#Harry: one of my teachers tortured me by making me write lines in my own blood for months :D

[dark-elf-writes]

Harry: you people are enrolling in a college. Idc what you say it’s happening. Why would you even want to retake calculus for an eternity???

Harry: I literally cannot think of something worse than repeating my schooling over and over for eternity

Jasper: school wasn’t good for you I take it?

Harry, thinking about trolls and dragons and megalomaniacs who killed his parents: You could say that

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

You mentioned in a post that you don’t believe it was Tom’s intention to run his torture-factory/dystopian academy. Why do you think it ended up that way? Did he simply lose the capacity to care about the children at that point?

Oh god.

Why do you people ask me things that require Tolstoy novel length explanations about Tom Riddle that will still make me sound crazy by the end of it? 

Let’s get to it, I suppose.

My usual Tom Riddle analysis disclaimers: we have a lot of ground to cover and little time cover it in so I’m not going to expand on every single line I drop, I will undoubtedly offend somebody if I haven’t already and if you think that might be you then you should probably move along, we’re going to have to make a lot of assumptions.

Required reading material (yes, you have asked an ask that has goddamn required reading material):

Tom Riddle’s Goal Was to Destroy the Wizarding World

Tom Riddle’s Not Crazy

Tom Riddle is Depressed and Suicidal

Voldemort is an Idea, Not a Man

You read it? For realz? For really realz? Okay, then let’s move forward.

I think it’s a bit of both.

I think by the time we get to Tom Riddle in canon, let alone Deathly Hallows, he is buried in rage, depression, and nihilism. He cares about very little anymore, is probably in constant physical pain, life is a black pit of despair, and it’s only fitting that somewhere out there the children are suffering too.

Now that said, I do think he never intended for Hogwarts to become the way it did and did put in fairly reasonable efforts so that it would not. It did anyway. Why do I think that?

He left most of the staff, key staff members at that and known resistance members, untouched and in their posts

He put Severus Snape, of all Death Eaters, in charge of the school

He turned a blind eye to the active student rebellion of nearly half the school’s population

He did not remove the children of known resistance members from the castle and make them hostages

The battle of Hogwarts

The Staff

It’s very telling to me that there is little to no turnover of the staff. Yes, we get the Carrows for Defense Against the Dark Arts and Malfoy gets to be a hall monitor on steroids, but all the original faculty remains and most retain their full original positions.

Minerva McGonagall, who is a known Order member, is allowed to retain her position as Transfiguration professor even when she actively aids and engages in the student led rebellion at the school. Hell, she actively spies on Hogwarts’ inner workings and reports back to the Order, and Tom lets her get away with this.

Despite Tom’s destroying the sorting hat, which I actually fully agree with as I think that thing actively causes major rifts in wizarding society, he actually doesn’t want to rock the boat and in this wants education to continue in much the same manner as before he took power.

He Leaves Snape in Charge

Snape is by far the most level headed Death Eater and actually has experience as a professor, seems to handle children well enough, and has existing relationships with the Hogwarts faculty. If anyone was supposed to get Hogwarts working under the new regime and keep everything in check, then it’s this guy.

I imagine Tom thought Snape could easily handle this. Snape can’t handle this.

Unfortunately, Tom trusted Snape to be competent. Snape chose not to be competent, or rather, I’m sure he had no idea what the fuck Tom wanted from him. I think, for all Snape managed to evade detection, he really has no idea how Tom Riddle works, mostly because all he sees of the man is the ridiculous show that is Voldemort. Based on that, Tom Riddle expects the castle to be in ruins by the year’s end, and Snape delivers the best appearance of this he can while actively turning a blind eye to student rebellion.

In other words, Snape went with his best guess of chaos and despair, which was a good guess.

So Snape sits there as Headmaster, the faculty refuses to interact with him, the hired on Death Eater faculty don’t listen to him and he can’t quite tell them off for torturing the children, because he’s pretty sure that’s what Tom wants and the whole thing spirals out of control until the children are actually arming themselves and Tom Riddle has to actually invade Hogwarts.

He has to invade a school, cutting down children, because Snape could not do his job. 

Tom Turned a Blind Eye to Student Rebellion

Remember Dumbledore’s Army and how quickly they were found out? These kids are not being at all secretive. They’re having meetings that both Snape and McGonagall are aware of (both doing their best to hide it), we know that eventually Draco the Hall Monitor finds out about it, and it’s clear that there are key active instigators in Hogwarts.

They then actually barricade themselves in a room and refuse to leave, arming themselves for “the rebellion”.

Tom does nothing.

Oh, sure, the people inside the castle do things but Tom never instructs them to stake out Hogsmeade (where they must be getting supplies), to start pulling out the big guns and threatening their specific families, or anything more.

I think this shows Tom was willing to let a lot go, he just couldn’t let go actual open rebellion or the reemergence of Harry Potter the messiah figure rallying the troops.

Where Are the Hostages?

Tom Riddle knows the entire Weasley family are very strong members of the Order of the Phoenix. He knows early in that Neville Longbottom is instigating rebellion within Hogwarts.

Ginny is not immediately taken from Hogwarts, she is, in fact, sent on her merry way and seems to do just fine for months even when her brothers are writing “U No Poo” on their store windows (and indeed, Fred and George suffer nothing for that either). 

Neville, while he does eventually go into hiding, is able to act on his own for months as a known close friend of Harry Potter’s and is never taken hostage.

To me it seems very clear that Tom Riddle really does want to leave the kids alone and as undisturbed as he reasonably can given the circumstances.

The Battle of Hogwarts: The Timeout

Tom is eventually forced to invade Hogwarts. His enemies are school children and the teachers who think it’s a brilliant idea to send said school children into battle (it’s the Dumbledore way!)

It’s a slaughter house.

As Harry’s running around like a lunatic he glimpses children being murdered and grievously injured left and right. The Death Eaters are not suffering nealry as collosol damages.

And yet, despite this, Tom calls for a timeout.

He gives a very weird speech, in which he’s giving them an hour reprieve (HINT HINT, WINK WINK) in which they are to deliver him Harry Potter. At which point the battle will be over and they can all go home.

Tom had the advantage, had he cared nothing for the children or actively wanted to put them down, he could have easily done so and captured Harry Potter. Instead, he takes the world’s weirdest timeout, making a very loud announcement about his timeout, likely in the hopes that the children would take the hint and get the hell out of the castle.

No one gets the hint.

Instead, Harry Potter shows up ready to be murdered. Tom will take it, murders Harry, carries his corpse into Hogwarts saying, “YOUR HERO IS DEAD, DESPAIR, NOW PLEASE LEAVE SO I CAN STOP MURDERING ALL OF YOU.”

Harry then springs to life, “GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE! I’M NOT DEAD, YOU CAN CONTINUE MURDERING ALL OF US!”

Tom dies inside, then per my earlier post, runs into an arrow and dies for realz.

TL;DR Tom Riddle’s life is a joke in which he unintentionally ends up murdering the children

[dropssofjupitter]

The American

Pairings: Fred Weasley x Slytherin!Reader [Platonic], George Weasley x Slytherin!Reader [Semi-slowburn]

Summary: Detention with Umbridge and a nasty caretaker cause you to run headfirst into a rocky new friendship, literally.  

Word Count: 2.8 k 

Warnings: Umbridge (she probably won’t be going away any time soon), light swearing, Harry being slightly prejudiced against Slytherins

<<Previous  

A/N: Honestly I was not expecting all of that positive feedback on the first chapter thank you so much! As usual, I apologize for any ooc sequences with the twins, I’m slowly but surely learning how to write for them. [This chapter has not been beta-read. Any mistakes are mine and mine alone]

You stood outside the door to Umbridge’s office, taking deep breath after deep breath and willing yourself to raise your hand to knock on the door. It was fine. You were fine. She would probably just have you write lines or clean something, nothing to be this worked up over. 

“Are you going to knock, or should I?” a slightly annoyed voice to your right asked. You whipped your head towards it and found yourself staring blankly at whom you had recently found out actually was Harry Potter, and not an extremely good look alike. 

“Oh, um. I was just about to,” you replied in an entirely unconvincing way. 

He raised an eyebrow and looked at you in disbelief, making you feel as though he had witnessed at least part of the last ten minutes that you had spent debating whether or not to knock.  

“Yeah. Sure you were,” he said, moving to knock on the door himself. Before he could, however, the door swung open on its own accord and Umbridge’s voice rang as sickly sweet as ever from inside the office. 

“Come in Mr. Potter, Ms. Jones.” The two of you entered the room and you had to do a double take as soon as you crossed the threshold. The entire room was painted pink. 

From the brick walls to the ceiling, all you could see was pink. For heaven’s sake even the stone floor had a large pink shag rug on it. Not only that, but the walls were covered from top to bottom with cat pictures. They moved around and played with yarn within the photographs, and when you peered closer at a particular Maine Coon to your left, the damned thing had the audacity to hiss at you. 

You quickly turned your attention back to Umbridge, watching as she carefully added three spoonfuls of sugar to her (shocker) pink tea and stirred it slowly. “You two will be doing some lines for me today,” Umbridge said carefully, adjusting a fountain pen on her desk so that it lined up perfectly with the others. 

You visibly sagged with relief, mentally berating yourself over working yourself up about the punishment as you followed Harry’s lead and sat in the second desk in front of Umbridge’s. The two of you reached into your bags to pull out your quills when Umbridge interrupted you. 

“Oh no, you’ll both be using one of my quills today,” she replied, a smile that was almost a smirk painted on her face. You and Harry traded a look as she gave you both quills, but you shrugged it off. You could tell that she was incredibly organized, maybe she just preferred her quills. She looked between the two of you as you grabbed your quills, seeming to choose her words carefully. “I want you both to write ‘I must not tell lies’.” She stated. 

You took a breath, holding your tongue before looking back at her over your shoulder. “How many times do you want us to write it?” you asked, making sure that you kept eye contact with her and didn’t back down from her gaze. 

“Let’s say, as many times as it takes for the lesson to sink in, hm?” she replied, taking a sip of her tea and turning to look out of the window behind her. 

You glanced over at Harry and shrugged before returning to your parchment and beginning to write. After the first line your hand began to itch. You ignored it. After the second line the itch turned to a mild burn. You chalked it up to an allergic reaction and casually rubbed at it before continuing. On the third line the burn worsened and you glanced down at your left hand, your eyebrows furrowed. That wasn’t an allergic reaction. You looked over at Harry again and saw him giving you the same confused look that you had on your face. 

Suddenly the burning turned into a stabbing pain and you watched in mute horror as the words ‘I must not tell lies’  were carved into your hand in a perfect imitation of your handwriting. You looked down at the quill in your right hand and realized that it must have been enchanted.

You looked over at Harry as he hissed in pain and watched as the same words were carved into his hand. He lifted his head to meet yours before turning slightly to see Umbridge standing over his shoulder. She smiled at him, her tea cup resting on its plate in her hand. “Something wrong?” she asked with false concern. She looked almost hopefully between the two of you, and you realized suddenly that she wanted one of you to speak up. She wanted you to complain to her or tell her that this was unfair. 

So, you grit your teeth and forced a polite smile onto your face as you replied in a tone that matched her sickly sweet one to a T, “No professor, not at all.” You saw Harry slightly nod at you out of the corner of your eye in approval before silently turning back to his parchment and continuing with his lines. You followed his lead and did the same, gripping the edge of your desk tightly as you forced a look of complacency onto your face for the time being. 

Two hours later Harry walked out of the office with you following close behind him. Both of your left hands burned and itched with the words that had found purchase within your skin. 

“Is..,” you swallowed and licked your lips, eyes trained consciously on your new wounds. “Is this usually how detention goes here?” You asked hesitantly, incredibly scared that Harry would say yes and you would be subjected to similar punishments while you were at Hogwarts. 

He shook his head, looking up from his own hand and finally meeting your eyes. “No. This is....,” he paused, seeming to search for the right words. It hardly mattered, you had nearly all but slumped in relief when he said no. “She’s testing us. Well, me specifically. It’s a little hard to explain.” 

You nodded your head, hoping that it looked like you knew exactly what he was talking about. Truth be told, you were incredibly clueless, however you had caught whispers and rumors of the new teacher being a way for the Ministry of Magic to interfere at Hogwarts. You wouldn’t lie and say that you knew exactly what that meant, but you could tell it was highly unusual by the student’s and faculty’s behavior. 

“Listen, it’s incredibly important that you don’t go to any teachers about this,” Harry said quietly, grabbing your arm and pulling you away from the door to Umbridge’s office and into a nearby hallway. 

You looked at him, drawing your eyebrows together. “I’m sorry? You just told me that no detentions here are like hers, so wouldn’t this count as child abuse? I mean, in some sort of way?” You asked, raising your scarred hand for emphasis. 

“Probably, yes. But what she’s doing. . it’s bigger than that. She, she wants us to speak up so that she can claim we’re speaking against the Minister.” He replied. 

You paled slightly. To speak against the Minister plainly would not go over well. You had done your research on the Ministry and the Minister himself, and you knew that he was not the most agreeable person. He was scared of anyone who held more power over him, and when people in power were scared they lashed out quite harshly. 

Harry saw the understanding dawn on your face and he nodded, knowing that his point had effectively gone through. His hand dropped from your arm and looked around the corner, keeping an eye out for the caretaker who roamed the grounds at night for students out past curfew. 

“I won’t tell anyone,” you promised, hands nervously twisting the strap to your bag that hung off of your shoulder. 

His shoulders sagged in relief and he nodded his head. “Good, good.” Footsteps echoed down a nearby corridor and the both of you froze. It was time to leave. 

You turned on your heel, preparing to make a break for your common room as quietly as possible when you felt Harry gently grab your elbow. You turned your head back, looking at him with a raised eyebrow. 

“You’re not that bad for a Slytherin,” he said, a small smile on his face. The smile dropped as suddenly as it had appeared. “It probably won’t last long.” 

You faltered, quite frankly unsure of how to react to his statement. Before you had the chance to even debate a response, however, Harry looked around the corner, adjusted his bag, and then left. 

You stood there for a moment of two. Whether you were trying to absorb the compliment turned insult you had just received, or the torture you had recently endured, you were unsure. However, you were quite sure at the sight of the caretaker’s cat (Mrs. Norris if you remembered correctly) that it was well past time for you to make your grand exit. 

That is, until she began to meow obnoxiously loud. 

“Shit,” you swore, abandoning all hopes of being discreet as you heard the rapidly approaching footsteps accompanied with the now yelling of the caretaker. You turned on your heel and barreled down the corridors, rapidly turning this way and that in hopes of throwing the caretaker off. His name was Filch, if you remembered correctly. However it seemed like the entirely wrong thing to be thinking about at the moment.

After turning a particularly sharp corner, you cursed under your breath as you pulled out the thick parchment that the red headed twins had dropped yesterday. You frantically unfolded it, knowing that a map was somewhere on the mass of parchment. Finding that the parchment yielded nothing, you groaned in frustration and raised your wand to it. “Revelio,” you whispered, keeping your ears peeled for the rapidly approaching footsteps of Mr. Filch. 

As writing appeared on the parchment, you grinned, your smile falling as you read what the scrawl said. “Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs advise that Ms. Y/N continue running and stop waving her wand about like a fool.” 

You growled, sticking your wand back against the parchment. “I would castrate the four of you if I could,” you replied, hurriedly running down another corridor and taking the first left as you heard footsteps grow closer. You looked down at the map again, watching as new writing appeared before you.  “Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs like your style and are frankly quite scared of you at the moment. As such, we would advise that you take the next left and then your first two rights.” 

You breathed a sigh of relief before looking back down at the parchment. “If you’re leading me into a trap, I will personally make sure that every bit of you is burned to a crisp in the woods,” you threatened, taking a moment to catch your breath before taking off running once more. 

You had only taken your first of the two rights when you slammed right into a familiar duo. The three of you lay sprawled out on the floor, though you had somehow landed on top of one of the twins. 

“Is this payback for earlier?” One of them asked with a loud groan whilst rubbing his head. 

You bolted upright and looked behind you, nearly crying when you heard Filch’s voice still following you. “Shut up and follow me,” you said, grabbing both of their wrists and dragging them behind you as you made your last right into a long corridor. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The twins were hardly about to complain as you dragged them down the long winding corridor, they had heard the rapidly approaching meows of Mrs. Norris almost as soon as you had. However, as soon as they saw the dead end that the corridor provided, they nearly groaned in defeat. 

They knew this corridor. In fact, they had often run down it in a panic on more than one occasion in a desperate attempt to ditch Filch or whatever prefects that happened to be after them on that particular night.

They traded looks behind your back as you stopped right in front of the portrait, swearing that they heard you curse under your breath as you flipped out a stack of parchment. 

“If there isn’t a passageway behind this damned portrait, I will personally see that you go straight through a paper shredder,” you hissed at the paper, fingers deftly skimming the edges of the portrait, much to the painting’s displeasure. 

