Countdown to Small Gifts 3/5: Now and Then

[smallgiftsmods]

Welcome, folks! Every year at small gifts, we start off the holiday season with a week's worth of discussion posts. It's a chance to get to know other participants (or say hi again), meet our readers (hi, readers! we love you!), and while away the hours before the fest begins. We'll have one topic per day every day until Friday, November 30. Posting begins Saturday, December 1.

Discussion is not limited to participants! Readers and lurkers are warmly welcome.

Today: Now and Then

What drew you to R/S at first? What are some of the first R/S fics you remember reading? What themes or tropes did you like? Are you still attracted to the same qualities in the characters or to the same types of fic or art?

Did you see that someone else commenting here had a similar experience? Drop by and leave them a comment. Let's get chatting!

Have you introduced yourself? Head on over to ourintroductory post, see who's participating this year, and say hi!

Comments

[greywolfandmoon]

Well I told you the RS essay story already, and the first RS I read was the Shoebox Project. I didn't really like it though... I quit midway, I s'pose that's because I like traditional writing more than text fic/note fic(?) that sort of thing. But one chapter got me - in this fic Remus forgives Sirius right away after The Prank, and it's the only fic that portrays this event in this way. I'm not saying I agree with it, but it's nice to explore The Prank in a different way.

I only started shipping them real hard because of Casting Moonshadows, it's still WIP now but it was enough to drag me through the rabbit hole ;)

I guess my view on Remus has changed as I read more. In the past I saw him as a total softball, but now I see more complexities in him. Though I have to say I'm not a total fan of rough/dominant/extreme badass Remus, it's just that I think Remus is a character that has more than he lets on, and that instead of exuding big dick energy, to me he's more on the manipulative/cunning side because he simply NEEDS to be manipulative to conceal his volatility. But it's just my view.

[museinabsentia]

I do believe you are in good company around here with not liking Shoebox Project. I certainly didn't like it, either, and I don't think we're alone.

[wild_flame]

Ooh yeah most things I have read The Prank is like this great moment of conflict between the marauders, even James turning against Sirius- and I am sure it could have happened this way! But like you I also really like the idea that it could have gone differently! They're such a tightly nit group that it's completely plausible they'd defend each other no matter what they had done... I actually wrote something along these lines for the last RS Games where it is actually only Peter who is kinda like "woah that's not ok" and so starts the rift which eventually leads to Peter's betrayal!

[greywolfandmoon]

Oh really? I'll check it out later! <3 Actually the more I think about it, the more possible it could have gone this way. Like we first hear about it in PoA, and Sirius obviously shows no remorse whatsoever ('he deserved it'), unlike the fanon Sirius we often see, and even the way Remus tells it is very light-hearted ('Sirius played a trick ...that involved me, he thought it would be amusing...') that there is no direct evidence pointing at their great conflict. So it's really up to us to interpret whether Remus is trying to conceal his true emotions, or that he has long forgiven Sirius and they're not even avoiding this topic, or, like The Shoebox Project, it wasn't a big deal at all. And if you think about the joke that Remus made about the OWL question, it seems to me that his werewolf identity is a 'joke-able' material between the Marauders, the ones he's closest with.

[wild_flame]

Yes I completely agree!! The whole scene where Remus is joking about being a werewolf can't have happened long after the prank as well!

[magnetic_pole]

And if you think about the joke that Remus made about the OWL question, it seems to me that his werewolf identity is a 'joke-able' material between the Marauders, the ones he's closest with.

True, true! Shaggy recently had some meta on this topic that follows the same logic--I'll see if I can find it.

So it's really up to us to interpret whether Remus is trying to conceal his true emotions, or that he has long forgiven Sirius and they're not even avoiding this topic, or, like The Shoebox Project, it wasn't a big deal at all.

That's a great way of putting it. M.

[magnetic_pole]

where it is actually only Peter who is kinda like "woah that's not ok" and so starts the rift which eventually leads to Peter's betrayal!

Ah, I like this! M.

