#I appreciate the magic not truly being a gender thing either (though many characters treat it that way)

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Once and Future Witches

Historical fantasy set in 1893

Three estranged sisters reunite after their abusive father’s death, and become involved in woman’s suffrage in the city - but find the group restrictive

they begin to research how to find the forgotten ways of witching to empower women, and stand up against the rise of anti-witch sentiments and a particularly powerful councilor running for mayor

magic based on stories and fairytales

lesbian, aroace-coded MCs

[priorireverte]

Congratulations Nat!

Your application for Lavender Brown has been accepted. My werewolf(?) flower child! Let’s focus on the trouble she’s going to get into and NOT how this is a day late.

Please look to the checklist for the next steps and reach out if you have any questions!

OUT OF CHARACTER

NAME & PRONOUNS: Nat, she series

AGE: Old enough to have played Neopets when it was considered a popular thing

TIMEZONE: EST

ACTIVITY LEVEL: Usually around 2-3 times a week. Sometimes more frequently. Sometimes I may be on once a week if my chronic illness decides to throw me for a loop.

ANYTHING ELSE: No triggers.

CHARACTER DETAILS

NAME: Lavender Brown

BIRTHDATE: April 27, 1980

DEATHDATE: May 2, 1998

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Female, she/her/hers, pansexual - openly

BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Gryffindor

OCCUPATION: N/A due to recently returning

FACECLAIM: Sydney Park

CHARACTER BACKGROUND

POSTBELLUM

Returning brought the news that Lavender’s father died several months after she did, leaving the Ministry with the option of handing her over to her mother. The woman is rather uneasy about the whole situation since she has no training in regards to what to do if the attack on her daughter results in the full moon affecting her.

Coping is confusing and has left Lavender rather anxious. The last thing she can recall was a searing pain in her neck and Fenrir Greyback being bent over her— the one face that truly haunts her memories. Having fought for what was right and just leaves Lavender with little regret toward the side she chose. After all, her father always encouraged her to follow her heart, and doing so meant not risking allowing the Dark Lord to take over. It will be a bit of a relief to know her death wasn’t for nothing (a big fear of hers includes discovering that their side lost) but the after-effects will haunt her waking moments.

Being attacked was certainly not how she imagined her life to end, with her returning focused on fretting about what will happen the first full moon she experiences. Her parents carried prejudices toward werewolves that she didn’t exactly support or question as a child past deciding she would come to a conclusion based on her own experiences. With Remus Lupin as the only werewolf she came across before the one that ended her life, she has some hope that things won’t be too unbearable. There’s just the matter of her mother making occasionally rude remarks and not wanting to spend long periods of time with her.

PERSONALITY

Before her passing, Lavender could be described as boisterous. She appreciated being the center of attention and was prone to being loud and behaving in ways that would get others to pay attention to her. Some would even go as far as describing her behavior as childish. It was merely a matter of getting the attention that her parents didn’t provide while growing up.

Although friendly, her personality had a way of grating on people. She had few friends and was grateful for the ones she kept throughout her time at Hogwarts. Reading situations is something she struggled with, often relying on Parvarti to keep her in check if she seemed too overbearing.

Divination was easily her favorite school subject, with care for magical creatures as a close second. She was rather clever, hiding behind the habit of playing dumb around her classmates.

Returning has left Lavender on the anxious side, feeling like people are paying extra attention to her because of the mystery around coming back from the particularly gruesome way she died. Falling from a balcony could have left her alive (damaged but alive). The attack from Fenrir, however, was too much to handle. Knowing he was what caused her to perish has her fearing the attention that is on her. There are too many unknowns and she feels as though the attention she is receiving is out of treating her as an experiment - not people being relieved to see her as one of the familiar faces among the returned.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY

Lavender is the only child of Isaac and Seraphina Brown. She was a welcomed addition to the family, with her parents doting on her during the first few years of her life. The novelty of having a child wore off once Lavender was old enough to have her own opinion. Her mother didn’t appreciate the attention-seeking ways of her child and kept the girl at a distance. Her father loved her but wasn’t overly affectionate, relying on material goods as a way of showing his feelings toward his child. She was rather spoiled but her childhood lacked the traditional warmth most parents provided their children with.

Although purebloods, the Browns did not officially pick a side during either war. Her father focused on the Ministry and managed to avoid being recruited by the death eaters. The main family values involved her father mentioning Lavender was destined for greatness that would be guided by her own decisions. He wanted her to have the confidence to think for herself and use her mistakes as learning experiences but did not have a constructive way of instilling those values that didn’t involve lecturing at his daughter.

HISTORY

Spoiled and lonely. The years leading up to going to Hogwarts were spent getting whatever she asked for from her father. It didn’t matter how expensive the item was or whether or not it was an appropriate item for her age. Although grateful the threat of tears served as a way of getting whatever she wanted, material goods did not make up for the emotional distance her parents used while raising her. The Browns were not overly social and Lavender spent her early life surrounded by books, dogs, the outdoors, and having minimal contact with other people.

Hogwarts was challenging since it meant meeting children her age. She didn’t know how to behave around others and struggled with understanding social norms during her first two years of school. The little guidance from her parents and peers made making friends hard but she did manage to befriend a few of the girls in her dormitory.

She was quite close with Parvarti Patil and the two were inseparable for most of Hogwarts — the teen serving as one of the first thoughts on her mind moments after coming through the veil.

Voldemort’s return was something Lavender didn’t immediately acknowledge. Her mother had made scathing remarks about Harry during the summer after the first bit of news spread about it and she went along with it in an attempt at getting attention from her mother. Peer pressure eventually led to her accepting Harry was telling the truth.

Lavender sided with Dumbledore’s Army and spent her last year of life being quite vocal about disliking the Death Eater’s interference at Hogwarts. She eventually took to hiding in the room of requirement since running her mouth was too risky and the castle had taken a rather dark turn.

