Remus/Sirius Small Gifts

Isn't it lovely? The whole picture is here. (It's only now I went to find a new link since Linn deleted her LJ that I see I've been misinterpreting the pic for years - I thought it was Remus making Sirius hot for him by sticking pins in a voodoo Snape, but it's not a voodoo doll, it's a chew toy!)

I mean, Sirius was a little bit wrong that one time wrt "We can totally trust Peter with the most important job" but other than that, yes, of course. I am very much in love with Sirius being exonerated, a move which would most certainly have been popular with right thinking witches everywhere. *nods*

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smallgiftsmods

You outdate me--I only joined during the Livejournal years. You were one of the first people I remember meeting, and you seemed like such an old timer. *bows down with respect for our Fandom Elders*

Aw, James and Sirius are the worst *and* Snape is annoying in the highest degree, and I love all three of them. This generation is filled with such great characters! M.

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Whoops, this is me, S. Sorry! Keep forgetting to log back into my own ID. M.

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Less of the oldie talk, Maggie. ;D I'm still in the first flush of, er, elderlyness. Heh.

James and Sirius are the best at everything. Remus Lupin said so, so we know it must be true.

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OLD IS GOOD! I'm embracing middle age and my Fandom Elder status. :)

Ah, Remus. That most reliable of narrators. *hugs him* M.

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Mature, like a strong cheddar cheese. Aged like a fine wine. Crumbling, like a condemned building. ♥

Honest as the day is long is our Moony. 100% objective on the subject of Sirius Black especially. Hee!

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:) :) :)

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ruinsplume

Short answer: 'Sirius, sit down.'

Like, if anyone needed any more evidence? ^^That.^^

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bigblackdog

like a lot people, mine was the shoebox project. i has just gotten back into hp fan fiction after a long hiatus and read a few wolfstar fics and saw it described as the ultimate wolfstar. i stayed up all night reading it. at this time i had never uttered aloud the word queer. it started an obsession that resulted in a fair amount of personal development re: sexuality and identity. looking back, i don’t think it had to be the shoebox project, but that is a wonderful introduction to the kind of shenanigans and humor i tend to love in this ship.

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wild_flame

My story is very similar- not the shoebox project but another shenanigans filled Hogwarts era fic! I think one of the things that I really love about
r/s and the marauders in general is that they lend themselves easily to a laugh-out-loud fic, but also with the war and the awful childhoods and the tragic deaths looming in the background there is a lot of scope for angst. And when a fic has the perfect combination of the two 👌

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Hurrah for queerness in fandom! I think one of the things I love--as someone who came out in the 90s and spent her early years reading a lot Serious Queer Stuff--is how joyful so much R/S slash is. It doesn't *have* to be about queerness for everyone, but for those of us who want it to be, and manage to find the queerer fics, it's such *fun.*

Ah, I always love folks' finding-fandom stories. Thanks for commenting! M.

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sostrata.livejournal.com

I came to them in a round about way. I had read the books (5 at that time) and Remus and Sirius were my faves. Then I discovered the wonderful world of slashfic! I went through two TV fandoms. Then just as the fic was starting to dry up (2005 or 2006) I was reading a fic that had an excerpt on the side of the screen of a Harry Potter fic. It was Harry/Pansy of all things, but the scene was between Harry and Draco. I thought- my new pairing! I was reading along in that part of the fandom when I read a fic with Remus/Sirius as a side pairing. And then it was all over.

They are *the* pairing for me. Not just in fic- I consider them canon. In fact, I was once reading a gen fic, and was very confused by a scene in which it seemed as though R and S weren't *together*. "What..." I said to myself, then- "Ohhhhhhhh! They're not *really* together in gen!" Of course, they are in *my* gen :).

-sostrata

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In fact, I was once reading a gen fic, and was very confused by a scene in which it seemed as though R and S weren't *together*.

Agreed! This is a topic where canon and my head canon are hopelessly mixed up;

Do you still read/write/enjoy Harry/Draco? I feel like that's become the fandom juggernaut, now that fandom's quieted down a bit after then end of the series. It's a different dynamic from R/S, but I can see the appeal. M.

