all the recs that are fit to print

[arcanetrivia]

As usual, some of these are a bit behind by now (going back about two and a half months). See tags for what's in this batch; I think there's more gen than usual (has some recs from snapecase and deatheaterfest).

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Just like that... by someoldcat (NWS)
(Severus/Sirius, NC-17, art + 94 words)

This is part of her "A Good Night" series and is just deliciously tender. I like Severus's slightly uncertain look and Sirius's smile and grip on Severus's hair. (not like kink hair-pulling, he just has a handful of it)

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Conjure-man by ishafel
(Severus/Harry, "explicit"/R, 2550 words)
Author's summary: Where do you look for a ghost but in the city of the dead?

My comment: "Wonderful job with Severus's personality."

Harry stares him, and Snape tilts his head to better reveal his ruined throat, his marked arm. He is beautiful in the way the city is beautiful, in the way ugly, broken things are beautiful, scars in plain sight on fair skin. Harry hates him, hates New Orleans, for their secrets and their lies and their pride.

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Wherewithal by musamihi
(Severus, Eileen, Tobias, Regulus; PG, 2725 words)
Author's summary: Running away from home is never easy, but everything is easier if you're Sirius Black.

My comment: "Excellent character piece. 'He made it float around him in slow arcs, even though it made the small text hard to read – just because he could.' So much is said in this one small, light brushstroke here. I also liked the sullen bickering of Severus's parents."

He felt the weight of the house and its shabby brown carpeting and scuffed walls and leaking windows more heavily than he ever had before. He was trapped. It would move with him wherever he went, binding him in something worse and stronger than walls.

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A Book of English Verse by cathouse_mary
(Severus/Narcissa, "general audiences"/PG, ~1800 words)
Author's summary: If a gentleman wishes to know what a lady wants, he might try asking her.

My comment: "This was beautiful, start to finish, rather of a color with Narcissa herself."

Severus has never been much of one for verse, unless it's one of Shakespeare's historicals or tragedies with blood and madness and murderous comeuppance by the bucketsful. Titus Andronicus is a favorite, of course MacBeth and Richard the Third. But Byron? Byron the poncy chameleon and puffy sleeved dissolute? It was not to be borne.

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Pink Haze by vividzephyr (NWS)
(Severus/Harry/Sirius, NC-17)

A daily_deviant piece on the prompt/theme "altered state orgasms".

My very helpful comment: "... OM NOM NOM NOM" Really, it's just tasty. All of them look delightfully hazy (under the influence of mysterious, languour-inducing things? hello, bulletproof kink) and Harry especially is obviously in rapture.

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How it Happened, Before by ldymusyc
(Draco, R, 1100 words)
Author's summary: "He knew it was supposed to happen that way. Pride and glory and honor, and a banquet at the end, with his Mark fresh and gleaming. Then the Dark Lord returned." Still perfecting my head canon on how Draco's initiation may have happened. This is one possibility I've toyed with.
Author's warnings: Descriptions of violence.

My comment: "Just amazing."

He'd wear robes made of velvet and silk. Black trousers beneath outer robes that shimmered like the midnight sky in the coldest winter. Inner robes of viridian green, marbled with cobalt, the colors shifting like a stream as he moved.

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The Subtle Things by janus
(Regulus, Barty Crouch Jr., Voldemort; author rates NC-17 "for dark ideas" but I'd make it more like PG; ~2400 words)
Author's summary: Regulus undertakes a mission for the Dark Lord.

My comment: "Well done. I like your characterization of Regulus here, and the peek into the approaches tailored to particular potential recruits."

He thought about his objective. Bartemius Crouch Jr. He was a Ravenclaw, but that was all right. It was only because he was smart and powerful and liked to work hard at his studies. These things were also true of most Slytherin.

This was scarcely even an assignment. Bartemius should want to join them in any case.

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H/D LDWS drabbles by r_grayjoy
(Harry/Draco, PG to PG-13, ~2325 words total if I can add)

My comment: "These are all great! I can see why you won. (She says encouragingly, without actually looking at the competition. lol.) I like the one with the Veritaserum and I love the Sectumsempra and Felix Felicis ones."

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Gonna Cut You Down by numbaby
(Augustus Rookwood, R, ~1050 words)
Author's summary: A closer look at a shadowy figure.
Author's warnings: Mentions of violence, death, necromancy and assorted dark magic. He's not a nice man.

My comment: "Great mood. I like it!"

Of all the promises and assurances their lord littered about him, there was only one that Rookwood craved.

Freedom.

Tortured Tom Riddle, with his reptilian nose and fevered red eyes, was not afraid of the dark. He embraced it, used it, and in so doing freed Augustus to do the same.