It's little to surprise to anyone who knows me that I'm slightly obsessed with fanfiction. I mean, it's not like

1. I've been reading them since I was 11
2. I've written a good number of them myself
3. I'm an editor for them (and may have edited a few chapters of Commentarius aka one of the best Jily fics ever written. not that I'm biased or anything)
4. I have over 400 bookmarked on my computer
5. My most visited site is fanfiction.net (even over tumblr. I know, it's pretty amazing)

Meh. Just a bit obsessed.

I read a lot of fanfiction. I don't feel ashamed when people kind of give me a look that screams wtf-you're-so-weird-why-would-you-cry-over-made-up-stories-when-you-could-be-melting-your-brain-by-watching-silly-tv-shows-like-me because I honestly, truly enjoy doing this. I love coming home to five unread emails talking about how my favourite fic was updated, or calling my friend Catherine to freak out over a new chapter of a fic. I love going through a chapter of something and finding all the grammatical errors while simultaneously groaning and laughing at it. I love spending hours crying over my favourite pairing who died before one of my favourite book series ever began.

Okay, maybe that last one was sarcasm.

ANYWAYS, I have this favourite fic of mine called Every Other Midnight. It's a Jily (James/Lily) Harry Potter fanfiction. There are some errors that drive me crazy, but that's what happens when you're an insane editor who wants to do this in college. Other than that, the story honestly entrances me.

So Lily Evans is an orphan whose only real friend is Hagrid. One day she and Hagrid find an injured baby unicorn in the Forbidden Forest whose parents were just murdered by Death Eaters. Hagrid calls Professor Potter (oh snap breaking the little canon we have) down to the scene to offer protection. The story follows the friendship that Potter and Evans gain while going down to feed Mercury (the unicorn) every other midnight, and the subsequent relationship that inevitably follows. I don't want to spoil anything on the off chance that one of you will read it, so I'll just explain why I love it without going into too much detail.

I've always been so amazed at what these authors can come up with. In the HP series, we as readers are only given a few sentences about the nature of James Potter's and Lily Evans' relationship ("She hated him!" "Nah, she didn't."). This leads to both good and bad things. 

Because there are no boundaries for the authors, they are free to create whatever characters they want without being too far outside of canon. Since they can basically do whatever they want with the characters, there are so many different types of fics out there. Lily/James as Professor, the normal Head Girl vs Head Boy, the Lily-hates-James-and-calls-him-an-arrogant-toerag-every-other-sentence cliche, and so many others.

But is that really a good thing? Sometimes I could be reading a new fic, see something I've seen in a billion other ones, and automatically be turned off. It wouldn't matter how good the writing is or how well the characters are developed. Seeing cliches that exist even when a basis hardly exists really annoys me. Like, honestly, there are a million different options out there! Don't conform with everyone else and do what they do. Be original. That's the beauty of fanfiction--it allows you to be original while still not really being original (wow that made no sense).

The reason why I love EOM as much as I do probably has to do with that cliche aspect. Every time I turn the virtual page, I'm greeted with something that surprises me. Granted, some things I could predict, but that's expected of many stories. Here's some things that surprised me (you've been warned):

• James being an Auror
• Lily creating her own spells, potions, etc. (her arousal spell o h m y g o s h)
• Sirius' character development. It was flawless.
• Lily's strength as a witch and as a character
• The dynamic between James and Lily
• Lily's other form (not saying anything other than that)
• The original characters. They were perfect!
• The fact that she didn't use arrogant toerag at all praise the Jily gods for allowing this to happen

But my favourite part of the fanfiction?

• the length

You're all going to think I'm crazy, but I LOVE to read things that are over 100k words. If they're not, I feel like they're missing so much. I loved this fic almost 10x more because the total word count was (drum roll please) 932,487 words! AND she's not even finished it yet! Isn't that incredible? Her dedication to the story is so admirable. Her love for what she is doing absolutely shows through when you read it. It is honestly one of the best things I've ever read (in the ways of fanfiction. Trust me, nothing beats Austen or Bronte or Shakespeare or McCarthy).

I could sing Kathryn's praises all day, but that would waste the time you should be spending reading this! So go. Enjoy the beauty that is James Potter and Lily Evans combined with an adorable baby unicorn and a horrific dark wizard, then come back to me and tell me how often you cried.

You might need this and this along the way.