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Gomez and Morticia Addams got divorced. I woke up mortified and with a sense of inexplicable dread.

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Brother Gregor never spoke and often spooked the neophytes with his appearance, but he was a gentle soul and a phenomenal cook and knew more ways to prepare a fish than the abbot knew hymns

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Art by Boris Groh

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Sometimes when people on the Internet are like "ADULTS CAN NEVER INTERACT WITH MINORS IT'S CREEPY" I remember how, at 12, back in 1997, I was on the Witchvox forums with people ranging from me to people in at least their 50s, and no one there was ever a creep to me, no one ever made me feel uncomfortable or asked for my personal info, and when I finally broke down after a particularly brutal day of bullying at school and posted about it they were the first adults I'd ever met in my entire life who told me the bullies were the problem and it was okay to be angry about it.

Kids need to interact with adults who will listen to them.

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It's a sad song. We're gonna sing it anyway.

Hadestown - West End: Act 1

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Hey I absolutely adore your Indian James headcanons can you do some for Harry too please <33

Okay this got too long so it's only Harry's first year at Hogwarts. At some point I might do the rest of his years but yeah. Here you go, i hope you like it :)

The first time Harry noticed his skin was darker than the people on Privet Drive was when he was four. The first time he noticed people sneered at him for it was when he was five and a half. He didn't understand it; why did they think the colour of his skin meant that he was inferior to them? He heard the words chee-chee and brownie thrown around like Dudley threw his food, and quietly pulled his shirt tighter around himself.

When Harry is eight, Dudley and his gang throw him in a ditch and throw dirt and soil on him till he's coughing and tears are running down his face. "You blend right into the mud," Piers laughs at him. The next day, the boy turns up to school with black skin. Harry sits in the corner and turns his face away, a secret grin playing on his lips.

He comes to Hogwarts, and there are so many colours. He is approached by Parvati on the second night, and she asks him if he's excited for Ganpati Chaturthi. He stares at her, and then says, "I'm sorry, but I don't know what that is." She gets offended, but they haltingly talk it out, awkward and stilted like most eleven year olds. When she realises that he's been kept from his heritage and his magic, she flies off the rails with anger. "That's it," she says, "we're friends now. No arguments."

Harry loves talking to Parvati. She's the one that tells him his father was from India. She's the one that tells him the names of his grandparents, that tells him of the importance of heritage in the magical world. They talk about religion and food and all sorts of things, and within two weeks Harry is asking her to teach him Marathi. It's hard at first; the grammar structure is more like French than English, the alphabet sequence is weird and complicated and has too many letters, but he keeps practising his svar and vyanjana and kana and matra. He will do this, he tells himself. (He doesn't tell Ron. He wants this for himself, he thinks. His family, his heritage. He wants to learn before he shares, and so he doesn't tell Ron. For now. He will, when he knows enough.)

Slowly, he starts talking to other Indian kids at Hogwarts. Padma, a seventh year Slytherin named Aarzoo who's Muslim and always has the prettiest hijabs, Gryffindor Kalyani from fourth year and Hufflepuff Rushabh from the third. Kalyani is from Maharashtra just like the Patil twins and Harry, Rushabh is from Gujarat and Aarzoo from Punjab. Harry finds it fascinating that India has so many different cultures and religions, and demands knowledge from them. Aarzoo laughs, and tells him he should have been with the 'Claws.

Harry disagrees. He was supposed to be in Slytherin, he knows, but he is in Gryffindor, where his family had been. His family had been Indian. He wants to know everything about it. If he couldn't have his parents, he would have that which had been a major part of his father's life. And so he reads and observes and studies and asks questions— hesitating at first in case they yell at him (Aunt Petunia hated questions and he feared these people would be the same), but slowly he asks more and more. He talks for hours with Kalyani and Rushabh, and they tell him about Garba and Dhol Tasha, Ganpati Chaturthi and Diwali, Eid and Gudi Padwa. They talk about the languages of India, and Harry immediately asks Aarzoo to teach him Urdu and Hindi. She laughs, and says he should focus on Marathi first. He pouts, but nods.

