was the one to help me decide on the final locations for Price. The majority of them, excluding Severus' flat (which is a completely made-up place, so, don't go searching for it now) are real and suggested by her.
Last summer when Sinick went back to London and Reading for a convention, she was kind enough to take photos for me, while before that I had to resort to finding images, and, in the best case, panorama views of the places I was writing about online. Most of the beginning Price chapters were already written but the photos created such a vivid picture of all those places in my mind, I couldn't resist reusing them again.
I remember we went through a lot of trouble trying to figure out where Hermione and Neville would live in Reading, looking through the housing ads and finally checking with a local person over the web. I never did establish the exact address for them, but at least we settled on the approximate one. You could say that those places came to life for me as I began researching them and heard about them from Sinick.
And to answer your second question, it was definitely Sinick as well. (If you look at the ratings of my very early writing in this fandom, it'll probably become obvious.) I contributed a few bits and pieces like some imagery, notes for the end and the beginning of the sequence, dialogue lines (I remember laughing over the 'book' exchange but never thought it would stay in the final version). Sinick was really the one to tie it together into a coherent text. She outdid herself on this one. I did some editing on the first and second scene of the sequence, mostly for the sake of pacing and simpler phrases, but the third one (Harry's point of view) hardly required any changes. Usually I attack her complicated sentence structure and language and simplify it for Harry's simpler mindset, but when I looked over it, I didn't even think of changing anything. It sounded perfect as it was.
I really adore the fact that she was able to take very basic, mundane actions: touching, speaking, body contact and put deeper meaning and emotion behind each one.
Sinick: Acid's beaten me to it this time: I spent 3 weeks in Reading on a business trip back in January 2003, and each weekend while I was there I took the train into London and walked around different parts of the city. One day I walked up Tottenham Court Road, past Ampthill Square Estate to Camden, where I had a Guinness at the World's End. Another day I had lunch at the Cheshire Cheese and walked across the Thames at Waterloo Bridge. When I first started betaing Price for Acid and she mentioned she wanted to set it in London, the floodgates of squee were well and truly opened and I bent her ear at painful length about everything I'd seen in London and Reading. Except for Snape's apartment building, all the locations in Price (and, of course, Commmonplace Magic) came directly out of my trip-related witterings.
When I went back to Reading in July-August last year (for Accio 2005) I had the unique experience of deliberately revisiting most of those sites and doing a photoshoot explicitly for Price locations. It was the most extraordinary feeling, to have some completely aimless walks around a foreign city from several years ago, turn out to have so much impact on my life, and feeling all the added layers of meaning Price added to each location when I went back there the second time round, camera in hand.
As for the sex scenes, actually the scene in Commonplace Magic wasn't a complete first for us: Lion About the House also has an explicit sex scene. Mind you, I do have to plead guilty to having perpretrated both of those scenes. ;) Lion was my first explicit story in this particular fandom, though I've certainly roleplayed erotic scenes in this fandom before (I played Marauder-era Snape withunderlucius' Lucius, and themostepotente's Sirius and Regulus).
Aubrem: Well, you two make a terrific team, I am so glad you found each other. Hopefully, there will be a lot more Snape/Harry to come from you guys. It's time for me to talk to Acid about her art now but I want to thank you, Sinick, for doing this interview - it's been a real pleasure.
Sinick: It's been tremendously flattering to be interviewed! Thank you so much for all your patience, Aubrem!
Acid: Thank you for interviewing us! It's been great to talk about the collaborative writing process and the two of my favorite characters.
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To read an interview and tutorial with Acid regarding her art, click here.
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Acid is a computer geek and a graduate student from Illinois (and originally from a former USSR republic) who spends her rare free time catching up on Snape/Harry fanfic when she isn't drawing, writing, or programming.
Sinick is an Australian of English and Scottish background, who won the Green Card Lottery and emigrated to California, leaving a tenured professorship in Psychology for her current Silicon Valley career. She is of the firmly-held belief that you're only as old as the characters you slash (or not even as old, in Snape's case).
Below please find our Author Interview with Acid and Sinick. To read our Art Interview with Acid, please click here.