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sostrata.livejournal.com

I'm pretty R/S-focused at the moment. I have read some H/D recently and enjoyed them, but I mainly read ones that also have R/S also. There's been a number of epic H/D fics lately where Harry was either raised by R and S or was later able to live with them. Yes, my impression is that H/D is massive but that R/S is still very popular as well.

BTW, one H/D and R/S fic I would rec is My Big Fat Pure-Blood Wedding on AO3. Draco and Sirius have a very cute relationship in that.

From:

aurelie_saintjuste

I've been thinking about this for a few hours now, trying to decide what my exact "Yes Hello I Am Deep In The Wolfstar Trash Can" moment was, and to be honest I just... don't know.

Here's what I do know: from the get-go, I had some -- let's not call them misgivings, but maybe confusion (?) about Remus and Tonks. I actually really love Tonks as a character, but there was something about the pairing in the books that felt so forced. I agreed with Remus' hesitation to jump into that relationship (although admittedly not for all the same reasons he expressed), and truly, I didn't feel like he loved her in the romantic sense. Their relationship felt like a pretty glaring plot device to set up the tragedy of war in leaving children orphaned. Everything went very fast (which for wartime romances isn't unusual), but it didn't feel _right_ to me.

And okay, fine, no matter how much I may disagree, the books aren't about Remus Lupin, so it's fair to say "well, there was a lot of other stuff going on, the story isn't about Remus & Tonks," which could attribute to how fast that relationship was glossed over.

When you start to think about other characters who not only understood Remus and knew him for the better part of his life but also helped to make him a better person? Sirius was the only answer for me. To have a member of a dark Pureblood family not only disagree with and abandon his upbringing, but also to accept a Wizarding World outcast like a werewolf? They literally make each other better humans. Canon romance or not, I believe their personalities balance one another out: Remus grounds Sirius and Sirius pulls Remus out of his shell. The Shrieking Shack scene in both the books and the film felt like a true homecoming, and I remember being so excited to see them reunited. That's what a strong romantic relationship is about to me. How do these characters make each other better, and what do they do when things are at their absolute worst?

I completely didn't answer this question. Damnit.

I guess to bring it all together, I had a great conversation with one of my favorite fic writers in a comment exchange where they said Rowling gave Remus more mythology than character. This really stuck with me - there's so much more to many of these characters, and while my bias always brings me to Lupin, I feel like Wolfstar really helps with fleshing out Remus' past/present/future beyond simply being a werewolf.

From:

wild_flame

"Rowling gave Remus more mythology than character" <-- this!

I definitely agree- there is so much more to Remus than we ever see- there is a lot of mystery in his past and even contradictions in his personality. I think fleshing out those relationships with childhood friends, family and of course, Sirius is definitely one of the ways we can make sense of who he is!

From:

aurelie_saintjuste

I remember reading that comment in the string of conversation and I had to stand up and walk away to take it all in - because in one sentence I felt like they'd described both why I love the character so much and why parts of the books (and movies) infuriated me. I felt like we had just scratched the surface of who Remus was, and it was so much more about the wolf than the man and that made me sad. I wanted MORE.

I think that's also the beauty of Small Gifts. Don't get me wrong, I am HERE for your epic tales of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black. Give me your novel-length tales and sagas FOR DAYS. But Small Gifts is an opportunity, in my mind, to also talk about the little moments and the little stories that maybe don't merit an epic novel to share, but are equally important to these two characters.

Ahh I'm so excited! And so mad I didn't plan better to contribute!!

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wild_flame

Yes definitely! Sometimes shorter can be better to explore one or two elements of a character that help paint a picture of the bigger thing :D

Can't wait either!! 4 more days!

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I had a great conversation with one of my favorite fic writers in a comment exchange where they said Rowling gave Remus more mythology than character.

This strikes me as so true. I'm going to have to think about it for a while.

I found R/S before Remus got together with Tonks, so a lot of my head canon for these three characters was fully formed beforehand. Did you, too? I've been curious about whether folks who weren't as attached to their own versions of the characters found it as jarring. M.

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aurelie_saintjuste

I'd say so, yeah. My personal timeline is a bit fuzzy because like some others, I took a hiatus away from most social media and participating in most fandoms for a few years, so while I was probably peripherally aware of the ship around the time that Remus/Tonks were revealed, I honestly didn't jump fully on board until a little bit after I suppose.