The Mirror of Erised shows him his father, and he can't take his eyes off. James Potter is a tall man, bulky frame covered in muscles and warm brown skin that seems to glow with happiness. His eyes are light brown, and the bold black lines drawn under them make the green specks stand out. He's dressed in what Harry knows is called a kurta, white and gold threads woven to form images of peacocks and elephants and other intricate designs. The next day, Harry asks Padma what she lines her eyes with, and she promptly hands him a little round metal box and a tiny wooden stick. "It's called kajal." She tells him the differences in pronunciation between Hindi and Marathi, and shows him how to apply it. Harry wears it everyday. It makes his eyes look bright, brighter than they already are, and he falls in love with it. Kalyani presses a kajal covered finger behind his ear every morning. "For good luck," she tells him, a grin playing on her pretty lips. Harry flushes, and smiles back shyly.

For Christmas, Aarzoo gives him perfume. It's chandan and mogra with hints of rose, she says, "and your grandfather made it. His name was Fleamont Henry Potter, and he was an exceptionally talented potioneer." Harry wears it religiously. Padma and Parvati band together and get him books on the Potter family and their historical importance, and he almost cries. Rushabh promises to teach him how to play Garba, and Kalyani gives him a cookbook for everyday Indian foods— breakfast and lunch and a few fancy stuff. Harry hugs it to his chest and thanks her with shining eyes. (he may have a bit of a crush on her. He can't help it— she's really smart, and she's pretty.)

Throughout the year, all of them work to introduce him to Indian food. At first, he thinks it will be easy. It is not. There is no such cuisine named Indian, Parvati tells him sternly. There is Punjabi, South Indian, Mughlai, Maharashtrian, North Indian, Bihari, Bengali and so many more. "The food in India changes with every twenty kilometres of travel," Aarzoo says when he mock complains about it. "It's never the same, and that's what makes it so special." He agrees.

The end of the year arrives, and Harry is still weak from his tryst down the trapdoor. When Ron and Hermione aren't present, his friends from home (because that's what India is, isn't it? His home. The home he never got to see, but is no less a part of him.) crowd around his hospital bed and have long talks with him, filled with banter and laughter. His Marathi is so much better now than it was in September, and he blushes when Kalyani compliments him on it. Rushabh winks at him, and Harry throws a pillow at him, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks at being caught out.

On the last day of school, he hugs Aarzoo around the waist and cries into her stomach. It's the first time he calls her "Aarzoo Tai", and she smiles widely, her own eyes dripping tears. "You will write," she says sternly, "okay? This might be the end of my Hogwarts years, but you are my little brother." He cries harder and nods, refuses to let go until the very last minute.

Harry goes back to Privet Drive with a heavy heart and a proud smile. He isn't inferior to the people there, he knows. He's special. He's Indian. He's James Potter's son, and he's going to live up to it.

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(South) Indian Harry Potter Headcanons:

Harry knew he was Indian (mostly because the Dursley’s used to say racist shit to him) but he didn’t know where in India the potters were from until he went to Hogwarts. He finds out from the Patils, who were close with the potters because desis stick together.

The Patils are from the north and use Hindi to speak to each other. Neither of them knows Telugu/Tamil/Marathi/Malayalam/insert Southern language of choice here (I personally headcanon Telugu because it’s the only Indian language I speak and because there’s a huge diaspora of telugumandi in the west, but feel free to choose whatever you’d like). So Harry has to rediscover his heritage language on his own.

He also studies Sanskrit, and it opens up a HUGE world of spells that they don’t teach at Hogwarts (because of course Indian wizards don’t do spells in Latin). He and the Patils know a bunch of spells that nobody else does.

Harry’s pleat game is ON POINT. It makes sense, since he had to do all the chores at the Dursley’s and that includes perfectly folded and ironed laundry with the edges aligned neatly, or else he would risk being punished. But the result is that if you want your saree drape to pass the inspection of even the most judgemental auntie, you go to Harry to help with your pleats.

Even when they’ve graduated and all have their own homes, it’s a pretty regular sight for the Patil twins to come through Harry’s floo, half dressed, to have Harry pleat their sarees or their lehenga dupatta for them.

