Those Magical Moments...
I don't know about y'all, but I'd rather relive some classic *gasp* Het! HP wank than have to make do with Aja/Stacey/Ivy/CC/Libertine/who gives a flying...you get the point. You can't live on the same wank forever.

An "Ah, memories!" post. For all those Snapefans out there...this one's for you. The wank shall always live on in your hearts.

…Since it took over EIGHT MONTHS for the threads to pretend to die.



Well. The whole thing started with the posting of chapters 20-27 in the (arguably) greatest unfinished Hermione/Snape fic ever to taint grace the fandom, Pawn To Queen, by Riley.

The beauty of this wank? Not caused by real-life stalkers, kitchen knives, plagiarism (arguably) or anything of the sort. Just pure Fic Gone To Hell.

I make no claim to be impartial in this account, so I am wanking myself in a way! Joy! But I was a relatively new voice in the fandom at the time this all started, so I was impartial when the whole wankage began, at least.

Pawn to Queen was supposed to be a serial/novel/thing-monster encompassing 100 or so chapters of Hermione and Snape smut, beginning with Hermione Granger, a student at Hogwarts, being fondled by Snape (her teacher and also a double-agent working for The Light!) in front of Lucius Malfoy (A really, really bad dude. Arguably sexy in the way that Draco is, just more evil). Snape feels terrible about what he's done, Hermione is traumatized, yada, yada, yada, great set-up for darkfic if you like that sort of thing. The story held intrigue, proper grammar, good spelling most of the time, seemed harmless enough.

THEN.

Riley Became God. And God Created a *female* Blaise Zabini (a genderless student from Slytherin House, debated topic once in a blue moon), The Ultimate Mary Sue.

To properly pimp her Nietzsche-an ideals, her undying adoration for Ayn Rand, her utter contempt for any mention of Christianity in anything remotely resembling a positive light (ever), her fannish adoration of C.L. Cherryh's Cyteen and her unshakable opinion that the world that J.K. Rowling created was a morally relativist one and that Voldemort was "not necessarily intended to be evil," she invents...

The STREGA.

*coughs*

The Strega (corrupting the word 'striga' from Italian, which means a witch who eats unbaptized infants (this will be funnier later), the Strega are a clan of matriarchs with powers able to surpass The most powerful characters in the books. In other words, they could rule the world, but they choose not to because these women desire to rule from the inside--through politics and manipulation. They have ties to the Italian Mafia, and several witch's parents are Big Daddy Bosses.

Guess what Blaise is.

The story then delineates into a journal of how Blaise turns Hermione into this conniving, vengeful seductress whose only real pleasure in life is making Snape look pussywhipped. Forever. No matter what.

Oh, and Draco Malfoy "rapes" Blaise (he unbuttons two buttons on her shirt, in actually, but who's got time for details when you're an all-powerful, wandless witch?), giving her just cause to make him into her personal bitch, which she does by throwing a sex manual at him during mealtime.

See how many times you can find the word "strega!"

