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Ugh, the dynamic between Sirius and Regulus is such a difficult one. You know Sirius wants to protect his brother, but he often feels too far gone, and this moment could be the point of no return...
This is really great! I think you nailed the Marauders dynamic and shenanigans in just a few short sentences. All but Remus up for anything, while he still manages to get roped back in in the end!
Poor Remus, His story is so tragic, and he has so much self-loathing inside him. This feels very authentic of him, to be envious of what his friends have, but then feel guilty for feeling envious.
I like this a lot, I think it really captures the way Sirius sees himself and wants to make sure he's seen, too, and I can absolutely see the two of them getting up to no good this way!
This is a very cool chapter, addressing a bit why Peter made the choice that he did, but through Snape's eyes. I've not read that before, and it's interesting!
Here for the Galazy Event :D :D :D
I know I've said this so many times, but I love the pairings you've made for each of these words. Some of them are so spot on yet done with a plot twist-y kind of take and then there's ones like this that are a head scratcher at first because Lily Evans and sloth don't mix - but you pulled it off so well! I love the idea that she gives in to this girl talk and just relaxing and getting excited for her date, letting go of the studying and having to work hard.
Awesome awesome job on this collection - these were seriously such fun and new takes on characters and themes that have been done so many times and it's a testament to your creativity that you made them so fresh!
- Jacquelin
you are definitely right, lily and sloth are difficult to imagine but at the same time, you are also right in saying that everyone needs a break so sloth is good for lily and we love good stuff for lily :P
i thought this was just a really sweet and nice slice of life scene even if it was focused on being slothlike and avoiding studying, i just really liked the friendship between lily and marlene and the way marlene knows her friend and knows that she needs this break and needs to calm down her anxiety and so skincare and talking about how fit james is besides being fun for her, is also a nice way to help lily and take her mind off of transfiguration.
also lol yes james would absolutely care far more about snogging lily and how her skin feels soft and all that incredibly good stuff instead of what she got for a grade in transfiguration (not that he wouldn't care at all because he knows things that are important for her, but he would care more in a let-me-comfort-you-way instead of any other way!)
kris / ss voyager
Galazy Reviewing :D :D :D
And once again you bring this fresh new interpretation of the deadly sin to this drabble. When I saw gluttony I honestly thought of Sirius first. I feel like he just has this insatiable sort of quality about him. Nothing is ever enough and he just thrives in a world of constant more. I don't know if that makes sense, but just like - he would never be satisfied in a quiet countryside, ya know? He needs the business and the mischief and the adventure!
And the thought of him sitting in the common room like a king with a collection of candy and trinkets is just peek marauder mischief XD And I love the bit at the end about Robin Hood. It is so on brand for Sirius to be like - no we're like that robin hood fella and them being like - bro. no. that's not the moral of that story XD XD XD
- Jacquelin
lol i think this being a worst case scenario marauders au makes sense if we took absolutely the worst things ever said and/or implied about the marauders and transferred it into them truly considering themselves kings of the school, but still, even in this worst case scenario it actually made me laugh imagining them like that because it’s all so teenage-y if that makes sense? so it’s actually kinda cool that you took their teenage arrogance and pushed it to the extreme and so now the younger students basically give them sweets and stuff in exchange for being left alone or for revenge because it’s almost like a parody and i think it’s a really interesting exploration of their characters - feels very not-them but also very could-definitely-be-them and i love that dichotomy!
kris / ss voyager
Galazy Reviewing :D :D :D
I. AM. FLOORED. Each and every one of these always takes these almost cliche emotions or overused tropes and just flips them on their fucking heads. This idea of lust being something craved and sought after and this just untameable desire - but for purpose rather than a person. Wow. It's so applicable to these characters and gives them so much depth and a new level of understanding to thier motives.
To think they aren't just doing these things because they're 'evil' or 'the bad guys' but this motivation that honestly everyone feels at some point - they just try to attain in through questionable morals and means. I am so enamored with these drabbles. Seriously amazing amazing job!
- Jacquelin
SS Voyager Reporting In :D :D :D
Again with the fucking nail on the head between the deadly sin and the character it's focused on. :chefs kiss: I freaking loved this. Poor Lily. It's such a real feeling to want what others have, to feel so down about what is lacking when you see others so flippent about having it. It adds this whole other layer of resentment to the original feeling. Now you're not only upset you don't have that thing, but you're also looking at them with anger - or you're feeling somehow less yourself because you care about something that seems so frivelous to others.