After a brief, stretched out moment, your fingers caught the latch that both brothers knew were there, and the portrait swung open to reveal a passage. They watched as a look of pure glee crossed your face, and George swore that he nearly melted as he watched you hoist yourself into the opening, the expression still on your face. 

You turned to look behind you, apparently realizing that both boys were still behind you. “Are you guys coming or not?” You asked, holding out your hand to them. 

With a smirk, Fred took your hand, easily pulling himself into the passage beside you before helping George inside as well. The portrait swung closed behind him, used to the schemes that the twins came up with, and left them in eternal darkness. 

At least, until Fred whispered the Lumos charm. You shied away from the sudden light, blinking multiple times in an attempt to adjust your eyes to the light. 

“Do you know where you’re going, or do we have to lead you out of here?” George asked, looking over at you with expectant eyes. 

Meanwhile, Fred, who had been scanning your form, gasped and dramatically placed a hand on George’s knee. “Georgie, doth thou see what thine eyes see?” he asked, blinking his eyes multiple times as he pointed with a flourish as the map you held in your hands. 

George, quickly picking up on his brother’s antics, gasped as well. “Thief!” he exclaimed, placing a hand on his heart. 

They watched as you looked down at the map in confusion, and then rolled your eyes in an annoyed manner as realization struck. 

“I didn’t steal it, you dropped it when you, quite literally, ran into me today,” you replied. “Not my fault that you can’t hold on to a damned piece of paper.” You huffed after a moment’s hesitation and shoved the map out in front of the twins. “Here, take it.” 

They blinked, pausing and looking between you and the paper. People hardly gave up the Marauders Map easily, especially if they had just found it. George hesitantly poked the parchment with his wand, looking at it skeptically. “You didn’t curse it, did you?” he asked. 

You sighed, obviously growing impatient with the conversation. “Why in God’s name would I do that?” 

Fred, obviously lacking a healthy fear of death in George’s opinion, shrugged and took the map without a second thought. “Good enough for me!” he said happily, placing the map back in his pocket and looking between the two of them expectantly. “So, we were making our grand escape?” He supplied casually, gesturing with one hands towards the rest of the passageway. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You spent the next half hour getting lost in the twisting and winding tunnels with the twins until one of them got frustrated enough to grab the map and open it up. They had given you a small look before they’d opened it, and then, seeming to decide that they trusted you enough, dropped the enchantment on the map. You made sure to remember the phrases that they used when doing so. 

To be quite honest, you hadn’t entirely hated spending that half hour in the tunnels with the twins. You had gotten to know both of them a bit better whilst crawling around in the dust and had learned that their names were Fred and George, and that they had four other brother’s as well as a younger sister. 

You, in turn, had shared your name and that you had an older no-maj brother. They had made fun of you lightly then, insisting that the proper term was muggle and that you needed to brush the American off because “blimey it’s getting a little tiring carrying this entire conversation!” 

When the three of you had finally exited the tunnels near the entrance to the Slytherin common room, you realized that you couldn’t remember the last time that you had laughed that much in one night. You smiled to yourself as you waved goodbye to the twins and entered your common room, making your way quietly to your room in case anyone was still up late and lingering in the hallways. 

Cautiously, you closed the door to your room behind you, making your way over to your bed as quietly as you could and slipping off your shoes before pulling your covers up and around your shoulders. When you drifted off to sleep, dreams of hidden passageways, old castles, and bloodied quills filled your mind’s eye.  

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[sxvxrxssnape]

Small Mercies In Poisoned Teacups

Snapetober 2020: Day 3 - Torture a much softer take at the prompt

"Explain yourself."

"I, I don't know what you're talking about, sir."

Severus closed his eyes. He dug two fingers into his temple, trying to ward off the headache that was sure to come if he had to continue this conversation for any longer. He took a quiet deep breath and reminded himself that he couldn't accuse Potter of stealing from him without any real proof. 

"You were the last one out of the classroom." Severus finally spoke, opening his eyes and staring at the green-eyed Gryffindor in front of him. 

"Is that a crime?" 

Severus scowled. "Specifically, you were coming out of my potion stores when I reentered my classroom, Potter."

Potter didn't say anything, merely looked defiant. Fifth year potions had just ended and Severus had been distracted at the door by a question from one of his Slytherins and when he'd turned around to ensure the room was empty so he could lock up, he spotted the fifteen year old slipping out of the supply cabinet. He didn't bother to take stock, he knew whatever the brat had taken would be small enough to miss; he wouldn't make the same mistakes he had during second year, when he had stolen a noticeable amount of supplies to brew polyjuice in secret. 

Instead, he had cornered the boy before he could leave the dungeons corridor altogether. 

"I didn't take anything, if that's what you're accusing me off." Potter muttered, gripping his bag a little too tightly. 

"No?" Severus asked gently, completely derailing Potter's defensiveness with his sudden softness. He wanted answers and he knew just how to get them. "Come with me, Potter."

He led the boy back towards the classroom, back into the potions store. He gestured around the shelves lined with unlabeled phials and jars, at the collection of ingredients. 

"I suppose I should be impressed if you had managed to steal from me." Severus mused, watching him carefully. "I would be surprised if you paid enough attention to know what half of these potions even are, let alone what they do. I don't label, you see, to dissuade halfwitted children from stealing from me.  The half that do understand are usually intelligent enough to just ask. It's a pity you aren't."

"I didn't think you'd have much sympathy for me, sir." Potter muttered darkly, his voice so quiet Severus wasn't sure it was meant to be audible. Harry was staring intently at a small collection of glass bottles with mismatched labels half-scrubbed away. 

"What makes you say that?" Severus asked, keeping his voice flat and neutral. He probably wouldn't have much sympathy truthfully, didn't have much to spare with everything he had to take care of this year. Still, as he stared at the bottles filled with Essence of Dittany, a strange sort of cold feeling washed over him. It was probably nothing - children get hurt all the time. It was the preference to steal than go to the hospital wing that forced his uneasiness. 

Harry shrugged. 

"What, pray tell, do you need the Essence of Dittany for?" Severus finally asked, masking the uneasiness with annoyance. He noticed the boy flinch in response. "Were you so arrogant to think I wouldn't figure it out? Mr. Potter, your tells are so obvious, you wouldn't fool a lemming." 

He muttered under his breath. 

"Speak up, Potter."

"I cut my hand, is all." Harry repeated and the angry defiance in his tone had returned. 

Severus held back a sigh and led them out of the storage room. He pointed to a chair and waited until the boy had sat down until he spoke. "Then why not just go to the infirmary? Surely a boy of your status would prefer to bask in the attention of Madame Pomfrey than myself?" 

"It's really not worth going to the infirmary over."

"Then why steal in the first place?"

Harry scowled. "Madame Pomfrey would make too big of a deal out of it and it would only make things worse. I can handle it on my own, thanks."

"Handle what?" Severus was only growing more puzzled, but he wouldn't let that derail him. He could tell something was absolutely wrong with the situation in front of him and he was determined to figure it out before he punished the boy for having the audacity to steal from him yet again. 

He remained silent. 

"Don't make me threaten you with veritaserum."

"How original." Harry scowled and then paused. He looked up at the potions master with curiosity. "Actually sir, I do have a question: how difficult is it to get your hands on veritaserum?" 

"Quite." Severus answered, studying him carefully. "It's regulated by the Ministry. Unless you know how to make it, of course, but it's also difficult to brew."

Harry nodded. "So if a professor were to use it on their students, they would have to get it from the Ministry….or you?" 

"What are you getting at, Potter."

"Nothing really."

"The Ministry would never sanction the distribution of veritaserum to a professor. Any potion they are in possession of and wish to use, can only be used within a courtroom." Severus decided to answer, inferencing the reason for the question. "If a wizard - professor or not - wanted it for petty use, they would have to contact a willing potioneer for it."

"I suppose any teacher here could just ask you for it, then.”

"They could. They would also have to trust that the veritaserum they were given wasn't just a phial of distilled water, wouldn't they?" Severus asked indifferently. 

Harry's eyes widened the tiniest bit, but he didn't say anything.. Good. There was plausible deniability that way; he had never outright said he'd given Dolores fake veritaserum when she had banged his office door open last week, but who's to say what really happened?

He eyed Harry carefully and figured they had built enough of a rapport to continue. "Essence of Dittany." he reminded the boy. 

"I told you, I just cut my hand."

"Let me see, then." Severus directed as snippets of memory from past years rose up. His job of keeping the boy alive was made unnecessarily difficult by his insistence of constantly getting into trouble. At this point, he wouldn't be surprised if "just a cut" meant "I lost a limb" for the boy. 

Again, Harry scowled, but this time he pulled back the sleeve of his robe and presented the back of his hand to Severus. 

He blinked.

The back of Potter's hand was red and slightly swollen, streaked with wet crimson from where the fabric of his sleeve had been dragged over the still bleeding corners of the words carved into the skin. The cuts were deep and angry-looking and sure to scar over.

I must not tell lies. 

He reached a tentative hand, acutely aware of the flinch he received, and studied the wound closer. It was days old, but it was also fresh at the same time. 

"Essence of Dittany was a good choice." he finally spoke up. 

"It was Hermione's idea."

Severus nodded, trying to keep his composure but he could feel the anger coiling in his stomach. He could also feel the hum of Dark magic radiating from the wound. Simple healing spells would be useless here, but he doubted Miss Granger hadn't already tried that before suggesting the Dittany. "How did this happen?" he asked needlessly. 

He knew the work of a blood quill when he saw it.

Harry took his hand back, pulled the sleeve down until the ugly words were hidden from sight again. "Umbridge had me do lines for my detention," he shrugged casually, as if admitting to a professor torturing him was no big deal, "and she insisted I use a special quill of hers."

Severus' lips thinned. "And you told no one."

"I just told you.”

This time, he couldn't hold back the sigh of exasperation. "How long has this been going on?" 

"Three days now." Harry answered. "I have her again tonight. I can handle it."

The anger was only increasing. “You shouldn’t have to handle it.” he gritted out. “You understand this is beyond unacceptable? This isn’t punishment, Potter, it’s torture.” He forced a breath. “Go, go to, to wherever you’re supposed to be right now.” He paused. “You have detention with me tonight now, conveniently at the same time you’re supposed to be meeting with Umbridge.”

“Oh, uh, yes sir.”

“Leave.”

He managed to keep himself composed just long enough for the Gryffindor to flee out of the room. He left the classroom as well and entered his private lab, seething. He would have to tell Minerva of this development, Dumbledore as well, but that could wait for a few hours. First, he needed to calm down before they accused him of caring for the brat. 

He was only taking his duty at ensuring the safety and wellbeing of his students seriously. It just happened to include Potter directly, this time, but isn’t that what he’s been doing since day one? So maybe he had gotten the brat out of Dolores’ inhumane detention for the night and maybe now he was distraction brewing while he thought all of the deadly potions he wished he could slip into her morning cup of tea. 

That didn’t mean anything.

It also didn’t mean anything that he summoned a house elf when he finished the nonlethal amber brew and handed over the indistinct vial. It didn’t mean anything at all if it happened to slip into Dolores’ teapot the next morning.

Besides, it wouldn’t kill her. 

Unlike her, he had some sense of ethics. If it kept her too sick to leave the hospital wing for the week that followed, well, what were small mercies for students he didn’t care for. 

---

A/N: the original piece for day 3 felt better suited for a different prompt day so i wrote this instead (late yes) and took a lot of creative liberty with the prompt bc i didnt want to write it, i wanted to write snape & harry interacting :(

also trying to fit entire stories in a singular scene is weird and HARD. i need to write the whole thing and thats why every take ive had an these prompts get scrapped bc i realize i cant write it without devoting like a week to it

[aheroic]

The Detention

(fifth year Detention with Dolores, as it goes in Something Wrong verse, where Hari didn't get in trouble for the Voldemort thing because he was too pissed about Umbridge being racist and sneering at Pavarti and refusing to use his birth name when taking roll.)

"There," said Umbridge sweetly, "we're getting better at controlling our temper already, aren't we?"

Hari ground his teeth. He might have been getting a little spoiled by Severus' idea of consequences, which was something he doubted anybody would be able to relate to. His parent had never asked him to do anything more than make up for his mistake by fixing the problem though, unless he was doing lines as well, due to a two-way problem. This being treated like a toddler thing, where he was the only one who had done wrong, even though Hari was still entirely sure he was in the right, was well past infuriating, and he was already struggling not to break something.

"Now, you are going to be doing some lines for me, Mr. Potter. No, not with your quill. You're going to be using a rather special one of mine. Here you are."

He looked at the sharp, long quill with a great deal of wariness and resignation. Sure, it wasn't uncommon for other teachers to be picky about using a quill, but he'd gotten away with a pen for most of his worst lines sessions. He took the quill.

"I want you to write 'I must not tell lies'," she told him.

"How many times?"

"Oh, as long as it takes for the message to sink in," she answered, her voice sickeningly, artificially sweet. "Off you go."

"You haven't given me any ink," he reminded, as soon as he set about to get started. Her reassurance that he wouldn't need any wasn't reassuring at all.

Hari set the point of the quill to the paper, then wrote. I must not tell lies. Then he gasped in pain and stared in horror at the back of his hand while the words, which had appeared there as if sliced into his skin, healed over. He looked back at the parchment, where what was fairly clearly his blood was still shining, then looked up at Umbridge.

She was watching him, grinning. "Yes?"

"No," he responded, making up his mind and standing up. It took all of three seconds for him to throw his bag back over his shoulder, shove the chair back out of his way, and open the office door, the parchment crumpling in his hand. This awful, terrible woman was not allowed to make him feel powerless.

"No?" She sounded as angry as he felt, as she scrambled for her wand. He didn't want to know what she was going to do with it. "Harry Potter! You do not get to just-"

"My name is Harith," he said one more time, just before kicking the door closed behind him and breaking into a run. He was almost to the dungeons when he realized his cheeks were wet with tears. Clearly, his anger hadn't been content to just roll around in his stomach. But it didn't matter.

He knocked on Severus' office door with a familiarity that was almost comforting in itself, taking a deep breath to try to slow the racing of his heart or the shaking of his hands or something.

But then the door was open and he was being invited in and pulled into a warm hug and asked what had happened and everything felt a little more manageable.

He sunk into the hug, hiding his face in Severus' shoulder for a moment to try to compose himself. "She-" he swallowed, then took another deep breath. "She had this quill. She was going to make me write lines in my own blood. I couldn't- I couldn't stay. Papa, all I did was ask that she use my actual name, and-" He hugged him tighter, clinging almost desperately.

“She was going to make you injure yourself. For detention,” Severus repeated, to clarify, holding onto Hari just a little bit tighter.

"Yes. I know walking out of detention is not good, but-" he cut himself off, biting his lip.

“Harith, look at me, please?” Severus’ tone was firm, the kind he had when there was something very important happening, but still gentle, and he made eye contact when Hari looked up, gently touching his cheek. “You were well within your rights to ask something so important from her. You did not deserve any sort of detention. But you certainly did not deserve to be hurt. What she did was very, very wrong. Do you understand?”

"It feels like I must have done something wrong. I know- I know I didn't- but everything feels awful and my stomach hurts and why should I have to feel bad when she's apparently perfectly okay with torturing children?" He broke the eye contact and handed Severus the parchment with the one smudged "I must not tell lies," then rubbed the back of his hand where it still itched a little, still leaning heavily against his papa.

[langernameohnebedeutung]

(2/2)Mann who writes himself into EVERY one of his novels, usually as this cynic and, quite frankly, unlikable ‘writer genius’ who hates about everyone except the pretty waiters at his favorite restaurant. Or Dostoyevsky who’s selfinserts are always . A complete mess. Or Kafka who’s inserts are even more of a mess AND die horribly. And ofc Since you mentioned Moby Dick there’s also Melville who just straight up unashamedly ships his insert with a handsome buff sailor. That’s so much more fun imo

Just first up: The first half of your ask disappeared once again on, I read it, I drafted it to answer and then it was gone, but I read it and I remember most of my answer to it. You may wonder why I drafted an ask again after the last one disappeared and the answer is because I’m a god-damn moron.

I think the negative opinion people have about self-inserts today has a lot to do with the way people learn writing these days and I think it's especially prominent among writers who either write fanfiction or come into original writing from fanfiction. Many people either read tips or read books on writing and this advice is usually all about 'do-s' and 'don't's in my experience, and I'm not sure that's helpful. But one big Don't is Mary Sue's, self-inserts, because (according to these tips) they might be over-powered or something.

And this makes sense to a certain degree especially from a fanfiction point of view. It is boring if someone who doesn't know any of the characters and their world waltzes in and solves their problems in ten minutes flat as if everyone else had just been morons who couldn't have figured that out for themselves. But I think that's a problem on plot-level not on the character level. It says nothing about the character and whether they are good. They might be interesting. They may be a flat, boring character completely unrelated to the plot. Rather, you should ask yourself if it really makes sense for the character to assemble all the necessary information to solve that problem as quickly as they do. And whether you have properly introduced their means of doing so in a way that makes them relatable to the audience. And obviously, causing problems for your characters that they have to work to overcome is also a part of writing, so you have to ask yourself if you made life difficult enough for them.