"What do you want, Malfoy?" She wasn't too worried, just annoyed: what she'd said to Hermione was true--- no wizard in his right mind would dare bother strega.
"Just to--- talk." Malfoy stepped away from his pet thugs, coming close, trying to trap her in her chair.
"Last time I looked, talking didn't involve invasions of personal space." She looked coldly up at him, put just a touch of strega-sense behind it, the attitude of a queen on her throne.
Malfoy felt it, she could tell; for a moment, he backed off--- then it seemed to anger him. "This kind of talking does." He leaned close enough that she could smell his breath--- mint; she was surprised he bothered. "C'mon, Blaise--- don't tell me you don't get tired of that Teasdale puppy---" .....
"Don't make me laugh." She turned back to her book, radiating go away.
A hand gripped her arm, bruising. "You'll pay attention when I'm talking to you---"
She tapped her wand. "Relashio." He stared as his hand came off her shoulder with the force of her spell. "Is that how your father treats your mother?
"That's none of you business---" Draco, unaccountably, flushed.
"Oh but it is." Blaise couldn't resist playing with him--- she was, after all, strega. "After all, if you want me to take the spot Parkinson's always after, surely I should know how a Malfoy wife gets treated?"
Draco sneered. "Who said anything about wife, Muggle-lover---" And suddenly his wand was out--- and he said, "Expelliarmus" a fraction of a second before she did. Her wand ended up in Goyle's hand.
This was getting serious. Blaise glared at him coolly. "Give that back." She strove for the tone her mother took with some of her father's ruder guests.
"Not until we're done with our--- chat." Malfoy invaded her space again, trapping her in her seat. "And since you're going to be difficult---"
He snapped his fingers, and his two goons came forward.
Blaise cursed under her breath. But she had another weapon in her arsenal. She concentrated, felt the power of strega, of knowing what she was and what her rights were. "Stop. Now. You're Slytherins--- you should know better than to attack strega."
Both the thugs stopped, shaking their heads. Blaise felt a surge of triumph.
And Malfoy laughed. "Ah, yes--- strega...." He moved closer, his hands on the arms of the chair. "Well, get this, 'queen of witches'--- not all men will fall at your feet when you snap those pretty fingers."
This was a reaction she'd never seen--- her use of her power seemed to infuriate him rather than lulling him. Blaise was beginning to panic.
Malfoy snapped his fingers, and his goons came forward. She glared at them, and they stopped--- Malfoy looked over his shoulder. "Don't be absurd, you two, it's three on one---" He looked back at Blaise, and licked his lips. "Yes... that's going to be... interesting...." The thugs got hold of her arms, pinning her to the chair.
Blaise felt the first genuine fear she'd known since her mother had given her that necklace. Wasn't the power of strega supposed to stop them in their tracks--- no matter what? "I said let go."
"And I say, hold her." Malfoy was breathing in her face again, his hand on the buttons of her robes. "Yes--- hold her----
Blaise trembled, feeling the medallion on her chest, a cold burning weight. Circe, Morgana, and Lilith, look with favor upon your daughter, your disciple---
But nothing happened--- and Malfoy slowly began undoing the buttons of her robe.
And Blaise's control snapped. Blind anger, terror, a deep sense that this must not happen, that it was wrong--- all of it expressed in two panicked words: "Get away---"
And, quite abruptly and involuntarily, they did.
Blaise stood very still, not daring to move, and looked at the unconscious forms of her attackers. She'd cast Stupefy on them--- and without a wand.

I could go on about how Snape is a snivelling, wussy baby, dominated by the shadow of his (strega?) sexual teacher who taught him sex magick for Death Eater/Bad Guy purposes, or how there are far too many references to twelve and thirteen-year olds getting their freak on...but I won't. The point is that the story had been overtaken by the Mother Harpies of All Mary Sues Everywhere, and Hermione and Snape were lost in the mists.

What was part of a nice review was the first actual criticism of the work on the yahoo!list "WhenIKissedTheTeacher." (Message number 3316, when the list only had about 600 of us or so):

Lara to Riley:

Hrm.. Blaise is being rather bitchy towards Snape, which I don't particularly like. While the characters (and in turn the author) may have a different opinion of things, it sure seems like she's throwing the fact that she's strega in his face and taking advantage of his upbringing.

Hermione takes an unfortunate turn for the worst in these chapters, though I do
understand; I just don't care for it. She helps him, sees him at his absolute
worst, knows he's vulnerable, and now... she's going to take unabashed joy in
wringing him out? This bugs me as it feels not consistent for her behavior.
Her sudden (however hesitant) vindictiveness is not very becoming.

Good reactions from the older Gryffindors to the book. :)

In general, these chapters are leading me to believe strega actually means
annoying bitch. It's not that I don't believe in the existence of strong women
or that it's not believable... SImply that as they're protrayed, I don't
like them.
I don't dislike them for picking on Snape (though it certainly seems to be
their sport of choice), but because they just annoy me. I think my strega
tolerance level may be only 1-2. 3-4 is simply too high for me.

Another commenter chimes in towards Riley:

I *really* liked Claudia Teasdale. I am still squicked
that Florian is only a 3rd year; that's 13 to Blaise's
17, and a bit of a stretch for me. Also, while I found
the Blaise angle pertinent to Hermione's recovery, I'm
a little stunned she's pervaded the story to this
level. Long live the nerd!grrls, but I am far more
interested in the Sev/Herm angle rather than what's
happening with Blaise Zabini. And I'm not sure I like
weepy self-mutilating Snape. He seems to be slipping
perilously OOC. But this is AU, after all, you can do
what you want. You're the boss :)


Then there's Voldemort and genetics... (Either valjean131 or wincey11, I believe, addressing Riley)

Voldemort appears to've warned off his Death Eaters from confronting
strege. Is there a fundamental reason he wouldn't've taken the
opposite tack and tried to focus his recruiting efforts on them? Even
if he and his followers were profoundly misogynistic, it doesn't seem
to've stopped relatively normal witches from joining him; why didn't
at least one strega sign up as well?

