#Harry has entirely too many possible tags

[maudie-duan]

Series Summary: Harry has been fighting to keep his relationship with Olivia afloat for nearly two years. At what point do you choose to either endure or let the strain of the world defeat his ambitious hopes of a lasting relationship? Or will a single night and a fleeting encounter be enough to change the projection of Harry’s path? Maybe our ‘Mystery Girl,’ Shiloh, will just happen to be in the right place at the right time. 

A/N: Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a Harry-filled weekend! I know I did! I’m realizing that the more I write this, the more angst is coming through—which I’m not mad about—Enjoy!

Word Count: 2.6K

Tag List: @howling-wolf97 @sassamanda77 @babegoalsreads @palmettogal508 @indierockgirrl

@lizsogolden @sexymfharriet @pologoonies

Warning: Strong language, minor angst, eventual smut, emotional.

After the photoshoot, I caught the next flight to London, where I was meeting up with Annie and Kevin, who were already setting up base for our short stay. I had no idea Harry would be there when I walked into the studio to say goodbye to Alessandro. I certainly didn’t expect to do an impromptu photoshoot in my underwear, on full display for everyone—including Harry—to see, and eventually the whole world.

Leaving Italy felt like moving a mountain; at least, that’s what the exhausted ache in my body was portraying. When I imagined my first trip to Italy, I never expected to walk away feeling physically and emotionally drained. I had no time to process what had just happened or what the outcome would be. Instead, I found myself revisiting my past, trying to remember moments when time seemed to stand still—moments when I would have allowed myself to succumb to the gravitational pull that Harry had on me.

I thought it was all in my head, but then I kissed him—I fucking kissed him—It felt like being sucked into a vacuum chamber of our own demise, the kiss stealing my breath, carving open a sliver of space that only we existed in—it was just the two of us and the static of our bodies, exploring the curves and plains of one another. I found myself savoring each second, knowing that each moment that passed would become a memory I could take with me wherever I went—because I had to leave, and I knew that I would have to let whatever was unfolding between us go.

The entire plane ride was me trying to convince myself it wasn’t real, that none of it was real, but the second we stood in front of the screen, watching Alessandro skim through the photos, I saw it—It was there in the placement of a hand, or the way the camera caught a smile, a fleeting look, a chased kiss burdened with desire. It was honestly the sexiest photoshoot I’ve seen in a while, and that was the scariest part—to know that there would be proof of its possible existence, something I couldn’t hide from. 

As Harry had coaxed, I kept pushing myself to imagine that I was someone else, pretending we were playing our respective roles. Yet, as the shoot continued, I found that I was unable to separate the two, maybe even unwilling. 

Now, I was reeling in the aftermath, knowing it had only been hours since his hands had been all over my body, and I was lost in it—a daydream of our making—My sore lips served as a pleasant reminder that his lips had pressed against mine, and every time I drew my lips together, a ting of panic stirred in the pit of my stomach—mortified at the thought that we weren’t the only ones in that room. How many times did Alessandro interrupt a shot when it got too intense? How many outfit changes had we gone through? Each set being thrown to the floor, becoming part of the scenes unfolding before us—more evidence to feed that soft creep of guilt lurking around the corner in my mind.

When they finally called the shoot, my whole body ached with every movement, a dull throbbing at my center from fighting to find purchase. Our want became this incessant push of his rock-hard dick against the silk fabric of my panties, leaving me unfulfilled with a growing appetite of need—it brought me back to the curious time before sex, before clothes came off—when every make-out session became two bodies fumbling into different positions, desperately grinding at the surface, trying to remedy that deep set yearning within—and there in the bed that they rolled in at some point during the shot, we lay catching our breaths.

I needed one last glimpse of Harry stretched out on his back, the rise and fall of his chest, the gloss of sweat that cast a sheen glow across his inked skin. I needed these moments like I needed the air filling my lungs, and when he turned on his side, his head resting in the palm of his hand, his face said it all—a dizzy sense of euphoria spreading into a soft grin. I wanted to poke each dimple dipping into his cheeks and wondered if I was still allowed or had that sliver of space seal shut before I had a chance for closure, and why would I need closure in the first place?

That thought brought me back to reality like a door slamming shut—the startling realization that it wasn’t real. Everything that happened between us was for the sake of the photoshoot. The thought tightened my chest, a queasy churn in the depth of my belly gnawing at the back of my throat. I felt naked—exposed, on display for everyone’s amusement—and as I sat up, I looked down at my body, adjusting the straps of my bra as if it could hide everything I just did, everything we just did. 

“Everything okay?” Harry asked, and I straightened, swiping a thumb over my sore lips. When my hand returned to the bed, Harry reached over, running his finger over the smooth stone of my ring, slowly stroking it back and forth—He was so calm about everything—I mean, I’m sure he’s used to this. I know he just finished a movie with my friend, Florence. I’ve heard the stories, and they sounded steamy. That’s what this was; it was work, and this was a job.

“Yeah—” I answer softly, clearing my throat, “I’m okay, you?” I lie.

He looks up, his brows knitting together. “I don’t know…” he forces out as if the words are caught in his throat. I’m at a loss for what to say next because maybe I feel the same way, which should be weird. Perhaps he felt the same connection I did, and something about it felt like an ending. Soon, we’ll go our separate ways, and the thought of that hurt, tugging at the newfound longing, blossoming through my chest, rooting into unspoken desires I would carry with me for months to come.

I wasn't sure if he was looking for an answer, but as he searched my face, all I could do was shake my head, swallowing down the knot that was burning my throat because this wasn’t real. These feelings aren’t real, and when he swipes his finger over my ring again, I have to pull away—I have to pull away from him physically and mentally because this cannot be a thing.

“Shiloh…” he whispers. I look at him then, his hand reaching for my wrist as I scoot myself toward the edge of the bed. Alessandro calls out then, and I look away. 

“Come guys—come look at your gorgeous work!” 

When I glance back over at Harry, there’s something about his expression that’s almost pleading, desperate even, and I feel it—I swear I do—and it’s starting to sting, and I don’t trust myself right now. I’m afraid to look around; I’m so scared of what this might look like.

I’m embarrassed because I don’t usually lose control. I’ve always had a realistic grasp on most situations—everything in my life has to be calculated and controlled. It’s the only way to hold any sense of normalcy—especially with work. I can’t give everything, or there would be nothing left for myself.

These are my thoughts as I lay in my hotel bed at three o’clock in the morning, in London, where I should be resting peacefully, but all I can think about is Harry. How lucky he was to be able to go home and fuck his girlfriend. I wondered if their sex was amazing if she utilized his body the way I desperately wanted to during that shoot—and each time I circle back to that thought, I imagined how good it would have been, how good we would have been.

I would have given anything to slide down his thick cock until it filled my walls—that aching stretch that has no words, that “ouch, this hurts so fucking good,” kind of stretch that you know would hit just the right spot, and it’s primal, and you’re needy for it—and god what you would give…

I knew I had to be up in less than four hours, but there was no way I could function tomorrow without relieving the tension seizing my whole body, and as I dipped my hand into my underwear, I thought about how wet he made me. The slick dampness of the silk—I thought about the way the thin material traced the perfect contour of Harry’s dick. The way the silk effortlessly slid against his hard cock, driving a hunger, and when I pressed down onto him, solid and warm, I wanted the challenge he would bring. 

Each movement was meticulous and taunting; we couldn’t make it too obvious. I kept obsessing over the way he would wrap his arms around my waist or drag my hips ever so slightly, lining me up with his stiff bulge, then pulling me down hard and slow, staying perfectly still—The head of his dick pressing through the smooth silk, teasing my opening. The look in his eyes was enough to make me come, and I was getting so close.

So close as I imagined, his delicate fingers pushing into me. That’s all I would need. The idea of him getting to feel his work, the way he worked me up—for him to know how many times I nearly came undone in his arms because I was so fucking close, so many times, and as I squeeze my eyes shut, my lower belly tightening at every thought, I release him, coming harder than I’ve come in so long, moaning out a gasp of relief as I ride out the wave of pleasure, repeating his name over and over in my head, like there could be no other.

And as I come down, I’m hit with a strange mix of emotions. I can’t get that pleading look on Harry’s face out of my head. What the hell did he mean by “I don’t know?”—What was I supposed to do with that? It was confusing; it felt unfair—Should I feel guilty for wanting him? Did I cross a line? How fucking stupid am I to make anything out of this—He has a fucking girlfriend.

It’s humiliating that thought alone—what am I doing? 

My stomach is sick at the idea of him pushing into his girlfriend. I’m not this kind of person; I will ride for a woman before I even give a man a second thought. It’s not like me to be this disrespectful. I hate this feeling—that feeling of being used and discarded. I’m ashamed, and maybe I’m being dramatic, but this is what it feels like, and now there will be proof—and his girlfriend will see.

Alessandro was so taken by the photo shoot that, in the strange haze of it all, I had to open my dumb fucking mouth and suggest posting a glimpse on social media; of course, this is where my mind went—because when a good marketing opportunity arises, why not utilize its gain? And everyone agreed. Alessandro was already writing out ideas in his notes app, thinking of a fun, sexy way to promote this new prospect.

I had to take a cold shower, my body on fire, my mind spiraling over every detail. I knew eventually, I would have to succumb or be miserable. I had a feeling this was tearing open a new chapter and that this was just the beginning— awakening a new version of myself I hadn’t even begun to explore.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand, and the steady thunder of knocking on my hotel door woke me. I thought I would cry when I checked the time, muting the caller and my alarm. I knew who it was, and as I forced myself from the bed and stumbled to the door, I could hear Annie calling my name from the other side. 

“Dude, answer your phone!” she gripes, pushing past me. She was already dressed and ready to take on the day I was already dreading.

Annoyed, I scoffed, closing the door to follow after her, “Please, Annie—I think I have a headache coming on…” which took me by surprise because it’s not like I spent my night drinking, but that was what this felt like—a hangover—making me a groggy, sluggish, grump of a human, that has no business going out into the world today.

“Did you drink after the photoshoot?” Annie asks, and it takes me right back to yesterday; and I slumb onto the bed, wanting to spill my guts, but for the first time, I feel like I need to keep whatever I’m feeling to myself—at least until I can sort out exactly what I’m feeling.

“No…” I say, dragging out a heavy sign. The room is bright, the golden sun beaming through the floor-to-ceiling window, and it’s beautiful, but everything is a blur as I stare out the window, numb to it all. It feels like just another hotel window, and when Annie calls my name, I catch sight of Big Ben. 

But instant of taking in the sight, I look to Annie, “I don’t want to do it today…” I tell her.

“Today is the fun day, remember?” she says, lying on the bed, and I shake my head, rolling onto my back.

I’m gazing at the ceiling when she gives me a gentle nudge—and this is the worst part about my job. I can’t just call out, not when everything has been organized with my team and anyone else involved. “Today, all we have is the podcast interview…and it’s with Gemma. It’s going to be so chill. I bet you could even wear sweatpants; it’s that chill…”

I laughed a lazy laugh, “I won’t wear sweatpants…” 

“I know—I’m just saying that this will be a breeze, and then we get to hangout in London, dude…LONDON,” She pushes

I swallow hard, feeling ridiculous that she even feels the need to convince me, but all I can give her is, “Yeah—” I croak, my voice horse, my throat burning, and I don’t know if it’s the exhaustion taking over, but the next thing I know, I’m crying—big, hot, dreadful tears spilling over into my ear.