The thing is, we live in the age of super-heroes, media-wise, not even just literal ones. Many of the most popular fictional characters are in many ways Mary Sues. And we often talk about how YA novels are very popular among adults as well. And since YA novels often have a young main-character managing feats no one would have expected of them and surviving against the odds, I think it's fair to say that people do want to see that and that they do want to see the unlikely candidate triumph, even if it means cutting some corners regarding how likely it is.

But the problem is that young writers are told to avoid these types of characters and the examples are usually the typical Mary Sue and the typical Mary Sue has certain attributes: stereotypically a good-looking young woman with a minor ‘flaw’, inconspicuous at first but suddenly a badass, not terrified of the big villains etc. So people are often discouraged from using this type of character in general and it's the character itself instead of the plot that is treated as bad writing. And people tend to take this sort of writing advice not only as something that is supposed to help them write but also a tool to judge something already is written and they decide that the existence of a character fitting this description in some shape or form is already a sign that the work is bad. That`s why, the moment someone doesn’t like a particular work, they point towards these characters while they probably like a lot of similar characters in other media. 

Now, your original ask (rip ask) was about writer-inserts rather than self-inserts so maybe this answer might seem off topic, but you mentioned Hermoine Granger as JK Rowling's self-insert, which got me thinking about this question why some are rejected and others are not.

Many people - especially young women - insist that Hermoine was a very important character to them and that they related to her growing up. And I think there is a good reason why the common reaction was: “Hey this girl reminds me of me!” rather than: “Hey, that’s clearly JK Rowling!” Because she is defined by traits that are common experiences. In fact, I would argue that she is even made accessible for the audience to relate to. 

JK Rowling was a teacher. She could have easily made her surrogate a teacher-character in Hogwarts. She could have made it someone her age. It could have been a side-character. But Hermoine is a main-character and in the same age-group as our other main-characters. She’s a pupil, like most of the intended audience. And her experiences are some that are very relatable to many people: She is very intelligent and eager to learn, but people make fun of her for it or are annoyed. She is socially awkward and even bullied. She is insecure about her looks. 

But then, there are also some validating messages in all of this: Her intelligence and knowledge are eventually appreciated and frequently help the heroes save the day. She finds true friends. Men fall in love with her. For the exercise of this ask, I’m going to coin this an ‘open-door’ writer-insert. Open-door, because JK basically invites the readers to identify with her, because Hermoine’s characterisation is dominated by traits that JK shares with many people - not super-exclusive traits like how she likes her tea or sharing her favourite musician. Instead, she goes to extra-length to make this character accessible to her intended audience.

Also, when people talk about relating to fictional characters and Harry Potter in particular, they often point out how it helped them through dark times. Especially now many people write about how Rowling’s views affect their memories of their own childhood, because these books provided them with comfort when they were struggling. My point here is, we don’t relate to characters in that way because we solved our own problems. We relate to them because their struggles resemble our own, not their solutions. In fact, seeing that these fictional characters stay strong and that they find a happy-end is part of why they are able to provide comfort and I think that’s a function that is very particular to these open-door inserts: They tell us we can make it, because they already did.

As a different example, someone else who is very famous for working his own identity into his own characters is Stephen King and his endless string of Main-based authors with personal demons. Misery, for example, is based on his own experiences when fans hounded him over writing a fantasy book rater than the horror they’ve come to expect of him once (as well as his cocaine addiction). But in my opinion, his characters ‘close the door’ rather than open it, because they are very much defined by King’s own personality. I’m not going to make an argument whether that’s better or worse writing, I just think it provides different opportunities and changes the intention. I don’t know (m)any people who read Stephen King novels because the main-characters gave them such hope and strength in their darkest times. And King doesn’t change his insert to match the experiences of his intended audience. 

If you think about Misery, his readers do get a role - that of the insane fan torturing the author to write a work that matches their expectations. Basically, neither of these characters are supposed to make us think: “Wow this is absolutely me and the way they experience the world is absolute relatable to me!” The way we relate to King’s character is by seeing the world through his eyes and facing the problems he does. It’s about their survival rather than the question if they will grow through the experience. 

The main-character of Misery survives, but at the end he’s still struggling with the injuries inflicted on him as well as with alcoholism to make-up for the pain-medication she forced on him. Hermoine ends up being happy and successful. Now, if we were to switch these around, and Hermoine ended up a miserable alcoholic, I’m not sure she would still have been as much of a comfort-character to teenagers and if the main-character of Misery had remained strong and stubborn through it all and ended up well-adjusted and happy, I don’t think the novel would have packed quite the same punch. Because the intentions behind these characters are different, despite them both being writer inserts.

I think another character who is interesting (in that regard) is Bella Swan from Twilight. Now, Stephanie Meyer never officially said that this is her surrogate, but I want to point something out. This is something she says on her website:

I left out a detailed description of Bella in the book so that the reader could more easily step into her shoes. [...] In my head, Bella is very fair-skinned, with long, straight, dark brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. Her face is heart-shaped—a wide forehead with a widow’s peak, large, wide-spaced eyes, prominent cheekbones, and then a thin nose and a narrow jaw with a pointed chin. Her lips are a little out of proportion, a bit too full for her jaw line. Her eyebrows are darker than her hair and more straight than they are arched. She’s five foot four inches tall, slender but not at all muscular, and weighs about 115 pounds. 

Now, this is a photo of Stephanie Meyer:

According to google, she is...5′4. As I said, this is somewhat speculation on my part, but I’m not the first person to point out these similarities. There are so biographical similarities for example that Meyer, raised in Phoenix,  used to feel unpopular at a school and it changed when she moved, according to what I learnt doing a google search on her. 

not like other girls alert

There has already been talked a lot about Twilight and Meyer’s religious origins in the LDS-church (what many people know as Mormon church) and how Bella’s growth and progression as a character and the decisions she makes seem to line up with those in many ways (marriage, family, not aborting a baby that kills her, sex only after the wedding etc.), but since we can speculate in which way or degree Meyer personally shares these ideas and and thinks of them for herself (aka I’m too lazy to google and learn more stuff about Stephanie Meyer), I’m just going to leave the fact that Bella happily attains a very conservative idea of female happiness at the end of her journey (if you disregard the vampire thing).

What I would like to point out is that this character shares a lot of traits with her - physical traits, biography etc. - while at the same time, she says she wanted to leave the character open for the reader to relate to and to identify with her. 

In my last ask on the subject, I talked about the way the third person narrator is thinning out in many novels as a distinct entity and is more and more becoming one with the POV-character. Bella is obviously a first person narrator. Now, you did mention Moby Dick, and we have the same thing here: A first person narrator sharing their experiences with the author. But even the first person narrator is a very distinct entity here. Not that Melville himself makes an appearance, but that Ishmael is very clear about the fact the is telling us a story. Which is how we know he is going survive the journey, because he still there, afterwards, to tell us about his trip.

The famous first sentence of Moby Dick is: “Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.” He makes it clear that this has happened in the past, he talks to the reader directly (call me Ishamel) as if in conversation and then goes on.

He also makes it clear that he is writing about a past events at a different point of events:

“He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the ministry. At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age.”

Now, here’s the preface to the first Twilight novel:

“I'd never given much thought to how I would die — though I'd had reason enough in the last few months — but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this. I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me. Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something. I knew that if I'd never gone to Forks, I wouldn't be facing death now. But, terrified as I was, I couldn't bring myself to regret the decision. When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it's not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end. The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me.” 

After this, the first chapter starts and we are immediately with Bella on her way to the airport, she tells us why she is going to Forks, what Forks is, why she is leaving and so on. There are also two points in time here, but they are employed differently and for different reasons:

Bella is constructed in a way for us to relate to her and identify with her - Meyer says that herself that she even held back on talking about her looks in order to make her accessible to the reader - so using a first person narrator opens the door for us. The future point in time in the preface creates suspense - she says she is about to die and that’s what we prepare ourselves for during the story (even if we assume she might survive after all, we know she will be in danger and we know that she will sacrifice herself for someone she loves).

Moby Dick has a first person narrator, because it’s Ishmael writing down his story for us to read. On a technical level, we take his perspective, but we are provided with an in-story reason for the first person narrator. And while we can at least speculate that Bella might die, if we know nothing else about the franchise or the genre when we encounter that preface, we also know from the first sentence on that Ishmael is going to survive, because ‘he’ has written down this story for us. And by giving an in-story reason for a first person narrator, the story is already closing the door a little by saying: ‘this is a distinct character and you are reading his story, that’s why it uses I/me pronouns’. 

Now, I already mentioned that I found it interesting that JK’s self insert is a pupil rather than a teacher and that she is younger than JK. The same thing happens with Bella the Meyer-look-alike: She is a student and pupil, like the target audience, going through experiences that Meyer did in her youth. And for her as well, things work out. She is a principled character, finds friends, boys fight over her and she ends up finding an immortal, perfect, beautiful family she becomes part of. 

Beauty is an interesting thing in Twilight, btw, in my opinion. The way Meyer describes Bella (literally named Beauty and aftera Bird symbolising Beauty), she is quite good-looking with some ‘flaws’, like her lips being ‘too full for her face’. Now, there is nothing wrong with having full lips, obviously, but Meyer says ‘a bit too full for her face’ and I think this is already part of the typical traits of an open-door author-insert in my opinion: They are a little it ‘too’ this or ‘too’ that to be perfect models, but they’re also rarely described as actually ugly. Hermoine has teeth that are too long (magicked away after that teeth growing accident) and is always mentioned to have ‘bushy hair’. Bella is also said to be very pale, even comparing herself to an albino (you know, because Meyer went to such length to make her character’s looks relatable to everyone). Pale skin is at odds with the sun-kissed other-girls in Phoenix and symbolises Bella’s otherness in many ways, that she isn’t like what Meyer calls the ‘barbies’.

The fact that pale = beautiful in Twilight and that beauty is important becomes very obvious when dealing with the Cullens:

“And yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was chalky pale, the palest of all the students living in this sunless town. Paler than me, the albino. They all had very dark eyes despite the range in hair tones. They also had dark shadows under those eyes — purplish, bruiselike shadows.As if they were all suffering from a sleepless night, or almost done recovering from a broken nose. Though their noses, all their features, were straight, perfect, angular. But all this is not why I couldn't look away. I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine. Or painted by an old master as the face of an angel. It was hard to decide who was the most beautiful — maybe the perfect blond girl, or the bronzehaired boy.”

They are good beautiful - sullen, mysterious. Not bad beautiful: frivolous, talkative, loud, dumb. And they’re also not beautiful with a minor flaw - but beautiful with no flaw. 

Bella Swan acquires that beauty by the end and becomes one of them - once her transformation into a vampire is complete. Hermoine also transforms - and turns from the nerd girl into a confident, strong young woman and played a major role in defeating the people who discriminated against her in her youth. 

I described these sort of characters as open-door characters. They bear strong resemblance to the author in Bella’s case and Hermoine is the declared author-insert for Rowling, but these authors went to extra length to make them accessible to the reader to identify with them. Basically, the author invited the reader to enter that open door. 

The fact that they have positive endings and that the struggles that the reader relates to are dissolved (satisfying or not) provides comfort. I already mentioned that with the whole thing that is going on with Rowling, a lot of people write about their own experiences with Harry Potter. And I’ve not seen people write: “I liked these books because the characters solved their problems like I did or because I, too, grew up to be happy” - they say they related in their darkest time, when they were feeling down and when there were no solutions to their problems in sight. These characters are designed to offer hope and advice and remind you that these traits you share with them or that you assume you share with them are good and something to be proud of and they tell you that you can succeed. I already said that it would have been very dissatisfying if Hermoine had ended up like Paul Sheldon. Even worse if they had actually been killed off: Basically, that would have been the equivalent of the author inviting the reader through that open door and then hitting them over the head with  a hammer. That would have been...kafkaesk.

Heh. Transitions.

You already mentioned Kafka’s tendency to kill off his main-characters. With Kafka, things are always quite complex and there are so many different interpretations and takes on his work and its meaning. It’s important to keep in mind that he is a modernist and the reader is ‘invited’ to actively interpret the text, figure things out, make sense of things and notice contradictions. 

Metamorphosis can easily be concluded to draw on Kafka’s own problems with his family and his father. His works are always filled with obstacles that are both insurmountable and banal, drawn from reality and yet surreal. Nothing hits home like reading Der Prozess or Das Schloss while you’re too mentally slouched to deal with the last ten incomprehensible letters you got from your local Verbandsgemeindeverwaltung. „Die Fessel der gequälten Menschheit sind aus Kanzleipapier,” indeed, Franz, indeed. (”The chain of the tormented human race are made of office paper”)

I wanted to look at Metamorphosis specifically, because for one, it’s one where it’s most easily arguable that family situation very closely resembles Kafka’s own. Also I already mentioned that the open-door author-inserts usually undergo a transformation (did I already mention that this is the age of super-heroes?) of some form. There is an old debate over whose metamorphosis Die Verwandlung is actually about - Gregor Samsa’s or that of his sister? While Samsa wastes away, his sister turns into a strong young woman - much like Bella or Hermoine. And yet many people see her betrayal of Gregor as the 'big’ one, the ultimate act of betrayal that destroys Gregor and of her even as the actual villain of the story rather than the father. There is also the general metamorphosis of his relationships- for example his sister’s social position in the family is better now that Gregor is an insect and his father has far more power over him than before.

Gregor Samsa has very relatable fears, concerns and anxieties: He has a hard job and he does it to support his family. He yearns for the love of his family. This is something a lot of people can relate to. After he turns into the Ungeziefer, he not only learns that his family had savings, they also treat him worse and worse now that they he is no longer feeding them.

If we consider Gregor Samsa as an open-door character - someone sharing similarities with the author who has been designed to be accessible for the reader to relate to - we also have to ask ourselves: Is he a comfort character? A comforting message would be if he fought back, found someone who loved him even in his Ungeziefer-form and he had built a life for himself somewhere.

But Samsa doesn’t fight back, he desires his family’s love no matter how badly they treat him and until he wastes away after his sister says he needs to go. Samsa's story isn’t about growth or learning or overcoming obstacles. He is constantly wasting away - so if we consider him a character open to project ourselves on, he’s not one intended to be comforting because that’s not the point of the story. His love for his family is not some secret super-power that overcomes all difficulties, it’s his weakness.

His situation is also not an every day situation like going to school - it’s a highly surreal one being turned into an Ungeziefer. He gets turned into a strange creature, he is confined into a single room etc. I already mentioned that Kafka had a tendency to erase certain information while editing his works - for example, an earlier draft of The Castle contained K. musing: ‘In this way I was fighting not the others but rather myself”, but Kafka took it out for the reader to come to that conclusion. And with a situation like Samsa’s, we can also make up our own mind about who his struggle is with and what everything means and - if we identify with him - what our Ungeziefer-state is, what our Lady in Fur is, what our Abstellkammer would look like, who our father is and sister etc..

But the whole thing is - you don’t read Kafka because his characters are so fascinating. He didn’t want them to be complex and fascinating. He went out of his way to make them less so and you already said, it’s pretty much the opposite of a character like Hermoine. It goes very deep into the realm of speculation which author based which traits of what character on themselves for what reasons or if it was voluntary or not, but I think the way people do it has a lot to do with genre, writing style, audience etc. and I thing right now is a time where a lot of fiction is all about making a change, growing having happy ends. If you look around tumblr for writing advice, sad endings are often criticised as cynical, edgy and depressing. People complain about gritty characters. Wholesome escapism is simply very popular right now and that’s why self-inserts, imo, are going to be wholesome and escapist. But specifically when talking about self-inserts, a wholesome positive self-insert is going to collide with the expectation that such self inserts are bad writing.

I also think big names play a role. JKR is a big name in fiction and Harry Potter is a big deal for our generation - the “read a different book!” meme pretty much illustrates the huge monopoly Harry Potter has for us. I’d argue that Harry Potter, while not a self-insert, also has a lot of Mary Sue traits, but because he’s a male character and not Rowling’s self-insert, he already escapes quite a lot of criticism. I’m pretty sure if Harry Potter had a female main-character, there would have been much more criticism, especially if the main-character had publicly said that this was her self-insert. 

If you think about the works of Mann and Melville and Kafka, these are classics today, so they aren’t really subject to the trend of being wholesome and heroic. And King is a brand of himself, by himself and his name stands for a certain brand of fiction and a certain style of writing and a certain type of characters.

Twilight has become an acceptable thing to dislike, because it was liked by teenage girls (so the dudebro fraction likes it) and it’s restrictive and conservative and pretentious enough for its own fans to outgrow and no longer defend it. People did criticise the main-character especially, for being bland, helpless, only caring about her bf etc. but I think if Twilight had never taken off the way it did, it would have been forgotten among many other cheesy love stories. But it hit the right nail a the right time, took off and then the wind abruptly changed and people specifically disliked this kind of character and found it ‘cringy’ - I actually wanted to say something on the subject of cringe-culture but I forgot, but let it be said, I think it also plays a big role that being cringy has become such a big crime and that a self-insert means that you can accuse the author themselves of being cringy so that too might influence the opinions on making self-inserts. 