Or conversely, if *one* not-quite-sorta-strega (Lily) zapped his ass
off when her full power was invoked, then why couldn't a consortium
of many strege, even if not individually full-powered, have been
mustered against him earlier? And what are the average strega/mage
ratios anyway, with both numbers and horsepower?

Thanks to earlier fantasy reading with genetics charts in the back,
I'm now vaguely wondering about the inheritance pattern of
stregatude. X-linked lethal codominants come to mind as an
explanation of why there aren't equal numbers of magi: a normal witch
is XX, a strega is XX', and any male embryos who draw X'Y never last
full-term. Female X'X' embryos would then be impossible except for
meiotic accidents, and they wouldn't survive either anyway. If
magedom comes from the same source as stregatude (not a certain
hypothesis by any means), then that would require a mage to be XX'Y,
which might explain why neither Dumbledore nor Voldemort has kids. At
least that we know of so far. Not that RL XXYs are always sterile,
but they often are.

Finally, the original commenter replies to Riley's avoidance of the issues, and it's ALL downhill from there, folks.

[Riley]>To be honest, the Blaise-plot is, IMNSHO, close to being wrapped up:
>she's put Malfoy in his place, after all--- the remaining issues
>(except for the Claws-plot, which is going on sabbatical until
>HErmione's sixth year after maybe [now] two more chapters) are all,
>oh joy, in Hermione and Snape's court.

[Lara or Kathy to Rlley. Sorry, I don't remember.]I don't know if what I'm saying is coming through clearly, because I'm
starting to feel that you think what I'm saying is a bunch of ignorant
garbage.

I don't dislike these chapters because they make me feel uncomfortable.
These chapters make me feel uncomfortable, which I don't like. I
didn't dislike these chapters, didn't even dislike the characters..
I just don't agree with what they did.

More of how the author wants to pimp her beliefs and prozelytize:

> [Anonymous to Riley] I appreciate that the storylines all had to be
> neatened up, but
> I'm hungry for Sev/Herm interaction! Please don't
> put the denouement
> off again! Teasing is all very well, but...
>
[RILEY SEYZ TEH HELL!--]

Sorry. It's got to be held off until I can be certain
that I'm communicating menaingfully on the
psycholgical topics.

Blaise the Strega!Barbie, Hermione, & Yet Even More Slytherin Eugenics:

[Darkrose]Hermione's passivity in that discussion didn't bother me nearly as
much as it did during an earlier conversation, however. For the
record, that was the point at which I went from finding Blaise
annoying (I'm sorry, but having my first introduction to her consist
of her staring into the mirror going on about how gorgeous she is was
a major turn-off) to actively wanting to drop-kick her off a high
cliff.

The exact quote is:

"Magical eugenics was another favorite topic of the Slytherin
contingent, all of whom held that a little new blood was a good
thing, though (much to the shock of the Gryffs) they maintained that
Muggle-borns should breed only with each other for a generation or
so "to make sure the wizarding genes prove out" as Florian and Catlin
said (in tandem). "


Re-reading this, I have two reactions. The first is that it makes me
rather nauseous. The second is that it may be unfair for me to
entirely blame Blaise for this, since the directly quoted part is
actually attributed to the twins. However, since I don't see the
twins as much more than ciphers (Catlin is Ron's love interest;
Florian is BZ's love interest/lapdog; and their only distinguishing
characteristics are the finishing each other's sentences thing which
got real old real quick for me) I can't imagine them saying anything
that would be contrary to Blaise's opinion.

So let's examine that statement: Muggle-borns, i.e. people like
Hermione, should only breed with other Muggle-borns, as opposed to
purebloods, i.e. people like BZ, the twins, and the Weasleys, for
that matter. Oh...and Snape.

"Sure, I'll be friends with one, but I wouldn't want my cousin to
*marry* one."

Even if you don't buy my theory that the pureblood/mudblood dichotomy
is JKR making a direct parallel to racism, that's really fucking
offensive.

