Curiousity

Curiousity by Lady Bracknell

Summary: Remus has always been curious about Lily Evans, but kept his distance. Now, he wants to do nothing of the sort. Oneshot, 2,183 Words.

Why You Should Care: No one makes me love the Remus/Lily pairing as much as Lady Bracknell does. Even though the idea of Lily cheating on James makes me all sad inside, I love this despite that. Somehow Lady Bracknell manages to make this infidelity the right choice for the characters and the situation, like a necessary aside rather than a moral detour. Neither of them regret it, and somehow neither do I. It’s cathartic for them, I think; it wouldn’t have been worse to continue to let their feelings be unfelt forever.

Why You Might Not Care: If James/Lily infidelity makes you weep, maybe steer clear. It’s rated R for sex, but it all seems fairly worksafe to me.

A 12-Step Program

A 12-Step Program by FalseEyelashes

Summary: 12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And in 12 steps, two people can foolishly fall in love.  Novel-Length (almost), 39,019 Words.

Why You Should Care: This is a stirred and physicologically colourful look at love, lust, and the difference (or sometimes lack thereof) between the two.  The characterisations of Lily and Remus are multifaceted and startlingly (almost shockingly) real — even bordering on gritty — and what strikes me most is how appropriate for their age this emotional opera is.  The writing is stylized and almost exclusively narrative, slipping into and reaching most of Lily’s conscious and unconscious thoughts.  In some ways, this is an angsty fic about angst.

Why You Might Not Care: This fic could be seen by some to be overindulgent, and in some ways I might agree, except I remember what it was like to be in my own head at 18 and think that maybe a little of that is part of the point, really.  It’s both fascinating and tedious; in some places it digs so deep it starts going in circles.

Eighteen

Eighteen by Seer_of_Spots

Summary: Eighteen. The world is your library and you have all the time to read, yet it all seems so much dimmer – as if that library is filled completely with appliance manuals and endless Arithmancy equations.  Lying on a blanket with your unrequited love and a Salty Dog, you think. And sometimes your thoughts just don’t make you happy. Oneshot, 1,130 Words.

Why You Should Care: A great example of how a well done second person POV combined with just the right subject matter can really give a certain type of character piece a little extra stylistic punch.  There is some really simple, excellent language in this one, and some great evocotive imagery.  Remus’ bitterness at his lot in life is just strong enough to tint the piece, but not so strong it drives this into heavy angst.

Why You Might Not Care: Unrequited Remus/Lily, for those who roll their eyes at that pairing.

Nothing But Fighting

Nothing But Fighting by Bratanimus

Summary: “Merlin, why hadn’t James told him how much fun fighting Lily was?” Oneshot, 4,128 Words.

Why You Should Care: It’s hard to write action. I mean, it’s really, really hard to write action. And while Bratanimus doesn’t go so far as to sweep you up blow-by-blow as perhaps I might secretly wish, she does make the attempt to deal with Wizard Dueling as a fighting style unique to the wizard, and — in tandem with her always spot-on character portraits — gives us a quick little commentary on our favorite Marauders under fire. Particularly featured are Sirius and Remus, and what a delightful contrast they are to each other too; we see in these quick exchanges and Remus’ inner dialogue how Remus might have lived so long and why Sirius might have died that night at the Ministry. As always, Bratanimus is a treat to read.

Why You Might Not Care: There could have been a little more action and a little less inner dialogue from Remus, I think. More than anything else, I think Bratanimus meant this to be a bit of a Remus/Lily interlude (which it is) and so we spend a little too much time in Remus’ head. Internal dialogue and character work is the safe place for fanfiction authors, and who can blame us since writing action is (as previously mentioned) a son-of-a-bitch, but Bratanimus has the chops and I really think we could have had just as much character work done more subtly if she had featured the action sequence a little more strongly. She glozes over the meatiest part of the duel in a mere paragraph of past-tense description, right where I longed for a physical climax. I really wanted to be in Remus’ shoes in this one the whole way through, not just told about Remus’ shoes.

Thanks To: Alice Lay (Tassee1) for this rec.