You might be wondering if this is the ultimate clickbait
title, but I swear it is accurate. And you are coming in to this a lot more
informed than I did. Because yes, I am reading gay fan fiction as we speak, but
no, I was not aware I was. Let’s start at the beginning.
This year, I made the resolution to read at least 12 books,
roughly one per month. I had also made an additional resolution for these books
to be Greek, for the sake of my friends and family, who have to put up with my
insultingly poor language. And I mean insultingly. It makes people doubt if I
ever went to school. I began with a classic, ‘Zorba the Greek’, because
Kazantzakis is a renowned Greek writer, this is arguably his most famous novel
and I want to see the movie (which, as everyone knows, I cannot do until I have
read the book). It is a very nice, funny, thought-provoking book, but seriously
low in the plot department. This has caused me to be very, very slow in
finishing it; meaning I still haven’t. I have gone through one additional book
in the meantime, and that was about ‘Hamilton: The Musical’, which goes against
my other resolution of Hamilton detox. As you might have realised with basic
math abilities, I am behind on my 12-books-a-year schedule. So when a friend
mentioned that she stumbled onto some adequately written fan fiction Harry
Potter novels, well, I didn’t pay much attention because I thought myself too
good for fan fiction. But when she also mentioned that said fan fiction
concerned the four Marauders during their school years and all from Lupin’s
viewpoint, I couldn’t contain myself.
One of my first posts on this blog
was literally a plea for Rowling to write this very plot. Lupin is my favourite
character in the Potterverse and all chapters regarding him and his friends
(and enemies) at school were my favourite throughout the book series. I say ‘book
series’ in particular, because they were all butchered in the movies. The fact
that someone took the time to write this not only gave me a newfound excitement
for reading that only Harry Potter could have awakened, but also reassured me
that I was not the only one that loved this secondary character like no other.
There was no way I was not reading this fan fiction for the sake of my Greek
vocabulary, damn my friends and future vocational prospects! All I knew going
in has been presented to you in this paragraph. Only you have seen the title of
this blog post; I had not.
The book is nicely written; no one can match Rowling’s wit
and nuanced character building as far as I am concerned, but the fuzzy Harry
Potter feeling was certainly there. And characters are quite consistent and
well-defined, so I was very pleasantly surprised that something written by a
fan, with no editor notes, was legible. Lupin is very badass, which of course
is music to my ears and the rest of the marauders are also nice, even Pettigrew. At first I
noticed some hints, some comments that might lead one to think that Lupin might
have a crush on Sirius. But very subtle. So I messaged my friend, the one who
introduced me to this literary tale, to see if she had noticed anything
similar. She said she had as well. She also said those hints were more and more
pronounced as the boys were getting older. I didn’t pay much attention to it;
it is not the way I would have gone with the character, but mainly because in any
fan fiction I would write, Lupin would end up married with me. But I just
assumed it was a bit of a detail to add some depth to a pretty much tame Harry
Potter prequel.
I was reading this on Kindle, but the document was a PDF
with tiny letters, which would most definitely cause me blindness. I had a look
around the web for a Kindle-friendly version of the book in my usual –very legal-
MOBI platforms and rest assured, I found it. I also found the author’s forenote
which said this this story was part of the ‘Wolfstar’ genre and a ‘slow burn’.
I had no idea what that meant, so I googled ‘Wolfstar’. And then I stumbled on
it; the subsection of Harry Potter fan fiction preoccupied with the romantic
love between Remus and Sirius. I didn’t stay long in this digital wormhole,
mainly because a lot of it was porn. Now, I want to make it absolutely clear; I
do not have issues with people fantasizing about a werewolf and animagi boning,
but admittedly it was a bit of a shock. I was there for the fuzzy, fuzzy, fuzzy
Hogwarts fuzziness and the original novels didn’t have much more than a kiss
written in. A fuzzy kiss. Not everything I saw in ‘Wolfstar’ was fuzzy. I
realised that the aforementioned ‘hints’ were not just a detail, an artistic
liberty, if you like, but the driving force of this whole novel! And the reason
there are hints instead of ‘Sirius began licking Remus’ fingers’ is that
‘slow-burn’ comment in the forenote. Oh, and I think it is time to say that the
books are called ‘All the Young Dudes’. And I know I might seem like a total
idiot for not picking up on this, but it is a double entendre for a Bowie song
that the boys like. Only I didn’t know it was a double entendre; I only caught
the bit about Bowie.
Have I stopped reading since? No, because for the time
being, it reminds me of the Harry Potter books and I need to read something
Rowling-related that doesn’t make me want to shoot her. I am not sure I want to
read about werewolf sex, so depending on how that goes, I might quit for the
sake of my childhood’s innocence. It is a risk, I will admit, but if worse
comes to worse, you will read about it on this blog. I do have one issue with
this character development other than its contradiction to my fictional wedding
plans. That is, Lupin marries Nymphadora Tonks in the Potterverse. And Tonks
has shape-shifting abilities and is Sirius’ cousin. Does that make it
disturbing for anyone else or is it just me? I would hate for him to be asking
his wife to turn into her cousin for sexy time. It would certainly be hurtful
to Nymphadora and doesn’t fit in with the noble, sensitive Lupin image some of
us fell in love with in ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’. But then
again, I am only through Year 2 at Hogwarts and surely there are plenty of
developments ahead; maybe that is all taken care of in a porn-less, Tonks-considerate
manner. Here’s hoping.
Well, once again, it is the Harry Potter novels that have
got me reading for pleasure. No! Not pleasure! Leisure! See? This is weird.
This whole post is weird. I am going to stop before I make this any more
awkward. Well, before I do, let me also mention that Rowling has formally
stated that Lupin is particularly well endowed. Now I will stop. Mainly because
I don’t think I could make this any more awkward, even if I tried.
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