Either way, I think it has a lot to do with this sort of immunity timeless classics have and also with genre - because it puts a YA-hero spin on the self insert and those are usually characters who are in the same age bracket as the intended audience, have similar problems (romance) etc. and usually these stories have a happy end as well.

[harrypotterandthefandomaccount]

Hold Me, Please

request: Oof. Hello again! I have a request. Can you do a Snape x reader where the reader leaves the great hall early sometimes or is just sneaking around and Snape thinks she's secretly dating someone (which upsets him) or meddling around with a bad group . He ends up finding out she's a member of Dumbledore's Army when Umbridge calls him in while she's interrogating the reader, the reader denies answering any questions and Umbridge slaps them, making Snape furious. Basically fluff and a bit of angst

warnings: umbridge should be a warning, abuse, harm

note: my mom and I had a harry potter marathon and i forgot how much i hate umbridge

-

Professor Snape saw your figure leave the Great Hall once again, the third time this week. He noticed some others but didn’t pay any mind to them - those dunderheads. Something was going on and he wasn’t sure what but it involved his favorite student.

Then, he saw Neville Longbottom get up from his seat, going in the same direction you had. Snape gripped his robes under the table; he hadn’t heard anything of you and Neville. Were you together? Is that where you’re going?

He felt the sudden urge to get up and follow you even when he had no clue where you were. The dinner continued with nobody else leaving and nobody really noticed the absence. Everyone except Umbridge’s little “squad.”

She knew some sort of meeting and/or clan was being formed behind her back and she wanted to find out. With extra credit points being given, Umbridge selected few students to search out the dark secret.

While at the meeting with Dumbledore’s Army, Harry had continued teaching his class Expecto Patronum, the spell to cast away dementors. You and Neville stood back to back, casting the spell over and over.

Harry came over to you, holding your arm as he gave you pointers, “don’t wave your wand around; it’s a simple flick.”

You nodded and did as he said, “Expecto Patronum!”

Just them, your Patronum flew out of the wand, running around as Neville, you, and Harry laughed. You bowed, “thank you, teacher.”

It continued like that for months, eventually dueling one another. You and Neville were up next as people placed their bets with Fred and George.

Harry clasped his hands, “wands at the ready!”

You and Neville held your wands up, positioning yourself to turn and walk back ten steps. After walking, you and Neville faced each other. Neville casted first, “stupify!”

You flicked your hand, “protego!” With that, the spell deflected itself off your shield and hit Neville. As you felll back from the blast, you scratched your cheek with a piece of glass on the floor. Casting a quick “episkey,” you saw people exchange money as Neville stood up.

He waved his wand again, “Confringo!”

You flicked, “Deletrius!” Then, the whole spell Neville casted disappeared into thin air. Harry and the others stood there amazed, watching as you helped your opponent up from the ground.

Students congratulated you as they walked by, patting Neville on the back as well. Neville saw your cheek started to form a scab, putting his hand to your cheek, “are you alright? Did I do this?”

You chuckled, grasping Neville’s hand, “I’m fine, Neville. There was just a piece of glass on the floor. Are you okay?”

He and you twisted your thumbs and pulled back, “I’m great! Feeling like a real wizard.”

The next day, you had Potions class first period. Snape stopped you before you got to your seat, examining your cheek. The scab was still there but better than yesterday. He waved his wand over it, “are you alright?”

You gave Severus a smile, “I’m fine, Professor. Just a piece of glass was on the floor and I fell.” With that, you walked away and sat next to Neville who still seemed to feel bad about your very minor injury.

As the class ended, Snape pulled you aside. You sighed, “Severus, I told you, I’m perfectly fine; you don’t-”

“Are you dating Longbottom?” Snape interrupted, eyebrows furrowed with concern.

You raised an eyebrow, “Um...no, sir?”

Snape nodded, “alright. Well, get to class. Potions tonight?”

With a thumbs up, you smiled at Snape, “you know it!”

However, the potions lesson didn’t come that night. As you were with Dumbledore’s Army, the wall back into the hallway had started to bang, breaking the glass. A first year, Nigel, walked up to the wall, spotting a hole. You stood behind him, looking through to see Umbridge.

As she raised her wand, you pulled Nigel away, “back!”

The entire wall exploded by Bombarda Maxima, rocks being thrown around the room as Draco proudly had Cho Chang by her arm. Umbridge smiled, an evil giggle leaving her lips.

-

You sat in a chair in Umbridge’s office, awaiting your fate as Harry and the others stood along in the back. Looking up at her, she seemed horrendously intimidating as she hummed.

“Now,” Umbridge started, “you’re going to tell me what all of this is. Were you going to contact Dumbledore?”

You shook your head, “no.”

The slap of her hand against your face took you by surprise as she whispered viciously, “liar!”

Handing you a quill and parchment, you already knew what was to come. “What shall write?” you asked, not looking forward to this.

Umbridge gritted her teeth, “what you are - liar.” Standing up, she walked around the room as you began to write the word.

You gasped in pain, seeing the word sink into your skin as you write five lines already. Harry tried to get to you, “let her stop! Please!”

Blood had begun to move down your hand as Umbridge moved to Harry, “tell me!”

Hermione kicked Harry as you stopped writing, your hand almost covered in blood. Harry spit in Umbridge’s face, “I won’t if Y/N won’t.”

Umbridge giggled, “maybe she will after Crucio.”

Silence enveloped the room as Snape barged in the room. The fiery rage that filled his eyes were first met with Umbridge as he held her against her desk, “how dare you even imply the use of one of the Unforgiveable Curses against a student - a student of mine, at that! How dare you torture her with the quill, injuring her wellbeing. How dare you even breathe the same air as us, you filthy frog!”

Umbridge opened and closed her mouth, with loss at words.

As she said nothing, Snape grabbed your uninjured hand, “and how dare you even lay a finger on her! The Ministry will be hearing from me. Tonight!”

With that, he dragged you out of the room with your friends, pulling only you into his quarters. You allowed yourself to cry, tears cascading down your cheeks as Snape got out his wand, preparing to cast Vulnera Sanentur, his own healing spell.

“W-wait,” you said, more tears flowing from your eyes, “I just need to be held, please.” With that, Snape wrapped his arms around you, hoisting you up on his lap as he sat in his chair. He rubbed small circles on your back and thighs, holding you as he breathed.

“And held you shall be,” Snape whispered, pressing soft kisses against your hair as whimpers left your mouth.

[jaywrites101]

Ye Olde Tag Game

I was tagged by @bexminx, thanks a bunch for the tag. There’s something about these games that just gets me pumped for writing.

1: What book have you read a million times and would read a million times more? And why?

Keys to the Kingdom, by Garth Nix. I grew up with the series, reading them nearly as much as Harry Potter. It’s an older series, but you should check them out.

2: Which OC of your current wip did you come up with first?

That would be The Wingman. Our foolishly optimistic hero who’s on death’s door.

3: What piece of world-building gave or is giving you the most trouble?

I suppose (for now) that would be the gang initiations. I’ve never been in a gang (thank God!) so the only bit’s I kinda-sorta know are the stuff they show you on T.V. and that has a hit-and-miss track record. And I have ZERO interest in finding someone IRL who is/was in a gang for research purposes so-o-o-o... I’m just taking my best guess at the experience and hoping it doesn’t break everyone’s suspension of disbelief.

In the past, other struggles with worldbuilding also came from things I hadn’t experienced first hand or met someone who’s dealt with that issue before.

4: What type of scene is your favorite to write? Why?

Rising action scenes. Every time. I get wrapped up in my own intensity as the stakes get higher and higher. Anywhere you think to yourself whoa, that got tense fast. I’m sitting on the other end of the process going I know, right?!? Like it’s legit so much fun for me to just keep winding things up.

5: (Stealing this one) What chapter of your main wip is your favorite? Why?

I’ve not been writing on The City in FreeFall long enough to have a favorite yet =( But, for A Treasure Made of Death, I had a lot of love for my section titled Exploration and Frustration. It was the last time I had to really be fun before all the characters had to gear up for the intense action. And a lot of fun was had. =D Drake tried so hard to find something useful in this scene only for him to not even recognize a book when he (or more accurately, when Dela) found one.

6: If your OCs were transplanted into another genre (say, fantasy to sci-fi or sci-fi to horror), what would their new occupations be?

I could very easily see The Wingman transplanted into a horror film just to be that guy that gets killed because he was the one person to try to do the sensible thing. (Sensible things never work in horror films.)

7: How well would you survive if you were dropped into the world of your main wip?

Actually, Pretty well... Even if I was literally dropped into the world of The City in FreeFall, I’m pretty confident that The Wingman will catch me before anything bad happens.

8: Which of your OCs is the scariest, or if none are scary, which is the sweetest? Why?

That depends on how we want to define scary. I have characters who don’t rate very high on the unusual or spooky meters but their absolutely terrifying in implication. Like the Casual Killer from A Simple Casual Murder.  But if we’re going for the “I met this thing in a haunted house and my soul left my body from fear alone.” We’re going to have to go with Blane Cook. Cook is a monster of a man who loves torturing people before killing them. Low key, he could star in his own horror film.

9: What would you say was the one thing that sparked the idea for your main wip?

I was watching the first season of Legends of Tomorow and I really didn’t like what they did to Kendra and Carter’s characters. Like, Hawkgirl and Hawkman have so much potential if you’re rebooting their origin story but they were the blandest characters of the season!  So I was thinking of Superheroes and how I’d create my own when I felt the urge to write the idea page for CFF. And thus The Wingman was born!

10: Describe the space you write in like you’re telling a story.

I’ll start at the table, my laptop plugged in. My cat’s try to help me write by sitting on my keyboard. My brother’s watching T.V. in the living room. The cats won’t stop biting the charger, I have to make a choice. Spray-bottle or move... I choose to move. Nowhere I sit is good today. My room? Too dark, too cluttered. The living room is too loud. In a fit of despiration, I grab a card table and a folding chair and sit outside. The heat hit’s me like a wave. Bugs cry out from the woods. Our outdoor cats rub against my ankles looking for attention. But they don’t jump on the table. My fingers fly across the keyboard. What will I write next? Even I don’t know.

A pause.

The next line occurs to me. I write it down as fast as I can before the train of thought leaves me forever. The sun is straight above me. I’m drowning in my own sweat. My concrete porch is protected by a wooden roof that wasps now claim as their home. I itch at my feet, in my socs, on my leg, and down my back. Flies, I hope. I write the next line and pray it’s not spiders. And why should it be spiders? They don’t like humans... I swat at my itches aggressively. The cat’s look at me like I’m a madman. The porch is too safe. Too close to the wall. Bugs won’t leave me alone. I move to the grass underneath the massive oak. It’s the biggest tree I’ve ever seen, probably the biggest in the state. I can’t help but admire it as I sit beneath limbs that are bigger around than I am. The chair sinks three inches into the wet grass again. I don’t have to sit here for long, just long enough to finish the scene.

I can’t do it!

The bugs are maddening. I can’t stop itching! 

What line was I on? What line is next?? I have to re-read what I wrote. No time to edit, just focus. The. Next. Line. Is... There! Back on track again. The scene is so close to finishing. Oh, what I wouldn’t do for a room that locked, or a table inside that filled with loving cats! It’s not their fault. They don’t understand why it’s so important to-

It’s finished! I’m a week behind my schedule, but my bit for today is done! I can go inside, so I do. A shower awaits! When I’m done I can get on Twitter, on Tumblr and watch more YouTube videos on the couch. I didn’t get a call today either... Summer’s already began but no one wants to hire a starving author from nowheresville when there are teens eagerly applying for jobs. I must be a madman...

I must be a madman...

I must be...

11: What is the first thing you remember reading and thinking ‘This inspires me to write’?

You know what? I’m not sure. When I started, I got that “I want to write,” moment when I turned in my assignment for our eighth-grade English assignment. We were supposed to make up a story based around a butterfly we spend a period drawing and while everyone else turned in their 1 and a half page minimum I had seven pages... and it still wasn’t finished... ^///^

One of my other teachers heard about the incident and said that I should be a writer and I just... liked the idea of it. It was like the perfect glove, a shoe that was just my size. It felt right. And I’ve wanted to write ever since.

SO, I know at least some of you might be concerned about the above story. Don’t be. It is just a story.

I did go outside to write the other day, but it wasn’t nearly that bad... mostly. There’s not really a good place to write in my house and I do move around a lot... but I wrote this as if it was happening to someone else. My thoughts are so meta-focused that it’s hard to imagine what I’d do, say, or think in any given scenario... Makes it easy to get into other character’s heads... not so much for my own.

Sorry if I scared you.

@ If you see this post. You’re tagged! No excuses! Like and reblog now. (because I can see you. =P) and make your own tag responses. (Also don’t forget to go to bexminx at the top of the page and give her a few likes as well.)

[hamliet]

Harry Potter Reread: Thoughts, Impressions, Lists

Now that I’ve reread all 7 (8) canon Harry Potter works in the past three weeks, I wanna write about them. This isn’t a meta so much as ramblings/musings, and a ranking of the books because I like lists. 

Overall Thoughts:

I usually reread Harry Potter around Christmas (though I skipped it to focus on Tokyo Ghoul last year). Rereading it this year after losing my dad made me view it from a new perspective. I’d heard that Rowling wrote the story after losing her mother, and the themes of how to deal with death were always very apparent, but those themes resonated with me in a new way on this reread. The answers it offers are simply, but not trite, and allow for pain in their comfort. 

It’s a fairytale, really, a simple story with fairly simple characters and an optimistic message about the power of love, growing up/coming of age and coping with loss. Each book, as well as the overall saga, is structured chiastically, which helps to give the story a sense of timelessness (important for fairytales). And we all need fairytales sometimes, or at least I do. It’s not flawless of course; there’s plenty of room for criticism, but it’s a magical, hopeful series for me that, much like most Disney fairytale films, I don’t enjoy turning a super critical eye to (though it’s fine for others to do so).

Thoughts on Individual Books (ranked from favorite to eighth favorite :P):

1) Deathly Hallows

The middle of the book is incredibly meandering (the camping is torture) but the climax is so well done that it’s still my favorite. I love Neville’s growth, the reveal that Snape loved Lily, and the complex take on Dumbledore as a mentor. The encounter in the forest with the Resurrection Stone was really moving for me this time (more so than in past years). It also works as a conclusion for the story as a whole, that Lily’s magic protection, forged in love, which stated the whole story, is the same protection that Harry uses to save everyone at Hogwarts by sacrificing himself for them, and of course, it’s the fact that his own blood is used to raise Voldemort back to life in book 4 (the middle of the series) that enables him to survive as well. I just really like chiastic structures.

2) Order of the Phoenix

I think it’s the most complex book, perhaps bordering on overly so, but Harry’s trauma after Cedric’s death is well handled (him being an angry brat makes total sense), as is the very accurate portrayal of adolescent crushes. The establishing of Snape and Sirius as parallels works really well (and as it’s chiastic parallel is book 3, it’s fitting those books focus on Sirius and Snape the most). Umbridge is an excellently written villain whom I despise and reading her chapters is painful because of just how. Well done. She is. Sirius’s death breaks my heart, and Luna’s lines about how the dead are hovering just out of sight also profoundly impacted me. 

3) Half-Blood Prince

The book itself is good but less dramatic than OOTP, but the climax is so well done that it makes up for the earlier weaknesses. Draco is given complexity he was sorely lacking earlier, and Dumbledore’s death is such an important turning point. It’s where Harry finally starts making decisions for himself, the point of no return in a coming of age story 

4) Prisoner of Azkaban

The one story where I can tolerate time-travel. (I HATE IT AS A TROPE.) But it really is a fun, powerful story, with Voldemort not actually showing up because he doesn’t need to. Voldemort is a part of Harry (literally as we find out in book 7) and him conquering his anger for the sake of finding the truth and finding love as a result of that (with Sirius as his godfather) parallels Harry letting go of his rage in book 5 and turning to Dumbledore as his last mentor figure. Also? Lupin is a great person and one of my favorite characters; a great teacher. 

5) Goblet of Fire

The early book is great, but the climax is again the best part of the book (as it probably should be in fairy tales especially). The scene in the graveyard, the cruelty of Cedric’s death, and the reemergence of Frank, Harry’s parents, and Cedric from Voldemort’s wand at the end is beautiful. The early book follows the formula of the first three books, but the climax is where the story takes a dive into a darker tone that remains for the next three books. It’s well-structured. 

6) Chamber of Secrets

Historically this has always been my least favorite (although I love it), but I actually resonated with Fawkes’s appearance in the climax for than normal. Dumbledore isn’t dead, but he’s gone from the school (hence why Dumbledore dies in book 6, its parallel book), and Fawkes’s appearance offers the hope that Harry will need not just in book 2, but in book 6 and 7 (where it becomes more complex, admittedly): that even though someone isn’t there, if you love them and are loyal to them, they are not really gone. It’s a powerful symbolic way of writing grief, and embodies the themes of the story as a whole.