I don't know if I'm even making sense, but this was a such a well captured concept of envy. And I love that she's just sitting in the back of the classroom listening, not interjecting or participating in the conversation, just on the outside - wanting.
- Jacquelin
Galazy Reviewing :D :D :D
AHHHHHHHHH!!!!! These are seriously such amazing little scenes. They are all so fraught and real and thematic and on brand with these characters and just EMOTIONAL! <3 <3 <3 Even if the emotion is heartbreak I freaking feel it and that's so cool with so few words.
Seriously awesome job on this chapter. Wrath was a great pairing for these brothers. Such angst and resentment and anger and loss and just ugh these two always hurt my heart. Why couldn't they just figure thier shit out?
You did an awesome job of not just having this conversation and emotions from thier words, but like setting a scene in like two freaking sentences! Bringing a whole history of family rage and tension into this just :chefs kiss:
- Jacquelin
i love that this is about lust for power, and especially through the eyes of snape and in connection with peter pettigrew ugh! i hate them both but the thoughts bin their minds about lust for power, and why they are there at that exact moment, sitting next to other death eaters, for the exact same purpose and want. it’s kind of chilling that at first snape is just thinking in terms of peter being there as annoying and especially because he was one of the marauders but then it so so quickly turns into recognition and almost brotherhood in their same want and it’s both chilling and disgusting, yk? but like, the way you’ve written it is really brilliant, to make me feel all those things, especially through characters i don’t like doing things that i abhor…but the lust is there and it’s also kinda terrifying.
kris / ss voyager
Galazy Reviewing :D :D :D
I know you said this didn't come out how you planned, but I think it was such a cool and complex look at the idea of greed! So original and layered - not the shallow concept of just wanting more. And listen I'm biased cause I have serious heart eyes for Remus these days, but Remus was the prefect character for this sort of introspection.
For me, this idea is so fundamental to who Remus is as a character. Self-destructive, feeling less than, knowing that power is there and having to fight his morals not to abuse it. Wanting to be just like everyone else, but also a part of him feeling like he shouldn't want that - that even wanting that is somehow wrong because of what he is. Wow I'm seriously speechless at this take cause it's so freaking interesting!
- Jacquelin
Here for the Galazy review event :D :D :D
What a cool concept for a drabble collection! I love this. Taking something thematic like that and applying the story through that lens or filter. And you've done an awesome job with this first chapter. Pride is such a great word to capture these mischief makers.
And I love that you've pulled Remus out specifically because apart from Peter he's probably the least prideful of the bunch - but still can't help but have that in him because that's just who this crew is right? This line in particular captured so much in so few words: (or more accurately, they have always been careful not to listen).
I really loved the intro too where you say that it's probably more to do with the boys than the dorms. XD I can almost hear them using that as an excuse and then being corrected XD
- Jacquelin
aww poor lily. i love that you took envy and made the sin into something that makes me really feel for her, knowing how her family life wasn’t all that great, they didn’t have a lot of money, their holidays were always under question, and definitely no magic whatsoever which is something lily obviously feels so so hard. she loves magic and i love that that love just seeps out of her, enough to make her envious of her friend even though it’s not marlene’s fault but lily can’t help herself. i don’t think that’s different for most of the muggleborn students, having to live without magic for the summer months while they use it all the time at school - it must be tortuous!
so i really feel for lily and it makes me sad to see her like this, and she also reminds me a little of harry when he has to go back to the dursleys for the holidays, his sadness is always palpable, as much as lily’s envy (but actually sadness morphed into envy, i feel like!) is here, and you do a great job of portraying that!
kris / ss voyager
damn julie, you write sirius and regulus so so well! i absolutely love how sirius is actually deeply concerned for regulus when he sees the dark mark on his arm, but their relationship is so damaged, and behind it all i feel like they also hurt each other so many times and grew up in such a toxic environment and dysfunctional family, that sirius’s concern ends up being inflamed and turns to wrath quickly because neither of them wants to give ground, they’re so set in their ways.
and i’ve always thought that for regulus it was so much worse after sirius left and he was left alone in that terrible house with his mother and father and ughhh so he must have harboured resentment towards sirius for leaving him alone and that just sort of bled into him doing what was asked of him…but we know he had his doubts later and tried to do the right thing.
i just really love the way you managed to portray their difficult relationship in this, it feels super complicated and it is, but at their core they’re two brothers who love each other but circumstances and choices had made them into people who are so very angry at each other and you show that so so well!