“Shiloh, are you crying?” Annie is on her knees, scooting closer, worry filling her tone, “Did something happen yesterday?”

I lie, “Nothing happened…” I whisper, swiping at my eyes, but the tears are like a faucet I can’t turn off, and I’m losing it, my breath hitching every time I try and force out words—and then I’m sobbing, rolling into the pillow as my entire body shakes.

“Listen…” Annie starts, lying her head next to mine on the pillow. You get to hang with Gemma today. This has been a long time coming, right? “She says as she rubs small circles into my lower back, attempting to calm me down.

I nod my head, wiping my face against the soggy pillow. When I turn to peek over at Annie, snot drags across my face, and I push myself up, burying my face inside my shirt, not wanting her to see my hideous crying.

“I think I’m just tired,” I murmur through my shirt. 

When I finally unburied my face, she gave me a soft smile. “I’m sorry…” I apologize.

“Don’t apologize. You moved a mountain in the last couple of days and somehow did an extra photoshoot? which…I need details, by the way; you didn’t tell me anything…so mysterious…” she jokes.

Slumping back down on the bed, I exhale, “I don’t know…I’m still trying to figure that out.” I say, forcing myself to get out of bed. 

“You’ll be the first to know, trust me—” I tell her on my way to the bathroom.

When I look back, she’s rolling her eyes, “Okay, cryptic much…”

A/N: Emotions are strange, and a crush can be confusing, but is it a crush or an idea that Shiloh is holding onto? I guess we'll find out...

Thanks for all the support you guys are giving! It's amazing!

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[zeebee3]

AO3 tag game

Thank you for tagging me @so-scarlett-maroon!

How many works do you have on AO3? 43

What's your total AO3 word count? 926,285

What fandoms do you write for? Harry Potter (at least nowadays)

Top five fics by kudos:

(All are Dramione and rated explicit)

You Do It For Me- WIP, currently 44 chapters and 200+k. 8th year, Draco learns that Hermione has never had an orgasm, so offers to help her. It's a story of who-fell-first/who-fell-harder, lazy river romance and friend group hangs. Lots of games, banter, and yet somehow still basically pure smut.

Would You Rather - The first smutty one (ahem four)-shot I ever wrote! 4 chapters, 14.5k, complete. Draco antagonizes Hermione into playing 'would you rather' while working on a joint assignment in the library. He doesn't think women wank and Hermione decides to prove him wrong.

A Good Landing- 2 chapters, 14.5k, complete. The five times Hermione accidentally sat on Draco's lap, and the one time she meant to. Post-Hogwarts, friend group hijinks, and Hermione has a secret piercing.

It Was A Sunny Day- One-shot, 7.4k, complete. Auror Hermione needs help retrieving a memory from a mission she went on. Auror Draco is sent to use legilimency to retrieve it. This is entirely an excuse for me to write legilimency smut, feat accidental stimulation, dry humping/cockwarming, and a successful assignment.

Baby, Anytime You're Ready, I'm Yours - 11 chapters, 27k, complete. Post-Hogwarts intermixing Slytherin-Gryffindor friend group goes on a weekend holiday. Draco is in love but Hermione thinks they're just best friends. Rom-com vibes, found family vibes, and one of my favorite scenes I've ever written 🤭

Do you respond to comments? I really, really try my best! It's hard to stay on top of them sometimes but I've made so many friends via my comment section and it's such a fun place to interact with the fandom! But it's a time commitment and sometimes I get super behind 😭

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Probably Disturbingly Capable. It has an open-ending and that's usually pretty angsty, plus it's a Death Eater Draco/Order Member Hermione fic so that's always a little angsty. Ooh either that or A Gentle Haunting, which is a retelling of Ginny's possession by Riddle's diary.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest endings? Most of my fics have happy endings so it's hard to decide which is happiest. But possibly one of the ones that ended in proposals? Those were super sappy/happy (Just The Lightest Touch (Hinny), An Indecent Proposal (Panville)). OH or Kindling. That one ends with Draco ending his five years agonized pining, so he's pretty freaking happy.

Do you get hate on fics? Not that I've seen (and I sure don't look for it). I get comments softly demanding things sometimes but none that are aggressively rude or hurtful. I've been super lucky to have the nicest, most supportive readers 🥹🫶

Do you write smut? It's arguably the only thing I write 🙃

Craziest crossover? I've never written a crossover, though I'm currently writing a Formula One crossover so I guess that one!

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yeah, a few times that I've been informed of (and thank you to the detectives out there who spot them!). So far, they've always been Drarryified which is, frankly, hilarious to me since Harry and Hermione are NOT a one-for-one replacement, nor is Drarry Draco anything like Dramione Draco imo. But I digress.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes! You Do It For Me is being translated into Chinese here, which is very cool.

Have you ever co-written a fic? No, but I've co-planned a fic and one day we shall write it!!!!

All time favorite ships? Dramione is creeping up as my top favorite, but Drarry is a close second. Dreomione is also a delight. I'm a sucker for rare pairs, too, and will pretty much read any pairing once.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you will? Look. I can't let myself doubt it. It has to be finished. AND IT WILL BE. (I'm looking at you, Balance & Oppose 🥹🫶). I do have a veritable fuckton of unfinished wips in my drafts though, none of which have ever been posted, so I'm sure one of them in there will never actually be finished. But again...I'll never say never.

What are my writing strengths? What I find easiest to write are smut scenes, relationship dynamics, dialogue, and carrying the flow. Are those what I'm strongest in? idk man.

What are your writing weakness? Having any fcking idea where a story is going before I start, and therefore inevitably leaving loose threads along the way.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? I don't mind reading it as long as the context around it makes sense, but if it's a full convo that I need to check the end notes for, it's less enticing.

First Fandom that you wrote in? Mistborn

Favorite fic(s) you've written? Balance & Oppose is the fic I put the most effort into and for that, it always has a top spot in my heart. You Do It For Me is my favorite of fics I'm actively writing. And my favorite completed fic is probably There's Nobody Like You (BlaisexRon) or Say Please (tattoo artist Draco).

If you made it to the end, I admire your tenacity! 👏🏻

I'm tagging @smolbangs, @goldenbuckyyy, @willowingscribe, @sultrynuns, @youhavemyswordandmybow (if tag games aren't you're thing, no worries!)

[veliseraptor]

twenty questions for fic writers

tagged by @feralkwe - thank you! I feel like I've done this before but if I have it's been a minute so

1. How many works do you have on AO3? across pseuds I have 1,010 works. with my "current" one I'm at 607. that is more or less my entire oeuvre, though there's a fair number of short fics on tumblr I haven't gotten around to crossposting though I'd ostensibly like to at some point. eventually. maybe.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 4,873,723. aYIKES. but hey closing in on 5 million! wonder when I'll hit that. I bet I would if I posted my unfinished wips for the mcu tbh

3. What fandoms do you write for? ever or currently? the list of fandoms I have written at least one fic for (not counting ones where the one fic was a crossover) is [deep breath] the mcu, the untamed/mdzs, supernatural, the silmarillion, a song of ice and fire, black jewels trilogy, wheel of time, doctrine of labyrinths, death note, the caliban leandros series, avatar the last airbender, kinnporsche, doctor who, buffy the vampire slayer/angel, gentleman bastard sequence, marvel comics, harry potter, temeraire, good omens, code geass, realm of the elderlings, greek mythology, dragon age, sandman, dexter, lymond chronicles, the firekeeper saga, lucifer (the tv series), crimson peak, kushiel's legacy, the x men movies, chronicles of narnia, twilight, and a couple other small book fandoms.

i used to be a lot more multifandom than i am now in terms of what i wrote for, and have been writing fic for which is how this happened.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? Not my favorite fics, for the most part. They are:

Life in Reverse (MCU)

With Absolute Splendor (The Untamed)

some good mistakes (The Untamed)

half a league onward (MCU)

The Villain Wrangler (MCU)

5. Do you respond to comments? I do not. I feel bad about it, but (a) I don't know what to say, (b) I feel unbearably self-conscious/self-important trying and (c) I already have too much I'm trying to do in my limited time/too many obligations I have placed upon myself to add another one that will just stress me out. Again, I have all kinds of guilt about this, though, which probably kind of defeats the (c) purpose of not doing it.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Almost certainly Mercy, though it's possible I could dig up others; that's the literal murder-suicide one, though, and I'm pretty sure I've only written one of those. I've written a lot where one character dies but another survives and has to live with the grief, which is arguably worse? but I still think Mercy wins. once there was a way to get back home might give it a run for its money, though.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I've actually written a fair amount of fic with happy endings! just mostly they have to suffer to get there. but trying to think of fic with a straight happy ending...I feel like I wrote some fairly fluffy fic in Black Jewels Trilogy fandom that I don't want to link to because I don't think it's very good. Maybe Life in Reverse, honestly? That's a fic where I tied up most things and resolved them in a pretty happy way.

Oh, or actually With Absolute Splendor might qualify.

8. Do you get hate on fics? I have in the past! Not a lot, but it happens every so often. Usually I just delete it, tbh; it doesn't feel worth leaving it there and I'm certainly not going to respond to it.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Sure do, primarily for pairings that are dysfunctional in one way or another, and for the most part I want the sex to say something about the inner life/psychology of the characters I'm writing. truly plotless smut does happen but I find it weirdly difficult. I have to do so much pre-justification work for my smut, at least in my head if not on page.

a lot of what I write at least has a little bit of kink or D/s flavor to it even if it's not explicitly written as such (and a lot of it is at least a little explicitly written as such). I also like to write about power dynamics (in sex) and sex that's sublimating some other emotion or desire, if that latter makes sense.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I used to, but not anymore, and I probably won't; I don't know why, but I'm just generally not a crossover fan these days. But I did write a Lord of the Rings/Cthulhu Mythos Morgoth/Cthulhu fic back in the day. No, I'm not going to link it, you can find it if you really want.

The Scarlet Pimpernel/Black Jewels Trilogy might be objectively weirder but it was because of an RP and therefore feels more reasonable to me.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I had forgotten about it until just now, but yes, actually. Including one that actually got reposted on AO3, which takes a particular kind of guts that's not the same as reposting on Wattpad or the like, imo. (I've also had fic scraped off AO3 and reposted on other sites.) The person took it down when I called them out on it.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I have been fortunate enough to have a number of fics translated into a few languages! I was curious which ones so I went and looked, and it looks like I've had fic translated into Russian, Chinese, and Japanese.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I've started co-writing a fic but never finished one.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship? Might have to give this one to xuexiao, though there's a lot of room in my heart for many ships! that's just one that hit an incredible number of my favorite things squarely on the head several times, leaving me concussed and helpless. It's so much, you guys.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? There's a number of my MCU wips that I look at and am like "yeah what I have of this is good actually, too bad I'll almost certainly never finish it", among which is Dead Superheroes Walking, the fic about everyone who died in Infinity War being trapped inside the Soul Stone and having to work together to fix the ensnappening from the inside. I have about 3/4 of it written if not more and the remaining quarter will probably remain unfinished. It was Wanda POV and a lot about Wanda and Loki bonding.

another one is the one where Hela decides instead of fighting Odin to strategically back down and plan to overthrow him later, and therefore is around while Loki and Thor are growing up. I really liked what I had of this one, and really enjoyed writing Hela's POV, but again. don't think I'm going to end up finishing it.

