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My deepest darkest fantasy is that I collapse on the street and I am rushed to the hospital. They perform a bunch of tests and find out I am severely deficient in some kind of vitamin. Then I start taking the vitamin and I become the happiest cleverest person alive because all my problems were caused by this one deficiency

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Normally I say no to mind reading, despite its strong appeal to me, because I'm terrified of other people reading my mind and I don't want to live in a world where mind reading is possible. Lately, though, my fear of having my mind peeked into has diminished slightly and anyway, "you can read minds, but only the thoughts you would be interested in" is simply too good to pass up. I'm desperate to know what people really think about me in the privacy of their own head. Sign me tf up.

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i fear a lot of ppl confuse “was this character’s death well written and good for the story” with “did i like it, personally”

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Mutual pining is terrible, actually. -10/10, do not recommend.

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What an absolute fucking year this day has been.

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Your therapist sounds hilarious. Let me tell you, “if a perfect love could fix somebody, this would be a very different kind of job” hits way different when you are a psychology major thinking about trying to be a therapist (assuming I get into grad school. Ah, continuing education and the difficulties of being accepted)

He is so goofy fr, I love it. And I am also a therapist, so it was funny to me on a number of levels 😅

Good luck with grad school, if you choose to pursue it! I believe in you.

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In therapy the other day, I was talking about the idea of the power of true love healing mental illness, and my therapist said, "if a perfect love could fix somebody, this would be a very different kind of job," and it took me all the way out 😂 Yeah, man, bet.

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Do you have a face claim for Regulus ?

I do not. He's just a vague, blurry outline of a person in my head. I think you could really pick any scrawny, dark haired boy who looks like he just walked out of a Gucci ad and I'd vibe with it. The resting bitch face is really important though. None of this boyish charm nonsense. Regulus does not smile, he smirks.

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So... I initially misread the Black Men in the Bedroom question as Ballroom and therefore, I feel compelled to ask about your thoughts on the Black family men (and others, if you so desire) in the Ballroom.

Lmao 😅

Regulus - very rigid, very formal. He knows all the steps to all the standard ballroom dances and practices them religiously alone in his room at night. Without music. He's just up in his room dancing with an imaginary partner in absolute silence. He can dance passably well, but he's stiff and absolutely cannot improvise.

Sirius - really good dancer. Knows the proper ballroom dance moves, but thinks they're stuffy and boring and likes to shake things up. Intuitive and able to match his partner's energy. Likes doing borderline dangerous dance moves.

Orion - does not dance unless he absolutely has to. The last time anyone has seen him dance was at his own wedding. He can dance quite well, but he won't.

Arcturus - won awards for his ballroom dancing in his youth.

Alphard - terrible dancer. Absolutely appalling. No one wants to be his dance partner, he is always out of step. He loves dancing though and is really eager to get people to dance with him.

Cygnus - fairly good at dancing, but finds it so frustrating to watch Alphard cheerfully make a fool of himself on the dance floor, that he will avoid the ballroom altogether unless Alphard isn't around.

And just for fun: Walburga - flawless, impeccable dancer. Mesmerizing to watch. She rarely dances either but when she does it's impossible not to fall at least a little bit in love with her.

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Regulus is a clown

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Irina would also get out of wearing Walburga’s clothes by bluntly pointing out that Walburga herself would be disgusted on all counts that Regulus wants this in the bedroom 😂 if she’s like her, and Irina is disgusted, so would Walburga

Mm, well...I actually think the idea that Walburga would be disgusted with it would just excite Regulus more tbh...😬😅

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So I wanna run by my OC for my Regulus survives AU real quick. I will try my best to make this short and not word vomit 😅

Her name is Irina. She’s a half blood bastard from an old family in Romania. Atm I have her as two years younger than Regulus. By the time Regulus meets Irina in her hometown, he’s seen shit - he’s been on the run, he’s lived in the wild. He’s had to experience poverty (following mental breakdowns ) in order to stay hidden, and he’s experienced societal unrest while staying hidden…all in the Balkans. Since this is 1981 when they meet, Regulus has spent time behind the Iron curtain, where I hc that there’s a mix of communism and semi democratic govts. But despite using things like the law of duplication, all are feeling the pinch of a lack of resources whenever something happens to their muggle counterparts.

Irina is in a Cinderella esque situation (which is an essay of an explanation), but it’s not mirror for mirror which enables her to hide it from Regulus for a short period of time. Long enough for her to make a good impression on him. Irina is working to get out of her situation. She’s a bit like Walburga in the sense that she’s haughty, proud, and expects high standards from those around her when she knows she can get away with it (and when she escapes her situation and becomes a powerful woman in her job with her half brother, she expects high standards 24:7).