kris / ss voyager
i absolutely love this take on remus and greed and him thinking and feeling that he is greedy just because he wants a normal life, with his friends and family and just to be a regular teenager without being burdened and suffering from his affliction…and remus being who he is thinks about those wants and considers them and thinks that he is a monster and that it's greed instead of longing and i love how you wrote all that in this drabble because you managed to make him so layered and complex in just so few words and it's amazing.
the longing when he looks at his friends and the sense of a lost childhood is genuinely palpable and i am amazed at your ability to elicit such strong emotions with your writing, it's honestly amazing! i only find it comforting to think about how much his friends love him and what lengths they are willing to go through to help him and keep him company, it’s,,,beautiful.
kris / ss voyager
i love how the marauders are absolutely ridiculous in this drabble, like, i mean yes, they are also incredibly prideful, but also so teenage-y in their dares and bet you can’t do its and so hilariously and idiotically stupid but i love them in their stupidity and daring!
also. i heavily relate to having to do something someone bets you can’t. and dares. what can i say, it’s kinda wanting to prove someone wrong and i can definitely see that in the marauders, but also they just really enjoy doing stuff like that, at least that’s how i feel they are in the drabble and it’s awesome because i feel like you perfectly managed to encapsulate their boyishness and playfulness in between all the daring. they’re still untouched by all the terrible stuff that would happen and i just really enjoyed reading about them fooling around and being generally ridiculous.
remus especially made me laugh, how he absolutely *refuses* to participate and then the next day he capitulates and crashes his broom and he’s hilarious
the thought of them being immortal and able to do literally anything also leaves a bit of a bittersweet taste after reading it, just because we know how it ends but at this moment in time…they almost are and that’s nice to read
kris / ss voyager
this cast a different mood from the other drabbles, 100%, but it’s a light note to end things on and i can hardly argue with that. i feel like this is more in the vein of interpretation that greed was - it’s not that remus was actually greedy, or that lily is actually slothlike, but rather that it’s what they think of themselves (or will/would think of themselves if they do xyz). and there’s a big problem with those things. so it’s good that lily had marlene to get her to take a break, not least because i love that wholesome friendship content. (i do wonder how marlene is slothlike to hide her anxiety, though, a la the summary… cue thinking emoji.)
oh: i’m also super here for that Jily Shit.
hehe.
anyway, this was a Spicy drabble series and i enjoyed it a lot - i thought your takes and choices for each of the sins were very interesting! my favorite one was definitely greed, but god knows how i would choose the second, so i’ll leave it at That. would def read more drabbles from you, would def read more marauders era content from you, and i will be squinting in case you come out with either. y e e t.
<3 ariie
oooh, this one was really interesting. i agree - i really doubt james and sirius would have ever actually behaved this way (though they certainly had to deflate their heads a few times), but i can imagine the arc that brought them here in a ‘worst case marauders’ au. i think that’s a testament to how recognizable their characters still are, even though this didn’t show who they were. but that’s what these experiments are for!
we know that they had some arrogance, and we know that they sometimes got carried away. i’m always hesitant to say that there was more than that, because i just... don’t think there was? i relate to sirius, especially, in a lot of ways - the anger, the aggression, the intensity of these things wrapped up in someone who wants so desperately to be as good as they can be - and i think it’s demonizing to say that sirius or james would have tormented anyone who didn’t give as good as they got, you know? it’s why i tend to wince a lot at any darker version of the marauders. i feel like they’re too based in stereotypes of angry, aggressive people and what happens when that control falls apart. (aka: Super Bullies, suddenly, because many conflate anger and aggression with that. cue throwing something gif.) it’s entirely untrue to what i see of james, who was honestly quite soft even when he was a shit, and sirius, as someone who sees so much of myself in him.
this, though - i like. it’s a different take on a darker slant of the marauders, which would be enough to perk my interest, but it’s also much truer to how i feel the marauders would be like if they hadn’t been good people (or anywhere as good, or if they’d been in need of more head-deflating). i feel like they’re far likelier to get carried away in their actions and their self-importance than to suddenly focus on making others’ lives hard. of course it would happen as a result of their carelessness, and maybe there would be more picking on people ‘casually’, but it would never be relentless targeting. it would be this: kings on their thrones, eager for a chance to look good and noble, oblivious to exactly how far from ‘good and noble’ they’ve gotten.
i really appreciated this one - i definitely read it as a satirical ‘if snape was actually right’ piece - so thank you for writing it!