Whether I passionately shipped Wolfstar or not, I think I'd still find the relationship jarring. I get the "opposites attract" argument, but they're just so... so different and it seemed like such a random pairing to me.

My other argument for Wolfstar is perhaps a little too emotionally trenched for me and I wholly accept that I can take this argument to an extreme, lol. I'd read an article where Remus' lycanthropy was an allegory for HIV/AIDS in the '80s, and having lost my Uncle to AIDS as a kid, I found it so poignant and so meaningful to me to have this character that I loved who was a symbol for something like that. I think it could have only been more impactful if we had a canon gay character in this hugely popular franchise which always pushed me more towards Wolfstar than anything else. Like so many romantic partners, lovers and caregivers, Sirius was there for Remus when a lot of other people wanted nothing to do with him and cast him out because of a disease he didn't ask for. Tonks may have accepted him and loved him, but Sirius changed his entire life to make dealing with the illness more comfortable.

Long story short -- I don't have anything against Remadora. I really like Tonks, but I feel like there is such a compelling, multilayered story with Remus and Sirius.

I've completely annihilated this question, where am I, how did I end up here?!

From:

mindabbles

I had read the books for my work and no, I’m not a teacher. :) It’s a long story that’s actually someone else’s story...so, I realized that I loved the books just for me as well and reread them out of a work context. I was always taken by Remus and Sirius’s relationship because I love to see a friendship that is so important (a theme throughout the books that I love). My BFF knew I loved the books and one day she told me she had been reading this thing called fanfic. I think this was around when OOtP came out. She wanted Remus to be happy, so actually went looking for Remus/Tonks and then found Remus/Sirius and said “Oh wait, this makes so much more sense.” She told me about it and I agreed, that did make so much more sense. She sent me some links to franticbabbles’ The Years Series, the old seasonal challenges, and fics by several people including Maggie and Shaggy, currently of this fest. I was immediately taken with it and started writing her a chaptered fic, which no one but she has ever seen. After some lurking and reading, I decided to start posting some of the things I was writing. It’s been quite a ride.

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Oh my god, franticbabbles! I'd almost forgotten about that author/those fics! Those were such formative fics back in the day....and yet I haven't read them for years. I should find them again. If they're still around. (It's just recently occurred to me that the internet is not forever. :(

Thank your BFF again for me next time you see her. She did me a favor as well as you.

It's been a ride and half, and it's not even over. M.

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Franticbabbles is no longer online, but there are pdfs of her fics around (she said before she deleted it was OK for people to share, she just didn't want them publicly posted). The pdf is pretty easy to find but I can email you one if you want.

From:

ruinsplume

Oh, man, I love this question. I'll answer it by naming the first three fics I read that made me wake up to the possibilities of what fanfic could do and be and mean.

The first one was "Secret Creatures" by mysid on fanfiction.net. (This is discovered by me in 2016, unaware that AO3 even exists) There was one line in that fic that did such a number on my insides--emotionally, libidinally, psychologically. One line that hooked me so hard.

Then came "That the Science of Cartography is Limited" by Rave (who is one of the writers of Shoebox, though under a different name) and The Shoebox Project itself. Both of these contain some beautiful writing, and so much character development.

All three of these fics woke me up to how much I needed queer narratives in my life, and queer romance, and narratives about queer sex. And Remus and Sirius were the characters who I instinctively felt most drawn to to deliver that. Besides, I like a heavy dose of angst with my superintense soulmate truelove narratives, and where better to find that than Wolfstar?

I'm noticing that all the fics I listed are a soft R at most. But soon after those I found ceredwynsirius's kink meme and then... I was reborn.

Shoebox really affected me, as I'm sure it did a lot of us. In the R/S games fic I just wrote with lefthandofglory, we spent a lot of time in Padfoot's mind. Our Padfoot is very different from the Shoebox Padfoot, but I don't know that we ever would have gone into his mind to the degree we did without the Shoebox authors doing it first.

Hmm, I seem to have drifted a bit from the original question. If anyone's still reading, here's the answer: I knew Remus/Sirius was for me when Gary Oldman grabbed David Thewlis around the waist and then fell to his knees, still clutching Thewlis and babbling/begging Remus to remember his true heart.