I have a whole folder called "MCU Salvage" that's basically my MCU wips that I parsed out because I was like "these are pretty good actually, maybe someday I'll have the motivation to return to them", which is probably delusional but, well. one never knows.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think I'm pretty good at dialogue - I love to write characters having conversations, probably to a fault - and, when it comes to fanfiction, characterization.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Worldbuilding for sure is one. I hate it, I don't think I'm very good at it. also description - I feel like I lean heavily on dialogue in fic and tend to go light on descriptive language. this is probably partly because I'm not a very imagery-focused reader, so I don't think a lot about creating a "visual" with my writing, but also because I just don't like doing it as much as I like writing about internal thought processes and interpersonal verbal exchanges.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I almost certainly would not do it, as someone who is monolingual and has zero confidence in my ability to do it right in a way that wouldn't read absolutely awfully. The one exception to this is in Lymond fic, and that's because the canon did it first, so it is fully justifiable for me to have this guy spout off in five languages in one fic. Otherwise...not since I tried writing a fake Phantom of the Opera fic mocking bad Phantom of the Opera fics.

19. First fandom you wrote for? I always say Wheel of Time because that's the first fandom of my heart but technically I wrote a crack Harry Potter fic before I wrote for Wheel of Time. But in my heart it was Wheel of Time. That was certainly my first fandom in any meaningful sense of the word.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written? This question is my nemesis. My favorite fic I've ever written changes at least once a month. I have a series for this on AO3 that I'm going to link to as a lazy answer to this question even though that's sort of 50 of my favorite fics, so sue me, I've written a lot of things over the years and I actually do like a fair number of them, even if you have to make me say so.

tagging uhhhh @highladyluck, @curiosity-killed, @ameliarating, @gloriousmonsters, i'm not sure how many people i'm supposed to tag for this but if you want to do it, go ahead?

[perverse-idyll]

Thanks for tagging me, @danpuff-ao3! <3 And it's so good to see you talking about your fics again. I love your thoughtfulness about your work and the whole writing process. (And I love your work itself, of course.)

"Self-rec time! What are your favorite five fics that you've written and why? After replying to this ask, feel free to pass on to five other writers to spread the love. 💗"

This comes at an odd time for me because I feel very disconnected from my fic and deeply unimpressed by it. Every time I open the current chapter I'm working on, I think, "What an absolute slog." So maybe focusing on what I love (or remember loving) will rekindle the missing spark! Plus it's been umpteen weeks since I last posted here, and it would be good to show signs of life. (I'm not giving up on writing or my OTP. RL just kind of saps the will to live sometimes. Experience tells me this too shall pass.)

Tagging anyone who wishes to celebrate their faves because I'll be poking at this while at work, and it may take me hours*. *days, as it turns out.

I actually don't have that many fics, which is embarrassing, considering how long I've been in fandom. The same handful just keep cropping up. So I'm going to be really aggravating and mostly talk about WIPs:

The Afterlight - the Snape/Harry WIP I'm currently working/ intermittently fixated on. It's got a serial killer subplot that still hasn't kicked in after 52K words and a Denial of Feelings dysfunctional romance heavily influenced by the fact that both men died in canon and forever after have to live with that knowledge. (Here we have the author's perpetual Denial of (Snape-ish) Death on full display 😉). The fic features disillusioned!Harry, an offshoot of the angry!Harry who often turns up in my work, alongside a Snape whose feelings, whatever else they may be, are typically obsessive to the point of self-sacrifice. They fight a lot and fuck a lot and at one point Snape takes a curse for Harry. Hurt/comfort as courtship! Probably my schmaltziest ending ever, and quite likely a narrative mess, but it's got its hooks into me so I really want it to turn out halfway decent.

Year of the Thestral - the only non-WIP here, a Severus/Minerva fic I had on the back-burner for years and finally finished. It uses a dubcon relationship as a lens to examine the damage done to - and price exacted upon - all and sundry during Snape's year as headmaster. The conceit involves Minerva at the end of her life reminiscing to a biographer, finally facing the memories and meaning of Snape's actions, the layers of betrayal and inevitability of sacrifice, and the furious despair that lay behind Severus' treatment of her. It offers the possibility of forgiveness and even retrospective love, and is woven throughout with femslash feelings. For me, it's a meditation on the punishing aspects of Snape's agreement to play the monster, as well as a character study of McGonagall, undertaken as a tribute.

The Blood of Stars - possibly my favorite of my current WIPs, put on hiatus in 2014. It starts with Snape basically being kicked out of the afterlife by Dumbledore and Lily and discovering, as he searches Hogwarts' post-battle wreckage, that he can't speak to Harry. Literally, no words. Partly in retaliation, he commits an act of heartache and cruelty that affects Harry's marriage. But he also reappears at desperate moments in Harry's life to provide help. There's much to-do over an underground prison, a mutual fascination despite their problems communicating (although one might suggest that Snape's inability to tell Harry what he thinks actually improves the situation), two dramatic death scenes, and more afterlife shenanigans. It also has what may be my favorite ending for any fic I've written thus far, and I'm determined to finish it if only for those scenes alone. Oh, and it's my version of horribly romantic. Also, hubris: the entire middle section is written in first-person Harry POV, which I know will take out a chunk of my potential audience, but I wanted to try something I'd never done before. Anyway, it's next in line once I finish The Afterlight (yes, I know, how many years will that take? But hope springs eternal).

Impossible Without It - another Snarry WIP put on hiatus in 2014! Ah, I was so full of ideas then and struggling not to let the bastards get me down. Well, I haven't given up on this one, either. It's another angry!Harry fic (I do write optimistic!Harry, but really, none of my Harrys are well-adjusted). In fact, it's a memory-holed Harry who can't recall killing Voldemort and an amnesiac Snape who works in a Muggle gay bar. The story is told partly through their sexual addiction to each other, fueled by secrets and lies and out-of-control hunger, desire for vengeance and of course the question of what really happened the day Voldemort died and Harry lost that moment in time while Snape forgot crucial parts of who he is (like the fact he's a wizard). They don't treat each other well, but they become so bound up in their obsession they can't let go. Eventually Harry discovers a way to restore Snape's memories, and Snape makes him regret it. Believe it or not, this one has a happy ending! Well, depending on whether you think a rather fucked-up relationship can be described as 'happy.'

The Threefold Death, or: The Lost World (long version), Snarry, WIP. I was originally going to choose When the Rose & the Fire Are One, but I've singled it out often enough that at this point I'm not sure what's left to say. I had Threefold Death hidden in a collection for a while because I couldn't stand to look at it, but that didn't help so I've removed it from its cage. I'm still haunted by a lot of the scenes, and I love fooling around with fairy tale imagery. I also like playing with ambiguity: how much of Snape's love for Harry is his own and how much is the Forest using Snape to draw Harry into its clutches. Ditto Albus Severus, the third in their circle/cycle of debts and devotion, who can't stop setting off tragic consequences despite the best of intentions. (Well, maybe not the best.) The POV in this one starts with Harry and switches to Al, partly because I'm a sucker for outsider POV and partly because I want to examine Al as a mixture of Harry and Snape, neither as loving as his father nor as ruthless as his mentor and therefore the weakest link in this Game of Three. But it is ultimately his love for them both that closes the circle, and he's the one who ends up losing the most. (Sorry, Al! Even if it's partly your own fault.) And this is another ending with lines and images I'm rather proud of. Also a ton of bittersweetness. Ever since I hauled it out of storage, I've been having all sorts of daydreams about character moments, so this fic is definitely simmering again.

[rockingrobin69]

some-day-wip-snip

Thank you for tagging me, @mintawasalreadytaken and @orange-peony! I’m back to working on my housemates SEVERE PINING fic, brimming with so much excitement I literally cannot bear it, so, here’s a snip! Featuring: shenanigans, baking, and a tiny, mysterious dog-shaped item.

One night Harry came back late, terrible week, got stuck at the office in a useless meeting till his eyes nearly popped out. Took the bus home with his face scrunched, the beginning of a headache simmering behind his eyebrows, miserable and tired and utterly depressed to think that tomorrow would be the same, and the day after, and the day after it.

Walked in the kitchen and had to rub his eyes. Rubbed them again for good measure. The image didn’t change; all the bowls he owned stacked one on top of the other on every available surface, counter caked with flour, fingerprints in butter on all the cupboards, and in the dead centre, Malfoy, wearing an apron and his slanted, weird smile.

“Harry!” like this was the most normal thing in the universe. “You’re back! We thought you might never return. I set out to make my grandmother’s fabled biscuits, but, alas, as you can tell, the endeavour’s not been entirely successful. Yet.”

Too many questions and not enough air. The nearly-headache swirled in blacks and golds behind his eyelids. “Malfoy,” trying to breathe it out, “what… who’s we?”

“Hmm?”

“You said we were worried. Who’s here? Is it Ginny?” because he’s going to bloody—

“Oh! No, Ginevra is out of town, has a match tomorrow. I meant me and Crumpet.” He picked up something small and silvery and waved it about, weird smile trickling slowly into something else, unsure. “I named him Crumpet. Hope you don’t mind.”

Harry stared and stared and still got nothing. “Is that… what is that?”

“I think they’re for serviettes,” Malfoy presented the offending object on a flour-covered palm; a tiny, dog-shaped… thing. “Possibly cutlery. There’s a set of six in the bottom drawer, I was looking for a sieve. Is that okay?”

Must have seen something in Harry’s face, because he came closer.

Harry choked on nothing. “Didn’t even know we had them. Must’ve been my parents’. Or Sirius’s, maybe. I have a lot of crap all around that I never really get to… erm.”

Malfoy’s hand did a funny little dance, like it wanted to touch him, then remembered it was covered in butter and goo. Ended up scratching his nose, leaving a fine smudge behind.

“I shouldn’t be sneaking around, using your things. I can get my own, should get my own utensils.”

“Don’t be daft,” Harry rolled his eyes, tried to get this silly fizzing in his belly to stop. “You can use anything that’s in here. I wouldn’t even know we had them if you didn’t… so that’s Crumpet, then? Did you name them all?”

Malfoy’s bottom lip was between his teeth, one pierced eyebrow hiked up. “No, not yet. We had some serious business to attend to first, Crumpet and I. The third batch is actually meant to be ready soon, so why don’t you grab a shower and come back for some—hopefully, biscuits? Worst case, Asda’s own?”

He laughed, couldn’t help it. “Third batch?”

“Ah,” did Malfoy just wink? “Such the detective, Mr. Potter. The first batch we won’t even mention, the consistency was the single most disgusting thing I’ve seen, horrifying to think I made it with my own two hands. Apparently Nana forgot to mention some pretty crucial details when relaying the recipe—that, or the ever simpler answer, my mother is a cunt.”

“Oh.” Malfoy’s expression sharpened around the edges, devilish and handsome, and he ran a floury hand through his hair.

“Then came the second batch. Did you know, Harry, that baking requires absolute precision? And if, say, one was to go, ‘ah, fuck it’, then baking soda can become quite the vindictive bitch?”

Harry tapped the corners of his grin. “And the flour explosion? What happened there?”

“That,” Malfoy tutted, “is the result of some poor training on my part, I’m afraid. You see, Crumpet wasn’t quite ready for all the tricks—”

“You’re not seriously going to blame a three-inch placeholder for this, are you?”

“Aha!” finger pointing up in victory. “I knew you’d know what these are! Placeholders, then. How fancy. We shall have to throw a feast to display them.”