You can find Acid on livejournal at
ac1d6urn and her stories at ac1dfics. Sinick can be found at sinick. They write both individually and as a team. Sinick acts as a beta for Acid on Acid's wonderful WIP Price of Magic and they have co-written the lovely Snape/Harry stories: Lion About the House and Commonplace Magic. I first fell in love with their work as a team when they unveiled hello_hbp. Hello_HBP is a post-HBP WIP that intermixes amazing graphics with great writing. Be sure and check it out if you haven't already.Aubrem: Hello Acid and Sinick. I've never interviewed writing partners together - should be fun! Can you both tell me your fannish histories?
Sinick: That's fair: I've never been interviewed before!
Heh. I'm afraid I've got rather more fannish history than any one fan should probably have.
As a little kid I'd been interested in Star Trek (this was in pre-TNG days), but my first fandom obsession began at age nine, with Lord of the Rings. At the time Mosaic wasn't even a gleam in CERN's eye, so I joined the English Tolkien Society, and had a poem published when I was fifteen.
My second fannish obsession was Star Wars: it was fun to see the huge impact the first movie had on mundane awareness of matters fannish.
Then the Wrath of Khan (actually Khan himself) dragged me by my gonads into costume-sewing, con-going Trek fandom.
My first net.fandom was Deep Space Nine, specifically the Cardassians. My only previous attempt at collaborative fiction dates from that time: "Mastery", a zineful of BDSM stories written via unscripted emails, where
snaples wrote Bashir and I wrote Garak and Dukat.Then Darth Maul renewed my earlier interest in Star Wars, and prompted me to write some stories for Siubhan's Sith Academy parody website.
I'm a serial monogamist as far as fandoms go, and although I'm still fond of my previous fandoms, the release of the Philosopher's Stone movie kindled instant, singleminded interest in all things Snapeish: and this is one fannish obsession that shows no sign of flagging.
Acid: My fannish record is nearly blank, compared to Sinick's. I started off in Xena femmeslash fandom around '99 (and still have a bunch of old sketches somewhere to prove it).
The summer when OotP came out I read all of the books at once, mostly because I was without a computer for a week and had nothing else to do. Never really liked the first five books that much. In my defence, book six, was definitely an exception to that, but back then it was the fandom creativity that drew me in after I checked out some of the fan sites.
HP fandom with its collection of pairings and the amount of new fanfic was quite a change from my old one. I began drawing fanart illustrations for some of the stories I read and liked; never planned to start writing myself but then the first ideas for Price sort of happened and Sinick bravely volunteered to beta-read the beginning chapters. I bet she had no clue back then what she was getting into.
Aubrem: Heh, I'm with you Sinick on the Khan, Cardassians, Sith Lords and Snape. And Acid, the same thing happened to me - I thought the books were good reads but nothing special until I found the incredible creativity in fandom (well, and hotness) and that was it. Ahem. But, this isn't about me ... So can you guys tell me what it is about Snape and Harry and the two of them paired together that you like?
Acid: Snape fascinates me. His ambiguity, his sarcasm, the contents of his mind, his nose. (Er, the nose is fun to draw; the rest mostly applies to written word.) Harry, on the other hand, makes me laugh and inspires me with his every achievement and every mistake; they can be equally grand and terrible. The impossible brat sort of grew on me; I was indifferent to his character in the books until I read his interaction with Snape in some fan fiction stories and my face lit up: whoa, all that potential! Now I like his stubbornness, his optimism, his penchant for trouble, and his easy-going nature.
As for these two together... where do I begin? I like the interaction, the arguments and the banter, the irony of them -- of all people -- ending up with one another. And now I suddenly have an image in my mind of Harry, Snape, and the resulting echoing groans (No, not that kind of image, Sinick.): "Why *me*?" And the follow up: "Why *him*?"