Wolfstar <3

[aimforthedogstar]

When I first got into HP fan fiction, someone recommended Casting Moonshadows, and that was the first wolfstar fanfic I read. The characterisation of Remus and Sirius in that is different than in recent wolfstar fan fiction.
The fic that sold wolfstar for me was Stealing Harry by copperbadge.
I love fics where canon diverges post PoA or OoTP. I love fics where they came a full circle and won a war they stepped into as kids and stepped out victorious and saw some semblance of peace in life and some justice.
I like fics where they’re both confident boys with 100x sass and sarcasm. I like both tropes of tall!Sirius and short!Sirius.
What drew me to wolfstar? They are a power couple, as cheesy as this sounds they complete each other, their strengths and weaknesses balance out. And they love each other enough to put the other first. I like couple tropes that’s ‘it’s us against the world, we’re a team.’

[museinabsentia]

So, I fell into this fandom so slowly it was sort of strange to look back on. A few years back now I did a reread of the books, and I just... wanted to keep going. I finished them up and wanted there to be more. Then I remembered this wonderful world of fanfiction... into which I tripped and stumbled and hated most of what I found at first. Then I found Momentum by Children of Shadows. From there I read all her work... then her recs list, which led me to the RS Games, where I lurked for a few years before jumping in head first and never looking back. So I blame that fic for all my fandom activity.

I'm not a huge fan of a lot of the tropes, because I don't get where they came from and I just don't understand them. I can swallow most things if it's done really well and makes sense for that story, but the prevalence of some of them makes me a little twitchy. Like bookish Remus, or caricature exuberant Sirius, or... well, I could make a huge list, but I won't. I want to keep this happy. :P I was glad to see when the trend towards some of them started to fall away, though.

[wild_flame]

Haha yes I agree- when you read a lot of short stories on the same characters and suddenly they are always described in the same way it can get a bit repetitive! Especially if it's something that was never in your own interpretation of the character or if it's just completely random!

Having said that- I am also totally guilty of jumping on random tropes, sometimes they can be great inspiration XD

[museinabsentia]

Oh, no, I wasn't saying that all tropes are bad or that you shouldn't like them or use them. I just find that there were periods of time where you had to REALLY dig to find things that weren't, say, playboy Sirius, or timid Remus... because these things sort of take off. And it's less the I don't like these tropes, although that's definitely a part of it, too. But it feels lazy to me. No one is only one characteristic, so the fact that so often they are written SO MUCH as one thing just feels flat. I would say that for tropes I DO like.

[wild_flame]

Haha yes I think I was trying to say the same thing as you- probably didn't say it very well!

[wild_flame]

The first R/S fic I ever read was Very Bad Things by Freudian Fuckup. It was so long ago I can't even remember what happens but what I do remember is that in the first chapter Sirius has this running analogy about Remus being like chocolate cake... and it cracks me up every single time! Sometimes when I am feeling sad I go back and just read that chapter- always makes me feel better!

[museinabsentia]

OMG, fics you can go back to over and over are the absolute BEST. What a lovely introduction into the fandom to find one of those!

[wild_flame]

Definitely!! <3

[secretsolitaire]

I don't really remember why I started reading R/S -- I had read fanfic in another fandom in high school, and then after college I remembered that and wondered what might be available for HP, and I think R/S made sense to me at the time. *shrug*

I started at ff.net and somehow managed to find a few things worth reading over there before discovering LJ. Two of the earliest writers I remember reading are mysid and musesfool.

And does anyone else remember the Beyond the Veil project? It was written by multiple writers based on the premise that Sirius had to keep going through the veil into different realities before he could get back to his own. There was one where Remus wasn't a werewolf, one where Sirius had died instead of James, etc. It always killed me that it was never completed and Sirius never made it home, but I still really loved a couple of those stories.

ETA: Actually, now I'm not sure if it was called Beyond the Veil or something else. Ugh, will keep looking.

ETA2: Veil of Possibilities! I'll stop editing now. :)