OOC EXPLORATION

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

Ugh. I would never - how dare you even suggest I enjoy this group enough to take on two characters, let alone three. I said the third would be a calm muse and here we are with the dice gods deciding the possibility of postmortem lycanthropy means chill.

Anyway, oof. Let me see the chaos of returning after being attacked by a werewolf and the uncertainty of not knowing if Fenrir did enough damage to have caused her to become one. (Emmy side note of we’ll need to further discuss this since I’m fine with either her getting a few wolf-ish traits from the attack or her returned life getting the hiccup of transforming on the full moon :|)

I would love to see Fenrir come into play and know that is rather wishful thinking but he could prove to be an interesting addition.

I’m mostly wanting to further explore Lavender’s character traits. I feel like J.K. Rowling deliberately made her annoying and gave her few reasons for readers to forgive her for her personality/basically went “wow loud girl that giggles too much and is emotional. Let’s keep her development  at that.” Returning would mean those overly obnoxious traits being a little muted since she no longer likes the idea of all eyes being on her.

ANYTHING ELSE?

Mock blog: https://lavlavbrown.tumblr.com/

[hoodlessmads]

I’m Caught Up With Bloom Into You

Gosh, where do I even begin with this series?

I watched the first episode, and by the end, honestly, I thought it was going to be pretty dumb. Cute! But dumb. And I do love me some dumb cute precious romance.

But W O W that’s not what Yagakimi is. It successfully pulls of an excellent bait-and-switch on the reader/viewer not just once but twice--the first is at the end of the first episode (the part where I assumed it was going to be kind of cheesy and dumb), and the second around halfway through the anime series. The first one is basically the premise of the story, so it doesn’t really count as a bait-and-switch unless you go in blind like I did. But the second one takes all of the reader/viewer’s expectations up to that point and turns it on its head. And even beyond that scene, the entire series is chock full of moments that demolish your expectations for what direction the story is taking and who the characters are. Every single chapter I felt like I was being thrown for a loop, and learning something unexpected and new about the characters. Even up to the most recent damn chapter I feel like I have no idea what Nakatani-sensei is going to throw at us. And all of this is me making a point that this manga is DEEP.

I could talk at length about how gorgeous the anime is, how well-directed certain scenes are, how incredible the Japanese voice acting was (didn’t see the dub, but if anyone can carry Touko’s emotional range it’s the fabulous Luci Christian so I’m sure it’s decent), or how much I stan Michiru Ooshima. It was a great adaptation and I sincerely can’t wait for Season 2. But I’m not going to talk much about that. Instead I just need to talk about the story (the manga).

(spoilers up through Chapter 39)

You know what one of the many great things about Yagakimi is? In spite of the fact that it deals with same-gender relationships and queer issues, and while it does periodically address those issues, they’re actually not the primary focus of the characters or their struggles. From day one, Yuu is much less concerned about Touko being a girl than she is about her own inability to feel anything towards her (supposedly). And that’s not to say that those issues are ignored, like they are in some anime of this particular genre. The characters don’t live in a paradisiacal vacuum where being gay in Japan isn’t a problem and everyone around them is magically super accepting. Yuu’s sister is incredibly sweet and accepting (I love her), but her dad makes casual homophobic comments. Even after Touko initially confesses to Yuu, Yuu brushes it off as something she “probably doesn’t have to worry about” because they’re both girls, and it’s weird. Riko Hakazaki has to hide from her students, coworkers, and workplace, that she’s living with her girlfriend, because it could cause legitimate problems for her if they knew. During Sayaka’s first lesbian relationship, when she is still figuring herself out, her own girlfriend tells her that it’s “just a phase” and that she’s sorry that she “made her” that way. Even much later, when Yuu is conflicted about how she should confess her feelings to Touko, her sister Rei immediately assumes (understandably so) that she’s conflicted because of the whole gay thing. Rei starts worrying about how the family will react, if they will be accepting and supportive of her sister. Little does she know, being gay is the least of Yuu’s problems at that point.

But is being gay and the societal backlash that comes with it really that inconsequential to Yuu’s story? Yuu Koito struggles to develop romantic or sexual feelings for anyone. She exhibits clear signs of depression--intense apathy, emotional repression, struggles to find genuine joy in anything. A lot of people have posited even that she exhibits signs of sexual repression specifically. And this is one of the core conversations we can have about Yuu’s character. How much of her “inability to love” is because she is legitimately somewhere on the ace spectrum, perhaps demisexual (she develops feelings after getting to know someone, to put it simply)? And how much of it is her unconsciously repressing her own feelings (perhaps homosexual) for her entire life, resulting in a scenario where even she doesn’t know how to get them back? There isn’t a clear answer here. No one knows. Yuu doesn’t even know. And that’s the point!

The characters. Are so. Good. Yuu, Touko, and Sayaka are the obvious powerhouses here, all three of them multi-layered people that I can and will analyze at length. But Yagakimi doesn’t sleep on the minor characters either. Yuu and Touko don’t exist in a vacuum. From Yuu’s sister and her boyfriend to Maki, the juxtaposing aromantic and asexual friend and ally, to Yuu’s surprisingly likable best friends, to Hakozaki-sensei and her girlfriend Miyako, to even Dojima. Everyone matters. Everyone gets their own little storyline. I’m tempted to be reminded of Kimi ni Todoke and the brilliant way it handled its side characters here. Although Bloom Into You is much shorter than KnT, and therefore has a lot less time to develop those side characters and relationships, it still provides them with their own layers, their own problems, their own mini-spotlights. And it makes me care about every single one. Riko and Miyako’s cute ass and wholesome adult love story, Akari’s dumb doomed crush on basketball senpai, Koyomi’s dreams of becoming an author and her infatuation with a certain idol of hers, Maki’s experiences as a contented bystander. I adore and welcome it.