Laughing, laughing, what else could he do, rubbing the wispy remains of a headache from his forehead. “You’re an idiot. And you’re going to clean this, Malfoy, or so help me.”

“Of course, of course,” in a tone that suggested he had absolutely no intention to, not a chance. “They are good, though. The biscuits. In theory. Mother would always make them when she knew I’d—used them as bribes, probably, to be honest. But I thought, might be nice, seeing as your week is so disgustingly busy. It’s the only one of her recipes I remember. And poorly, at that.”

Harry’s eyes were still tingling, but he could see the look on Malfoy’s face. Recognised the feeling, he thought. This weird drop in your belly when you realise how very lost something is to you. Finding something you loved, irretrievable.

“Hey. They better be good. I mean it, Malfoy. Crumpet and I will be very disappointed in anything less.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re now in cahoots with my three-inch placeholder pet.”

“Pretty sure Crumpet’s still my three-inch placeholder pet, ta very much.”

He gave a little bow, then came closer. “My apologies for the disrespect, Mr. Potter. Master? Sir Potter. Please accept this as token of my most genuine regret.” When he unclenched his hand, there was only a second or two to realise what was happening and try to escape. Harry didn’t.

Ended up with his face full of flour, pinched from the counter. “Malfoy!” indignant and shaky on laughter, “you fucking bastard, come back here—”

Chased him around the kitchen, like children, like idiots, tackled him behind the table to smear his face full of—caster sugar, flour, whatever he could find, and Malfoy was squirming in his hands, roaring with laughter, fighting tooth and nail to push Harry back, and when that didn’t work, to lick him away (“UGH!”), laughing, laughing, laughing.

They only let up when the timer went off. Both disgusting, breathless, and Harry was still panting when Malfoy pushed him out to the corridor, yelled at him to take a shower. Rushed back down to find the kitchen still a mess, and two cups of tea, and a trayful of cooling biscuits.

Malfoy snuck a tub of them in his work bag the next day. They really were quite good.

If you got all the way here, kudos to you, and you are now IT! Share a snip with us, will you? And tag me!!

[thompsborn]

Don't want to end up oversharing, but I've been following homeward bound from chapter 3 and so much has changed in my life for the better ever since then. I weirdly feel like I've been maturing alongside the fic. I'll be getting my bachelor's degree in two months and I started reading during my first year. You have no idea how special this piece of work is for me and I'm very thankful you've decided to share it with us. I absolutely trust your process cuz each chapter you release is just perfection, whenever you're ready to release more I'll be there to read it. Now getting on with the actual question (sorry for writing so much ijbol), what do you think Harley and Peter think their dream home would be? What style, is it an apartment or a house and all that stuff.

oh my god i ?? i am lowkey crying omg

homeward bound is so special to my heart, i could write pages upon pages about my emotional attachment to this fic, but that would take a whole lot of time and i wanna try and answer your question, but just !! like i know logically people really care about hb too, like i’ve read so many comments and gotten asks and i know it but getting new asks or comments still sends me reeling because it’s so mind boggling and i’m just like?? damn!! thank u sm i’m glad that my post nwm coping mechanism turned general life coping mechanism has been with you like this <3

also! congratulations on getting your bachelors!! hell yeah!!!

okay, okay, okay, so to answer your question, i think it varies on the era of their lives, so like

peter growing up probably always thought it would be nice to have a house one day because he knows his parents had a house that he could very vaguely remember living in, but he was pretty open to home being anything. harley, on the other hand, grew up in tennessee and probably always assumed he’d live in a house because he’s always lived in a house. it probably wouldn’t have been until after meeting tony and thinking about maybe going to new york one day that he even considered the idea of living in an apartment, but even then, he couldn’t imagine it being permanent

by the start of homeward bound things are different. harley is living in the city for the first time, living in a dorm and sharing close quarters with harry, and he’s mourning tony and his life before the snap, still struggling to a world that’s so different from the one he remembers, so for him the concept of a dream home feel irrelevant. like, he’s focusing more on just making it to his classes and his shifts at late night and the unexpected social life that he sort of develops with the friends he was not planning to make, so picturing his future doesn’t extend further than getting through his first year at ESU and signing up for classes, yk?

peter, at this point, has entirely lost his sense of home and assumes he’s never going to get it back (which is why he has not once referred to his apartment as home, outloud or in his head) so he has no dream home because he doesn’t think he’ll ever have a home

i’ll keep this as light in spoilers as possible, but i’ll tag it homeward bound spoilers and give a warning here that this is future hb stuff butit doesn’t actually give away the plot if that makes sense?

the series is called homeward bound for a reason, basically—it’s following the theme of home. the mcu trilogy is titled with home becoming inaccessible (homecoming, far from home, no way home) so i want this series to explore an idea of finding it again

as the series progresses, ideas of home and what it is and what it looks like are going to change and adapt, but in terms of your question specifically, harley and peter are going to wind up with the same idea of a dream home: a small cozy house, not in the suburbs but not in the heart of the city either, within a reasonable driving distance from their friends.

(bonus: harry loves the idea of a penthouse, but in reality would like a house like his moms, or a nice apartment if the location is worth it. gwen grew up in apartments and likes the idea of a house but wouldn’t care if she never moved into one.)

[laminy]

Thank you for the tag @merriell-allesandro-shelton!!

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

How many works do you have on ao3?

Apparently 74! I'm not sure how that's possible but okay! Not what I was expecting. That's like twice as many as I thought.

What's your total ao3 word count?

2,178,053

What fandoms do you write for?

The works that I have posted on AO3 are for Bohemian Rhapsody Actor RPF, BoRhap/Queen, Ted Lasso, 13 Reasons Why, Teen Wolf, 6 Underground, Midsomer Murders, and Shazam. Pre-AO3, I wrote in a lot of other ones. Hypothetically, I write for Gran Turismo, but I've never finished any of those fics lol.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. I'm breathing in the chemicals (Teen Wolf) 2. and you know you don't have to go (Ted Lasso) 3. Fear and Self-Loathing in Beacon Hill (Teen Wolf) 4. you're the sunflower (Ted Lasso) 5. into the blue and sunny morn' (BoRhap Actor RPF)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, absolutely! I appreciate when people comment and I like the interaction.

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I try not to have angsty endings! All my angst is sprinkled throughout the story (maybe more than sprinkled lol) and then they get a happy ending.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Since most of my fics have happy endings, I don't know what the happiest of the happy endings would be. Probably a fic in the ITBASM-universe, because I tried to make them all very happy (they deserved it).

Do you get hate on fics?

I did get a couple hateful anons on here in my day but they didn't stick around. Thankfully I've avoided much of that (knock on wood).

Do you write smut?

I do, I do. All M/M, though for my original NaNo story I'm apparently going to be attempting M/F and idk how that's gonna go lol.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I've written two 6 Underground x Midsomer Murders crossovers because Ben and Gwil.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of! I hope not.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I'm also not sure I'm aware of any.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not! I'll be honest that I really don't know how it works and I'm kind of a solitary creature in that regard. so, I don't know that it would be my vibe.

What's your all-time favorite ship?

Everrrrrr? Oh my gosh I don't know if I could pick. According to my AO3 bookmarks, apparently it's Joe/Nicky from The Old Guard but I don't think so (and for the most part I avoid that fandom these days). I don't know, ever???? I still can't decide. I'm too finicky. I will say that a ship that I will always love and I go forever without reading and then I'll be in that mood again is Eggsy/Harry from Kingsman. Like, they're the old stalwart.

What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Probably those Gran Turismo fics I mentioned above.

What are your writing strengths?

I would say dialogue but I don't know if anyone would agree. I find it the most fun, so I enjoy it.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I don't know how to describe what people look like, because 99.9 of stuff I write is fanfic and readers already know what those characters look like, so that whenever I attempt anything original, I don't know how to naturally include some idea of "this person has brown eyes and is very tall." I see it done so badly sometimes and I just try to avoid that.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I have done it before sparingly. Different languages, I know fics I've done have included French, Spanish, Dutch, German, and Arabic. For most of them, I use Google Translate. for the Arabic, I watched YouTube and tried non-Google Translate sources. for the French, some of it I knew myself and wrote it as I know it (I am not fluent in French). I would never write an entire fic in another language but I think including other languages is fun and rounds out the characters.

First fandom you wrote for?

Probably shockingly, it was Friends. A friend and I wrote it together in the fifth grade. Handwrote it, actually. We had a notebook that we passed back and forth.

Favorite fic you've written?

Overall, every ITBASM fic because it's like, my universe, my world, my characters, and it covered so much time (and space, ha). I don't know that I could pick an individual fic.

[whatstruthgottodowithit]

The Other Evans Girl [Part Twenty Four]

Fandom: Harry Potter [Marauder’s Era]

Pairing: Sirius Black x Original Female Character, Sirius Black x Daisy Evans, James Potter x Lily Evans

Characters: Sirius Black, Original Female Character, Daisy Evans, Lily Evans, Remus Lupin, James Potter, Harry Potter, Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall, Alice Fortescue, Frank Longbottom, Marlene McKinnon, Albus Dumbledore, Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew, Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix LeStrange, Walburga Black, Orion Black, Jasper Thicknesse, Barty Crouch Jr, Mulciber, Walden McNair

Word Count: 2092

Rating: Mature

Summary: Hogwarts is a safe haven, a home for many, but it’s often a place where heartache, love and complex emotions dwell and none know that better than the Marauders. Lily Evans just wants to make it out as a successful witch though the oncoming war and the ongoing advances of James Potter threaten that. Daisy Evans, her twin, has other goals. Join the Evans sisters as they make their way through Hogwarts, prepare for war and eventually find love.

Tags/ Warnings: Hogwarts, Friends, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Marauder’s Era, Teenage Angst, Babies, Weddings, Dating, Crying, Loss of Virginity, First Wizarding War, Love, Kissing, Teenagers, James Potter is a bit of a dick, Hogsmeade, 1970s, Fighting, Loss of Parents, Grief, Babies, Injuries, Gore, Harm, Christmas,  The Potter’s Mansion // Daisy’s Dress // NYE Lily’s Dress // NYE Daisy’s Dress // Lily’s Ring // Daisy’s Ring

Notes: Okay so I’ve been working on updating this and I’ve finally gone through all the chapters already written before I start writing more. It’s changed a lot so I’ve decided it’s just better to completely re-upload it.  

If you want tagging let me know

LINK TO AO3 // LINK TO PINTEREST // LINK TO ALL PARTS

With Lily now at the help ironing out the details regarding recruiting others didn’t take too long. She was the perfect mix of logic and empathy that made the others see the cause which meant that by the end of the week they had gotten Alice, Marlene, and Frank on board and were eyeing up the possibility of convincing some more Gryffindors to join them at a later point. And, eager to get started they all decided there was no better time than Halloween to have their first meeting given that they shouldn’t be disturbed as everyone would be dining in the great hall. The only problem would be getting away. There was no chance that they could not attend or try to leave the feast at any point because as soon as McGonagall spotted so many of her students were absent she’d for sure come looking for them. So, what they needed was a distraction and whilst Lily had been a great help getting people on board and researching defensive tactics and hexes she wasn’t a prank mastermind. This called for the Marauders.