I was thinking that if a witch that conducts herself in a manner that Regulus expects a pureblood witch to behave, (and to be talented). he’d have no idea if she wasn’t a pureblood unless he found out. Since she’s as haughty as Walburga, he’s fooled for a bit. When he finds out, he’s simultaneously angry and floored. Irina isn’t apologetic, as Regulus never asked about her status - he assumed. So she choice not to answer since she identifies with her father’s old pureblood line.

They meet each other on and off in life, and when Irina escapes her situation, she meets Regulus again when she’s part of a financial group of her half brother’s and he’s a cursebreaker. Their role at the time puts them at odds a bit, but Regulus and Irina briefly work together and they’re bickering like an old married couple- and both find that they grow to enjoy it. When they realize that, they come to a truce and “formally” become friends. He later on places himself in an arranged marriage with Irina because she has the resources to hunt for remaining horcruxes of Voldemorts (Gaunt’s ring). Her half brother legalizes her so she can do so per their societal standards. It’s in this marriage that they grow to slowly love each other.

Irina does have some differences to Walburga - subtle ones. She actually gives credit where it’s due, but she doesn’t gush or lavish praise. It’s more of a curt “good,” and a simple approval. Shes one of those people where something like that is the equivalent of enthusiastic praise. I also headcanon Drumstrang had “advanced” etiquette classes for ladies, in which Irina learns the finer points of manipulating a man to do what she wants but making it look like it was his idea the whole time. I cannot see Walburga having the patience. Irina does.

Irina also is traditional, yet a little more modern than Walburga - a little. I decided to reflect that in her wardrobe. I always saw in my head that Walburga’s robes had a Victorian and Edwardian cut- they looked like floor length gowns with elegant feminine flair. Irina’s robes look like a fancier version of the World War I dresses for women: simple cut, but fine fabric, and the hem goes up to the ankle so you can see the boots. I headcanon this is actually a style among pureblood circles, usually worn by witches trying to embrace a little “modernity” while still having “traditional” values for a pureblood witch.

(That’s well…this is short for me when explaining stuff like this 😅😅😅)

Oo, I love all of this. And Irina sounds perfect for Regulus, honestly. I'm a sucker for a slow-burn arranged marriage situation, too.

I've always felt that Regulus would be able to get on board with a half-blood, provided they were from an old wizarding line, although I do think he would initially feel quite betrayed and angry that he was "tricked" into thinking that Irina was pureblood. I imagine he thinks that he can tell just from appearance and interaction what someone's blood status is and wouldn't think he needed to ask, because of course he'd be able to sense the half-blood bastard on her.

I love the amount of thought you've given to sociopolitical setting and wardrobe and such. I wish I had any inclination towards world-building because it really adds so much flavor to the narrative.

Thank you for sharing with me :)

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I love Canon Remus and all of his flaws. Enough of this "Casanova of Gryffindor Tower" BS, Remus is the cowardly lion of Gryffindor tower. He values bravery because it is something that he lacks and yet still strives to be. He has an ingrained sense of shame and self-loathing and an inferiority complex that stems from society's contempt and marginalization towards Lycanthropy, a condition he was cursed with from a very young age. He wasn't a leader, he was a follower. A blind follower who believed to his core that he was unworthy of love and respect because of what he was.

Which opens the door to what I believe to be Remus' greatest flaw: His unwavering, unquestioning devotion to Albus Dumbledore.

I think Remus saw Dumbledore as the perfect encapsulation of Good. He was everything that Remus desperately wanted to be, everything that society was determined to believe a werewolf could never be. And maybe, if Remus could earn (and cling to) Dumbledore's favor and make him proud, he would prove to the world and himself that he is Good, too, in spite of his lifelong curse.

Remus felt that he owed Dumbledore a debt he could never hope to repay for allowing this chronically ill little boy into his school when no werewolf before him had ever been given such an opportunity. So many of Remus' choices in canon stem directly from this imagined debt that he had dedicated his life to paying. Hell, he didn't even hold a grudge against Snape for OUTING HIM to the entire wizarding world simply because Dumbledore trusted him.

Remus trusted Dumbledore wholeheartedly. And Dumbledore personally saw to Harry's placement with the Dursleys. Why should Remus have considered, for even a moment, that Harry wasn't safe? Certainly far safer than he would have been with a monster in close proximity, as Remus believed himself to be. In his mind, staying away from Harry was what was best for Harry. Until Dumbledore needed a favor, that is.

It's reductive to suggest that Remus failed Harry (and by extension, James) for putting his trust in Dumbledore to do right by Harry. James and Sirius trusted Dumbledore, too. They all did. Stripping away all of the nuance and blaming the abuse Harry suffered on Remus is simply unfair. NO ONE helped Harry, not even those who were fully equipped to do so, and Remus was the farthest thing from being equipped to take that on, what with being an impoverished werewolf living in a society that reviles his very existence. The only person who could have saved Harry from the abuse was the very man that placed him in that home, the very man that Remus revered with blind conviction.