But seriously, they have a lot to teach and to give each other, intellectually, emotionally, and physically. I like the match (or mismatch) of their individual strengths and flaws and the conflict it creates. Harry's recklessness, impulsiveness, and enthusiasm against Snape's pragmatism, caution, and cynicism. Harry with his persistence and Snape with his eternal grudges. Pessimist and optimist. 'Ugly old git' and a 'scruffy, half-blind, moderately attractive, young idiot with a quaffle for brain and ... er, well, you get the idea.' They already bring out the worst in each other and are very capable of bringing out the best as well. They have the strongest subtle chemistry out of everyone else in the books.
Sinick: I don't really have a One True Pairing, so much as a One True Character: Snape was what piqued my interest in the Potterverse in the first place, and I still find his character, background, motives, personality and problems endlessly fascinating. He's the most layered, mysterious and morally ambiguous character in the entire series, and anti-heroes and shady characters have always intrigued me. I particularly like his intelligence, his self-reliance, his sarcasm and cynicism (I would have chosen 'cynic' for my username, but that was already taken).
The Snape half of Snarry was inevitable for Snape-obsessed me, so your question really boils down to: Why Harry?
It's easy to be annoyed by Harry as he appears in canon, particularly in OotP when the CAPSLOCK-ITIS hits. But although his stupid, self-absorbed moments in OotP irritated me as a reader, as a writer I adored JKR's characterisation of Harry: his behaviour in that book is pure teenaged boy. But I think it would be a mistake to dismiss Snape/Harry because of some annoying moments in canon: almost as grave a mistake as to dismiss Snarry and other cross-generational ships as being the province of closet ephebophiles. While I've read and enjoyed plenty of stories where Harry is still a student, I not only have so little RL interest of any kind in sub-adults I decided to remain childless, in general I'm definitely more interested by the characterisation possibilities offered by an older Harry: seventh-year, a young adult on the verge of leaving school, or even better, an adult, post-Hogwarts Harry. A more mature Harry is more interesting to me because he's more of a match for Snape than a younger student (I'm sorry but I really don't see Happily-Cowed-Sub!Snape).
But I digress. Why are Harry and Snape so good together? They incorporate all the best points of the "Opposites Attract" school of characterisation, while at the same time they are similar enough that I can see a relationship between them working (romantic cliches aside, relationships of opposites rarely last in the real world).
They're strikingly (and I think deliberately) alike in their backgrounds: both halfbloods, both coming from loveless childhoods to a Hogwarts and a wizarding world in which they are basically outsiders (though for opposite reasons: Harry is usually idolised while Snape is universally despised). Yet their personalities develop in basically opposite directions from those similar backgrounds. Harry is extraordinarily good-natured and well-adjusted (at least until fifth year), and it's not until sixth year that he shows any signs of the sarcastic repartee that seems to be Snape's stock-in-trade.
Despite the clear enmity in their pasts, they have the capacity to heal each others' wounds. They share a need for approval and belonging. Snape has never been influenced by Harry's fame; he's saved Harry's life with maximum effectiveness and minimum fuss any number of times. Snape could offer the grounding Harry needs: Harry could coax him out of his shell and share the capacity for optimism and joy that is his most attractive feature.
Aubrem: I am fascinated by the similarities you mention between Harry and Snape - halfbloods, loveless childhoods, outsiders, and no doubt more. I wonder just what JKR was up to in having Harry feel so much affinity for the Half-blood Prince. There was quite a strong link there - what did you two make of that?
Sinick: To me the similarity between Harry's background and Snape's (and Tom Riddle's, for that matter) is very deliberate on JKR's part. In fact, long before HBP came out, I was wondering about the sheer peculiarity of JKR's definition of "halfblood". Why in the world would the wizarding world draw no distinction between (a) offspring of a marriage of a wizard and a witch, one of whom had muggle parents, vs. (b) offspring of a marriage between a wizard/witch and a muggle? This lack of distinction between marriage to a muggleborn vs. a muggle was peculiar because the wizarding world clearly does draw a distinction between a muggle and a muggleborn witch/wizard (or else, why would they have coined the two distinct terms, 'muggle' and 'muggleborn', in the first place?)
I believe that JKR's definition of 'halfblood' is so oddly inclusive, solely because only thus can she put Harry (son of a wizard and a muggleborn witch), in the same category as Snape (son of a muggle and a witch) - and, for that matter, as Riddle (another son of a muggle and a witch).