7) Philosopher’s Stone

The only book in which worldbuilding is one of my favorite parts. Kidding, but the worldbuilding is really lovely and fun, whimsical and relatable. It’s funny that love in Harry becomes something that he uses, without understanding how exactly, to save himself against Quirrel/Voldemort, and in book 7, it’ll be love that he uses to save everyone else. The tone is really fun throughout the book, but it still offers a beautiful message on grief with the Mirror of Erised towards the middle of the book, and the end again implies the opposite of the beginning: Harry’s parents are dead, yes, but they are not gone, because their love lingers.

8) Cursed Child

I don’t realllly think anyone has to consider this one canon, since it doesn’t offer (much) new, but I’m one of the few people I know who really like it, so I reread it and am including it as a result. It’s got weaknesses: the plot is frankly, stupid, time travel is my old enemy, and Voldemort having a child is... not brilliant at all. But it serves its purpose: it advertises the main series, hence why they wanted to include fan-favorite (dead) characters. I consider it kind of like... Phantom Rouge the movie for Hunter x Hunter: it doesn’t add much, but it gets the themes and characters right. And its themes and characters are its strengths. But I wouldn’t say it doesn’t add anything at all: Scorpius is a great new character, and Harry himself has a resonant arc (Harry has a habit of saying things that would be better not said even in the older books, him snapping with Albus really isn’t out of character). It also offers Draco a fitting resolution to his arc, which was something that bothered me in book 7 (his arc is left slightly incomplete). 

Anyways if anyone knows of good fanfics that are Scorpius/Rose that also focus on Draco and Scorpius’s parental relationship, please give me a recommendation. :’’’) 

[your-art-is-gay]

Meet The Writer

1. What’s your oldest WIP, and how old is it? What inspired you to start it?

My oldest WIP that’s still currently in motion is my main one, The Academy. It turned two years old September 22 (ahh!!)

I got the idea when my dad (also a writer) suggested a school with a bunch of magical creatures living in tandem, instead of a magic school specifically for like wizards or whatever. I thought it sounded very interesting, so I took a couple of character’s I’d made before and started writing!

(Fun fact, a few of the main characters in the Academy were originally from a Percy Jackson fanfiction about demigods with fears that greatly contradicted their powers! Paris was a son of Aphrodite who was terrified of falling in love, and Kieran was a son of Hecate who despised magic! Early drafts of the Academy had very heavy influence from Greek Mythology as well, up until I decided that I really didn’t want it to be so similar to Percy Jackson and created my own mythos instead.)

2. What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to writing?

I tend to overanalyze, well, everything in my writing. One of the worst feelings is when I think of something really clever and then I discover that it opens up a plot hole in an earlier portion. Oh well, that’s what revisions are for, right? *gross sobbing*

3. What scene did you enjoy writing the most out of all your WIPs? What scene did you enjoy writing the least?

Ooohhh, that’s a good question. Frankly, I’m not entirely sure. I definitely really like the quiet, romantic scenes, because I’m a total sap and I don’t get to write many of those.

As for the one I liked the least, well… One of my main characters has been through some pretty traumatic shit in their past, and partway through the book they have a nightmare and completely break down, and gods I hated writing that. It hurts me so much to put them through that.

4. What’s your favorite trope?

Well, I have a lot of them. I really like characters who are done with everything and everyone and only go along with the crazy shit that happens to them because they have to. Like, they’ll let the plot drag them around but by the gods they’re kicking and dragging their heels along the way. I also really like casual fourth-wall breaking, Gilligan cuts, and the *thing happens and two characters in the background exchange money* tropes.

5. Which of your protagonists do you relate to the most?

Well, I have a character that’s very heavily based off of me―and who also shares my name. Although, while they were written with the intention of being somewhat of a self-insert, they’ve grown and changed as a character so much now that we really aren’t alike anymore. Frankly, I’m not entirely sure. I’d probably say Nick just for simplicity’s sake, but I don’t really know.

6. What is the worst writing experience you’ve ever had with another writer, anywhere, since you’ve started writing?

I don’t really talk to people in general. I don’t think I can recall a negative experience with another writer, actually.

7. What character from a famous story, book/movie/comic/game, or otherwise, do you despise the most? Why?

Severus motherfucking Snape. I have so many reasons for hating him.

He was an abusive, racist prick who got pissed when his female friend wasn’t romantically interested in him, called her a racist name when she tried to help him, and fucked off to join the wizard Nazis.

He only defected over to the good side because he was still obsessed with Lily and was afraid of her being murdered.

He literally asked Voldemort to spare Lily so he could be with her―sure, kill the year-old infant and the man she actually loves, but no, keep her alive so I can force my love on her.

Despite being a supposedly “good” guy, he mentally abused his students for years, so much so that he even became Neville Longbottom’s worst fear.

Neville Longbottom, who frequently goes to see his essentially braindead parents and is alluded to being able to remember when they were tortured so badly that they became that way, was tormented so badly by Snape that he became Neville’s worst fear.

Upon finding the Potter house after the were killed, he completely breezes past James’ body, ignored the wailing and bleeding child in the crib, just to hold Lily’s body and weep over how he never got to sleep with her.

He has an unreasonable hatred for Harry just because Harry looks like James.

He was so salty about something that happened when they were children (that wasn’t even Lupin’s fault, by the way) that he outed Lupin as a werewolf and forced him to resign, depriving Hogwarts of the only good DADA teacher it ever had.

And yet, despite all of this, he is given a redemption arc. He is considered a redeemable character, when Draco Malfoy, a literal child who was tortured and abused for a good portion of his life and had very little of a say in most of his awful choices, “doesn’t have a heart of gold.”

Snape is seen as a romantic, selfless guy by a good portion of the fandom because…he was obsessed with a girl who wanted nothing to do with him? Because of a throwaway line where he proclaimed he would always be obsessed with a girl who wanted nothing to do with him?

It’s bad enough that the fans think this, but the books treat it like this as well!! SNAPE, of all people, gets a redemption arc―if you can even call those bullshit excuses that. I, for one, am thoroughly sick of abusive characters getting redeemed.

(Sorry for ranting, I have a lot of feelings about this.)

8. What’s your favorite line of dialogue you’ve ever written?

Most of my characters are sarcastic little shits, so that’s really hard to say.

9. Who’s the worst character you’ve ever written, in terms of morality?

Well….hm….  The thing about my characters, particularly my antagonists, is that I do my very best to make them something other than just evil. In their eyes, their bad actions are justified. So, it’s really hard to choose.

My main villain is a very self-righteous, ambitious sort of guy. He’s kinda racist (a lot of older magi in my story just….really don’t like the fae), and thinks that the magi (magical folk) are superior. BUT, instead of wanting to take over the world or anything, he just wants to leave. Long story short, the magi are originally from another dimension, and it’s there that he wants to return them. Unfortunately, this other dimension is presumed to have been destroyed, and even if it is there, opening a rift to go there could potentially completely destroy our world. He doesn’t care about that, though―after all, it’s only humans and dirty fae that would die.

The only other character I can think of is the one I just really hate. Like, she just oozes evil and I kind of love to write her, because I don’t really have any other characters that have that slick evil personality. But she’s a pretty terrible person too. Her twin brother was taken by the fae as an infant, a changling left in his place. The changeling doesn’t know that yet―but she does.

Their entire life, she’s blamed him for why she doesn’t have her actual brother. She pretends like she loves him, but the entire time she’s been emotionally abusing him and making him constantly feel like crap about himself. She’s even physically abused him, by taking iron and burning him whenever she can get away with it.

I think she’d probably be the worst.

10. Do you prefer happy endings or bad endings? Or do you prefer the middle ground?

Definitely good endings. I can appreciate well-written bad endings, but only after I get over my initial emotional response to it. Sometimes, that takes me a while―like Swarm by Scott Westerfeld. I read that almost a year ago and I’m still fucking pissed. I’m just not really a fan of endings that leave a bad taste in my mouth. (One of the reasons I chose to reread Huck Finn for English instead of doing Of Mice And Men, despite the fact that I kind of loath Huck Finn.)

I’m also aware that not all stories can have feel-good endings, and in many of them, those types of endings just don’t make sense. *squints at the end of Mockingjay*

But, in general, I greatly prefer good endings.

[hillnerd-art]

Hey! Aaaaaa I wanna hear about why you're so into Ronso much, and know more of your headcanons on him!!! .... or Remus, or anyone? because I realy just like your headcanons! (and your art too! It's *gorgeous*)

Aw thank you! :D 

Ho boy- ok, so I could write like three books worth of stuff on headcanons I have for Ron Remus and other characters from the HP books. Like, if you have specific questions, I can totally go off for like 10 years on any of them! :D

As far as why I am INTO Ron, well - he’s just an amazing character. He is so loyal, sweet, smart, funny and maligned that it makes my heart cry out ‘I must protect and promote this child!’  My fave are always a bit tragic or hilarious. To me Ron has a bit of both. His life doesn’t seem that tragic, because it’s not compared to many- but I just- he’s just SO PURE, guys. Like, he means so well and loves with his whole heart and is so real.

Here are two short essays I wrote about why I love Ron and Remus:

WHY I LOVE RON

“Oh gosh, I have SO MANY REASONS why you should love Ron. I mean, re-read the books and it’s 7 novels worth of ‘Ron is the bestest’ imo.

But hey, let’s break it down.

LOYAL, DEDICATED and CARING

What I love most about Ron is how loyal and and dedicated he is.From the onset of the first book he basically adopts Harry. His first chapter onscreen endears him to me as he quickly becomes Harry’s first and best childhood friend. He assures Harry he “won’t be [the worst in class.] There’s loads of people who come from Muggle families and they learn quick enough.”

He patiently explains all the wizarding things to Harry, who has loads of questions. He backs him up on everything. When Harry is challenged to a Wizarding duel, Ron volunteers as his second.He’s Harry’s right hand man, the one who backs him up on everything, the one who is in on every single adventure of Harry’s.

This continues on throughout the series. He has always been Harry’s confidante, has always been the one to help Harry out in a million ways- sacrificing his own food, home, safety, room and family attention all for Harry to have more love and comfort in his life.When he knows Harry won’t be getting any presents for Christmas he writes home and tells his mother- who sends Harry a sweater and fudge, just as she did her own son.

When Harry’s being starved and not getting letters in the second book- Ron is the one who arranges to save Harry from his relatives.He’s super caring, and is always making sure his peeps are looked after. You eating enough? Getting enough sleep? Your relatives treating you right? Teachers being fair to you? You need a confidence boost? You need to be comforted? Well, there’s Ron asking those questions and making sure you get taken care of.

Like, all throughout book 1-7 he’s doing the stuff to help others.When Harry or Hermione is insulted or attack, there’s Ron defending them. He also defends Hagrid and Neville a lot too. Hell, he GIVES HIS XMAS PRESENTS to Dobby in book 4. He defends people with words, spells, fists, a broken wand- you name the threat- there is Ron standing up to defend and help others. Snape verbally attacks Hermione- there’s Ron defending her getting detention. Sirius Black convicted murderer? There’s Ron standing on a SEVERELY BROKEN LEG to yell ‘If you want to kill Harry, you have to kill us!’ Seamus and others all turn on Harry in 5th year, there’s Ron defending him. He throws himself into danger to defend those he loves- look at the 7th book and how many times he puts his ass on the line to save Hermione.

HE’S BRAVE

So, this kid is brave- every inch as much as Harry. He takes on a mountain troll, he sacrifices himself on a chess board, he throws himself into defeating voldemort- all at age 11. Then he goes into the forbidden forrest to face his worst fear with a BROKEN WAND (aka, he’s basically defenseless) in order to help Hermione. He gives up everything to be Harry right hand man. He stands up to a murderer. He goes to battle with death eaters books 5-7! He tells Bellatrix to take him to torture instead of Hermione. He takes on Fenrir Greyback. He dives into icy water to save a drowning Harry. He faces his greatest fears, and defeats them.

HE’S INTELLIGENT

Ron is super smart.

First off- he literally never loses at Chess- be it to Hermione, Percy or Harry. To be good at Chess requires logic, thinking ahead, and intelligence. He beats the chess set of McGonagall’s (which, I’m assuming, would be a master level chess game, given who enchanted it) with SEVERE handicaps. He had to keep 4 pieces from being taken. Like, WHAT?!

We see this same logical thinking when he Harry and Hermione figure out what’s going on with the many subplots in book 1- such as with how to defeat the troll, the kind of key they need to capture etc. He puts a lot of things together and keeps up with Hermione in debates all the time- something most people won’t even bother trying to do.

He’s always figuring out who to ask to help them get out of situations, using his strategic mind to utilize people to the best of their abilities. He has street smarts (how he survived the snatchers),  great instincts (like how he figured out Voldemort’s name was taboo), is a brilliant mimic with a good memory (parseltongue after hearing a word TWICE), and thinks of getting the basilisk fangs from the chamber of secrets.He is a keen observer at times- being the only one to really note Hermione’s behavior in book three (where she was overwrought and having a nutso schedule).

He notes how people react to things a lot of the time, actually- and is quick to pick up on behavior from friends and family that shows they aren’t doing well, are mad etc.

HE’S FUNNY

He shows a LOT of wit throughout the book- his humor, cheeky and witty comments tie into his intelligence, really. He cracks me up.

“Yeah, well, Percy wouldn’t want to work for anyone with a sense of humour, would he? Percy wouldn’t recognize a joke if it danced naked in front of him wearing Dobby’s tea cozy.”

“Aaaaah, when two Neptunes appear in the sky, it is a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born, Harry.”

“His life’s ambition is to have his head cut off and stuck up on a plaque like his mother. Is that normal, Hermione”

“Just don’t get him on the subject of his boss. According to Mr. Crouch…as I was saying to Mr. Crouch… Mr. Crouch is of the opinion… Mr. Crouch was telling me… They’ll be announcing their engagement any day now.”

“Can I have a look at Uranus too, Lavender?”

“I don’t know how to break this to you…but I think they might have noticed we broke into Gringotts.”

So yeah, Ron is the best.

————-

WHY I LOVE REMUS

From the get go, when there was a prematurely graying professor asleep in the students’ cart, I was automatically intrigued. Who was he? What was he doing there? Why was he such a sound sleeper? This started a long line of questions that has never stopped. The more I learn about Remus John Lupin, the more I’m spurred to find out anything else I can. He feels like a mystery waiting to be solved. When getting down to it, I think I like him so because of whom he’s proven himself to be.

He has known so much tragedy and yet he’s still remained a collected, caring, rational, and intelligent individual. He has dealt with the death of all his closest friends and a horrific disease he could pass on to anybody. He’s had to face persecution on a daily basis, and yet he doesn’t truly resent those who put him down. In fact, he seems to understand their fear and prejudice all too well.

 Though he could be wallowing in self-pity over his fate, he doesn’t. Instead he’s out defending the very people who hate him, working to teach their children to defend themselves, and lending a hand wherever there is a need for it. To me, his ability to carry on and still be there to support so many others is one of the most admirable characteristics there is.

If I had to deal with all these circumstances, I’m not sure I could have handled it all in such a graceful manner and be even moderately sane. I don’t see how anyone couldn’t admire him or at least grudgingly respect him for all these attributes.

He also has his faults that somehow make me like him even more, mostly because they make him pretty realistic. Understandably, he is very insecure, both in love and friendship. As friendship is such special, and foreign, thing to him, he will do anything to maintain those friendships. This has lead to him giving allowances for people when it’s really not advisable. (A prime example being his relationship with Sirius and James, where he let them torture Snape and generally run wild, even when he was in a position to really make a difference in their behavior. He ignored his conscience in order to keep the status quo.)

I think he has since learned from this lesson, or at least is aware of this fatal flaw he holds and has tried to change his ways. Self-awareness can be a hard thing to achieve.

He also shows a more vengeful side at times. With Peter, in book 3, he was all but ready to kill the little horror, and most likely would have if not for Harry’s intervention. (I like how ruthless he was when he did it, though. Sirius is screaming death threats, and Remus just coolly states how he’s going to kill him.) This trait has its lighter side, though, like when he got Neville’s boggart to be Snape in drag. (Granny drag no less!) His subdued, but ever present, sense of humor is just another plus. I LOVE his sense of humor and how he’s so willing to just be like ‘yup, I’m along for this ride’ with it.

All in all he’s a good person and just plain fun to read about. 

[beansstan]

Fly Me To The Moon (chp.1)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC (Dorothy ‘Dot’ Baker)

Summary: Dot is running from her past, and she just so happens to run right into Steve’s present and future. 

Word Count: 1,242

A/N: so this is a new story that i’ve started. i had a sort of dream about it the other night and i wanted to turn it into something... and now i have??? i currently have 4 chapters planned out after this one, and i plan on writing more. hopefully you all enjoy. 

Disclaimer: I don’t own any Marvel characters, I own Dorothy Baker’s character and story line.