As Halloween rolled in and excitement started to build throughout the student body for the feast Daisy felt nervous. She didn’t know if it was the nerves of being caught or excitement of finally feeling as though she was doing something useful but whatever it was lingered inside her, not disappearing as Sirius nodded at her from where he was sitting way up the table, reassuring her they were set even though they’d decided to split into two groups. She nodded back to him and then turned away, trying to ignore the sickly feeling inside her as Lily slipped into her seat beside her looking just as nervous. In fact they seemed to be the only subdued students in the room, the entire hall abuzz with excitement as they prepared for the feast. In terms of eating Daisy never found Halloween much different, she thought the elves always did a great job, but the atmosphere was different as after eating they were all allowed to stay, to mingle with their friends and other students instead of being shepherded back to their common rooms or into quiet public spaces.

As the last couple of people sat down McGonagall stood up, causing the entire crowd to shush, and then gestured to Dumbledore who rose from his seat and thanked her with a kind smile before he said, ‘students. Thank you all for taking the time to join us on what promises to be another fulfilling Halloween night. It has been said before that I am a man of few words, alas, that is true especially when there is food and fun to be had. Tuck in.’

And with a flurry of his hands, food appeared in droves on the long tables and chatter arose once more as the students started their meal. Though as she loaded her plate up with a hot dog and some pumpkin pie Daisy couldn’t help but allow her gaze to shift down to James who was sitting next to Sirius who busy chatting to Remus across the table. From beside her she felt Lily’s gaze follow to where her sister was now watching the messy haired boy check his watch, the plate in her hand all but forgotten. Now that there was two of them ogling him he seemed to feel the weight of their gaze and looked up which made Lily turn away quickly, though not fast enough that both James and Daisy couldn’t see the tinge of pink on her cheeks. When she looked back at him he had a gigantic grin on his face which made her roll her eyes. Then as discreetly as she could she tapped her wrist, hoping he’d get her meaning, which fortunately he did, mouthing, ‘ten minutes,’ at her before turning back to whatever the boys were talking about. Daisy felt those nerves return. Whatever they had planned was happening soon and in an effort not to dwell on the anticipation Daisy decided to make the most of her chance to eat something and she scarfed down her entire plate so quickly she could feel a lump in her chest.

‘You’re going to make yourself sick,’ Lily said as Daisy crammed in another mouthful of pie. Lily, ever the prim and proper sister, was delicately lapping at her pea soup seemingly unbothered by the time limit. ‘Need-eat-quick,’ Daisy said her mouth full. Lily scrunched up her face in disgust. ‘You’re such a pig,’ she said before dropping her voice to a whisper, ‘besides how do you expect to practice hexes and spells that might throw you about with half a pie in your gob.’ ‘Fair point,’ Daisy said, instantly chewing slower. As she finished her second piece of pie and dropped her fork onto her plate there was an echoing thud.

And then another one.

And another.

As a curious look swept across the faculty the source of the noise then became apparent. There was another thud as a small pumpkin landed on the table in front of Dumbledore. It was raining pumpkins. Whilst students started ducking for cover the staff went into a flurry of panic, trying to stop the onslaught of raining pumpkins to no avail. Children started rising from the tables, trying to get away from what was now becoming a heavy downpour of all sizes of squash, and giggles and screams could be heard as the stone floor turned orange, blanketed underneath a layer of pumpkin rain.

‘Everybody remain calm,’ McGonagall shrieked as she gestured for everyone to go into the entryway. Other staff hurried the children along too all except Dumbledore who merely chuckled to himself as he made his way gracefully out of the hall, even if he did have to navigate around many a squash. As the dregs of students left the room, leaving the staff to battle the continuing assault of falling pumpkins, they discovered that there wasn’t much room in the entry way, their classmates already spilling up onto stairs towards the courtyards, dungeons and dormitories. In all the commotion Daisy moved to the edge of the room, Lily and Marlene close behind her, surveying the carnage to see if there was chance to slip away. The boys were nowhere to be seen as were Frank and Alice, though Lily had leaned in to whisper they’d gone out a door in the great hall, Frank kindly helping the first year’s to safety having made them invisible to the teachers. All they had to do was head towards astronomy tower and seeing that all eyes were not in their direction, watching the teachers try and fail to get a handle on the chaos or on students who had been hit in the downpour, Daisy clasped her hand around Lily’s wrist to pull her away. Yet as she did McGonagall appeared, her beady eyes trained across the crowd no doubt looking for the Marauders and yet only finding Daisy’s. Daisy paused, trying to look as innocent as she could as her teacher’s gaze lingered on her only breaking as Peeves appeared overhead, flying above them with a gleeful shriek.

‘Little round pumpkins falling from the skies, You better run and cover your eyes, For when they fall all over the place, They’ll go splat all over your face!’

He giggled as he zoomed above them, throwing pumpkins of his own that he’d conjured, and realising that this was their best opportunity to dart Daisy yanked Lily who grabbed Marlene and followed her through an ajar door to the dungeons. Daisy ran down the steps as quickly as possible, her friends close behind, only slowing as she got to the bottom and found Alice and Frank waiting nervously.

‘You made it then,’ Alice giggled as the girls came into view. ‘Just about,’ Lily said with a sigh of relief. ‘I thought for sure McGonagall had caught us for the prank but I think she thinks it’s Peeves now,’ Daisy said. ‘Oh Minnie definitely thinks it’s Peeves now,’ Sirius said appearing from the other end of the corridor with Remus, James and Peter in tow. ‘Well at least we hope so,’ James said, ‘we gave him a big bag of sweets to take the blame.’ ‘So,’ Lily said cutting through James’ laughter with a curt tone, ‘Remus and I have got some things we think might be useful but have you got us a place to practice?’ ‘Alright Evans keep your hair on,’ James said getting out the Marauder’s map and opening it in front of him, causing everyone to crowd around as it started to reveal it’s magic. Their names were in the middle of the map, largely drowned out by the masses of people congregated just above them, though as the prank had started to wane, no doubt becoming easier to handle for the teachers, those names started to filter back into the great hall. James didn’t pay attention to them, instead he pointed to a spot and explained, ‘Sirius and I were going over all the places and we think we’ve found the perfect place.’ ‘You want to go to the attic?’ Alice said sceptically looking at the elegant script just below his finger that read attic. ‘I didn’t even know there was one,’ Frank said. ‘We’ve been up there once or twice,’ Sirius said, ‘it’s away from literally everything. It’s on a quiet corridor and no one knows it’s there except Filch and Dumbledore it seems.’ ‘And if Filch comes?’ Lily butted in, ‘it’s only got one entrance. Which means only one exit.’ ‘We thought you could get up a nice silencing charm going. And we can watch the map to keep tabs on where Filch is,’ James said as if it were obvious. ‘Well it is a great map,’ Lily said, ‘even if it does break about fifty school rules.’ ‘You like it?’ James stuttered with a humble smile. ‘It takes talent, I can’t argue with that,’ Lily said. As no one offered any complaints James nodded and lead them in the direction the needed to go, Lily following behind quickly, her eyes roving over the map over his shoulder. Sirius and Daisy exchanged a smile.

Once up in the attic Remus and Lily started to put a muffling charm around the room whilst everyone else cleared a space. Fortunately once they’d pushed most of the stuff towards the back wall they found they had quite a good amount of room, even so much to allow them to lay a few old mattresses down as crash mats. Though once everything was set up they sort of loitered waiting for someone to initiate the first move.

‘So what now?’ Frank said, his eyes scanning the group as he threw an arm around Alice’s shoulders. ‘Well I guess we could start with some hexes,’ Lily said grabbing her book full of notes. ‘Why don’t we start by telling each other why we’re here?’ Remus said. ‘We know why we’re here,’ Sirius said rolling his eyes. ‘To learn spells, right?’ Frank said, ‘outside of those that they teach in school.’ ‘Well, yeah,’ James said. ‘But it’s more than that,’ Daisy said. ‘It’s war,’ Sirius said. ‘Padfoot!’ Remus chastised as seven scared faces looked at him. ‘What? I’m only being honest. We can pretend that we’re here just to learn defensive spells and yeah that might be why you’re all here but I’m here to learn how to defend myself. And how to fight. Because that’s what the Slytherins are doing. That’s what He is getting people to do. Fight. Kill…and I for one am not going to stand for it,’ Sirius said firmly. ‘Us either,’ James said putting his arms around his best mate and Remus. Peter loitered awkwardly beside Remus. ‘And me,’ Marlene said, ‘Sirius is right-’ ‘Woah never thought you’d say that again,’ Sirius chuckled earning him a scowl. ‘Sirius is right. Those death eaters,’ she said with a shudder, ‘they’re in more places than you think. They’re trying to convert people even within our school so we need as many people as possible.’ ‘Well count us in,’ Frank and Alice said, ‘are we starting?’ ‘Let’s do it,’ Daisy said, ‘Lil?’ Lily nodded and looked down at her notes, ‘okay…so first I wanted to go over something called the Imperius curse.’

SIRIUS BLACK/SERIES TAGS

@maeisafangirl @mysteriouslydelicateface @caitlin1996 @imthebadguyyy

[persephoneflouwers]

Your tags on this post are so interesting to me: www.tumblr*com/persephoneflouwers/716582542127628288/httpstwittercompissingrrystatus1654629281895

Because there’s such a contrast between the way Louis was portrayed in 2015 and 2016 for example vs. today, with partyboy Louis (the Louis who’d get papped with girls and had articles written about how many women he’d taken to his hotel room) being replaced by this almost blank canvas. Perhaps even a blank canvas for people to project their own feelings of desire onto. Yes the media have mentioned his ‘girlfriend’ in interviews and such (before the break-up was announced) but in general his image is mostly of someone who is sexually-unavailable. He’s not marketed as someone desirable and that’s likely a conscious decision, his focus is on the music and that’s totally fine. I also think partly it helps him retain some kind of ambiguity around his sexuality which, understandable! Do what you need to do!

I don’t fully agree with you on this. I don’t think there’s any space with the sexual projections on Louis. For instance, I’ve never seen a y/n x Louis in my life EVER. Even the simple fact Party Boy downright ended up with a kid seems very categorical to me. They didn’t give you the multiple one night stands, the multiple dating rumours, the multiple public partners. He’s the guy who settled down with a girl at 18, broke up, lost the track for a couple of months and coincidentally in that time had a child with a social parasite girlie (what are the chances of this happening in reality omfg) and then went back to the usual gf. He’s not a blank canvas on this topic.

It should tell a lot the fact his own fans perceive him more as a big brother/bestie whom they like to call daddy when he shows a bit of his powerful boss aura. It’s probably an age issue too now. There’s a lot of difference between Louis, who is approaching 32 and the average fan (usually barely 20). And now that I think about it, this could explain why they tried to introduce the latest stunt. She was young, same age as a normal Louis fan, probably into the same stuff too. I’ve never thought it could be a way to reconnect with his fanbase and I’ll have to sit on this and think, but it’s just a possibility at this point lol

The thing is it didn’t work they way they hoped it would because they have been feeding people another Louis for ages. Yes, he was the menace with the best sex innuendos, they took that away. Yes, he was possibly the biggest flirt, they took that out of the brand. And that’s what you have now an insanely hot young man who has potentially every skill to be the daddiest mf in the biz who never talks about sex or shows any interest in it. The contrast with Harry is soooo striking. Like you don’t have a single song in Harry’s entire discography where there isn’t a sex related whatever. Music videos, interviews, just in general the things he says or does (pleasing everyone?)

It’s the polar opposites agenda.

Once you see it, you won’t get rid of it 💀

[dracomort]

Thanks for the tag @duplicitywrites and @cindle-writes!