As for the link between the Half-Blood Prince and Harry: ohhh, I loved, Loved, LOVED it! I think it was JKR's single greatest gift to the Snarry ship: even greater than the "on all fours in Snape's office" Occlumency scenes in OotP. (I know I'm far from the first person to observe that the very title "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" is a long way of saying "Snarry".)
I remain stunned that there haven't been more stories written capitalising on the juicy plot thread that was left hanging at the end of HBP: where Harry knows that the book is Snape's, and still has to resolve the conflict between his hatred of Snape and his gratitude, admiration, even fanboying, of the Half-Blood-Prince (without whose bezoar tip, Harry would have been unable to save Ron from poisoning). Of course, that sympathy that Harry felt for the Half-Blood Prince was the inspiration for
hello_hbp.I'm hoping against hope that JKR will pick up that dangling plot thread and use it to draw together the two of them before the end of the last book. The antipathy between them has been sizzling for six books: in the seventh, it's time that Harry (and by extension, the reader) is finally shown the moral lesson behind the character of Snape: that one need not be a handsome, attractive, sympathetic, nice or even a polite person, in order to be a courageous, heroic, good person.
Acid: Despite the chuckle I got out of the title of the sixth book and the idea of Harry smitten by Snape's diary, I can be a realist on rare occasions. I imagine that the similarities and Harry's (POV character’s) affinity for the Half-blood Prince were put in for the purpose of distracting the readers from the big conclusion of book six. At least that's how I would've written it. Who knows why JKR did it.
As for the resolution of that developed character link, I can only guess that she is setting up Snape to teach Harry a lesson, one that Harry would never expect to learn from him of all people. Most likely the lesson would incorporate Snape's death in some major way but let me ignore that possibility just awhile longer.
Aubrem:
hello_hbp is truly a thing of beauty. I can remember squeeing for real and out loud when I first saw it. Can you tell me how you two came up with the idea and how your partnership works?Sinick: Because I'm a hopeless packrat (I keep emails and IM logs) I can trace back exactly how and when
hello_hbp all began. The first episode was posted Nov 24th. The day before, Acid emailed me with a plotbunny that she'd been bitten with for a challenge at snape100: "Harry sending notes to Snape after killing Voldemort written on the pages ripped out of HBP's textbook." Acid included some initial plot skeletons in the email as well, (which I won't repeat here for fear of possible spoilers).That morning we IMed: in the course of which I came up with the other half of the idea behind the community. (Various ideas for spells/potions/pages have been edited out, again for fear of possibly spoiling upcoming episodes.)
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:33:35 AM): Anyway, I think the book thing is a terrific idea.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:33:44 AM): Loads of interesting potions that could be used to send a message.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:34:57 AM): http://www.hp-lexicon.org/magic/pot
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:35:10 AM): Oh my, this might just grow into something bigger than I expected.
ideas snipped
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:36:00 AM): *bookmarks*, grins. Ohh, yep!
ideas snipped
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:37:19 AM): See what I mean? Yepyep this is a nice story length (certainly not a novel like PoM but a much better idea than can be crammed into a drabble
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:38:22 AM): And it's post-HBP compatible too! Wow. Reminds me of that old short story about Harry writing a letter to the Prince.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:38:32 AM): Yes! That came to my mind as well.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:38:42 AM): Could be viewed as a sort of sequel to that.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:39:05 AM): Very true! Will probably have the same humorous mood too.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:40:19 AM): *nodnods*
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:40:21 AM): Exactly.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:40:33 AM): *grins, starts looking through the list of potions to use . . . not just potions, spells too*
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:40:47 AM): Oh that's true, because he was writing spells in the margins.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:41:06 AM): Snape can use his 7th year textbook to reply, bet he has all sorts of interesting things there!
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:41:23 AM): Or just random pages out of encyclopedias
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:41:24 AM): http://www.hp-lexicon.org/magic/spe
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:41:48 AM): Seventh-year text would be cool. Especially since it'd have the same sort of notes.