Dorothy Baker was walking to the library on the corner of the street, looking for books to use for research in her first project of freshman year. She was so excited to be working towards her first A of high school, and of proving herself to the teachers. What she didn’t see was the tall man stalking behind her, waiting for the right moment, and that moment had arrived. Before Dorothy could even comprehend what was happening, she was in the back of a black van with a hood over her head that reeked of sweat, blood and vomit.

It had been about three years since that day. At this point Dorothy really had no idea. Her captors had kept her isolated from the outside world, limiting her to one room with no windows. That in itself should’ve been torture; but that was nothing compared to what HYDRA did to her. They would inject her with God knows what, and follow with various forms of electrocution and beatings. 

For the longest time, Dorothy had no idea why they were doing it, or what they were trying to achieve. She had no idea until the day she escaped. 

Dorothy was strapped to a chair when she was suddenly overwhelmed with emotions that seemed foreign to her. She tried and tried to push them down, and to stop feeling, but it didn’t work very well. The man that she had learned to call ‘Papa’ stop in front of her, staring right into her glassy eyes; Dorothy felt as though she was looking into his soul. She could feel everything that was coursing through his veins. Anger. Depression. Longing. Things that she didn’t want to be feeling anymore than she did on a daily basis. Dorothy felt, and felt some more, until she couldn’t take it any longer. 

She suddenly let out a gut-wrenching scream, projecting all the anger that had been brewing inside her for how ever many years she’d been stuck in this hellhole, all the anger that she could feel from everyone around her in the room. It was safe to say, no-one in the room was prepared. Everyone collapsed, overcome by so much emotion that they all passed out. Well, everyone except Dorothy. 

Unbuckling herself from the restraints, she made a run for it, doing her best to find the way out, which she did. Bursting out onto the street she looked quite the sight. With hair down to her hip, the ends of which were changing colour, a hospital gown and crazed eyes, she looked very out of place in the quiet streets of…wherever she was. 

It was now five years since the day she escaped, and Dorothy, or Dot as she now went by, had learned a lot. After being held hostage for what she learned was six and a half years, she had a lot of catching up to do. She’s missed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, she’d missed all of high school, she’d missed her sweet sixteen. She’d missed everything. Dot had been thrown back into the world as a 20 year old with enough life experience for at least seven people. Re-learning everything had been difficult, but it had also lead Dot to discover things that she was passionate about. A lot of the memories she had before HYDRA were fuzzy, and more like distant dreams that actual experiences that she’d been through. 40s music in particular was something that helped her learn to cope. Coping with a constant influx of emotion should’ve been enough to drive poor Dot to insanity, but she was stronger than that. After a good year of extensive research, Dot had determined that she’d been injected with something that caused a mutation to occur in her DNA; the mutation had probably always been there, just never activated. Now she was an empath, and there was no escaping it. 

Dot had relocated herself to New York when she was approximately 23, she never figured out exactly how old she was, so she just guessed based on the year it was. There was a lot for her there. A multitude of clubs that she could sing in, and it was far away enough from where she was held for her to feel at least a bit safe. Singing was her escape, and it gave her just enough money to move from hotel to hotel. Dot had made the decision not to stay in one place of residence for too long, fearing that she would be tracked down and recaptured. She’d developed a solid routine of singing at a few different clubs a week, moving hotel, and singing for veterans on a Sunday afternoon. 

That was how she ended up in Washington about to meet Captain Steve Rogers, the country’s sweetheart, and Sergeant James Barnes, the recently rediscovered best friend of said Captain. Dot had met a kind man called Sam through her volunteering at the retirement homes, and he asked if she would be willing to sing for a group of veterans from multiple wars. Of course she said yes, but she didn’t realise that would mean being flown out to Washington. Dot spotted the two super soldiers walking towards her and took a deep breathe, straightening the scarf she had woven into her hair, hiding the fact that it would change based on her emotion.  

“Steve, Bucky, this is the lovely lady I was telling you about,” said Sam, grinning at the two men that had just joined them. 

“Jeez Sam, you’re making me feel like an middle-aged mother,” Dot giggled, attempting to mask the blush she felt creeping up her neck as she looked at the blond man standing in front of her.

“Hey, I’m Steve, and this is Bucky,” Steve said, reaching out to shake Dot’s hand, a large smile covering his face, Bucky stood next to him, a smile also on his face. 

Dot took Steve’s hand and gave it a short shake. Physical contact was difficult for Dot as it amplified her empathetic abilities. “Hi, I’m Dot.”

Steve seemed slightly dejected at quick loss of contact that he shared with Dot, not quite knowing why he was suddenly craving it. 

“So I guess you’re the mysterious singer that Sam has been raving about for literally weeks,” interjected Bucky, sensing a blanket of awkwardness falling over the current situation they were in. 

“Unless there’s another mysterious singer that I don’t know about, then yes, that is I,” Dot said, “I wouldn’t say I’m worth raving over though. I’m just your run of the mill singer.”

“Oh I have to disagree with you there, Polka Dot,” Dot scoffed at the nickname Sam had gifted her with, “you have a voice that doesn’t belong in our time, it’s beautiful.” Sam made a small smile grow on Dot’s face and he just carried on talking, “Your voice is probably more these Grandpa’s speed to be honest with you, but either way you’re going to stun the audience.” 

Both Bucky and Steve looked at each other with a confused expression, and continued to listen to the conversation that was unfolding. 

“Speaking of the audience, I better go warm up my voice. Can’t be disappointing you after you’ve spoken up my ability so much,” Dot said, waving a quick goodbye at the three men, and then walking towards the makeshift stage area that Sam had constructed for her. 

tags: @bucky-is-a-hero-fightme

[lighthouseofthewanderess]

Experiment

Have you ever done something you clearly know isn’t meant for you? If yes, welcome to the club of Unlucky yet Brave Experimenters. UBE was a one member secret club for the longest time before the founder, me, dissolved it out of realization that life itself was about experimenting. But I could resurrect it and we can pretend to be the Illuminati or something.

My years of experimenting started long ago. I don’t know if we can count it, but I ate chalk when I was in kindergarten. In my head, I had eaten earth from the garden and it had tasted so rich. The texture was brilliant, and the color stuck to my fingertips. Some of the earth got under my nails and I could snack on that later. Chalk I thought was no different. But when I ate it, oh boy it tasted so much better! It even came in an easy stick format to break off into bites. My grandpa on my mother’s side looked amused every time I bounced up to him demanding slate chalk. I would always say it got over,  I’m studying well, or that my friends stole it from me. He willingly gave into my trickery till he caught me chewing on it while practicing my alphabets on the slate. I just couldn’t help it; I need to think and chewing chalk helped. After that, my grandpa made it a rule that I drink a glass of milk -- “she’s eating chalk because her body needs calcium.” he would scold my grandma like it was her duty to have figured this out before him.

Anyhoo, I kept UBE a secret affair. The caterpillar that just won’t float on water? I really thought they were capable of it. The dolls with eyes carved out and replaced with marble? Why was it creepy, she had beautiful eyes now. For a long time I stuck to things around me and it fueled my curiosity but I also got bored of it too soon. I gave it up  -- for the poor butterflies, the ants, and flowers that were getting tortured by me. My heart was a noble one. Head held high I went about life accepting things the way they were. Then I got the brilliant idea of experimenting with myself. The mission was simple; do one unexpected thing every day. What was I on the search for? The million different parts of me that make me who I am. It started with the coloring. My teachers in India complained that I might have an eye problem. “She is coloring roses blue and all.” I wish I can see their faces now when there’s not just blue but black roses as well. Ha! Then I thought why not fight for the things I believed in. I undid the red ribbon of a girl in class and when she yanked it from my hand, I yanked it back. It turned into a fight just like I expected and we stood on top of the benches and wrestled with each other. That experiment ended up with bruised elbows and a 100 ‘I am sorry’ on the blackboard. Damn that girl. I was just trying to see if I had a fighter in me. UBE would have to some basic rules that saved them from situations like this. Rule #1: If your experiment involves a person, an animal, a flower or any living thing… do not harm it. Fate will boomerang back. That left me the only choice of putting myself in awkward situations. After pre-school, mom would take about 2 hours to come pick me up. Her job was tricky. So I would play around, seesaw on my own or just sleep on benches. A light bulb went off in my head during one of those slumbers. Next day after I finished up, I climbed the stairs and sat inside the 5th grade class. The teacher didn’t object, the students welcomed me with open arms. Literally. They picked me up and took turns seating me on their lap. The blackboard swarmed with letters and symbols I didn’t understand but I stared at it fully in awe. In my eyes,  this experiment was a successful one. I would come back and wait right on time for mom to pick me up. I was so used to the routine that even the lunch my mom packed would be forgotten, eaten only minutes before she arrived. One unlucky day she caught me eating my lunch, which had kind of gotten spoilt in the summer heat, on the steps by myself. I looked super content, but my mom almost burst into tears. After that she got an aaya to pick me up right after school and keep me with her, make sure I was fed on time. Time for UBE to have another rule. Rule #2 - Tread with caution when there are moms involved. They have the power to banish all experiments.

With these two rules, I had my fill of experimenting without hurting anyone for years. Even in the US. Climbing trees, hanging like a bat, fries in my ice cream. Life was so rich when every day was a new affair. There was one time I took UBE to the next level. A midnight release of a new Harry Potter book was announced. There would be games and exciting gifts, almost the whole school was going. But I wasn’t a fan. I knew nothing the other potter heads knew. Rise to the experiment, oh brave one I told myself and dragged my mom with me. At the library every one had dressed up. Polaroids were being clicked. There were cauldrons with little wands. There was a line of people waiting to answer and get their prizes. I happily went and stood there. As my turn approached, I didn’t have the slightest fear that I wouldn’t be able to answer. The point wasn’t to win, it was to experiment. The lady at the counter asked me a question.

“What was the name of Ron’s brothers?” Um, no clue. I shook my head. The line behind me gasped. I heard them whisper that I didn’t know even the basics.

“Okay. Here’s an easy one, hon.” She asked me about the platform number. Someone in line even offered to answer for me. I shook my head again.

“I just wanted to know what the prize was, that’s all.” I said to her, shrugging my shoulders. She smiled and gave me one last questions.

“Who are Muggles?” I paused to give it a thought. The line was getting restless, they hated my guts. Well, everyone has to human right? Plus she used ‘who’.

“Humans?” I stated. Everyone broke into an applause and some even clapped me on my back. Well done they said. At least you know the difference between the wizard and the human world. I was just happy I get the gift. It was a pack of gummy worms. Aw man, really? Rule  #3: A smart experimenter assesses risks.

From there I went on try one thing after another. Spanish classes. Adding ‘ito’ to everything didn’t work so I stepped out of class. Bharatnatyam went on for a bit but Ballet was more fascinating. Swimming felt like I still needs to sprout some fins so I made a mental note to try it out later. Caramel apples. Plaster-of-Paris. Swinging from the door. They all went down in UBE’s history. I remember playing the piano for a recital. I practiced with a Casio keyboard at home and rendered the beautiful ‘To a wild rose’ by McDowell. Bach. Beethoven. It started getting too sad for some reason. Switch to something else. Karate. Held onto that till the gold belt and then tossed that away too. I was super restless. I was focused so much on getting my little feet into everything that I never stuck to anything for too long. What if I’m meant to do something more? Ice skating. The flute. Singing.  It was all a whirlwind when I look at it now. I don’t even know if I had a favorite hobby. Well, maybe climbing trees. But I couldn’t choose one. Too much experimenting. Rule #4: UBE practices a good interval between two experiments. To learn and experiment better in the future.

Somehow, on the way to India, I lost UBE. Maybe I packed it with the wrong boxes. Maybe I have to join another secret club when I land there. I knew it the minute cranberry juice was placed in front of me, a thousand feet above sea level. I didn’t feel like trying it out. What? That doesn’t normally happen. I tried to sleep it off. Then I blamed it on the jet lag. Then came the ‘national’ language called Hindi and what a horrible experiment. When my Principal, John Zachariah, admitted me in the middle of the year he asked me why I was hell bent on Hindi. Why not try French? “I am a secret experimenter” I whispered when my mom stood far, straining to hear what we were discussing. In a year, I changed that to Tamil, another experiment but a successful one at that. I tried my hand at throwball, loved the matches in the rain. For the sports day, I did the ridiculous thing of trying out for tug-o-war. Here was another joke -- this girl was underwait, a thin fragile thing and she fainted a lot. But when pitched with others at the tryout, I won all three. Pure bone weight. All those glasses of milk and chalk must have nursed my bones. The last significant thing I tried, apart from writing, was the National Cadet Corps. NCC in a lot of ways made me tougher, even thought I was just eyeing the 15% marks that would come out of it. On my first NCC camp, I tried a lot of new things and every night I would ache all over but feel intensely successful as a member of UBE. In the early morning jogs and yoga, I came to realize two things about me. I am not a morning person and Yoga made me sleeps. And just like that, I was able to draw observations about myself after every lab session. Even from the ones I think I would suck at the most. Rule #5 - When you’re unsure about it, that’s the UBE sixth sense telling you that you have to do it.

I have been following these rules for a long time now. I have surprised myself time and again with the things I set out to do. Solo travel. Tattoos. Gardening. Oh what the hell, even babysitting. And I think the only mistake one can make as a member of UBE is fearing the outcome. That gives birth to normalcy and monotony. The kind that makes you pick the same things from a menu, the same colors from the clothes aisle. Choose a heavier ball when you go bowling, take a different route to work, eat Doritos with chopsticks. Sometimes I’ve taken a chance on people too; meeting them once just to see how it goes. I love getting to know them and experimenting in understanding what I feel for them. Even if this goes against Rule#1, I know I wouldn’t harm them no matter what. I know to step back from there. One can argue that repetition of certain tasks and decisions forms tastes, styles, and shapes one’s personality. And I agree. Yes, comfort in the familiar is a safe thing, but then again as Tove Lo puts it, ‘If you had any flavor in the world, would you still choose vanilla?’

[kaleidoscopic-writing]

Mind Over Matter

Chapter 2: You Are the Sea Upon Which I Float

September 2018    

If there was someone you wanted to be, that was Kathryn Thompson, also known as my best friend. She held a bright personality that made everyone want to be her.     "I'm telling you, you need to find a guy from the engineering program. You would think they would be dull, but they're surprisingly good in bed," Kathryn said proudly as she took a bite out of her sandwich.     "Kathryn, just because you slept with one guy from engineering does not mean they are all good in bed," I said.

    "Oh whatever, I'll get back to you with more evidence." She smirked. Kathryn was not a floozy going around shagging every guy, but she did kind of do it a lo t. She was proud of it, too. I didn’t care for the life of me what Kathryn did in the bedroom, but she has great stories from it.      "Dear god Kathryn. Are you not into the guy you already shagged?" I questioned.       We were eating in some sandwich shop eating lunch. Kathryn had just gotten out of her classes, and I was procrastinating writing a paper that had been calling my name all morning. We decided that lunch was much needed. The shop was about halfway from my house and campus.        "He was a sweetheart, but we really didn't connect other then physically," she said and grimaced as I put my sandwich back on my plate.       "You need to find some thing real, Kathryn." I put in my two cents, which has been the same idea for a long time.     "Oh please. We're just uni students. We don't need something serious, and that's why you need to get out and have more fun. I mean, god, you could not only get some uni student but also a celebrity if you wanted. You have the connection to meet all hot rich men." She sighed as she took a bite of a chip.     "You know I don't do that. It's too messy."     "Oh come on. You can't say that you haven't been tempted. I know a certain sexy ex-boy bander was at your sister's last party. I saw pics of him leaving the club. You should have been leaving with him, Anabel," she shook her head at me.    "I met him, you know. Harry." I said, and I could have sworn her eyes almost bugged out of her head. "Proper lad he is. He was all kind to me."    "You met bloody Harry Styles and all you can say is he was kind," she almost yelled. At that, I rolled my eyes.   "We talked for five minutes. I didn't get to go in depth with his character, so I'm not sure what you were expecting."    "I was expecting sexy, hot, or gorgeous."    "Well I kind of thought that was a given," said lightly a smile making a way onto my lips.    We went on with random talking for a while, slowly making our way through our plates.    "I'm telling you my physics class is real torture. I don't understand how the teacher gets away with it." Kathryn was an engineering major.    "Well you better brave through it Kathryn. We have break in two weeks.”     "Oh god, I know. I'm practically counting me down the days," she sighed as she leaned her had on her arm she was resting on the table. I laughed at her dramatics     I went reaching for my phone as it vibrated on the table. A new text had come in.     Hi was wondering if you will be around for your sister’s get together tonight? H. xx     I think my mouth went slack. How had Harry gotten my number and why would he possibly want it? I looked up at Kathryn, clearly wondering what I was so shocked at. "I think Harry just texted me." I showed her the phone. Her face lit up with excitement.    "Holy shit Anabel! You clearly left an impression on him!" She handed me back my phone. "What are you going to say back?"    "No clue," I said. I eyed my keyboard wondering what to do. In its entirety I decided to go the playful route.      I'm sorry who is this? x      It's Harry. Is this not Eden?      No sorry. I think you have the wrong number.      Oh I'm so sorry.     "Well what did you write," Kathryn whisper yelled. I rolled my eyes as I turned the phone to her. I was just about to write back that I was kidding, but I knew Kathryn would become a deprived child who wants something the longer I did not show her what I wrote. "You are positively evil. It's Harry Styles and you reply that he has the wrong fucking number?"    "I'm going to say I'm kidding. Alright chill maybe." I bring the phone back to me as I go to type, but I was interrupted by a new text coming in and from Alison this time.      You wanker. Tell the poor lad it's you. He practically begged for you number.      I couldn't help the laugh that came out when I read the message. "What," Kathryn questioned.      "Somehow my idiotic sister knows what I replied to Harry, and ringing me for it. Nobody can take a joke these days."     "You shouldn't be joking when you have the possibility to shag Harry Styles and you tell him wrong number." She said exasperated. “Shhh,” I whispered. “God, Kathryn you might as tell the whole world that, yeah?”      I replied to Alison.     I'm sure that's an exaggeration.     Dear sister why would I lie? I don't know if you blew him or something because he mentioned you twice in the past ten minutes.     Nope. Not even close to what happened.     Maybe he is just trying to make conversation.     Quickie in the loo? If so, I'm appalled I wasn't told of this earlier.      Dear lord Alison, no. Nothing happened. We talked, that's all.      "Alison is saying Harry mentioned me to her," I look up to Kathryn.     Another text came in and I looked down     I know this you Eden.     I will neither confirm nor deny.     "You are absolutely mental, know that," Kathryn said as she took a bite of a chip.      “Hey! Come on now. You are suppose to be supportive.” I said it with fake hurt.     “When you blow off Harry Styles when you should actually blowing him, all my obligations to you go out the window.”     I rolled my eyes as I brought my attention back to my phone.    It seems you are in luck today, Harry… I am sorry what did you say your last name was?    Styles, Harry Styles.    Whitworth, Eden Whitworth.