Harry LOVES spices. The dursleys only liked bland food, but Harry has always liked flavorful foods, and has no problem with (hot) spicy food either. He uses lots of spices in his own cooking now. His food is very flavorful, but when he’s cooking for himself, it’s too spicy for all his friends (even the Patils). So nobody can eat his leftovers unless he was specifically cooking with other people in mind. Ron learned this the first time he rummaged through Harry’s fridge after a night of drinking. Now Harry labels all his food as to whether or not it’s “Harry spicy”.

James LOVED to buy Lily sarees. He’d order them with custom, wizard-themed designs from weaving villages in south India. The women who made them assumed he was just very imaginative, so he wasn’t violating the statute of secrecy since saree patterns are often vibrant and unique. Harry finds some of them in the old potter manor, and they still smell like the perfumes and scented oils his mother would wear when James took her to the local temple for Hindu holidays.

Indian witches often store extra magic in or enchant pieces of their copious jewelry with spells that can keep them safe if they’re ever in a situation where they don’t have their wands. stuff like, each bangle can function as an emergency portkey that can take you to different safe locations if you say the activation word, or ones that create an instant magical shield when you tap them. Harry finds some of his mothers gajulu, gives them to his female friends.

He ties Rhaki on Ron and Neville, and all the weasley boys. Ron was the first person he ever tied it on, because Ron was the first person who he ever bonded with, and his closest brother.

Harry always cooks idli sambar or dosa for his friends for breakfast the next morning after a night of drinking together, and it’s the perfect hangover food because it definitely brings you back to full alertness/knocks the last bit of post-hangover grogginess right out of your system.

Harry’s parselmouth abilities are valued in his native culture because of the sacredness of snakes in Hinduism, and it comes to be something he’s really proud of (personally I think the ‘parselmouth connected to the horcrux’ thing is dumb, so I’ve always imagined Harry was just naturally a parselmouth).

As the number of Indian immigrants/expats continues to grow after they graduate, Harry helps some of his students (he’s the DADA teacher) start the Hogwarts “South Asian Student Union”.

He always has snacks out for his students when they come to visit his office hours, and they’re all Indian snacks and sweets. His personal favorite is kaju barfi, but he always has a good variety of both sweet and spicy treats, especially for stressed out owl and newts students.

He collaborates with Hermione, who works in the ministry, to make it mandatory for Hogwarts students to a “foreign magical language” course so they can broaden both their minds and their spell repertoires. Padma Patil becomes the “Sanskrit Spells” teacher, and Seamus teaches “Irish Gaelic”. (It took him a little longer to get his course started, since it turns out that at least 40% of Gaelic spells are just increasingly complicated and violent ways to repel the English).

Hermione and Harry also work together to make sure there are employees in the international magical cooperation department who specialize in post-colonial relations, because the magical world also has its issues with that colonialist mindset towards countries that were formerly part of the empire.

Just south Indian Harry embracing his heritage, learning about what was ripped from him, and using it to enact meaningful change in a multicultural magical society.

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Harry knows a lot of languages, in theory, but he’s only fluent in English like;

He can completely understands Punjabi because that’s the Potters’ native language but he can’t quite grasp speaking it. He picks up French terms of endearments/cuss words from Regulus and Sirius. He knows welsh cuss words as well as philosophical translations because of Remus. He can playfully imitate Italian pick up lines because of Barty. He knows to hide when he hears Swahili because Dorcas only reverts back to it when she’s completely pissed at someone. But everyone around him speaks English the majority of the time, so that’s what he speaks.

Then he gets to Hogwarts and meets Draco Malfoy who can hold a conversation in just about any language someone speaks to him in and fuck, Harry never thought that French was romantic. He’s never seen Punjabi as alluring before. He didn’t consider Italian as attractive.

He spends the summer begging members of his family to teach him more of their languages so he can go back and prove to Draco that he is stupid in more than one language.

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Thinking about Harry being multilingual and not realizing he's switching between multiple languages when he's a toddler so it's like all the adults trying to work together to put together the puzzle that makes up his all of his sentences of French from Reg and Sirius, English from everyone, Punjabi from Effie and James, Urdu from Monty and James, and a little bit of Welsh from Remus

Eventually they all accidentally become multilingual thanks to Harry

Noooo omg what if Lily is fluent in all of them so they just like send her voice recordings of Harry speaking when she's not there like "please help us our love our light our lily love 😭😭"

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Do you think (pre-show) that Eliot studied Nate? Made sure to know what made him tick after a run-in or two? Maybe even before any run-ins?