LOTS of ideas snipped
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:54:47 AM): Eep. Channelling Price!snape: I am only at C's and there's a whole lot to this alphabet . . . ."
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:54:56 AM): Perfect!
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:55:23 AM): Ohhh you know what this would need?
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:55:30 AM): What?
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:55:32 AM): Posting in instalments. With gifs of the pages.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:55:55 AM): OOOOOHHHH. The thing is . . . I have the book. The pages, I mean!
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:55:59 AM): You are so right!
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:56:08 AM): OH YES YES YES I'd forgotten about that cool parchment.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:56:14 AM): Ohh you are a genius!
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:56:23 AM): This needs another comm!
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:56:25 AM): I was thinking just do the pages up in Word and use a nifty script font for Snape's notes.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:56:48 AM): *grins* YESSSS!!! Images and text.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:57:04 AM): Oh holy hell. .Combine them. Do the text up in Word and print it on that cool paper.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:57:50 AM): I'll need a ton of help on Snape's notes and contents of the pages, you know. YESSSS. Hmm. *considers* Yeah, will end up ripping out pages anyway, so would work. Will put them back in
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:58:23 AM): Wow. WOW! Great idea!
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:58:30 AM): *nods* Course I'll help out.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 9:58:37 AM): *bounces* Oh this is going to be so GREAT
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 9:59:43 AM): *got the book* hmm, lemme see if there is an image of it online soemwhere . . .
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:01:03 AM): Would probably be easier if I printed out the pages. Got this colour printer arms' length away. And a flatbed scanner at work I can use anytime.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:01:49 AM): Or, no, wait.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 10:01:53 AM): Ohh, true. I might have to send you the journal or the pages piece by piece
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:02:10 AM): SIMPLEST thing to do would be to scan a page of the paper and use that as the background. Composite the text over the top in PS
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 10:02:18 AM): Or might have to send back and forth.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 10:02:42 AM): Hmm, see, I am not sure if I'd want to handwrite the whole thing with actual ink & watercolour stains.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:03:07 AM): That's what I mean, that way if you just scan a page, use that as the background, write the text over the top in another layer.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:03:19 AM): I agree, writing all that out by hand would be a LOT of work.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:03:32 AM): By writing the text, I just mean use the Text tool.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:03:39 AM): Type it in in a cool script font.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 10:03:54 AM): True. Photoshop text might be better, plus some additions in openCanvas. Easier.
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:04:01 AM): Exactly.
ac1d6urn (11/23/2005 10:04:10 AM): Ahhh, this is going to be great!
snapeslytherin (11/23/2005 10:04:14 AM): *NODNODS*
...And off we went. The comm was created and the first post appeared the very next day.
And that should give you some idea of how we collaborate as well. Lots and lots of Y!M chat and emails flying back and forth, mad plotbunny pingpong, a feedback loop of ideas building on ideas with loads of mutual inspiration and energy. It's invigorating, often hilarious, and fun as hell. We share a silly sense of humour (and, quite often, a single brain: coming up with the same idea at the same time so often I've had to explain to Acid all about the kids' card game of "Snap" ;) )
Acid: Oh, I'm so glad to hear that! I think Sinick covered everything about the initial idea for
hello_hbp but I can talk more on how we collaborate. I've noticed a pattern so far. Usually we have a brainstorming session over the messenger. Pretty much anything can trigger it: an idea, by either one of us, or a back-and-forth dialogue exchange. First half of Lion About the House was based on an RP transcript, for example. After we discussed and established the basics, I begin sketching out the initial outline of the story. When I'm sick and tired of staring at the text and can't add another word (which means done) Sinick takes over and returns the document covered with virtual red ink.
What she actually does is takes my basic layout and expands it into something often twice the size of the original. She is usually responsible for a lot of Snape’s characterisation; she expands a lot of scenes with details, and adds all those lovely turns of phrase I'd otherwise (as a non-native English speaker) have no clue how to use. I do better with basic scene layouts, straightforward dialogue, vivid imagery, and silly humour. I've gotten pretty good at Harry's thought and speech patterns, since they're so simple and I can relate to his age and mindset. Sinick, on the other hand, has years of experience writing Snape.