<3 ariie
i was Ready to read this one. snape’s a good character but a terrible person, and i hate peter with a thousand burning suns. of course i wanted to read about how you’d do this for snape, and about pettigrew’s dumb lust for dumb power. and you gave me great material for hating peter more! but i also really liked how you put this in snape’s pov, how he was initially wrapped up in thoughts of the past - in the experiences he had with the marauders and what that might spell out for him here, now that one of them has apparently infiltrated his place. (a hilarious and disgusting reality with snape: he really is an unrepentant bigot, and that did not change when lily died and he turned to dumbledore. imagine thinking such a place was yours.) i think it’s very true to what we know of him and how their mutual animosity affected him.
but man, that turn. it’s honestly very disturbing - and understandable, because i reckon he’d be less ‘yeah, okay’ about it if james or sirius had been there - how quickly he changed his tune. it seemed like no time at all before he recognized and accepted the lust for power in peter’s eyes. if this was how it had gone down in canon… i’d say that this would arguably be the moment that peter had gone to the point of no return. (narratively, anyway.) it honestly speaks of how he latched onto those that were more popular, more attractive, just more than him - and how that wasn’t enough once he became so much more irrelevant. The. Worst.
<3 ariie
unlike the others so far, this is the piece that most deviates from my idea of lily - mostly because i don’t know where i stand, exactly, on the idea of lily envying or not envying those with magic, but tend to lean towards the latter for a few reasons + my own imaginings of her flaws. that’s the great thing about fanfiction sometimes, though. there are so many different ideas and interpretations you can take from/create for characters that - frankly - were set up to be perfect, and there are so many ways to execute it well and realistically.
i think you did that here. after everything we’ve known about petunia envying lily, there’s something poetic about lily envying her friend, envying those born into magic - it’s harsh and unsightly, entirely unlike the lily evans we’ve sort of come to know. it’s also kind of funny, in the sense that petunia envied lily for having magic, while lily envies marlene for having a magical family. rather than the usual ‘grass is greener’ sort of idea, it gives this image of a ladder of envy regarding those with more ability - those with more magic. it’s a really cool idea, and i loved the splinter imagery.
<3 ariie
for obvious reasons, i was always going to be excited about wrath - and i was more excited to know that the black brothers would feature in it, and even more excited than that after reading your first two drabbles. i think this one did end a little abruptly (read: I Want More), but honestly, i can’t blame you. their relationship really is incredibly sad, and i’ve wondered more than once what might’ve happened if regulus had said something to sirius once he realized his errors, or just - if somehow, sirius had found out. you know? there’s so much tragedy to be had in the marauders era, but it also, like… hurts so good sometimes lmao.
anyway, i felt like this was another sort of different take from the usual (but less so than the greed drabble), which i really like. you did super well with showing how angry they both are, in the ways they can manage/have learned, with the places they’ve chosen and the places that the other has, and how much there is to be said about their wrathfulness (even though it’d take a much longer piece to cover the complexities of that). the little brother was gutting, too. in another world, i think they could’ve really, really loved each other. i think they could’ve been the best team in the world. but in all universes, i think regulus and sirius always did love each other, and i really liked seeing it here - as heartbreaking as it was, and often is.
<3 ariie
first of all, how dare you.
second of all, i love this.
i know you said that this didn’t really turn out the way you expected, and i can see why, and why you might come back to tweak; it’s just not a stereotypical idea of greed when you consider how the sins are usually portrayed. and of course it’s not. the deadly sins are called deadly for a reason. there’s something about exposing a character’s flaws that can make them so much better - that can make things interesting - especially when you’re using incredibly adored characters who we may or may not see enough of.
but i really loved the way this was done. sure, this wasn’t actually greed - it was self-deprecation at its finest, it was sickness in loss of childhood and experiences - but it worked. remus sees himself as so incredibly greedy for wanting a normal life he can never have, and while we all know there’s nothing greedy about that, it’s so, so easy to think of yourself in such a way when you’ve spent your whole life knowing you’re not ‘normal’… and that you never can be. i think it’s a very interesting interpretation of a deadly sin. the deadliness doesn’t come in the actuality of greed, but the belief of it, and that’s enough. it’s just as destructive. it eats away at him like lycanthropy does - and that would take from anyone.
a great piece!
<3 ariie
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