We know Eliot analyzes potential threats, he watches videos of ice fights cause "you never know when you're gonna need to fight a guy on the ice", he "makes it a point to know where Damien Moreau is at all times so we can avoid him," he knows his enemy, and he knows himself, and he does not fear the result of a thousand battles (paraphrased from Sun Tzu, Art of War, which Eliot appears to be reading at the beginning of the Lonely Hearts Job).

And Nate was good at his job. Really really good. He's some of these people's only time failing at their own jobs. Eliot would have heard rumors. Rumblings of 'Oh I hate going up against companies insured by IYS, there's this one guy who's way too good at his job.'

But the other thing about Eliot is that he doesn't observe coldly. He's empathetic. So he learns about Nate. Learns about his jobs that he was on, learns how Nate thinks. Learns about his wife, the team they make in their work. Formidable. Adorable, too. Learns about their son. And he's happy, in a way, that a good guy has a happy life and family. Nate deserves it. Even when the good guy is directly opposing him sometimes.

And then Nate Ford just disappears. Maggie Ford too, for a while, but she comes back as Maggie Collins. Nate never does. So Eliot pokes and goes looking. And ... Sam Ford is dead. A little boy died and a good man is devastated and a happy family is broken up.

And Eliot cares. He doesn't need to know these people personally to care. In fact, this is exactly the type of story to get him to care personally about this little broken family. But he's got his own crisis to deal with and it doesn't hurt that a good guy who's way too good at his job is out of the field.

And then a year or so later, he's introduced to a ringmaster who's supposed to manage all three rings of a work-alone circus, and it's Nate Ford.

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Cat carrying her kitten By: General Press Agency From: Cats, Cats, Cats, Cats, Cats, Cats 1961

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They don't talk about it.

But there's no way Nate should know those things. No way the client could have told him, no way he could've figured it out on his own. Not when these things were nothing more than fleeting thoughts from the mark. But Sophie notices him quietly go for the scotch behind the counter and rub at his head in pain with extra vehemence some days despite the latest con having no personal connection to him.

They don't talk about it.

But someone should've recognized Sophie on that con. There's no way she could have that many characters per con. No way none of those diplomats didn't recognize her from any of her previous cons. Not when she didn't change any more than her clothes and accent. But Nate notices her features seem to flicker at the peace and safety of home when she thinks he isn't watching.

They don't talk about it.

But no one could've survived that. And certainly not looking the way he does. There's no way he didn't come out of that fight broken and bloodied to all hell. Not when instead he walks out with a purposeful stride and only a clenched jaw, rolling his shoulders. But when he's cooking and accidentally burns himself, Parker notices the unmarked skin left behind.

They don't talk about it.

But not all vents are human sized. They all saw the size of the vent cover as she exists with a grin. There's no way she could've fit in there. Not when the human body can't bend that way, a way that even the greatest contortionist can't bend. But some days Hardison notices as she seems to stretch and bend before his eyes when she's feeling relaxed and safe enough.

They don't talk about it.

But that's not how computers work. There's no way Hardison could access that kind of thing. Not when he describes how he did it like that. Not when he does it so quickly like that. Not when he says he's taken berries and the next thing they know he's recreated a colonial era journal to perfection. But Eliot swore he shoved a glass of water at him, not more goddamn orange soda.

They don't talk about it, the thing lingering over their heads as they conduct each con, the unacknowledged thing between the five of them that's a little deeper than just a desire to take down the rich and powerful.

They aren't perfect, they all know that- sometimes they're too good with their covers, sometimes they have to shift gears as the con unfolds before them, but somehow things always seem to work out.

But no one asks about it, so-

They don't talk about it.

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My favourite Parker episode has always been The Inside Job, y'know why? It's not just what Parker does, but rather what the others do FOR Parker.

Parker has 4 safe houses in the city, but Nate and Sophie know her well enough to know where she actually stays when she's away from the team

Parker's security code. Do you understand the level of trust someone like Parker will have to have to use their name as her security code? To the place that's her own personal sanctuary? Sophie EARNED that level of trust.