It's a vice versa process on the pictures for
hello_hbp. First Sinick sets up the layout of the notes and the fonts, then I take over her Photoshop file and add some images, textures, borders, and the final 'handwritten' tweaks to the text. In the end we both go over the drafts and give them a few rounds of merciless editing. After that we call it done.
We fell into this routine (with me starting the draft layout and Sinick taking over it later) because it was familiar to us since our writer/beta-reader days of The Price of Magic and it worked out really well so far. Although nowadays Sinick is doing a lot more writing and I've learned to do more editing.
Since our strengths and weaknesses in writing tend to be the exact opposites of each other, they balance each other out. What you see at the end is a blend of two very different writing styles which often provides a nice variety in the final text and lets us switch between two distinct viewpoints.
Aubrem: So do you think that because you've found this partnership that works so well for you that you are both writing more fic than you would have individually? And Acid, does this cut into your time for art? Or does the partnership actually inspire more art?
Sinick: No question whatsoever: teaming up with Acid has definitely got me off my blunt end and back into writing! One glance at my LJ is enough to see how sparse my output in the Harry Potter fandom was before our collaboration began.
And what’s more, I’m sure that the quality of my writing has improved right along with the quantity. As you’ve probably noticed from my replies, I tend to be wordy, and working with Acid has helped me concentrate more on tightening my prose.
I had fancied myself something of a grammar maven, but I’m thrilled to admit that on more than one occasion, when I dug out the references to settle a question, it turned out that I was the one who was wrong. A writer’s skills never get that sort of honing from working in grand isolation.
Acid was a joy to beta for, and she’s a delight to collaborate with: she’s got a mind sharp enough to shave with. I’ve never needed to nitpick any issue with her writing (whether stylistic, grammatic, canon-compliance or whatever) more than once: she learns that fast. If I’d had more students like her I wouldn’t have climbed down from the Ivory Tower. It continues to amaze me that English is not even her native language.
Acid: A simple 'yes' to all three would probably be an understatement. I don't think I would be writing at all on this level in the fandom without Sinick. I've learned a lot about writing just from the process of her beta-reading Price early on and I've learned even more from collaborating with her.
Art is something I've been involved in for as long as I can remember. However, I didn't try writing until very recently and it's a skill I am trying to improve on daily basis. I have to push myself to be good as a writer while the art skills seem to come naturally at times. Writing is more of a challenge while art is an outlet.
I don't really have a set time for art. There are times I want to write, and times I feel like drawing (and then there are days I want to do both so I make comics) but there are really not enough hours in the day to do even a small part of everything I have in mind. Ever had that feeling? It must be common. So yeah, art takes away time from writing, writing cuts into time for art, and there is also reading and other projects and family and life and, well, it's a gamble. :)
I'd say that without Sinick, I'd probably be writing anyway but in very small (and unposted) amounts since I simply won't be able to trust my abilities enough to attempt anything bigger.
Inspiration, wow, that's a tough one. I'd say that Sinick's work affected a lot of my recent art in subtle ways. For example, many of my Snape portraits are based on her vision of the character in RPGs and
hello_hbp just because nearly everything I know about writing Snape I learned from her by either example or trial and error. Not to mention the illustrating I've done based or for our collaboration work. So yes, I believe it does.Aubrem: Well, I for one love the way you two work together. Just yesterday you posted Commonplace Magic, your new The Price of Magic AU story. I have to say that the story is exquisite: full of intense, sharp emotion and some of the hottest sex I've read in a long time. Combined with your usual amazing scene-setting, it's an unforgettably beautiful story. I'd like to ask two questions about it. First, much of the scene setting of course comes from The Price of Magic, is that something you researched and have a particular interest in, Acid? How did you research it? And second, the amazing sex in Commonplace Magic, is, I think new to your partnership. I'm curious as to whether one of you took the lead in writing that.
Acid: To answer your first question, early on when I was researching London as a setting for Price, Sinick surprised me by telling me some of the first-hand experiences of her trip there. I must've overloaded her brain with all the follow-up questions.