Let’s talk about Touko Nanami before this gets any longer than it needs to be. To be honest, I have a type when it comes to characters, and it’s the ones that are suicidal and hate themselves, probably because I relate to that stuff more than anything (though I also relate to Yuu’s apathetic brand of depression). This character. This character. One of the things I love most about her is how consistently the reader is lured into thinking they know her, and then consistently proven wrong. (I think we share this experience with Yuu.) It takes episodes, chapters, volumes to slowly chip away at the layers and layers of personality we’re given before we finally arrive at the truly heartbreaking core, which is a girl with a fractured identity and deep, deep self-loathing that defies all logic. And it’s because it defies all logic that it’s so scary. Because that kind of self-hatred doesn’t just go away. You can’t just fix it. It’s there to stay, and it’s not just your friendly neighborhood self-hatred--painful, but an otherwise harmless roommate. It’s actually dangerous, and it has the power to destroy Touko’s relationships with others and even destroy herself. (The scene in the anime where she stands in front of the railroad tracks and almost takes a step forward, thus nearly giving me a heart attack, comes to mind.) It defies logic, so there’s no logical way to beat it, either. And it’s not just the self-loathing that gets me and makes my heart hurt for her; it’s the loss of oneself, the lack of one’s identity as an individual. The loss of on’s own sense of self, especially at such a young and vulnerable age, is debilitating. Touko is really good at wearing that super serene smile, but when the chips are down, nothing is going to stand in the way of her and what essentially amounts to obliterating herself from existence. Not even Yuu. And then we come to her crippling fear of being loved by anyone, which is an aspect of self-hatred that probably doesn’t get enough acknowledgment. She hates herself to the point that the thought of someone loving her, which should make her happy, actually hurts. How fucked is that.

But I never gave Touko enough credit. To be honest, in chapter 34 when Yuu (finally) confesses, I was expecting her reaction to be really bad. Like, really bad. I was expecting a shitshow, a blowout of their relationship (temporarily of course). I was expecting basically what Yuu thinks that she got. And for that one page, I swear I felt my heart forcibly ripped from my chest. But then I read the next page and was surprised to see just how much she’s changed over the course of the series, how unexpectedly maturely she took the confession and examined her own feelings afterwards, how quickly (and once again, maturely) she deduced that she’d been making Yuu suffer. It makes me appreciate their relationship even more than I did before, and it makes me want to root for them. (Not that I wasn’t already.) The chapters just keep getting better and better from here on, I swear.

Sayaka deserves her own post, but the queen has her own novel series at least. Sayaka could SO EASILY have been that bitch. Nakatani could have created this rival love interest who treated Yuu like shit and was a possessive asshole and just stopped there. But instead, we got Sayaka, who ends up being one of the best and most well-developed characters. And in the many many times where I was calling Yuu and Touko “you dumb bitch,” Sayaka was there, the smartest and most honest of the three by far, which was refreshing. Her backstory is utterly heartbreaking, her love for Touko touching as hell, and her rise from the ashes, so to speak, is inspiring. Fuck that senpai. Sayaka isn’t even that mean to Yuu, on top of it all. I mean, she can be kind of snippy. And understandably so. But they actually end up surprisingly getting along? I am shook to my core. Sayaka’s growth is one of the greatest sights to behold in this series. Her friendship with Touko isn’t sidelined in favor of Touko’s relationship with Yuu--far from it. Sayaka provides her own unique support and sparks Touko’s development in a way that Yuu never could. Their friendship is crucial. By the time Sayaka FINALLY confesses, I was so god damn proud of her and her bravery, I swear I could have cried. While Yuu was busy being in practiced denial for 40 chapters, Sayaka was OUT THERE learning to be completely up front and honest with herself and others about her feelings. (Not to knock on Yuu, because she has her own arc to go through to get there.) That whole fucking scene where they’re both just sobbing about shit afterwards Got Me.

Ugh. It’s been an emotional few days. I’m really glad I decided to start watching that first episode, because this entire series has been a series of pleasant surprises. This is a good anime, ya’ll. It’s a good character study. It’s a good love story. It’s a good gay love story. It’s all of those things. You could literally talk forever about all the nuances of this story and characters and all the things that make it as good as it is. This long ass post just brushes the surface. For now, I’m anxiously (ANXIOUSLY) awaiting chapter 40. If you know, you know.

[livvywrites]

15 for 15

Tagged by @quartzses​. Thank you~ I adore being tagged in games! ^^ 

Rules: Answer fifteen random questions, in either your character’s voice or your own.

Okay, you know I gotta do one of my babies. Picking which one was kind of hard, so if anyone wants to tag me again I’m down ;)  I decided to do Alinora, from The Martyr Queen.  

I picked these questions randomly (using a random number generator) from Arthur Aron’s Intimacy Quiz. I skipped any two character questions, though! 

I wrote this akin to an interview, as if someone was asking her these questions, and recording not just her verbal responses, but her gestures/body language as well. 

1. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s? 

“My mother and I weren’t... close, per se. But our relationship was good regardless. She loved me, and I loved her--and both of us knew it. We said it, often. We shared meals together, spent time together a lot when I was young, though a bit less as I got older, and she got busier. I looked up to her, and I knew that she was proud of me, even if I felt I could never measure up.

“My sister, though, was claimed as a Slaeyr when I was five. She joined one of their nomadic tribes to learn how to control her new powers. She kept in sporadic contact with my mother for a while, before cutting out. She never did write me, even when I was old enough to appreciate it.

“Altogether, though, my childhood was happy. I had a loving mother. While I do not know my biological father, I had a mentor who acted as one. He and I were close. I had two close friends--one of whom I fell in love with, and was eventually engaged to.” Alinora shrugs. “I have a lot of good memories growing up. Not a lot of bad ones. So I suppose, yes, my childhood was happier than most people’s. Idyllic, even.” 