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Going to the library to convene with God (Carl Gustav Jung)

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Psychoanalysis Sunday: Christmas Eve Interlude

Non-magical AU where Regulus is put in therapy with a psychoanalyst

Part 1 | Previous

Regulus fiddles anxiously with the sleeves of his freshly starched shirt as he examines his appearance in his bedroom mirror. Despite the amount of time and effort he has put into getting his hair just so, a tiny strand keeps falling out of place and creeping across his forehead in infuriating defiance. He carefully smooths it back into place.

It is the first Christmas Eve he has spent without Sirius, who has stubbornly insisted upon staying at Hogwarts for the entire Christmas holiday. What’s more, their parents hardly tried to persuade him otherwise. Inexplicably, they had all but given him their blessing to abandon the family – to abandon Regulus – for the wretched children of degenerates whose company he clearly prefers. And in his absence, the pressure on Regulus to entertain and appease the entire extended family that is gathering at Grimmauld presently is magnified.

Not that Sirius ever does much in the way of appeasing anyone in the family. He claims that he does an excellent job at entertaining, but Regulus has never found his holiday hijinks entertaining in the least. If anything, it should be easier for Regulus to not have Sirius here, to not have to wonder what new ridiculous thing Sirius will do, to not have to worry himself sick about how everyone will react. He does not understand how Sirius can manage it – the way the family all stares at him, the weight of their disapproval. It is enough to drive Regulus to despair, even when it is not aimed at him, which it hardly ever is.

Of course, in Sirius’ absence, it might be.

Regulus marches over to his bedside table and grabs the comb off of it with perhaps an excessive amount of exuberance. The table shakes slightly, knocked off balance by the force of his discontent. He ignores it, marching back over to the mirror to attack his hair into submission.

After several minutes of painstaking care, he finally manages to coerce it into complying with his wishes. Satisfied, he moves on to his wardrobe to finish getting ready.

“It will be better this year without him,” he insists to himself. “We will all have a much nicer time without his antics. Mother and father probably did not fight for him to come home because they knew it was better this way. They will be happier. We shall all have a merry time.”

He heaves a sigh and tugs his shoes on his feet, focusing intently on tying the laces with absolute precision so that they are exactly symmetrical. It takes him twenty minutes. Twenty blessed minutes when he has no thoughts of anything other than perfecting his shoelaces.

When he is finished, he gets up and grins at his reflection, quite pleased with himself.

The pleasure is quite short-lived, however. His face falls in an instant and he walks closer to the mirror. That ridiculous, awful, uncooperative, rebellious strand of hair is out of place again!

Regulus slams his fist against the mirror at the exact moment that his father opens the door to tell him to come downstairs. The timing is awfully unfortunate. His father walks in to find Regulus in tears, staring at the broken mirror, with blood dripping down his hand and seeping into his freshly starched shirt.

"What on Earth - "

Regulus swallows a sob and straightens his shoulder. "I am terribly sorry, father," he manages to force out. "I am going to need a bit longer to get ready."

"But why have you done this?" his father asks.

Regulus keeps his eyes on the shattered glass, unable to turn to look at his father. "I will clean it and change and be down momentarily," he says stiffly. "Please give my apologies to mother. And everyone."

His father stands in the doorway for what feels like an eternity before eventually shutting the door and leaving Regulus to tend to his wounds and try once more to make himself presentable.

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Sirius as a boyfriend/husband, Could you focus on his flaws?

Oh geez. Well, I have to warn you that I'm much better versed on Regulus' flaws as a partner (and a person) than Sirius'. But sure, I'll give this a go.

In a glaring oversight, I don't think I mentioned "possessive" in my list of flaws for Regulus, but I think possessive love is a Black family trait. I don't imagine that Sirius would go overboard with it, he's not going to be an awful, jealous mess of a man, but I can see him getting quite cold and cutting if his partner brought up an ex.

Speaking of cold and cutting, Sirius has the capacity to be cruel and seems to have a good sense of the right remarks to make in order to hurt someone. I can see him really hurting his partner's feelings if he felt provoked.

Something that I, personally, would see as a downside, although I wouldn't characterize it as a flaw: he's very energetic and likes to do things. That would drive me crazy. I like to do nothing; sitting in a room alone with my thoughts is my favorite pastime, I would find Sirius exhausting. And he would probably find me quite boring.

He's very passionate and determined, which could be a pro and a con. He'd be a very loyal and devoted partner. However, I can see him getting very invested in something and having it consume a lot of his time and energy, which could be frustrating.

I also think that he'd make things pretty ugly in a breakup/divorce. But not for the rest of his life. He'd make things difficult for a while and then he'd forget about it and move on.

I think the biggest challenge would be being the kind of person that Sirius would want to be in a relationship with. I think he's quite picky about who he spends his time and emotional energy on. Once someone gets his attention, though, it's all the more intense because of how few people he gives it to.