Tagging @laeveteinn and @kazuza-art

Rules:

1. Post the top 5 works you’re most proud of that you released in 2022 (not necessarily your most popular),

2. your top 4 current WIPs that you’re excited to release in the new year,

3. your top 3 biggest improvements in your writing over the past year,

4. your top 2 resolutions (ways you wish to improve your writing/blog) for the new year,

5. and your number 1 favorite line you’ve written this year!

5 works

So, um, I don't actually have five fics written in 2022 up on my AO3 at the moment. I did finish a fic in the last 2 weeks of 2021 though so I'll just chuck it in.

Bluebeard (34,850 words) | Complete

Secrets, old and new, threaten to shake the very foundations of Draco's fragile new life in the 1940s.

This was the sequel to the Travelling Cabinet which I told every commenter I wasn't going to write and then went ahead and wrote anyway. Very much in reference to the Bluebeard fairytale, only instead of dead wives it's dead... everyone else 🤣

Definitely was a bit of a challenge—in relationship conflict, morality and emotional complexity. I rewrote the last 10k... many times. It also kinda has a plot 😲

Blood (8,216 words) | Complete

Outside, the world burns. But Draco isn’t watching.

Dipped my toes into heavier angst with this fic as all my previous works are predominately light-hearted, even if they have serious elements. I intended it to be Dracomort but it ended up gen to preslash at most because anything else didn't feel right.

Alley Cat (31,707 words) | WIP

In which Draco attends Hogwarts with Tom Riddle and inadvertently saves the world.

This is my current WIP, a Draco & Tom same age AU. Fun fact: this actually started as a fem!Tom fic lol, but it felt like too many twists away from canon to serve any particular point, so I figured it had to either be Abraxas/Fem!Tom or Draco/Tom generation mash.

A Generous Minute (6,975 words) | Complete

Abraxas Malfoy is in love with himself. Tom Riddle is planning a murder. Possibly ten.

Or: when one walking red flag meets another

My one fic without Draco (so far). Named for Abraxas's impressive bedroom performance, of course. Had a lot of fun writing Brax here in all of his oblivious, unredeemed narcissism. Probably would've killed him off if that wouldn't have consequently led to erasing Draco's future existence.

Edible Horcruxes (2,913 words) | Complete

Poor decisions from meddlesome grandfathers leave Lord Voldemort acting as nanny for Draco Malfoy, a cherubic baby with a taste for dark artefacts.

Technically published in 2021 but who's counting? Another gen baby-focused fic entirely written because I wanted to write baby Draco chewing on the Locket Horcrux.

4 WIPS

Hmmm honestly, I can't promise to actually release any of my WIPs. However, these are the most recent projects I've been working on:

Secret Garden AU | Tom Riddle & Draco Malfoy

Tom as Mary and Draco as Colin (except they aren't cousins).

Vampire AU | Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter

Harry is a seventeen-year-old vampire pretending to be seven-hundred. Draco is a would-be victim who thinks his blood is too expensive to be spilt.

The Travelling Cabinet III | Tom Riddle/Draco Malfoy

Tom and Draco go on a camping trip in Albania. Septimus and Cedrella tag along. Not especially plot heavy. Inspired by a commenter on Bluebeard.

Pinocchio | Voldemort/Draco Malfoy, Tom Riddle/Draco Malfoy

Set in the early 2000s in a Britain that has been conquered by Voldemort. Features Horcrux!Tom, Death Eater!Draco and a Voldemort who has gone missing without a trace.

I WISH I could write this fic but it just does not want to be written lol. POV issues, for the most part, as well as it being heavier on plot than I typically write. I might get stuck into it in the new year before my grad job starts but I'll probably be writing Alley Cat or the TTC sequel then.

3 Improvements

Writing emotions - when I wrote the last chapter of Bluebeard I realised that I was tackling several emotions that I'd never written before. When left to my own devices I tend to write detached or callous POVs, which is helpful in certain cases (Tom's POV in The Travelling Cabinet or Draco's in Blood) but not in this one.

Completing work - I've been putting a concentrated effort into finishing my work, something I've struggled with in the past. Am easily distracted by shiny new plot bunnies 🐰

Writing consistently - needs no elaboration.

2 Resolutions

Cure my white room syndrome - I tend to be a very economical writer and while I don't see myself ever changing that much, I should like to put more effort into scenery description going forward

Write Drarry - given the amount of this ship that I've read over the past few years, you'd think I'd manage to write for it but that has not been the case lol

1 Favourite Line

"Even if he understood on an intellectual level that the war was over, it continued in a dark, secret place buried deep within him." (Bluebeard, Chapter 3)

[liggy-not-potter]

intro

hello :3 i’m liggy, i go by she/her pronouns, i’m 14 (a minor, don’t be creepy), acespec and possibly arospec. if you follow me i will most likely refer to you as my child out of a mom friend habit.

hobbies

i’m a freaking nerd, so book and movie recs are welcome! i’m in a lot of fandoms, so i probably can’t list them all here. harry potter, both canon era and marauders (fuck jkr) and the fanfic i’m writing where harry has a sister no one knew abt. (posting that on ao3). legendborn by tracy deonn, percy jackson (i’m not done with it so no spoilers please), mcu, the owl house, gravity falls, amphibia

i write songs and poetry, i play piano, ukulele, violin and guitar i like drawing but i’m not very good at it all the time, i have thousands of failed art pieces.

dni

the usual. if you discriminate against any minorities or hate people solely because of a group they belong to (religion/lack thereof, race, sexuality, gender orientation)(unless it’s stuff like terfs, neo-nazis and such bullshit if it’s a group that causes harm intentionally you’re right to hate them)

random shit about liggy

i have a gluten intolerance meaning i can’t have anything containing wheat, and i make jokes about it. well, brie does most the joking.

i have adhd and most likely a hint of something else neurodivergent. i’m a mess, but at least i’m not boringly neurotypical ur local owl (do not ask questions) i’m a minor so don’t be creepy, i don’t care abt interacting with adults as long as you aren’t being a creep i refer to myself in the third person sometimes, get the fuck over it gryffindor - enfp - scorpio

the rats (my moots) @jamespotterbbg — kay — my first moot, chaotic, mentally ill as the rest of this site, is the reason i’ve even interacted with half of these people @garden-of-runar — runaround — talented poet, fellow defender of bagels, absolutely and entirely concerning, you’ll never know her next move @melonhead10 — wife of mine — silly little rat, one of the only people on here i know irl, rarely online bc strict parents, if she is online it’s to look at shiny duo and tangled the series @eef-stars — british ethan — the gay dad friend of this whole hellsite. king of deactivating and coming back out of nowhere. happily in love with @kawaiibarty @kawaiibarty — james the baked bean — short, gay and irresponsible. has too many doggies but we don’t care bc doggies are great. changes his url every two seconds. in love with @eef-stars @tequilaqueen — bea — possibly an alcoholic, you’ll never know. hates bagels and commits war crimes. @picklerab23 — dill — lives in a jar on a shelf in a grocery store in wales. speaks in consonants and y’s. @crowleys-mortalcounterpart — brie — my child. genderfluid lesbian variant of remus lupin. descendant of the scottish. some unknown flavor of neurodivergent. i also know them irl. @0urazz — satan — brie’s sister and my daughter. chaos incarnate, addicted to regretevator and some other random ass roblox games. one step away from being gen alpha. the attention span and brain capacity of a grain of rice. violently affectionate. ik her irl as well @thejudeduarte — jude — cruel prince and legendborn fan. really nice and sometimes chaotic. @iamaladder — stepladder (ethan’s version) — chaotic aarakocra boi, old crusty man (in other words a year older than me) another person i know irl @thestrawberryapologist — mari — purchaser of jams, very goofy, does silly sitcom rp with me, recently returned to tumblr after disappearing on us

(if u want to be added ask me, i just gotta save it)

interactions

blow up my ask box, tag me on stuff, and message me all you want. i love being on here and talking to people and making friends <3

my pinterest poetry side blog: @liggy-attempts-poetry ask game: here ask game 2: here moodboard on banner is a collage on my pinterest

my tags: liggy rambles: all my random ass posts liggy found an ask: i answer asks liggy attempts to sing: i sing liggy attempts poetry: my (likely reblogged from side-blog) poetry nonsense liggy special: i most likely did something fucking stupid jam murder sitcom: a silly sitcom thing i do with mari to the queue you go motherfucker: my queued posts, likely because i’m out of townliggy rambles in the tags: i rant to everyone and no one in the tags

[miyamorana]

March Fic Recs

Here are the fics that I’ve really liked this past month. All of these are complete. Enjoy!

Fandoms: Animorphs/Julie and the Phantoms Crossover (1), Avatar the Last Airbender/Boku no Hero Academia Crossover (1), Boku no Hero Academia (5), Harry Potter (2), Julie and the Phantoms (1), The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (1), Sk8 the Infinity (1)

Find February Recs here or browse my fanfic recs tag.

Fandom: Animorphs/Julie and the Phantoms Crossover Title: The Lamented Author: breakaway71 Pairing: Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill/Marco Rating: Mature Word Count: 17,306 Summary: Before he ate a bad hot dog, Reggie spent the last four years of his life fighting a secret war against a race of body-stealing alien slugs.

He never quite got around to telling his two best friends.

Fandom: Avatar the Last Airbender/Boku no Hero Academia Crossover Title: In His Element(s) Author: WriterGreenReads Pairing: None Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Word Count: 115,066 Summary: "“So… one more time.” Shouta pinched the bridge of his nose, regretting both waking up this morning and possibly existence in general. “You’re the spiritual avatar of an entirely different world, and in the process of keeping the peace with said spirits, originating from your… dimension, you’ve come to our world to stop the actively malicious versions of your spirits, because our world told your world that something was wrong.” The child shrugged and grinned, looking much too cheery for someone currently in handcuffs. “Pretty much!” he chirped. “Your world spirit is really polite, too. Ours was super grumpy about all the spirits escaping, but then yours said it was ok, so long as I teach her more about them on the way back!”"

Aang chases some renegade spirits across worldly borders and possibly makes some new friends along the way.

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia Title: That time I got reincarnated as a doomed side character Author: Gentrychild Pairing: Midoriya Izuku/Todoroki Shouto Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Word Count: 85,806 Summary: Izuku wakes up in the recent light novel he read called “ My Hero Academia.” Unfortunately, he’s in the body of Midoriya Izuku, a minor character killed off early in the manga to motivate the main character Katsuki Bakugo on his Hero’s Journey. Izuku decides he’s going to do whatever it takes to stay alive in this stupidly deadly Isekai.

Unfortunately, Izuku isn't aware that in the last novel of the series where the minor character who died is revealed as the main villain’s son.

All for One has relived his son’s death multiple times, unable to change the outcomes.

But something has changed this time.

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia Title: like stained glass Author: SpiritusRex Pairing: None Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Word Count: 7,338 Summary: “It hurts,” Izuku whispers to no one, voice thin and choked. Letting the words out makes it all feel real, and the tears he’d been holding back finally break the dam and roll down his cheeks. Wrapping his own arms around himself as he trembles in the storm of his despair is as close as he’ll be able to get to comfort right now. “It hurts, it hurts.”

He doesn’t want to have to do this alone. He’s so tired of having to push through pain alone. It’s something he’s been doing all his life, but can’t he, just once, have someone to hold him up when he stumbles?

Just once. That’s all he’s asking for.

