Perverse Idyll

Fan
Name:	Perverse Idyll
Alias(es):
Type:	fan writer
Fandoms:	Harry Potter
Communities:	snarry_reader, snarryficfind
Other:
URL:	Perverse Idyll@AO3; @ff.net; @DW; @LJ
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Perverse Idyll is a fan writer in the Harry Potter fandom, best known for her Snape/Harry stories. She burst onto the Snarry scene at the 2008 Snarry Games with the widely recommended novel, When the Rose and the Fire Are One, which Regan v describes as in some respects, the Platonic ideal of Snarry.

Perverse Idyll also writes other slash and gen works, mainly focused on Severus Snape. Loupgarou1750 calls her THE absolute master when it comes to writing Severus Snape. Her Snape is ugly, he's bitter, he's fierce, he's compelling, he's sharp as a well-stropped cutthroat razor.

Not a prolific writer, she predominantly writes longer fanfiction, from medium-length one-shots to novels. She is particularly known for the lush style of her prose and her use of metaphor & simile. Kelly Chambliss, recommending Elegy for a Goat writes: If it were a painting, it would be one of those oils where the vivid color is slashed on in thick layers that might at first seem over-the-top but that end up coming together with a fine inevitability that shows the meticulous, painstaking perfection of each subtle brushstroke.

Perverse Idyll is also a generous & insightful commenter and occasional reccer. She is one of the maintainers of The Essential Snarry Reader.

In Her Own Words

I found online fandom by stumbling across a LotR fanfic site created by pervy hobbit-fanciers to indulge their love of Frodo/Sam. (Merry/Pippin, too, but the whiff of heartbreak about F/S made my preference inevitable.) Eventually, while ranging farther afield through the vast and mysterious land of internet fandom, I collided with a Snape/Harry fic (Atrata's "In Between Days," for those who are curious) and it was as if I'd been struck by lightning. This was what being a 'shipper was all about. I acquired, for the first time in my life, a One True Pairing. It was glorious and consuming and irresistible and oh so wrong. I fell head-first into the Snarry corner of the HP 'verse, a community ablaze with talented writers. They welcomed me, fed my obsession, furnished me with conversation, provided me with friends, and finally inspired me to write. My ardor has cooled since the publication of Deathly Hallows, but SS/HP still trumps all other pairings, and Snape is my One True (Godforsaken Bastard) Character. I'll run out of ways to interpret him someday, but until then the pleasure of mixing darkness with light keeps drawing me back.

As a writer I'm primarily a slasher, at this point in time, anyway. I've been known to dabble in Snape/Dumbledore (and I'll pause here to give horrified readers a chance to back-button quietly). As a reader I'm more resilient. Polyamorous even. I read Snape with Filch and Moody. I fancy Snape with almost anybody, really, his female students and Draco Malfoy aside. Snape/McGonagall is one of the few het ships to light my fire. I also devour Snape gen. My other current great love is femslash, especially fics devoted to older HP characters: McGonagall, Hooch, Pince, Grubbly-Plank, Skeeter, Sprout, Snape's mother Eileen, Amelia Bones (yes, fandom has seduced me into crushing on characters who are almost non-existent in canon). The writers associated with the 'old lady' femslash brigade are brilliant, and a new fic from one of them is always cause for celebration.

Finally, I adore dexterity with language (in English, because I'm woefully monolingual). Metaphor, simile, imagery, richness, leanness, wit, pregnant silence, flashes of poetry, perfect character voice: it's all thrilling. In short, I'm a pushover for writers who can swing a mean phrase. I have an unfortunate addiction to parentheses, semi-colons, and compound sentences myself, for which I apologize in advance. Ditto ambiguity and open endings. There's also the fact that I'm an extremely slow writer, so my fanfic catalogue will never exactly bulge at the seams. But it's my main creative outlet these days, and it's led me to some wonderful people and fantastic stories, and for that I will always be grateful.

Selected Fanworks

• When the Rose and the Fire Are One. AU novel after Half-Blood Prince; her first piece of fanfiction. Written for Snarry Games 2008. Thisaestus writes It's as though she stored up every single thing she could have written for years and it all came bleeding out in this exquisite story.
• The White Road. Afterlife & Deathly Hallows fix-it novel, in which Lily matchmakes for Snape & Harry. Written for Snarry Holidays 2008. Svartalfur writes Lily's character is probably the most outstanding feat of the story. The petty and shallow girl from canon finally gets to be a person, three dimensional and even likable.
• No Room for the Weak One shot featuring Eileen Snape. Written in 2010 for Severus' Shorts. Beth H writes a magnificent Eileen voice: harsh and bitter and hopeful, all at once.
• In Infinite Remorse of Soul Snape/Albus. Written for Snapecase 2011. Cabepfir describes it as an uber-angst tale of love masked as hatred, bleak and bare as a waste land, beautifully written.
• Elegy for a Goat Snape/Aberforth. Written for HP Beholder 2014. What Would Mrs Weasley Do writes the prose is so dense and perfectly complete that you can smell it.