Sooo much love for Hill

naggingfishwife has illustrated Screaming of a Black Christmas with these two lovely pictures!

*squees, swoons, and dies*

The dog in you just can't resist the tree, can it Black?

The Christmas card dilemma.

--P

Fandom Discussion -- Snape and the Sciences -- How much should a writer know?

The other day I read an incredibly long Snarry. The story was in excess of 100,000 words, thankfully not a WIP. I'm kind of burnt out on Snarry, but this one had promise of an interesting plot, so I said 'what the fuck, I'm game.'

About 30,000 words into the story, I came across a rather long chapter that centered on Snape's potionscrafting. Imagine to my surprise how well unread this person was in the sciences pertaining to Snape's livelihood.

No knowledge of Chemistry.

No knowledge of Botany or Herbology.

Needless to say, I was mortified. This was a 10,000 word chapter, and it made me cringe something awful.

Call me the biggest fucking snob there is, but I think if you are going to write Snape effectively, and FOCUS on his potionscrafting, you should know what a fucking drachm is.

I also think you should know BASIC poisons. Hello people, henbane is a poisonous fetid. You sure as shit don't make tea from it.

You know what the worst part of it is? I took the time out to email this person and offer to help with the inconsistencies. I made absolutely NO insulting remarks. It was purely con-crit from a technical standpoint. Snape's voice was IC otherwise. I was certainly NOT there to offer style points. I genuinely wanted to help them, and what was I sent in return?

A fuck you without the no thanks. That's fucking gratitude for you.

So here is my question to you all, the point of this thread really;

If you are going to write this aspect of Snape's life in depth, should you know a thing or two about the corresponding sciences?

Love to hear your thoughts.

--P