2. Before making a telephone call, do you rehearse what you are going to say? Why? 

“I do. It helps me feel more confident. I hate stuttering, saying the wrong thing, being at a loss for words. Perhaps it comes from being groomed for the life of a queen. Politics can be a dangerous game if you don’t know exactly what to say, and when.” 

3. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

“I...” Alinora pauses. “The last time I sang to myself... I do not know. It was before the attack on my home. I sang often, then, though not oft in front of company. Usually as I was completing a task, particularly one that was repetitive. As for singing to someone else... I sang to Liera... or what I thought was Liera... the night before I found out that my homeland had fallen.” She falls into a pensive silence, before the next question shakes her out of it.

4. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be? 

Alinora hums in thought, the pensive mood from before not quite gone. “The ability to use magic would be a boon. Everyone in Eldora is capable of it--everyone but me. It makes getting around difficult, often. I can nullify it, sure, but even that advantage doesn’t outweigh the rest of it. However, I’m told that this ability is what will allow me to kill Kai’os, so perhaps I do not want to get rid of it just yet. 

“Though this question does speak of gaining one... not losing it. So perhaps, in this theoretical world, I could have both?

“Ah. I’m probably taking this too seriously...”

5. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know? (*)

Alinora is silent for a long moment. “I... would want to know if my loved ones, my mother and my fiancee, if they were happy. Wherever they were now. If there is truly a better place, as the stories say.”

6. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about? 

“The death of any loved ones. Well, any sort of death joke, really. It’s a very serious matter that deserves respect,” Alinora says firmly. “I would also say that any insecurities are serious, and deserve to be treated with respect. If you make the joke yourself, that’s one thing. But no one else has that right. Race, sexuality, gender... those, too, can be sensitive subjects.”

7. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you? 

“Hmmm. I suppose I should probably not count a day where I get to kill Kai’os, mm? Perfect a day as that might be, it’s a bit unattainable right now. Though I, and my newfound allies, are working on it.

“A perfect day... I’d wake up early, eat, get some training done. Take care of whatever business needs to be had. I wouldn’t remember the attack on my homeland, nor experience any heightened anxiety. I would be left alone, for the most part. Except when I chose to reach out. No one would bug me about my eating habits, or lack of. No one would pester me with uncomfortable questions. It would be... nice. Quiet. Uneventful, mostly. I’d sleep, and I wouldn’t dream.”

8. Do you have a secret hunch on how you’ll die?

“In a battle. Perhaps even the one against Kai’os. He is very powerful, after all, and I am... not. I’ve trained, extensively. But I am not nearly as old or experienced as he is.”

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

Alinora laughs, a sharp bitter sound. “I suppose the opportunity to avenge my loved ones. The fact that I am central to this operation, this mission. I am grateful for that. I am grateful for my training. For being taken in, when my mentor had every reason to turn me out. For my position among the Swans.”

10. What roles do love and affection play in your life? 

“I guess you could say love is what drives me. It was the love that I held--that I hold--for my people, particularly those lost, that kept me going. I knew that I needed to live for them, so that I could ensure that what happened to them would never happen again. 

“Beyond that... I am not sure that love and affection play any role in my life. I do not think I can let them.” 

11. Of all the people in your family, who’s death would you find the most disturbing? Why?

Alinora lets out that sharp, bitter laugh again. “I have one family member left. By default, I suppose, it would be her. Yet, up until recently, I already thought she was dead.” She shakes her head. “Her death would be disturbing. I would mourn her. I would mourn the relationship we never got to have, or repair. But if you had asked me this ten years ago, I would have said my mother.” She smiles wryly. “We see how that turned out, don’t we?” 

12. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be? 

Alinora thinks. “I cannot think of anything in particular to complain about. Perhaps I would have spent more time with my mother. Perhaps I would have spent more time with the Sage. Explored my lack of powers more, asked more about it. Maybe I would have learned about my nullification ability earlier.” She shrugs.

13. What do you value in a friendship?

Alinora hums. “I don’t have many friends these days. By choice, before anyone goes making sympathetic noises. But, when I did have friends, I valued humor. People who laughed, often. I can be serious. Maybe too serious. Having people around me that could make me laugh, could laugh themselves... It was nice.

“I also valued compassion. I have no taste for those who treat others like their dirt, or who do not see the benefit in helping others. I valued honesty. Loyalty. I liked people who could fill my silences, or who didn’t mind sitting in them with me.” She opens her mouth, as if to continue--then stops, shutting down abruptly, as if she had said too much, or was about to. 

14. When did you last cry in front of someone? By yourself?

“I wake up crying almost every night, after being plagued by terrible nightmares.” Alinora waves it off. It’s nonchalant, almost, except for the way her shoulders have tensed and her face has closed off. “The last time I cried in front of someone... Oh. I don’t recall. Perhaps it was the day I lost my home. Perhaps my mentor walked in on me, one of those nightmare nights. Perhaps his friend, or his friend’s apprentices did. I don’t know if I was crying any of those times, or there were more I didn’t wake up for. I don’t particularly care.”

(But she does. You can tell.) 

15. What is your most terrible memory?

Alinora’s face darkens. “The day I returned to Mynera to find it taken from out beneath us. The day I found out my beloved was replaced by a shifter---before we even left.” Her eyes burn. “The day I found out that so many of those I loved were gone. And I hadn’t even noticed.” 

* This question is entertaining to me, because in one of my original drafts/outlines, I had Alinora find out about her immunity to Fate’s Loom by looking in a pool of water said to tell you your future. She saw nothing. Not even her reflection, which ultimately made her think she didn’t have a future. It’s still a scene I like a lot, but I don’t think it’ll make it into the final draft. Or even this draft. 