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia Title: How Many CLIF Bars Will It Take? Author: Minette_SH Pairing: None Rating: Not Rated Word Count: 5,750 Summary: Izuku: I didn't kill these people! Aizawa: But you know who they are, how they die, when they die. Izuku: ... Listen, I know this looks bad... Aizawa, sliding CLIF bar across table to Izuku: I'm listening.

OR: Izuku has a Quirk which makes him see how people die two weeks before it happens. He's trained himself to draw the victim's portrait while he's having the dream and sends them to the police in the morning. Aizawa is working the case and doesn't suspect the moody teen barista is behind all the ominous portraits until he comes knocking on his door one early morning.

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia Title: The Peculiarities of Fate Author: Nahiel Pairing: Aizawa Shouta/Midoriya Izuku Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Word Count: 21,923 Series: Part 1 of The Peculiarities of Fate (Words: 26,068 - Works: 3) Summary: It wasn't going to last, which was a shame, because it was awfully cute. It was a black cat with red eyes and a tiny capture scarf curled around its little neck. There was literally no one else it could be other than Aizawa-sensei, and there was no possibility that he'd be willing to even attempt to keep a bond with Izuku.

Even after everything their class had been through together, Izuku was pretty sure that he was only one bad day from being expelled. Having his teacher's soulmark? That would probably send him right over the edge.

~ or ~

Everyone has a fated soulmate, but soulbonds are fragile things, and Fate doesn't like leaving people unmatched. If one soulmate doesn't work out, another will present itself, though most people aren't unlucky enough to have to experience this.

Izuku goes through several matches, and several soulmarks, before Fate finally finds the right one for him. The newest person to bear his mark, his teacher, Aizawa Shouta, has also known the pain of broken bonds. Can they make a relationship work in spite of their age gap and the secrets that Izuku keeps?

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia Title: five to midnight Author: the_crownless_queen Pairing: None Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Word Count: 3,655 Summary: Throat dry, Nana managed to croak out a, “I’m here!” before a coughing fit took her.

It made her eyes water too, and she almost missed out on her rescuers’ next words.

“Try not to move too much,” they said, and Nana tried to angle her head toward the steadily growing sliver of light, up above.

There was a figure there, cut out against the light. It was… smaller than she’d half-expected, with a head a fluffy hair around what appeared to be bunny ears.

She couldn’t tell, but she thought the stranger might be smiling.

Fandom: Harry Potter Title: the earth from a distance Author: spqr Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Rating: Explicit Word Count: 15,601 Summary: “Well,” Harry said gamely, once they’d managed to find the Leaky Cauldron – still under construction but mercifully open for business – and he’d turned up a few knuts from his pockets, enough to get them a room for the night, “it could be worse.”

“Really,” Malfoy drawled. “We’re stuck in the 16th century, with no idea how we got here or how we might go about getting back – pray tell, Potter, how could this situation possibly be worse?”

Fandom: Harry Potter Title: setting sun don't weep Author: basketofnovas (slashmarks) Pairing: None Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Word Count: 4,074 Summary: Harry is fighting through the malaise of living through his life's purpose when Narcissa Malfoy requests an unusual - and distressing - favor. Inspired by, but noncompliant with, Cursed Child.

Fandom: Julie and the Phantoms Title: with every single beat of my heart Author: bananakarenina and breakaway71 Pairing: Julie Molina/Reggie Peters Rating: General Audiences Word Count: 4,089 Summary: After twenty-seven years as ghosts, they've been given a second chance. Reggie is determined not to take it for granted. But when Julie starts avoiding him, all he can think is that he must have done something wrong. He needs to find a way to fix it before it ruins everything.

Fandom: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Title: Breaking A Broken Shackle Author: Moonalight Pairing: Link/Shad Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Word Count: 5,246 Summary: Something as simple as a 'peaceful day' doesn't come naturally to Link anymore. But whenever it happens? Faron Woods is a beacon of serenity, calling him home as though his soul was bonded to its ancient root-systems.

Of course, he didn't expect to find the sweet, ginger-haired scholar poking around in a forest grove.

Of course, he didn't expect to get caught in his wolfen form.

Of course...Shad just has to treat him so kindly, trusting a 'beast' to not tear his throat out.

Of course.

Fandom: Sk8 the Infinity Title: summer heat Author: museaway Pairing: Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Word Count: 2,391 Summary: Langa experiences a curious problem while he and Reki are at the beach.

[hogwartsgamereview]

The Hogwarts we've always dreamed of

"The Hogwarts we've always dreamed of" - Hogwarts Legacy Early Reviews https://jwonggg.com/tag/hogwarts-legacy/ Hogwarts Legacy is a few days away (or hours if you pre-ordered the deluxe edition) and it's still not entirely clear what kind of game awaits us, so many fans of the Harry Potter universe have been waiting with bated breath for the first reviews of the game. Breathe out, it's okay. The game has an average score of 83 on Metacritic and 86 on Opencritic. Interestingly, even in reviews of 7 and below, reviewers still recommend Hogwarts Legacy not only to fans of the wizarding world, but also to all players, without exception, who like open-world action role-playing games. Hogwarts Legacy is one of those games where almost every element deserves warm words. If anyone tried to pick up on something, then only certain RPG conventions and other elements that have become surprisingly predictable in 6 years of development. However, the story campaign, side activities, combat system and the game world itself (especially him) easily compensate for this. By the way, almost all reviewers noted the incredible detail of the local Hogwarts and its surroundings, which quite eloquently testify to the love and respect of the developers for the wizarding world with which they worked. Of course, I would have liked Quidditch, but the reviews often sounded the opinion that the creators of the game had too big ambitions anyway, so Quidditch is still a small enough and perfectly acceptable sacrifice for the rest of the game to work as it should. It's been 11 years since the release of the last movie and the last Harry Potter game, 15 since the release of the last book (if you don't count "The Cursed Child"), and finally, on February 10, fans will be able to return to this magical world. Some even faster, thanks to early access to the deluxe version of the game. Hogwarts Legacy is the first and most ambitious game based on JK Rowling's books in a long time. Developers from Avalanche Software promised players a huge, detailed open world, an intriguing plot, a sea of content and adherence to the magical atmosphere of Potteriana. So many people are already wanting to dive into this project that Hogwarts Legacy is already the top seller on Steam before it even comes out.

But is it too early to pre-order this game? Yes, the press reviews are great, and among the available information there are several rather controversial points that can greatly affect the project. We've analyzed the trailers and all the information we know so far to find out. To receive a letter from an owl, buy your own magic wand, live and study at Hogwarts - isn't this the dream of thousands of fans? The dream has come true: in Hogwarts Legacy, players will be able to become students of the well-known school of witchcraft and wizardry, choose the faculty they like, go to classes, learn spells, potions and much more. Everyone will feel like a student of a magic school. The game will have many locations that can be explored, but the main place of events will be Hogwarts, surprisingly. The new version of the famous school will definitely surpass its ancestors from the past Harry Potter games, both in terms of size and appearance. The school was created by following the smallest details in the books and trying to add all the possible locations that were described or at least mentioned in them. It will be possible to visit even those locations that have never been shown in movies or games, in particular, the rooms of the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw faculties. In other words, fans will definitely be stuck with the game for a long time.

[sholiofic]

Harry visits E1 *entirely too often*; everyone notices. (Set after latest S3 ep) >:)

This is a slightly older prompt, so this ficlet is set before Jesse leaves for E3 and Caitlin goes KF.

--

"You know, man, I think we see more of you now than we did when you actually lived here."

Harry barely looked up from the disassembled pieces of Plunder's gun, spread out all over Cisco's lab bench. "I needed to see this," he murmured, picking up a component and holding it up to the light, "to finish making the modifications to my pulse rifle."

"You mean Mercury Labs' pulse rifle," Cisco said, which got no reaction except an impatient grunt. "Yeah, and two days ago it was all, 'Ramon, can I borrow the oscillation matrix from your speed cannon', and the day before that, you just happened to find a folder of Jesse's grade school homework and had to come over and make sure she had it --"

"Excuse me, it was a paper she wrote in junior high with some ideas on desalination that I think hold real potential for your world and ours." Harry cleared his throat and spun his chair around to deliver a death glare that Cisco had long ago grown immune to. "Is there a point around here somewhere, Ramon?"

"The point is --" Cisco began, and stopped, frowning. He leaned forward.

"What?" Harry asked, leaning correspondingly backward until he almost fell off his chair, trying to keep an equal distance between them.

"What's wrong with your arm?"

"Nothing," Harry said sharply, jerking it away. Cisco caught it anyway and pulled up the sleeve of Harry's black sweater just enough to reveal the edge of a bandage, its contours vaguely visible through the sweater.

Harry winced and pulled his sleeve down. "Lab accident."

"Uh-huh." Cisco frowned at him, taking in the things he should have noticed before: Harry's exhausted look, his greater-than-usual level of scruffiness. In all fairness, it wasn't that different from how Harry normally looked, or at least how he'd looked during Jesse's kidnapping and his subsequent search for her last year. But it wasn't how he'd looked when he'd showed up with a speed-force-enhanced Jesse in tow a few months ago. At that point, he looked like he had finally figured out how to sleep more than three hours a night. Now he had his strung-out, too-much-coffee look again ... and there was a bruise fading on his neck, just above the collar of the sweater, going to yellows and browns.

"Harry," Cisco said, and Harry looked nervous. "Are you doing the vigilante thing again?"

"Am I -- what? What are you talking about? What thing? When have I ever?"

"Harry, when we first met you, you were running around shooting monsters in alleyways on a foreign-to-you Earth, dressed like a ninja who makes a habit of sleeping in dumpsters. Granted," Cisco added, "that's how you normally dress, but the point stands."

Harry glared at him. Cisco glared back. Harry broke first.

"What do you think, Ramon?" Harry demanded, swiveling away. He picked up a random piece of the disassembled gun, turning it over and over in his fingers. "The metahuman criminals on my Earth -- created by me, you'll recall -- don't exactly take a holiday because our speedster's on your Earth."

"Right." Cisco leaned into Harry's space, forcing Harry to either look at him or turn his back. "And this has got nothing to do with Grodd killing your team, and Jesse staying on Earth-One, and that planet-sized guilt complex, right? Bro, you know I know a thing or two about that one, don't you?"

He didn't mean to say the last part, didn't expect Harry to give him a look that was at first startled and then soft. He always forgot, damn it, how quick Harry really was -- not just science-quick, but quick in ways you didn't expect him to be.

And he didn't mean for his thoughts to circle right back around to Gorilla City and offering himself up as a sacrifice in front of the whole team, but that was what his stupid brain kept doing, mostly at 3 a.m. when he was trying to sleep. And from the way Harry was looking at him, he didn't think he was the only one.

They looked at each other for a long moment, and this time Cisco was the one who broke, pushing his chair away. "You know," he said, looking at the floor rather than at Harry, "between the two of us, I think we got enough issues to open our own library."

Harry huffed a soft laugh. "Just the two of us, huh?"

"Okay, maybe the whole team." Cisco took a deep breath and looked up, and this time when he put a hand on Harry's shoulder, Harry didn't try to pull away. "You know you can call us for backup, right?"

Harry grimaced. "You've got your own Earth to protect."

"Yeah, so, that's not an argument, okay? I thought we got through this whole thing about whether you are or aren't a part of this team last year, man. And that doesn't stop being true even if you move to another Earth."