She was the one to help me decide on the final locations for Price. The majority of them, excluding Severus' flat (which is a completely made-up place, so, don't go searching for it now) are real and suggested by her.
Last summer when Sinick went back to London and Reading for a convention, she was kind enough to take photos for me, while before that I had to resort to finding images, and, in the best case, panorama views of the places I was writing about online. Most of the beginning Price chapters were already written but the photos created such a vivid picture of all those places in my mind, I couldn't resist reusing them again.
I remember we went through a lot of trouble trying to figure out where Hermione and Neville would live in Reading, looking through the housing ads and finally checking with a local person over the web. I never did establish the exact address for them, but at least we settled on the approximate one. You could say that those places came to life for me as I began researching them and heard about them from Sinick.
And to answer your second question, it was definitely Sinick as well. (If you look at the ratings of my very early writing in this fandom, it'll probably become obvious.) I contributed a few bits and pieces like some imagery, notes for the end and the beginning of the sequence, dialogue lines (I remember laughing over the 'book' exchange but never thought it would stay in the final version). Sinick was really the one to tie it together into a coherent text. She outdid herself on this one. I did some editing on the first and second scene of the sequence, mostly for the sake of pacing and simpler phrases, but the third one (Harry's point of view) hardly required any changes. Usually I attack her complicated sentence structure and language and simplify it for Harry's simpler mindset, but when I looked over it, I didn't even think of changing anything. It sounded perfect as it was.
I really adore the fact that she was able to take very basic, mundane actions: touching, speaking, body contact and put deeper meaning and emotion behind each one.
Sinick: Acid's beaten me to it this time: I spent 3 weeks in Reading on a business trip back in January 2003, and each weekend while I was there I took the train into London and walked around different parts of the city. One day I walked up Tottenham Court Road, past Ampthill Square Estate to Camden, where I had a Guinness at the World's End. Another day I had lunch at the Cheshire Cheese and walked across the Thames at Waterloo Bridge. When I first started betaing Price for Acid and she mentioned she wanted to set it in London, the floodgates of squee were well and truly opened and I bent her ear at painful length about everything I'd seen in London and Reading. Except for Snape's apartment building, all the locations in Price (and, of course, Commmonplace Magic) came directly out of my trip-related witterings.
When I went back to Reading in July-August last year (for Accio 2005) I had the unique experience of deliberately revisiting most of those sites and doing a photoshoot explicitly for Price locations. It was the most extraordinary feeling, to have some completely aimless walks around a foreign city from several years ago, turn out to have so much impact on my life, and feeling all the added layers of meaning Price added to each location when I went back there the second time round, camera in hand.
As for the sex scenes, actually the scene in Commonplace Magic wasn't a complete first for us: Lion About the House also has an explicit sex scene. Mind you, I do have to plead guilty to having perpretrated both of those scenes. ;) Lion was my first explicit story in this particular fandom, though I've certainly roleplayed erotic scenes in this fandom before (I played Marauder-era Snape with
underlucius' Lucius, and themostepotente's Sirius and Regulus).Aubrem: Well, you two make a terrific team, I am so glad you found each other. Hopefully, there will be a lot more Snape/Harry to come from you guys. It's time for me to talk to Acid about her art now but I want to thank you, Sinick, for doing this interview - it's been a real pleasure.
Sinick: It's been tremendously flattering to be interviewed! Thank you so much for all your patience, Aubrem!
Acid: Thank you for interviewing us! It's been great to talk about the collaborative writing process and the two of my favorite characters.
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To read an interview and tutorial with Acid regarding her art, click here.
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Acid is a computer geek and a graduate student from Illinois (and originally from a former USSR republic) who spends her rare free time catching up on Snape/Harry fanfic when she isn't drawing, writing, or programming.
Sinick is an Australian of English and Scottish background, who won the Green Card Lottery and emigrated to California, leaving a tenured professorship in Psychology for her current Silicon Valley career. She is of the firmly-held belief that you're only as old as the characters you slash (or not even as old, in Snape's case).