I tag: @apvtelesma; @queenie-dragon; @marniebalboa; @vieliwrites; and anyone else who wants to do this~ (Also, if you enjoy tag games or don’t, let me know and I’ll be sure to tag you or not depending on your preference!) 

[xen-lovegood]

Headcanons

Xen’s crowning achievement of their Hogwarts years is sabotaging the Slytherin Quidditch team. It wasn’t about winning a game or the house points—Xen couldn’t care less about Quidditch really and the house tournament always seemed rather trivial to them. No, the Slytherin team was being rather awful to a group of first year Hufflepuff girls and someone had to put an end to it. So right before the Slytherin/Gryffindor game, Xeno may have enchanted all their brooms to give them all a horrible case of jock itch.

When Xeno wasn’t trying to sneak into the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library or wondering off into the Forbidden Forest, you could usually find them at the lake. It was a nice relaxing place and a good place to get high without the professors catching you. There was, of course, also the giant squid. Xen named him Sqedward and tried desperately to train him. Much to Xen’s dismay, the squid never did listen, no matter what they tried, and their dreams of riding the great beast as Muggles do dolphins at Sea World were thwarted.

Xeno isn’t sure how to feel about all the violence Aversio has been using lately. They’re not much prone to violence themselves and tend to take less traditional approaches when push comes to shove (see above). They don’t necessarily support just how violent the group is being, but they know something needs to be done given the state of the wizarding world and their Muggle relations. Sure, it’s nice the Order exists, but just talking about making change isn’t enough. You have to do something for anything to happen. Maybe Aversio’s path isn’t the right one, but it’s the best path available at the current time, so he’s going to take it.

Xeno has an extremely deep love of New Scamander. They think he’s absolutely brilliant. Living a life searching out and findings and treating and fighting for and writing about magical creatures, it just sounds like an absolute dream. Xen’s copy of Fantastic Beasts long ago had to be enchanted so the pages wouldn’t fall apart from wear and there’s paragraphs of notes scribbled into the margins. If they cared less about trying to make a difference for humans, they would almost certainly become a magizoologist, but there’s far too much work to be done getting humans to care about each other before trying to get them to care for creatures. Not that that puts any damper on Xen’s love of all things animal, vegetable, and mineral and his extraordinary adoration of his hero. The day Luna brought home a Scamader was damn near the proudest day of his whole life.

(Note: I saw you guys have a profession list and picked on that feels the most fitting for a young Xeno. I’m more than open to adjusting to fit your views/group needs for job positions.) Xeno currently works at the Daily Prophet. Sure, it’s corrupt and what they’re printing is hardly the truth, but Xen is convinced they’ll be able to change it from the inside out if only they try hard enough. They thought if they joined the Prophet they’d be able to print articles to change minds and change the ideals of the paper’s staff. So far it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere though. Most of his articles wind up getting cut out of the paper and the editor is scolding him more than publishing him. It’s starting to get frustrating, but they’re still holding out hope to make a difference. (The Quibbler will still be founded at a later date when Xen can no longer deny that they aren’t making any impact at the Prophet. Or possibly the Quibbler is founded as an Aversio propaganda paper that either uses Xen’s eccentric interests as a way to send veiled/coded messages to members or it just simply morphs into something entirely different as the war winds down and after Pandora’s death becoming the zany brain child seen in the books.)

Xenophilius sends Howlers quite frequently to anyone in the select group they consider friends. They’re not angry, no, of course not, that’s just now who he is. But there’s just something about a talking/screaming message that simply conveys things written letters can’t. Hand written messages just aren’t…dramatic emphatic enough.

More often than not, when writing Xen tends to dictate out loud to an enchanted quill while pacing around the room and keeping their hands busy.

Xen is a lover of accessories and is rarely without at least half a dozen rings between their two hands.

Xeno is a babbler. Bring up any topic he’s half interested in with anyone willing to even half pretend to be half listening and he’ll babble on endlessly about most anything. Their speech patters tend to involve long drawn out sentences that can be a bit hard to follow.

A few quick facts about their family: Their dad is a wizard while their mum is a muggle. Their father isn’t entirely supportive of their (for the time) progressive gender and sexual identities—the older Lovegood doesn’t necessarily scorn it or treat their child poorly, but he just doesn’t get it. Xen is an only child.

He brought a toad with him for his years at Hogwarts named Wartly. He talks to him a lot and even created a miniature, functional piano for the little guy to enjoy, fully infuriating most all of the Ravenclaw house as the toad would “play” at all hours of the night and Xen did absolutely nothing to “restrict the creature’s right to freedom of expression.”

Two brief headcanons about Xen as an adult that likely won’t have an impact on game play but I can’t shake:

Xen often calls his wife Panda Bear and his daughter his Little Moon

Xen’s knowns about the Deathly Hallows for quite some time, but the reason he carries so much information about them in Harry’s time is because of Pandora. After her death, Xenophilus poured himself into a way to bring back the love of his life. He’s still certain the only thing that could bring her back. He never managed it and maybe that’s for the best, but his knowledge of the Hallows comes down to his longing to bring back Panda.

Connections: 

(These are a few ideas for connections, all pending approval of the characters’ respective players and naturally his connections aren’t limited to these, but it’s a jumping off point and a look into how he relates to others)

Marlene—Marlene and Xen easily go back to their early Hogwarts days. She’s one of his best friends and one of few that can fully stomach everything that is the complexity of Xenophilius Lovegood. She’s a pub buddy and his go to for someone to smoke with. No one makes them smile and laugh quite the way Marlene can—even if they both spend just as much time rolling their eyes at one another.