'The Sterenko can't be cracked-' 'Can you do it?' 'Nate, it can't be-' 'For Parker. Can you do it for Parker?'

This. Just this.

'I made her. I trained her, and I released her into the world.' 'She was broken! She needed you!'

This stood out so loud to me, because it's not Hardison or Sophie (the more emotionally intelligent ones of the team) saying it. Because it's NATE. It's Nate, the man who couldn't say I Love You to Sophie for so long. The man who got so caught up in his son's death that every job involving kids or medical malpractice he nearly went out of line. NATE, who pushes and pushes and is ruthless and so cold at times.

It's Nate protesting for Parker, standing up FOR Parker, and y'know why? Because Parker doesn't know what she got deprived of. Parker doesn't feel that loss because you can't grieve something you aren't even aware you could've had. But Nate does. Nate saw her injustice and loss of childhood and spoke up, KNOWING she'll never know about him defending her.

'Hardison I screwed up.' 'We're already here mama.'

Do you understand the level of trust and vulnerability it requires for her to say those words? She's never gotten anyone's help after a screwup, she's had to take care of herself on her own. And there's Hardison, right there, not upset, not angry, not disappointed. A right straight - I'm here and we'll get you out.

'Let's get our girl home.'

Do I even need to say anything.

'It's not what we do, we don't get involved!' 'No, that's what YOU do!'

Parker is not Archie Leach's protege anymore. She's Parker. She's the greatest thief in the world. She's the one person to get the entire Leverage Inc breathing down your neck to save her. She has a family who got her back. She has a life and friends and people who may not understand her always but will always support her and be there for her, no matter what, without changing any aspect of her or forcing her to change either. And she saves people, because that's what they do.

'It's your play Parker.'

The explicit trust Nate displays in her. For someone like Nate with control issues and need to be the guy calling the shots, this is practically an all out notice saying 'she's my people, she's my family, I trust her with my life, more than that I trust her with my family and our jobs.'

'No.' 'What do you mean no? This isn't time for crazy, Parker! Come on!' 'No! I need to go back. I need to put the vial back.'

Do you understand what it feels to have someone like Parker, who is practically a ghost and the prospect of getting stuck somewhere is unthinkable, to refuse an escape route? And that too because she wants to help people and not be used to hurt them? In the face of someone who brought her up to only steal? Now that's growth.

Now this is a callback, but when Sophie and Nate first enter her safehouse, Sophie says something that foreshadows the ending. She says 'Look at this. It's methodical. This could be one of your plans, Nate.'

This is a personal choice, but god it's so good when authors and writers and creators give you hints and foreshadow and reward your intuition at the end, rather than changing endings for shock value. Because Hardison isn't ruthless, Eliot isn't striving for control, and Sophie is dramatic, not clinical. None of it would have been worth it unless it went to Parker, which it did.

Man, this fucking show I swear.

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One of the major ways Elementary stands out from other Holmes adaptations to me is how they wrote Watson. Like it would've been so easy to write her like any other Watson, brilliant, yes, undoubtedly, but forever attached to Sherlock. Watson is there because Sherlock wills it so, because Sherlock needs a rock and because Sherlock Holmes is a man forever in need of a partner. Usually.

But they broke that. They said this is Dr Joan Watson, and she is incandescent and ruthless. She's a surgeon and there's an episode where Sherlock says surgeons have a healthy dose of god complex and you think sure buddy and then Joan threatens Moriarty in the middle of a restaurant and you go, huh. She learns to pick pockets and watches out of boredom. She changed careers over and over again till she found the one that fit. She became a detective and could and would absolutely kill a man and vouch for someone killing a man because it's Sherlock and she loves him very much. She's a partner, in the very literal sense. She kept track of murders as a teenager. She enchanted the most dangerous woman on the planet and EARNED her protection. She's a cancer survivor. She threatens gangs and online hacker conglomerates in free time. She's a mother. She's half of two people who love each other very much. She moved across oceans for him and she would do it again.

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one of my all-time favorite pieces of television writing is in the west wing pilot when c.j., the press secretary, asks "is there anything i can say except for 'the president rode his bike into a tree'?" and leo, the chief of staff, responds "the president, while riding a bicycle on his vacation in jackson hole, came to a sudden arboreal stop"

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