[Kaleidoscope update] Taking Leave

[shimotsuki]

Well. When I first started plotting the HBP section of Kaleidoscope, I did not think it would take six whole chapters to get rid of Remus. ;) But as it turns out, from mousy hair to Remus's history with Greyback to tea and sympathy to Patronus changes, there were a few things that needed to be pulled into the story

Comments

[shimotsuki]

Thanks so much for reading and commenting -- especially since you're working on your own HBP fic. I know very well that feeling of not wanting to read anything too similar in timeline during a WIP! (Though from the hints you've dropped about yours, I suspect you've taken the werewolf pack in a very different and really fascinating direction; I'm really looking forward to that.)

But that's indeed so canon Remus, self-effacing to the point that it actually crosses a line over into being inconsiderate of others! -- That's one of the things I find so heartbreaking about Remus, that he does these disappearing acts and other things that hurt people, because it never occurs to him that anyone thinks he matters enough for it to be hurtful.

That's how I think of him, too, trying SO HARD not to need anyone, but then even a little bit of kindness and friendship starts cracking that resolve, makes it hard to resist letting people in. -- Exactly, and I think OotP year was one long span of Remus letting his guard down and letting people (hello, Tonks!) get close to him. Which makes it that much harder for him to go back to his old solitary ways again in HBP.

[starfishstar]

Heh, yeah, there's slight cognitive dissonance in reading someone else's version of something I'm also working on a version of at the same time... I think it helps that mine's basically done (just doing the final editing) so it's kind of too late to be truly influenced! And I can't *not* read something you post. ;-) Plus, I really appreciate and admire how unbelievably close and true to canon you are/were, even before JKR (for better or worse!) let us have a door into her brain by creating Pottermore. Reading your stories feels like reading the "this is the backstory JKR intended" version. Whereas I'm aware what I'm doing veers a bit off track - technically canon compliant, and as realistic as I can make it, but probably not quite true to what JKR intended, and I do know it. In some sense I guess I set out to write a (canon-compliant) fix-it, though I didn't think of it in those terms back then!

Ooh, I can't remember what I've mentioned about the werewolves, but yes, I feel like I sort of stumbled into something surprisingly different, and I don't know quite where it came from, but I like it. Inspiration seems to be one part copperbadge's "Amid My Solitude," probably a few elements from when I read your older HBP-era stories back in the day, a hefty dash of research into Celtic pagan traditions, and I don't know what else. A determination to give Remus the reckoning with his werewolf self that canon denied him, I guess. :-)

And now I will stop blathering about my own work - sorry about that! But I love exchanging Remus-related thoughts with you. Congratulations on getting another piece of Kaleidoscope complete!