The Black Family—The Black Family as a whole is just…distasteful to Xeno. They’re the perfect portrait of everything wrong in the wizarding community. They can’t stand them. Even Sirius, who’s long been a member of the Order and Aversio, Xen can’t quite bring themselves to fully trust—can someone truly disconnect so completely from a family so deeply tainted? The Blacks are violent and bigoted power hungry. Despite his typically warm personality, he’s often notably cold to the Black family and their backwards ways.

Rita—A fellow wizarding journalist, Xen and Rita have always been in the same circles. It doesn’t make them friends though. They have very different world views. She’s the kind who is actually published by the Prophet—though really he can’t see why as so many of her article are full of half-truths and exaggerations. Xeno is always trying to get her to write something good. Something worth her time. Something valuable and positive. It hasn’t worked thus far, so for the time being they’re really just rivals at best.

Arthur—Arthur Weasley is something of a treasure to Xen. They both have immense loves for things that no one else can quite fully appreciate. And sure, they don’t always have interest in the same sorts of things, but there is something nice about finding someone how loves loving things the way you do. The two can sit and babble on for hours, neither really saying anything relating to what the other’s just said and neither really minding because at least someone is finally listening to them.

Sybill—Sybill is so free and strange, just like himself and honestly, Xeno loves it. They always feel free to be unabashedly weird with her and it’s rather freeing. They’ve tried time and time again to get her to teach him divination. And she’s tried, she really has, but every time he fails to see anything of the future, he just tells her he’s failed to teach him properly rather than accept the fact that he’ll never have the affinity she does.

Lucius—Few people really truly get under Xenophilius’s skin quite the way Lucius does. He’s just so smug and so self-important and so sure he’s better than absolutely everyone when the reality is, he’s not. ‘Men’ who act like they are men, like they are more than what they are, when really, push comes to shove, they are nothing, are an utter frustration to Xeno. They’re very, very tempted to put him in his place and at some point, they just may. Someone needs to.

[monstrousthingsrp]

This is the Mod Nicky’s application for Luna Lovegood. 

OOC Details

Name: Nicky

Pronouns: she/her

Activity Level: Medium: higher on weekends than during the beginning of the week due to work schedule, although I work retail so that can sometimes vary. I ought to be able to manage at least one response nearly every day however, and hopefully several on most days.

Other: I would appreciate it if people could tag references to dead or injured pets, particularly cats and those that are feline in nature (e.g. kneazles). It’s not a trigger, more of a squick; I would just prefer to have some warning if I’m going to encounter the subject. Thanks Otherwise, I am up for all the things, and the weirder the idea the better – so don’t be shy about throwing me curveballs! ! 

General IC Details

Name: Luna Pandora Lovegood (called “Loony Lovegood” by those who find her interrogation techniques unsettling; called “daddy’s girl” and similarly insulting comments by those who resent her rapid promotion and think it smacks more of nepotism than competence)

Age: 24 (born Feb 13, 1981)

Gender/Pronouns: SHE/HER – her parents raised her without a big focus on gender roles (or any other social expectations, except that she learn to question everything) and while these days Luna leans toward the female end of the spectrum, she isn’t sure she lands all the way at the end; there’s something about most witches that strikes her as more overtly gendered than how she feels when she thinks about herself. Maybe she’s just a late bloomer and hasn’t grown into “womanhood” yet – or maybe she’s fine inching a little bit closer to the middle. (demi-girl)

Desired Changes: none

Please describe the character’s education experience:

The Royal Academy of Unnatural Education, of course – where else would the daughter of two such prominent members of the Ministry of Magical Regulation have gone to school? Of course, she didn’t exactly excel there… TRAUE is very big on putting its pupils into boxes and Luna has never been a person who’s easy to box. Even just getting her to focus can be difficult, cooperative though she tries to be; she’s prone to distractions and tangents and more than one teacher probably entertained themselves with fantasies of strangling or smothering or just simply duct-tapping her mouth to shut her up while she was in their classes. Luna isn’t just the sort of girl who would ask questions at inopportune times: she was the sort to ask weird questions. And worst, the level to how much they could ignore her and her nonsensical comments was limited; after all, between running the R&D Department and heading the Interrogation Department, her parents aren’t people it’s wise to cross. So her teachers had no choice but to put up with her…and, possibly, pass her when her grades didn’t really merit it. Not because she’s stupid, because she isn’t – but she doesn’t have the kind of intellect that blossoms in the face of standardized education and regimented homework. Still, she made it through TRAUE with her nature intact (probably because she spent more time daydreaming than she did listening to her instructors) and she learned enough from her parents, and her own experimentation, that any holes left in the education that TRAUE failed to give her are easily vaulted…albeit sometimes in some truly idiosyncratic ways.

Job/Role:

It was clear from an early age that Luna was suited to follow in her parents’ footsteps, although most bets would have placed her on her mother’s experimental path rather than her father’s; anyone as idiosyncratically curious as Luna, people assumed, ought to go into a line of work where she could tear-apart and reassemble and distill and recombine and wait to see what blows up and what doesn’t. What such assumptions fail to take into account is that her father does that too, he just does it with people instead of with spells and potions. And while Luna enjoys playing around with spells and potions, people are stranger. Once you’ve performed the same experiment ten or twenty times you aren’t likely to be surprised by the minutely-differing results anymore, and that’s mostly what experimentation is: repeating the same process over and over with tiny differences to see what happens. When you’re pulling a person’s secrets apart, you don’t have to retread the same ground a dozen times in search of reproducible results. You just get to ask, and listen to the answer, and ask again – immediately.