*************    As soon as I got home from lunch, I headed straight to my room. A paper in my economics class was calling my nam. As the deadline was closely approaching, my effort in writing the paper still seemed non existent. Noise began to fill up downstairs as Ali decided to throw a little party with some of her closest friends, but as the night led on, I began to realize that this "small party" had grown into a moderately sized house party. Since I was stuck at a certain topic within my thesis, I decided that a much needed drinking break was necessary.     I made my way down to the kitchen without being stopped by someone. Familiar faces filled the downstairs, but I knew a lot of them were only somewhat acquaintances of Ali's. After grabbing a beer from a case that someone must have brought to the party, I began to make my way back to the stairs before I heard my name being called. I turned to the living room where Ali and her usual crew were chilling on the couches. "Get over her you little ninja," Ali yelled before patting the space on the couch next to her.     Nick sat on the chair beside the couch Ali was on with Pixie sitting on the armrest. Alexa and Drew along the other couch, and a few others standing around. Making my way into the room, I could feel a certain pair of eyes on me. I raised mine to meet Harry's welcoming gaze. I gave him a small acknowledging smile before sitting on the other side of Ali.     Everyone resumed their conversation, while I listened and sipped on my drink. Eventually, one beer turned into more and I felt more relaxed within the confines of the living room. I wasn’t drunk, but definitely teetering the line with tipsy. Joining in conversation more than usual, I felt at ease under the eyes of the famous.     Soon, Ali decided she wanted to dance, moving off the couch next to me along with some other of her girlfriends before moving the other side of the living room where there was more room. Sensing a shift in the couch cushions, I turn with a mischievous grin towards Harry. "Why hello there," I said sweetly.    He stopped moving over once he was right next to me stopping when there was barely an inch between his leg and mine. "Crazy seeing you here," he laughed as he threw an arm around the cushion behind my head.     Just by looking at him I could tell he was drunk. His eyes were glossy and his face had a sloppy grin plastered across it. I was a bit tipsy, but I knew he was far past me.   "Is it really crazy that you would see me in my own home" I replied laughing.     "Alright. I was just trying to make little conversation," he rolled his eyes.    "I'm sorry." I shook my head at his little dramatics. "You alright?"     "Yeah 'm good. What about you? You've been couped up there for hours?" He asked. His head leaning a little closer so that I could better hear him over the loud music.    With a simple nod, I responded. "I've got this paper that just doesn't want to be written. I'm trying hard but I just don't know what I'm doing with it." I shrugged my shoulders as a little pout appeared on Harry's soft features.     "I'm sorry. Maybe a break away from it will clear your mind," he suggested.    "Maybe, but this alcohol definitely isn't clearing my mind," I sighed.     His forehead creased as he took a long look at me and hesitantly asked, "why did you pretend that it was not your number earlier when I texted you?"     I then realized how much I may have offended him with my earlier actions. As I looked at him, his forehead creased as he waited for his answer. His lips were slightly poured and that alone filled my chest with regret. "I have a twisted humor that probably is only funny to me."    The corner of his lips twisted up into a smile. “You genuinely had me thinking I exposed my number to a random person.”     “You think you are the only person that has to worry about that,” I quipped. “I have to worry constantly that random blokes find my number, and then it’s everywhere. I was worried about you being a random person.”     His head fell back against the couch and a laugh escaped his mouth. I was beginning to wonder if that was a habit of his. His eyes closed as if the laugh over takes him and he can’t control it.     “Well, I can assure you that I am not some random bloke,” Harry said when he turned his head back to me.     “Woah there, mate. I only met you a day or two ago. You still fall under the category of ‘random’ to me,” I pretended to be very concerned.     He lazily smiled as he looked at me.     “I’ll change that.”     I felt it in my stomach, that gut wrenching feeling. Or maybe it butterflies. I don’t know, but I know for a fact, that I was beginning to blush, looking into Harry’s eyes as his gaze was intently on me.     I blinked a few times, and the music around us suddenly seemed louder, or maybe I had tuned it out when listening for Harry’s voice. The commotion reminded me of my current situation, sitting oddly close to Harry Styles in the middle of house party. I decided it was time for me to bow out, there was too much new developments for the night.     “I think its time I call it a night.” I said softly, beginning to pull from my position.     “Already?”     “I have that paper,” I reasoned.     I stood up from the couch but turned so I was still facing him.     “You’ve been drinking though. How are you going to work?” He asked, his brows pulled down.     “I might as well try.” I sighed. As tempting as it was to hang out down here. I didn’t want to make a habit of being in Harry’s company. “Goodnight Harry.”     His eyes looked to mine. I thought I could see a bit of disappointment in them, but that could have just been his drunken haziness.     “Goodnight Eden.” He said softly.     I gave him a small smile and turned around. I swiftly made my way through the people gathered in my living room and to the stairs. Once I made it up the stairs and into my room, the noise was dulled with the closing of my door.     I sadly went back to my desk and reopened my laptop. I was still mildly tipsy at this point, so I just decided to read over my paper instead of trying to write some more of it. I put on some chill music, hoping to drown out downstairs even more. Soon minutes turned into an hour and I had actually been able to work out a bit more of my paper. It was due in two days on Wednesday, so instead of pulling an all nighter and writing it on Tuesday night, I am trying to get ahead of the curve. With about forty percent of it done already, I was genuinely proud of myself.     At around one, I closed my laptop. Enough work had gone into the night. I got up and went to change into some shorts and a loose tank top. Soon but not soon enough, I was hopping into my bed, welcoming a night of sleep like I hadn’t seen it in two years.     I had been sleeping for I don’t know how long before I heard a knocking on my door. The noice wasn’t harsh enough to startle me out of sleep but loud enough to coax me out of my dream. At first, I thought it couldn’t be my door; I was just hearing a noise in my head, but after a few more knocks, I knew someone was in fact standing outside my door. I switched on the bed side lamp next to me. The room was still somewhat dark, my lamp was not that bright. I shuffled out of bed, arms crossed before I slowly opened the door.     Bright lights from the hallway began to slowly hurt my eyes until they adjusted, and when they did, I saw a man standing at my door. And more specifically, a man I had meet two days ago. Harry was standing at my door with a loopy grin on his face. His cheeks were pink with a drunken flush. His eyes were somewhat closed and yet somewhat open. He was completely trashed and knocking on my door at who knows what time in the morning.     “Hi,” he said very drawn out.     “‘ello Harry.” I said quietly, opening the door up a bit more and squinted at the more light infiltrating my view. “What are you doing?”     “I just wanted to see what you were up to.” He peaked over my shoulder into my room before looking back to me with that same lazy smile still on his face. “Can I come in?”     “I was sleeping, like a normal person.” I replied, sleep still with its grip on me. After a second, I stepped away from my door, leaving it open an invitation to Harry.     I walked back towards my bed, hearing his heavy footsteps behind me as he comes in and closes the door. With the click of the door, I was suddenly aware that Harry Styles was in my room in the early hours of the morning. I looked like trash, and Harry was completely trashed. Huh, I looked like trash and he was trashed. Nice.     “Totally feel free to sit wherever,” I said as I climbed back into bed. His eyes scanned around my room before ultimately decided laying on the couch against the side of my room was the way to go. His legs sprawled out — one off the side with his foot on the ground and the other hanging off the arm of the chair. “Right here is pretty nice.” “It is actually a really uncomfortable couch, so I know you are only saying that because you are drunk.” “Laying on the floor could feel like a king sized bed to me right now.” I laughed as I shuffled further under my sheets, resting my back against my head board as I watched Harry. His head looking upwards to my ceiling. “Why are you in here?” I questioned. He stuck out his bottom lip for a second, I could see from my bed, and then answered. “Dunno. The party is kind of dying down and I am not so thought you would be fun.” “Even though you know I went to bed hours ago.” “I guess. Didn’t really think it through.” “You’re an enigma, Harry Styles.” I said. “You’ll come to realize, Eden Whitworth, that I am an open book if you know what to look for.” “I’ll start taking notes now.” He was still laying down not facing me, so I laid down on the bed completely. “I’m turning off the lights now Harry.” There was a few seconds of silence. I didn’t know if he was too content in his current position to respond or if he had fallen asleep. Either way, I thought darkness would make the environment more enjoyable for him. I reached over and turned the lights off before turning onto my side away from Harry. I laid there for a few second just thinking about the odd events of the night. For some bizarre reason, Harry was sleeping on my couch when he could have easily called a driver, or crashed in any other room in this house. If Harry was in this state, I didn’t even want to think about the state everyone else is in or what state the house will be in tomorrow. I feel asleep to the ever so soft rhythm of Harry’s slightly heavy breathing that I could just barely hear from my bed. **************** I woke up to the obnoxious ringing of my alarm clock. I silenced my phone. I had an hour and a half before my lecture began to get ready. I shuffled out of bed stretching my arms. I had only taken a step before I jumped back in fright at the large form on my couch. Last night, flashed back through my mind, and I relaxed when I again realized it was Harry. He was still sprawled out on my couch, in deep sleep. I had no doubt that he would have back pains when he woke up. My couch wasn’t made for sleeping. He looked so peaceful though. I took a step towards him. His arms were thrown back behind him trying to prop his head up. His mouth was slightly agape as he breathed slowly. It is weird seeing someone sleep. Harry, though, was quite pretty to watch. I only looked for two more seconds before it got weird and I turned away. I grabbed a towel and my clothes for the day out of my closet before walking into my bathroom. Once in the bathroom, I followed my normal routine of showering and doing my makeup and hair, except this time I locked my bathroom door in case Harry happened to wake up and forget where he was. Wouldn’t want him walking in on me in the shower. Soon enough, I opened up my bathroom door, turning my head to the left, seeing Harry still soundly asleep. I collected my things before making my way to the door. I had just touched the doorknob when I glanced back at Harry thinking about how he was going to wake up in a foreign empty room soon. I doubt it will be the first time though. Hastily, I walked back into my bathroom, opening the cabinet and pulling out my Ibuprofen and a cup. I filled up the cup with water and poured out a couple pills before placing them on the little table next to the couch beside Harry’s head. I grabbed a spare piece of paper from my desk and grabbed a pen from the drawer below, leaving the note, “Harry — I hope you don’t have to rough a morning. — Eden x” I placed the note on the table and put the pills on top of it. I looked over sleeping Harry one more time, still in a bit confused how he ended up on my couch. The detailing story I am sure is sure to come soon. With that, I turned around and left my room and made a strong point not to think about how trashed the downstairs was on my way out of the house.

[ohscorbus]

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Sunday 17th September, 2017.

No your eyes aren't deceiving you, this is an actual recap! It's been far too long! But this show was something special and it demanded such a post : )

If it wasn’t blatantly obvious to you by now, Albus is my favourite. He means so much to me and so naturally, I was super excited about this week. Why? Well for those of you who don't know, Tom Mackley was on as Albus and I never had the chance to catch his Albus when he was with the first cast so today was a long time coming. It genuinely felt like I was seeing the play for the first time and meeting another Albus was everything I wanted it to be and more. Mackley is so brilliant. He brings an energy that really captures your attention, no matter what role he’s in, and seeing him in a bigger role only confirmed how much of a star this boy is.

Alright, this is going to be 60% Mackley love, 30% Albus comparisons, and 10% Scorbus. Have fun, folks!

(Note: I wrote this a few days after seeing the show but then life got busy and I never got the chance to finish it. I’d rather not try and do that from memory two months later. So this isn’t complete but I thought some of you might be interested in it anyway. She says, like it’s not 3k+ words long. ‘Incomplete’... ha!)

Act One

I have to admit, I did that thing where I was too excited to focus so the first few scenes were a bit of a blur to me. I both love and hate when that happens :’) But it means my very first impression of Mackley’s Albus was overwhelmingly a positive one.

Although there was one thing that bothered me. I was pre-warned about this and I’m glad because it threw me. For some reason, Mackley used a different voice when he was eleven year old Albus. It was younger and squeaker and I can see what he was going for but he didn’t need it. He’s very physical with his acting so I would have picked up on him being younger through other means. For example, the “what is the rumour?” line. He raised his hand as he asked the question to Rose and Scorpius and it made me seem so very small and childlike. The way he was looking to his cousin in particular for answers like a child would a teacher in class. It was really sweet. Little actions like that worked better than the younger voice he never seemed able to maintain. Plus I’ve never seen anyone else do this and apparently he didn’t do it when he was on as Albus last year so I’m not sure where it came from now??? But obviously this is all coming from someone who knows his voice so it stood out to me as odd. I’m sure a first timer wouldn’t have been bothered by it.

EDIT: Apparently he’s no longer doing the voice. I’m glad. He already felt like the youngest young Albus I’d seen. His eleven year old was 100% believable already.

I loved how Albus hovered his hand over his wand and was shouting, “UP!”, repeatedly in an attempt to remove it from where it was stuck in the floor. The direct reference to his future failed flying lesson made sure we were all aware just how much Albus was struggling at school. Like we could forget but you know, it’s always nice to be kicked while you’re down with a severe case of the feels. Thanks Mackley.

You know that bit where Albus walks into his ‘room’ and he’s just lit by a single spotlight? (I mention it in every recap because it’s stunning and one of my favourite moments of the play. I honestly hold my breath and well up every single time. I have zero shame over my emotional investment in this character hahaha.) Mackley was super interesting in this. Well, to me anyway. So Theo walks forward and gets to the front of the stage and just sighs. His entire body just sags. It’s heartbreaking and breathtaking all at the same time. But Mackley put his hands in his unzipped hoodie pockets, then held his arms out away from his body so the hoodie was open, and then walked in a straight line across the stage to his bed. He kept his head down as he watched his feet, stepping one foot directly in front of the other. Like a child trying to walk along a crack in the pavement. It’s such a small and insignificant thing really, but I had an ‘oh there you are’ moment with it. You spend five hours with these characters but occasionally an actor will do something that makes everything else fade away. The character stops being a character and becomes so real it gives me goosebumps. (This isn’t sounding right. They are all superb actors and you fully lose yourself in the story/characters every single time you watch it. But sometimes it’s so much more than that. They do something different and you completely forget that acting is even a thing. That you’re even sat in a theatre at all. The moment you’re seeing simply becomes this real person in the real setting. That wasn’t Mackley performing on stage to me, it was Albus in his room trying to delay packing.) But anyway, it was the perfect combination of innocent child and bored teenager. With Theo’s Albus, you know he’s already not in the mood for this scene. He’s already 100% done and upset before whatever is about to happen, happens. Mackley’s Albus wasn’t like that at all. He was bored and interestingly much more responsive than Sam and Theo’s Albus is whenever his siblings came into his room. It was all kinds of fascinating to then to see how they both go from their different starting points to angrily shouting at Harry. I absolutely loved how angry Mackley took this argument though. It reminded me a lot of Sam’s Albus. I’d missed this level of raw anger. Theo has been taking his Albus angrier and angrier and the way he hits Harry with the blanket these days is one of my favourite things. But Mackley, despite seeming absolutely tiny next to Jamie, got right up in Harry’s face and held his own. 