And Hermione's response? She's "shocked." If someone who was supposed
to be my friend even implied that I wasn't good enough to be part of
their family, they'd be very sorry very quickly. If I was sitting on
a recent trauma, they'd be picking up teeth for the next few days.
Yet the woman who broke into Snape's office when Muggle-borns were
being attacked, the woman who slapped Malfoy for insulting Hagrid,
the founder of S.P.E.W., is "shocked."

SQUICK.


And it goes on and degenerates into a huge, eight-month-long catfight.

The highlights are the comparisons of strega to neo-nazis, the moral relativism / "I Hate Ayn Rand”" / black-and-white debate, tolerance and Christianity, the whole 'you’re too dumb to get the story or you’d like it' thread. There were several factions that splintered off of WIKTT (one of them was an uber-seekrit list called Pawn To Cunt, where the snark flowed swift and long). And of course, there were South Park references.

[Redone?] *whaddaya mean, "give himself over"???????? dont u
> listen? when confronted by strega, people tend to pay
> attention. also, he was raised by strega- not a very
> nice one, either. im absolutely positive that
> somewhere in there, its explained that growing up
> around strega teaches u greater respect for her.

[Darkrose replies.]

You will respect my authoritah!



This was a good one (two months after the kerfluffle started, mind you...)

[Either V Worley or Unstonz_2000 or some other sycophant] I guess the moral to this is if you don't like the fic no-one's twisting your
> arm, holding a gun to your head and saying "Read it of die!" If you don't
> like emotionally realistic complex stories you won't like it. If all you
> want is a fluffy fic, or a smutty fic, or a parody go read what you like, but
> don't complain to Riley that you didn't like her fic because it's too complex
> and you had to think.

[Darkrose] And now we get to the heart of it. "You're just not bright enough to get
it." I think I've made my issues with PtQ fairly clear and I don't
need to repeat them. I will admit to being amused that someone could sit
through discussions touching on comparative ethics, psychology, religion
and genetics, and come away thinking that anyone here has a problem with
complex issues.

In trying to extricate ourselves and calm the author down, we only dig ourselves in deeper. Yeay! Godwin’s Law!

[Riley] I repeat, we have not seen the whole of that set of relationships.
> And Lucius, taken in the whole context I gave him, including "A
> Softer Darkness" is NOT a stereotype. Hell, he's not a pure
> stereotype in PtQ--- he does have family loyalty.

[Damiana] And Hitler had great patriotism and greatly supported the arts, yadi
yadi. Doesn't change that he was fundamentally an evil person. Call
the trappings good, but the core is *still* rotten, and "family
loyalty" does not redeem a rapist. Sorry. I *do* deal in moral
absolutes *most* of the time and have no problem with them.

Or how about this? :D

[Guinevere of Northgalis] Don't leave because of criticism. By posting, you'll
invite comments on both ends of the spectrum, agree
ment AND disagreement. No one has yet said simply, "It
sucks," and I sure as hell will swoop down on THEM if
they do.

That said, I still feel as if Ayn Rand is creeping up
from behind me somewhere in here, and I don't feel
good about that. Or the fact that Christianity as a
faith was clumped in with the same verdict as Naziism
(note the difference between religion, which imposes
traditions, laws and power structures of a patriarchal
nature on people with no regard to the actual
scriptures at all, and faith, with is without a
denomination in many cases and only serves to
understand what the bare scriptures are saying). After
all, the Hand of Glory, the invisibility charms and
much of the magic used in Harry Potter is
Judeo-Christian in nature, and that Paganism is not
Wicca in the series, nor does it always signal a
feminist movement. But that's another issue. Just
commenting on your comments on the comments on the
replies to the comments...

From the Festering Bog of Eternal Stench That Was Riley's Shadow came other wanks:
· The "Witchfics.org Mods Are Elitist Bitches With Largely Overrated Fics" Wank
· The "Textual Sphinx Needs To Get Over Herself And Not Respond To Crit By Daring Us To ‘Rewrite Her Stories & Make The Metaphorical Web Fucking Tighter’" Wank
· The "OMG RAPEFIC!!!!!1!" Wank
· The "Strega of Borg" Non-Authorized Parody Wank
· The "Now That Homophobe Gotsnape’s Invaded My NEW Yahoogroup! GROAN*" Wank

And many, many more.