So Luna went into the Department of Unnatural Interrogation and Information Gathering and quickly proved herself a gifted agent both in gathering information and in…well, in gathering information by taking it from other people. The program she’s in, as a journeyman agent (no longer a junior—a fast promotion for someone her age, but one based more on skill than nepotism believe it or not), she alternates between three days a week working inside the department’s offices as a questioner and analyst and two working the streets of London as an observer and listener. Of course in many ways, Luna is never really off-duty anyway. She’s a good listener by nature, good at getting people to talk about themselves and their problems and their hopes and their fears. Mostly she does this just by caring about the answers—so many people don’t; when they’re in a conversation often they’re really just waiting until it’s their turn to speak again, but Luna listens. And when just being a curious and nonjudgmental ear fails, well, there are lots of fun little techniques that the Department of Unnatural Interrogation and Information Gathering has perfected over the years for encouraging people to talk. Luna is good at those, too. It’s not that she takes any pleasure in hurting people; she just doesn’t mind doing what’s necessary in order to pursue information. All information should be free and shared freely and anyone who isn’t doing that—well, they’re doing wrong, and must be enticed to do right. Whether they want to or not.

Character Traits:

+ CURIOUS she wants to know everything and anything and treats all knowledge as worthy, regardless of social stigma or potential embarrassment; she has no qualms about either, not for herself or for others and she’ll follow a question anywhere, even into danger

+ BRAVE because what is there to fear, really? Everything that happens is a new experience, which means that everything is a learning experience. Sometimes what you learn about hurts, true – but you’re still learning something. Why be afraid of that?

+ INSIGHTFUL if she were a kinder person it might be called empathy, but while she’s good at understanding what people think and feel she just uses that understanding to learn more, and the more she understands the more precisely she can calibrate her questions…or the pain that ensures she’s going to get her answers

- CALLOUS when there’s a question she wants an answer to she’ll follow any path to get it, no matter that the cost is along the way or how much pain and suffering it causes

- DISTRACTED easily and repeatedly. Getting Luna to focus on one thing is hard not because she lacks patience but because it’s easy for a new idea to supersede the old before it’s finished

- GULLIBLE sometimes a mind can be too open and in Luna’s case, her readiness to believe anything means that sometimes she ends up treating falsehoods like facts; it’s her biggest pitfall as an interrogator, because while she’s good at getting answers she isn’t as good at weighing their worthiness because to her, all answers are good ones as long as they’re interesting

OOC Questions

List three aspects of the character or world that that caught your interest.

The fact that Luna Lovegood is evil. That was the biggest selling point on this whole idea for me, honestly – because it’s such an impossible idea. Out of all the characters in the whole series, Luna is probably the only one who is truly wholly good. Everybody else has, as Sirius might say, both good and bad inside them but while Luna has flaws to be sure – she doesn’t have a single drop of bad in her whole body. I have a tendency to invent AUs in my head just for fun, and Luna is pretty much the only character that I could never come up with a realistic way to turn evil and I never expected to find a game where she was one of the bad guys (not and have her role there be believable, anyway) but this Luna has so many traits in common with her canon version – and yet, she manages to be bad! It’s so exciting!

I also like that, unlike most twists on the blood-supremacy idea, this one does more than just reverse the idea of pure-vs-muggle-blood; it swirls the whole thing up. You’ve got pure-bloods and half-breeds on the same side because they’ve both got magical blood, and in this world that bonds people. “Purity” has nothing to do with it, but it’s not like the idea of magic-vs-nonmagical-blood has gone away; that’s what the whole premise hinges on, but in such a unique way! I like that the old biases are basically moot, but the problems that stem from those divisions aren’t; just shoved into new shapes and allegiances. I like that there are wix out there who play-up the Muggle side of their heritage “to look cooler,” but at the same time there are other wix who are so desperate to cling to magic that they’ll cling to any magic – even the kind of “impure” stuff their ancestors would have scoffed at.

Finally I really like that the premise isn’t as simple as wix-vs-muggles, or bloodsupremacists-vs-mugglelovers, or Death-Eaters-vs-Order-members, or any of the other straightforward conflicts that we’ve all enjoyed playing around with over the years. Everything’s a little more muddled here, and that’s fun. The sides that different characters are on seem more about the circumstance of their experiences than their birth; it’s all a little more open. Anyone can be a “bad guy” or a “good guy” and honestly – the lines are drawn vaguely enough that you can feasibly have “good guys” and “bad guys” on both sides. Working for the Ministry – following the expected status quo, doing your duty for queen and country, giving back to your community, etc – doesn’t necessarily make someone a villain, while fighting back as a member of the magical underground isn’t necessarily going to absolve someone of doing terrible things. It’s all twisty and nuanced and layered and I love it!

What is your dream plot?

The idea of Dark!Luna is a delight to me, so mainly my “dream plot” is just to play with that concept – to have her interact with people like Harry and Dean and Ginny and so-on in ways that are both eerily reminiscent of, and yet very very different from, their interactions in canon. She’s still the dreamy-eyed, nonjudgmental girl we know from the books…but her laid-back open-mindedness has been replaced by a (bloody) thirst for knowledge and answers. I especially want to explore what it’s like to have Luna for a friend in this world; I genuinely don’t think she really views people as enemies, even here, so much as people who are opposed to giving her information and who must thus be coerced. But they aren’t enemies. They’re just causing problems. No need to be angry at them for it; just twist that knife harder and everything will be all right!

(“Oh hi! Dean right? Yes I remember you from when my mum was experimenting on you! Gosh your tattoos look great now, did you do some of those yourself? Yes? How lovely! May I have a closer look at the one on your hand? Oh that’s very nice, yes…is something wrong? Why are looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?”)

(“Oh no Ginny, I don’t think daddy took any offense when you trashed his office. Honestly, he didn’t have it very well organized to being with; daddy’s not big on organization. I think that annoys your brother Percy a little, have you noticed? Oh, did you want this table? Yes, of course, let me just get out of the way so you can throw it through the wall, that’s fine. Now I was wondering, would you like to go and get something to eat? When you’re done with the angry destruction, I mean – no hurry.”)