*snickers*

Alfonso Cuaron shipped Wolfstar, and he brought me aboard.

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Of course we're still reading! Also, Prisoner of Azkaban was a wonderfully queer movie, even apart from the R/S. :)

As I was saying to

bigblackdog above, I came out in the 90s when there seemed to be only Very Serious Queer stuff to read, and one of the joys of discovering slash (and, to a lesser extent, femslash) was its joyousness--it was so different from anything else even nominally queer that I'd encountered at that point. (Perhaps with the exception of Beautiful Thing, the film from the mid 1990s.)

Seeing all these older fic titles makes me want to reach deep into the archives! M.

From:

ruinsplume

OMG I don't know what Beautiful Thing is! must find immediately!

That's a great point you make about the joyfulness of slash. I feel like even at its most angsty, queer fanfic celebrates the existence not only of queerness but of equal power and deep friendship in romantic relationships, something so sorely lacking in most literature.

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Oh my word, RUN, don't walk to...I don't know, Netflix? Where do you find older movies these days? Watch it as soon as you can! That was one of the most empowering films I saw when I was younger--so perceptive and so honest and yet so, so joyous. M.

From:

ruinsplume

I'm excited to report that there is an amazing brick and mortar video store near my house (one of the last of its kind...sigh) and I just called them to see if they have Beautiful Thing AND THEY DO!!!!!

I"M going to rent it later this week, right after I return Taxi Zum Klo.

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Fabulous! You'll have to tell me what you think about it. It's been a while (yikes! more than two decades), but I think it will hold up over time. Things are different but not that different. And Mama Cass is just generally timeless good music. M.

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Really hard to answer. I don't think I can remember.

I'll mirror what other people are saying about Tonks/Lupin. The pairing just seemed so OOC for both of them. God. Especially in DH when Lupin loses his fucking mind. I still refuse to read that scene between him and Harry at Grimmauld Place. Also I totally read Tonks as a lesbian??? It was all very bizarre.

I think what really made me like R/S were the shippers. The folks who like this pairing have always been so nice and friendly, and I definitely turn to R/S fics if I want to read something sweet . . . but that might be why they aren't my OTP. For my next R/S fic I'm definitely going to mine all the potential angst :D

From:

ruinsplume

I read a theory once that Lupin spends all of DH being drunk. That would explain a lot.

I think you read Tonks as a lesbian because SHE'S FUCKING QUEER. It's like JKR was looking at a queer M/F couple and had no idea that they were queer, even though that's what she was describing, and so it all fell apart narratively because she had no idea what such a relationship could be like. With the result that Tonks wound up a stereotypical mousy doormat girl, and Remus wound up a stereotypical conflicted wank-stain dude.

I have many feelings about this, can you tell?

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that would explain so much!

I can totally see Rowling wanting to write a queer relationship and just messing it up. Some of HP is now so cringe-worthy, especially the way she wrote Lavender and Ron.

Also I'm *howling* at your "stereotypical conflicted wank-stain dude" LMAOOOO

God. Lupin was such an ass in DH . . . and then we never really get to see him redeemed smh. The trio hears him on the radio and are like "I guess he wants to be a father now!" and then he ups and dies

I recently reread HBP and I really don't like how Molly was pressuring Tonks and Remus to get together . . . ugh Rowling really depicted Tonks so weak in that book D:

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YAY! for R/S shippers! You folks are the best. (We. All of us.) Funny how different fandoms and different ships have different personalities, isn't it?

Mine R/S for the *potential* angst? Hee! I have to work hard to pull myself out of the angst and remember this can be a fun pairing. :) M.

P.S. Too right about Tonks as a lesbian.

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lmaooo I must just gravitate toward the fluff because the quintessential R/S fic to me is all teenage romance and pranks and stuff

omg different ships totally have different personalities! I have no idea how it happens honestly

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Hee! I tend to read (and write) all bittersweet canon-era getting together stories. But that's what I love about this pairing--so many different approaches are still recognizable them.

omg different ships totally have different personalities! I have no idea how it happens honestly

I had this theory about friends-to-lovers vs. love-hate relationships, but honestly it just hasn't help up over time. Just the luck of the group, perhaps...? M.

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