"Go back to the Earth I came from, you mean." But Harry was wearing a slight smile now, that unexpected warm smile that tended to hide beneath the sharp edges.

"Dude, your daughter's here. You say the word and Jesse's gonna drop everything and come over there to help you."

"She made her choice clear --" Harry began, and then, "Ow!" when Cisco smacked him in the shoulder.

"If you're gonna be an idiot, there's no helping you, man." Cisco swiveled back around to his own workstation.

It was quietly comfortable, working here with Harry a few feet away working on his own project. Having his workspace to himself, with nobody to move his stuff around (and occasionally knock it to the floor in a fit of temper) had been ... well, nice, in the beginning, but it was also weird. He no longer caught himself turning around to ask a question or make a comment or crack a joke -- not often, anyway. He appreciated the uninterrupted work time. He did. Really.

"How in the hell did whoever made this gun manage to avoid jamming the ammunition-switching mechanism?" Harry murmured.

Cisco swiveled around and kicked his chair over to Harry’s workbench. "Aha, I've been looking at that. Look here --" He pointed with his screwdriver. "It's genius, really. Similar to the way an automatic uses the kick from the last round to advance the magazine, except in this case, it channels the kinetic energy into this mechanism --"

"Yes, I saw that, I'm not an idiot --"

"What's going on in here?" a new voice demanded from the door of the lab. "Cisco! You didn't tell me Harry was back. Again," Caitlin added, trotting over to deliver a quick hug.

"Hi. Yes. Gun," Harry declared, attempting to extricate himself as he pointed at it.

"Hi, yes, excuse," Cisco put in.

Caitlin kicked his ankle. "I just came down to let you know I was heading out for the night. Barry and Julian are already gone. HR is ... actually, I don't know where HR is."

"Not nearby, I hope," Harry said, ignoring Caitlin's dirty look.

"Anyway, I'm going home. You should get some sleep too. Both of you, from the look of things," she said with a stern glance at Harry.

"Yes, sleeping," Cisco said, waving her off. "See you tomorrow. Et cetera."

"For the record," Caitlin told Harry, with another quick side-hug, "we like seeing you back here. Come back whenever you like."

She was already gone before Harry managed to fluster his way to some sort of answer. "... thanks?" he said, to the empty doorway.

"Smooth."

"Shut up." Harry bent over the gun again. After a moment, he raised his head. "Were you going home?"

"Not soon," Cisco sighed. It was good, to an extent, having Barry out of his personal space and having his apartment to himself again, but it also meant a lot of late nights watching Netflix by himself at 2 a.m. "You want to order in? Do not say Big Belly Burger."

"They deliver."

"Fine, whatever. You picked it, you make the call. If it's food, I'll eat it. And for the record," Cisco added, "if you do want to crash here, there's a cot in the corner of the lab. Feel free."

"I have to be getting back to my --"

"Hello, I don't hear the sound of food being ordered."

Cisco grinned to himself at Harry's disgruntled noise and swiveled back around to his workstation.

Yeah. He didn't mind not having the lab to himself tonight.

Not that he'd admit it.

[copperbadge]

Hey, Sam, I just received the omnibus from Lulu and, uh, got something a little different than I expected--not the Shivadh books! Harry Potter fic, in fact, but also not yours! I am the unexpected recipient of the entire All the Young Dudes series by MsKingBean89, whoever that is! All dressed up in your dust jacket/binding. I'm letting Lulu know, but I wanted to warn you just in case this wasn't a one-off problem. The fact that it was Sirius/Remus fic but *not yours* made it extra weird.

This is amazing. It took me like an hour to even get my thoughts in order about this.

Before I do anything else, just gonna tag @lobsterbang in this; that's MsKingBean89's tumblr and while I understand she's not on here very often if she does see this hopefully it will amuse her as much as it does me. :D

So, one, if anyone else has encountered this or similar issues, PLEASE report it to Lulu and get your book replaced, these hardbacks are too expensive for this kind of nonsense. On that note, @joycesully I hope they send you a new copy and let you keep the book you've got, because that's hilarious. If they give you flak, please let me know.

Two, did the dust jacket like...fit the book? Because the number of coincidences that would have to happen for you to receive All The Young Dudes in place of the Shivadh Omnibus are numerous. But they BEGIN with "Are they roughly the same size because the omnibus is a giant doorstop." If it's formatted with page numbering, how many pages is the print copy of ATYD, around 600 or so? Is it printed to the size of the Omnibus but with a bunch of blank pages or anything like that? (More on why I ask this in a moment.) Is the dust jacket offset weirdly in any way, like is the spine title not centered on the spine?

Three, I have had this issue with Lulu before. Most notably, the time I ordered a bunch of copies of Charitable Getting and instead got 25 copies of Chicks Dig Guys That Cook, a cookbook by a guy who cooks (and presumably either gets laid a lot or lies about getting laid a lot). But also I once custom-made a hardback copy of Nameless by request, and the book came with a) the Nameless dust jacket, b) the text of Nameless inside it, c) AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TITLE printed on the spine. How? Who knows.

Four: So there are a couple of ways this could have happened. I'm not sure of the legality of uploading a fanfic to Lulu for printing, but I do know that Lulu doesn't give a shit and won't check, so whether it's legal it is possible to upload a fanfic to Lulu and have them send you a nice hardbound copy of it. Almost certainly nothing will happen as long as you're not selling copies publicly. This is clearly how Lulu got the presumably typeset and formatted file for ATYD. Now, the easiest way this could have happened, since they're not alphabetically close, is if I had uploaded a copy of ATYD and the files got crossed when they printed your copy of The Shivadh Omnibus. I didn't do this; I don't keep paper copies of fanfics and while I've heard ATYD is great, I haven't read it.

The funniest part of all of this, sidebar, is that ATYD is not just a Remus/Sirius fanfic, it's one of the top R/S fanfics ever, possibly one of the most famous fanfics in recent history. It's frequently recommended alongside Stealing Harry as a must-read classic (it's undoubtedly recommended more than Stealing Harry, but they often pop up together). So you didn't just get a random HP fanfic that isn't mine, you got the direct spiritual successor to Stealing Harry.

Anyway, I didn't upload it, but it's possible that someone else was like "Well, as long as I'm going to buy the ominbus, why don't I print myself my favorite fanfic as a book?" The most likely explanation is that someone did this and their order went in around the time yours did, and somehow you got their copy shoved into your dust jacket, while they presumably got two copies of the Omnibus instead of one Omnibus and one ATYD. That's why I'm curious about the dust jacket, because they would have to be similar in size for this mistake to take place. (If one of you out there ordered ATYD and got two Omnibi instead, I'd love to hear from you, feel free to get in touch, I promise not to narc to anyone.)

If that's not the case, it's a series of truly baffling coincidences; someone must have uploaded ATYD, and either the manuscript file got crossed with the Shivadh Omnibus file randomly and that fic got printed inside the covers of my book, or a copy of ATYD was printed around the same time a copy of the Shivadh Omnibus was by coincidence, and their jackets randomly got swapped. The odds of an extremely famous fanfic getting digitally swapped with a non-fanfic by the author of a similarly situated but entirely unaffiliated fanfic are pretty low if there wasn't a third person in the mix somewhere, ordering both at the same time.

I just. For you to order a non-fanfic book by a well-known HP fanfic author, and receive someone else's extremely well-known HP fanfic instead, is fucking bananas. I don't know what to do with that. I feel like I should apply for a job at whatever press Lulu uses to print their books because some of the nonsense they pull behind the scenes is fascinating.

[jacaranda-bloom]

Five Fave Fics

The always lovely @haztobegood tagged me to share my Five Fave Fics - thank you so much! This is always really hard because my favourites oscillate depending on my mood and how recently I’ve written them, but here’s how I’m feeling it at the moment...

🍁 Man, Deconstructed | 14k | Explicit | I think this one will always be high up on my list of fave’s. It’s just the right length to read in one sitting, the characters are so earnest and adorable, and the secondhand embarrassment just gets me every single time. 

Where a well-meaning best mate, a sculpture-worthy arse, and a heaping dose of misunderstanding combine to create sheer and utter chaos, and also, maybe, the best thing Harry’s ever found.

🍁 The Future Is Now | 16k | Explicit | Another short one that always makes me smile. Louis is charmingly oblivious to what the universe (or rather the fortune telling machine) is trying to reveal to him about his best mate. He eventually gets there, of course, but the road he travels and the scenarios he has to navigate are deliciously infuriating and that just makes the ending even more satisfying.

Where Louis follows the fortunes five times to seek out his true love, and the one time he realises that what he's been searching for might've been right in front of him all along.

🍁 In A Twinkling | 90k | Explicit | Ahhhh my 2021 Advent Fic. It never ceases to amaze me how the underlying messages in this fic crept up and whacked me over the head. I still remember calling my sister mid-meltdown when people started commenting about Louis’ journey of self-discovery and how much it resonated with them. It had started as a quick romp of a thing, and then ended up consuming me in the best possible way. I’ll forever be grateful for the ride the readers took me on with this one, for how they embraced the characters, and for giving me the most wonderful Christmas Present that lasted the whole of December. 

Where Louis’ Nan just wants him to be happy, to settle down with a nice boy, and bring him around for Christmas. Louis is too busy with his career to bother about relationships, but in an attempt to appease his Nan, he sends her photoshopped pictures of him and his pretend boyfriend, Harry. The fact that the man in the pictures is none other than Harry Styles, world famous Gucci model—and recurrent star of Louis’ fantasies—is irrelevant. It’s not like their paths will ever cross… So it comes as somewhat of a surprise when Louis returns home for Christmas and walks into his Nan’s sitting room only to find the real-life Harry Styles happily chatting away with the grey-haired ladies of his Nan’s Crochet Circle.

🍁 No Going Back | 56k | Explicit | This one will likely make any faves list of mine for a long time to come. This was the fic where I felt I found my writing style and really hit my stride. The setting on an isolated island off the bottom of Australia where they were caretakers for a lighthouse just really landed with me. But it wouldn’t have been half the fic it was without being able to work with an amazing collaborator to create the separate travel blog, which was such a treat! 

Where one choice - a left instead of a right, a go instead of a stop, a yes instead of a no - can change the future forever and that sometimes, taking that leap of faith, is worth the risk.

🍁 If You’re Out There (I’ll Find You Somehow) | 56k | Explicit | I know hybrid fics aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but this fic was where I felt like I really started to push the boat out and be braver with my writing. The amount of world building that went into this story was overwhelming at times, but is probably also where I found the passion for it that has continued up until this day. Creating an entirely new society, with many of the same problems we have in our own world, just revealed through a different lens was so rewarding for me. Anyway, I adore this fic and I will love it until the end of time.

History teaches us many things. It allows us to learn from the mistakes and achievements of our past, it colours our present, and guides and influences our future.

Sometimes change comes quickly, barrelling on and sweeping up everything in its path.

Sometimes change comes more slowly, one tentative step at a time, barely making a ripple in the fabric of society.

Sometimes change needs an army, a force so powerful it overwhelms all who try to stand in its way.

But sometimes, all it takes is one man, whose love for another is so pure, so enduring, and so powerful that it can rise up and triumph against all the odds.

This is the story of how one man’s love changed the world.

I’ll tag @allwaswell16 @disgruntledkittenface @lululawrence @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed @evilovesyou @neondiamond @parmahamlarrie and @fallinglikethis if you’d like to do this and haven’t already xx