EDIT: Theo has since earned the title of ‘angriest Albus’ in this scene and it was well worth the wait. But I’ll write about this at some point because it does deserve to be acknowledged, explored, and celebrated. Yay!

During the quiz bit when Scorpius is sat down (or rather, Albus manhandles him and pushes him down), Albus was tapping on his knees and then went to full on holding onto his thighs. I mean, sure. Good. Carry on. Nothing to see here. Why am I even mentioning it???

Albus was rubbing Scorpius’s back as he spoke about his dislike of fish. I love it when Albus reacts like this here. Genuine concern. I’ve also missed writing these recaps so I could take this opportunity to once again ponder as to where his hatred of fish came from. I have theories, Samuel is apparently still thinking about it. (I like to think that’s not one of the weirdest questions about Scorpius he’s got at stage door but let’s face it, it’s probably high up there on the list.)

Act Two

Absolutely loved the ‘wizzo’ line. They did it as a sort of echo. (I was having Anthony ‘Hogwarts-warts-warts-warts’ flashbacks.) It was super fun to watch Mackley and Annabel interact by the way. You can tell they’ve been friends for a while now.

Albus and Scorpius had the nerdiest thumb/handshake thing. They held each others hand and then proceeded to play what looked like a thumb war. Dorks.

Albus said (or mouthed?) “that’s my uncle” when Lugo Bagman mentioned Charlie Weasley and that’s an A+ decision. This is why I love Mackley. He adds these things, these tiny almost inconsequential things, and yet they add even more depth to the character. Of course Albus is going to react to seeing these people. Albus loves his family and is very close with them. It must have been so weird (and cool) to see them younger.

What was great about the Jamie G and Mackley combination is that they both ate the chocolate in the hospital wing. I love this cast. They all seem to enjoy eating their props :’)

Act Three

Albus fell out of bed when Scorpius screamed his name to wake him up. Poor boy. He got back up and then literally flopped onto his bed and proceeded to lie there and recover from his ordeal. The fact that Scorpius wasn’t phased by this tells me it’s not out of the ordinary. Albus my dear boy, you need a nicer alarm clock.

The torture scene… alright, this is where I lost Albus. Briefly. One of my favourite things about Albus, one of his greatest traits, is his ability to use his pain to drive himself. It’s evident throughout the play and in particular, this scene. We see him crumble. Completely and utterly shatter. The pain and potential loss of Scorpius kills him quicker than an Avada Kedavra ever could. But he uses that pain to fight back. That’s what Albus does. He doesn’t give in. The boy is a Slytherin through and through, he’ll find a way to save Scorpius and stop Delphi on his own terms. So even though he’s breaking in this scene, what you’re really seeing his him going from strength to strength. But Mackley just… broke. He collapsed to the floor and cried and generally reacted how Sam and Theo have done, to be fair. But there was something about Mackley’s Albus that was too submissive to Delphi. I didn’t feel that strength from him that I expected. Instead of resisting Delphi in every which way, his Albus was on the floor and frantically nodding his head. He was as quick to say yes to Delphi as he was to say no. But Albus would never ever comply. He’d never see that as his only option. So his decision to nod here confused me. In hindsight, he was presumably playing along, hoping Delphi would believe him so that she would spare Scorpius anymore pain. But to me, it just didn’t feel like something Albus would do in that moment. Because agreeing to help Delphi isn’t going to stop her from hurting Scorpius. It’s only going to hurt more people. But then he doesn’t always seem to see the bigger picture when he’s controlled by his emotions... The only way I could make the whole thing work in my head is that Albus is simply acknowledging her request, rather than actually agreeing to it. I just can’t believe he would ever think he could successfully convince her. It had to be just a delaying tactic because they both know Scorpius is his weakness. He’d put himself in harms way before he lets anything happen to his best friend. I think his experience and his emotional state aren’t where they need to be for him to manipulate her back in that way either. Going off in another direction, it’s also interesting to compare this to how quickly Albus complies with his dad in the other timeline when he’s told to stay away from Scorpius. Because yes, he’s agreeing to something against his wishes but he’s doing it to save Scorpius and at a great pain to himself. Complying with Delphi isn’t going to save Scorpius. If anything, it’ll get him killed faster...

EDIT: I hear there’s been some mixed opinions on this. I haven’t read anyone else’s recaps (I rarely do until I’ve posted my own), but I find it super interesting how differently people seemed to have interpreted this. But hey, all our opinions and interpretations are valid. *Scorpius voice* If my adventures in this fandom have taught me anything, it’s taught me that.

Like I said, I never had the chance to write about act four (or finish act three properly) and it would be unfair to do so from memory now. Even though I have notes. So many notes. Mackley is the kind of actor who gives so much on stage that you can’t not write thousands of words about him. He’s that good, and if you’ve not seen the show then you’re probably not aware of that and it’s a crying shame. He’s a fluffy ball of energy and completely steals your attention whenever he’s on stage. Whether he’s playing Albus, or part of the ensemble and kissing pumpkins and telling the Beauxbatons ladies he loves them. Hell, even bringing on props ready for the next scene in the dark. You know it’s him. Nobody swishes their robes quite like Mackley. He’s electric on stage and you can tell he belongs up there. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the main seven but honestly, this show wouldn’t be what it is without the ensemble. It’s why he’s one understudy I would absolutely go out of my way to see again. 

I’ll end this with some general observations and some random points I apparently felt the need to make a note of during the intervals. It’s a jumbled mess. Sorry : /

I feel like the ‘dry humour and Albus-y’ line was written for Mackley’s Albus because the dry comedic tone in his voice was spot on. He definitely takes it to a level Sam and Theo have never reached. There were lines in there that had the audience laughing that I’ve never heard an audience laugh at before and it warmed my heart. It felt like the audience were seeing what Scorpius sees in his best friend. He has his troubles yes, but underneath all his daddy issues and dwindling self esteem, he’s a kid with a big heart and enough sarcasm to fill the lake twice over. Scorpius loves that about him. Harry loves that about him. I love that about him. To hear an audience get that and react so positively to him, just as much as they do with Scorpius every single show, was beautiful. I feel blessed, and I have no shame in telling you it brought tears to my eyes in the theatre.

On the same note, Samuel is also brilliant at getting the audience to laugh so as you can imagine, these two together were a riot together. I’ve never seen two actors so thoroughly enjoy being on stage. They had so much fun up there, particularly in part two, and it shone through in their performance. It was genuinely a fun experience and one of the most enjoyable shows I’ve had the pleasure to watch.

For example, Albus doing a silly slow motion walk towards Scorpius in Godric’s Hollow as Scorpius explained his ‘plan’. It was one of those silly little things best friends unconsciously do around each other because they’re comfortable letting themselves be themselves in the others presence. It tells us how much time they do spend together. How close they are. How fun and silly Albus can actually be when he’s not dealing with stuff. Or at least when Scorpius is around to distract him from it all temporarily. But that’s what I love about their relationship. They’re each other’s escape and safety net and gravity. They really do need each other.

*whispers* Can we also talk about how his feet didn’t fully touch the ground when he’s sat on the edge of his bed? Or how he managed to curl up onto the pew without looking squished? I know I love to exaggerate how tiny Albus is when I write about him but Mackley made all of my dreams come true.

Ron’s jumper is so big on him that he started to flap his sleeves after he’d been turned back into himself again. It was adorable. It also gave me Albus and his hand-me-down clothes feels. That bit was a little more painful.

Act Four Scene Fourteen was all robe swishes and funny voices. It was mayhem to the nth degree. If every day is like that then I can see why Scorpius loves school so much.

It’s easy to see Scorpius as a follower, it’s something else to see Albus as a leader. Mackley definitely has that pull over Scorpius. Not to a point where they’re unbalanced, but he’s a whirlwind. A force impossible to stop once he’s got something in his head. You can see how/why Scorpius caves so easily. Especially since Albus seems totally unaware of it all... mostly. Scorpius has a choice, he just chooses Albus.

He walked into Godric’s Hollow with the string from his hoodie in his mouth while he kicked the snow. Another reason why he’s the most believable fourteen year old Albus I’ve seen too. It seemed to come so natural to him. While Theo has perfected Albus’s heart and headspace, Mackley has got his headstrong petulant teenager side down to a T. His stance, his faces, his tone... despite being the oldest to play Albus, he easily comes across as the youngest.

There was just something so down to earth and effortless about his Albus that I loved. I wish I could put it into words. He was so natural in his performance that it didn’t even seem like a performance, you know? I particularly loved the delivery of his lines. There was something about it that even made me love the words/lines that have always felt a little odd to me. I sat there and thought, ‘oh! so that’s how it’s suppose to sound.’ (I’m wondering whether it’s an accent thing? I have theories.)

I’m going to end this with a conversation I overheard during the interval. There were two middle aged ladies in front of me in the toilet queue talking about Albus. One of them stopped the other mid-gushing over how brilliant the ‘young lad’ playing Albus was to inform her he was in fact the understudy. She couldn’t believe it. She said she got the impression he’d been playing Albus for a year and not just for the week. This only spurred her on and she continued to talk about his brilliance, probably until Act Two started. Needless to say, I was beaming like a proud idiot. Spending the rest of the months food money on a ticket just to see him was definitely a good decision. I can say this now, two months later, having lived through weeks of basic cheap food :’)

[tabloidtoc]

Globe, September 21

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: America’s new civil war caused by Trump 

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Antonio Banderas zips around his native Spain after recovering from coronavirus, Neil Sedaka, Brooke Shields on the phone in the Hamptons 

Page 3: Demi Lovato in a mask using her phone, Sofia Richie makes a splash at the beach, Arnold Schwarzenegger blows his nose while biking in Santa Monica 

Page 4: Goodfellas toughie Ray Liotta has been forced into wearing a hearing aid at the age of 65 -- a lifetime of firing weapons in screen roles and playing loudmouthed gangsters who scream and get screamed at has slowly eroded his hearing but his love life is sizzling with brunette stunner Jacy Nittolo 20 years his junior

Page 5: Brave Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman took shocking secrets to his grave and left behind a legacy of generosity when he died from colon cancer last month -- in addition to hiding his killer disease he also wed his longtime girlfriend Taylor Simone Ledward on the sly and he was also tight-lipped about his other relationships keeping his close friendships with Denzel Washington and Phylicia Rashad under wraps -- Chadwick fought Marvel before shooting Black Panther to make sure his character T’Challa was played with an African accent to reflect his heritage and culture when the big shots wanted an English or American accent, Amber Heard is at her wit’s end after learning Johnny Depp is ready to embroil her in yet another explosive legal case -- after giving lengthy testimony this summer in a London courtroom where Johnny was suing a British newspaper for labeling him a wife beater rattled Amber has been warned by her legal team that Johnny is coming after her in the U.S. whether or not he wins his London case -- Johnny has made a move to sue Amber for defamation in Virginia for writing a column about sexual violence against women and implying she was battered without mentioning his name -- Amber has been a mess and she believes Johnny’s doing this to grind her into the dirt 

Page 6: Angelina Jolie is seething over Brad Pitt’s romance with young German model Nicole Poturalski and she’s dead set on keeping their kids away from his latest squeeze and she feels her ex is flaunting his fling with the 27-year-old to deliberately aggravate her and she’s steamed about him bringing his married galpal to Chateau Miraval which is the former couple’s estate in France 

Page 7: Matthew Perry is tormented after being snubbed for the special reunion episode for The West Wing where his guest acting earned him two Emmy nominations and he’s hurt because West Wing really has a special place in his heart, Mariah Carey reveals she penned two songs about her former baseball player beau Derek Jeter -- her song The Roof was about her first smooch with the now-retired New York Yankee and her song My All was about jetting off to spend time with Derek who she credits with helping her get past her doomed marriage to music mogul Tommy Mottola 

Page 8: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are bickering because he’s being forced to miss his family’s traditional Balmoral Castle holiday -- while Harry is upset he won’t be spending time with his 94-year-old granny Queen Elizabeth his wife Meghan doesn’t feel like she’s missing out and she’s too busy decorating their new Montecito mansion and never wants to return to Britain

Page 9: Desperately hoping his son Prince Harry will come to his senses and return to the fold Prince Charles is still paying Harry and his wife Meghan Markle a $30,000 monthly allowance -- Charles and Harry have a very strong and close father-and-son relationship despite disagreeing over Harry’s move to the United States and Charles has made it clear that the door is always open

Page 11: Tom Cruise plunked down a whopping $675,000 to hire a cruise ship to house the cast and crew shooting his Mission: Impossible 7 in a bid to beat costly delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Peter Weller in L.A. (picture), This Is Us heartthrob Justin Hartley’s love life is like a soap opera story line involving a trio of daytime divas -- Justin’s first wife Lindsay Korman and mom to his teenage daughter is duking it out with wife No. 2 Chrishell Stause who trashed him on her reality show Selling Sunset after he texted her a divorce demand while meanwhile Justin is distracting himself with yet another soap star Sofia Pernas, it was a real-life high school horror story for Amelia Gray Hamlin daughter of RHOBH star Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin who had her mom trashed by two teachers resulting in her anorexia, Sherri Shepherd’s career went from getting a standing ovation after a guest spot on Friends to answering phones as a legal secretary for David Schwimmer’s dad, Sex and the City creator Candace Bushnell had a romantic dinner with John Corbett while he was dating Bo Derek 

Page 13: Tiffani Thiessen goes grocery shopping (picture), Placido Domingo performs in Italy at his first concert since contacting coronavirus (picture), Kevin Hart relaxes behind the wheel while pregnant wife Eniko pumps gas (picture), Macaulay Culkin is reminding everyone that age matters when he tweeted that he’s turning 40 

Page 14: Before he hit the jackpot with the British version of The Office Ricky Gervais and his longtime girlfriend lived above a brothel because they has absolutely no money, David Arquette is going to great lengths to revive his wrestling career for a new documentary called You Cannot Kill Me where he undergoes an excruciatingly painful wax job on particularly sensitive body part including his buttocks and in the film he strips stark naked for a spray tan and flashes viewers full-length shots of all his assets as he gets freshly orange-tinted skin blow-dried, Fashion Verdict -- Monica Bellucci 2/10, Kate Bosworth 7/10, Kristen Bell 8/10, Julianne Hough 9/10 

Page 16: Kate Winslet says she and co-star Saoirse Ronan decided to self-choreograph their racy lesbian sex scene in the film Ammonite, R. Kelly got a brutal beatdown from a fellow inmate in a Chicago lockup while he was asleep in his cell and a thug with F**k the Feds inked on his face stomped on Kelly’s head and tried to stab him with a pen because the attacker blamed the appearance of Kelly’s supporters outside the jail for triggering recent prison lockdowns 

Page 17: Tim McGraw and Faith Hill are on the road to Splitsville as they tussle over where to live their lives as empty nesters -- Faith wants to permanently relocate to California while Tim refuses to budge from Nashville -- their daughter Gracie is living in L.A. pursuing an acting career and Faith wants to follow suit even though she was panned for her work in the flop The Stepford Wives in 2004, Susan Schneider Williams the heartsick widow of tragic funnyman Robin Williams says she and her husband were told to sleep in separate beds as the ailing star struggled with insomnia in the years before his 2014 suicide 

Page 19: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Padma Lakshmi, Steve Carell ditched cult hit The Office after seven seasons in 2011 but he recently revealed shooting his farewell episode was emotional torture, Laurence Fishburne is out of The Matrix revealing he has not been invited to appear in the fourth installment of the blockbuster film series and although he won’t be rejoining stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss he admits sci-fi sage Morpheus is probably the role he’ll be best remembered for 

Page 21: True Crime 

Page 24: Cover Story -- Blood in the Streets 

Page 26: Health Report 

Page 36: The simmering feud between Madonna and Elton John has erupted into an all-out war with the vengeful Madonna gloating as tormented Elton wages a heart-rending legal battle with his ex-wife -- Madonna is thrilled over Elton’s agonizing court battle because she’s hated him since 2012 when he slammed her as a fairground stripper and called her tour a disaster -- Elton is in a painful brawl in a London court with his former spouse Renate Blauel who accused Elton of shaming her by forcing her into the limelight with his blabbing about their doomed romance in his recent memoir and bio-flick, Mel C claims she and her Spice Girls bandmates were never harassed by men in the music industry because dudes were petrified of the all-female pop group known for their Girl Power slogan 

Page 38: Real Life 

Page 44: Straight Talk -- screwball actor Jim Belushi has a really nutty solution to America’s homeless problems: he wants to stone them but not with rocks with pot 

Page 45: This Is Us star Chrissy Metz has finally gotten over her heartbreaking split from boyfriend Hal Rosenfeld two years ago and now is asking co-star Mandy Moore to help find her a new love, Toni Braxton has one big regret which is she wishes she’d partied hardier and had more sex during her younger years but she insists it’s not too late to add more notches to her belt 

Page 47: Hollywood Flashback -- Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in 1987′s Dirty Dancing, Bizarre But True