(“Oh Harry, Harry wait up! That man you brought in today was very interesting. He had all sorts of things to say about the nature of magic – what? Oh no, no he was telling the truth, he isn’t a wizard at all. What? No, no I don’t think daddy is mad that you wasted department time by arresting him. He was very interesting to talk to, didn’t I say that? Especially once we burned the soles of his feet, he was very talkative then. He told me all about the pigeon surveillance network he runs and how the ravens are in the middle of a civil war over whether or not to admit smaller corvids to their congress and…oh, you’re in a hurry? Well all right, we’ll talk later…”)

I’d also be interested in seeing Luna be on the other end of the interrogation scenario at some point – because I feel like she’d be a unique case, in that keeping secrets isn’t really her thing…and neither is holding a grudge because someone hurt her (especially here, where she knows they’re just doing their job – it’s usually her job, so she understands how it goes! no hard feelings). She’d probably be unnervingly cheerful and forthcoming about the whole thing, potential torture and drugging and mind-compulsion magic and all.

For the game overall, obviously specific plots will depend foremost on which characters are taken-up and what their players are in the mood for. But since this isn’t a game that has a big endgame goal in mind (win the war! kill the dark lord! etc) it’s a good place to explore more intimate character moments and fluid interaction developments. To that end, I hope for plots involving things like: what the hell are Luna’s parents up to now, and how do the people working with them feel about x, y, and z? and what’s the line between a freedom fighter and a terrorist anyway? and if you stoop to their level aren’t you just as bad as they are? and what is the value of human rights in a two-tiered society? and is your dislike of magic really rooted in the potential threat it carries, or are you just blindly regurgitating two-thousand-year-old myths without engaging your brain? and what’s the value of an innocent bystander?

Specific plot possibilities that seem interesting: let’s break into the Ministry! and let’s stage a heist of Gringotts I mean what’s the status of Diagon Alley anyway? and full moon carnival at the Caravan what fun! and the neutral ground of a half-repaired burned-out old bombshelter is the perfect place for a meet-cute! Oh, I meant a negotiation and prisoner exchange…or did I? and salvage run to the ruins of Hogsmede, oh wait why is something in the forest moving and why is it so BIG?

[supified]

A long winded introduction

Who am I and why should you care?  To say that I’m a nobody is a pretty big understatement.  There are over seven billion people in the world and everyone is a perfect snowflake.  And when everyone is a snowflake no one is.  Clearly, I’m not important in the grand scheme of things and yet, you’re reading this.  That is the only thing I can be sure of is if someone is reading this than they’re reading this.  So why should you care?

 The first thing about this blog that I ought to make clear is what the point is.  This is a blog entirely built around reviewing and discussing the craft of writing and story books.  I am not an author, at least not when I wrote this, but I do read a lot of books and try to help other people filter through the endless mass of books to find the ones they will enjoy.  Think of it as a service I provide for the satisfaction of sharing my passion.  If you’re reading this blog then you should be interested in either my point of view on books or reading books yourself at the very least and maybe writing, although there are probably better blogs for that.  Probably better blogs for all of this.

 Now to the million-dollar question still unanswered, why should you care who I am. What books someone enjoys will depend on several factors and quality is only one.  The fact is a very high-quality book may yet still be unenjoyable to you specifically as determined by your taste.  I can go into what I think makes a book quality and for the sake of argument, let’s pretend I’m right.  Does that mean you will enjoy the book…? Not necessarily.  Taste matters.  Take any genre and there is going to be master works in those genres and people who won’t enjoy them.  I for one do not enjoy the romance genre at all, or the regency, so books like Jane Austin, who is unquestionably a master writer, wouldn’t particularly interest me. While my reviews are aimed to express my point of view while exposing the lens I view it through to help anyone reading them to know if they share my point of view and may enjoy the same sorts of things I do.  The fact remains my lens and point of view matters if you are reading my review.  It matters because without knowing what that lens is you won’t know if the view you are getting is distorted to your taste. It’s kind of like eyeglasses that way I guess.

 That isn’t to say a good reviewer who likes stuff you do not won’t be useful. I will express why I dislike something or like it and then if you’re already reading my review you might be able to say, huh, they didn’t like that but I like that in books so maybe this book is for me even.  I have a friend who loves romance for instance, and she doesn’t particularly mind if a book sub plots to include it.  She’ll enjoy stuff I won’t and I try to keep that sort of thing in mind when I critique a book.  So if I’m going to include that explanation, why then again should you care who I am? Well because if a book is Jane Austin, whom I recognize as good but not down my alley I simply won’t read it to begin with.  So that is why it matters who I am.

 Now that I’ve got that out of the way, who am I?  Well, I’m not actually going to tell you that.  Rather I’m going to tell you what I like and appreciate and look for in literature.  This is where you put your taste against mine.  First, I like female inclusion if not female protagonists.  Media is over whelmed with male leads and male oriented stories. Most fiction, games, movies, tv, ect. . will include this magic number of thirty percent or less female inclusion. Just count the characters and you’ll see it is this bizarre trend that for whatever reason goes across lines, even cultures.  It is like all content creators got together and agreed on this in advance.  Obviously, it isn’t -all- media, but it is very pervasive. So one thing about me is I try to find the stuff that doesn’t follow that.  For me to want to read something I will generally look for fifty percent or greater female inclusion (because to make up for all the times the opposite was true we need to head in the other direction).

 Second, I care a lot about stories telling the truth.  What is telling the truth?  In a nutshell, it means an action or event shouldn’t happen that doesn’t fit the world that the story already established or character motivations.  Dues ex Machina (hand of god) are great examples.  When the author forces an outcome and it just doesn’t fit this sort of thing bothers me and I will always attempt to call them out. Why this bothers me is because to put it simply it isn’t any fun to read about something with shifting rules.  You can’t speculate about the world if there are no criteria with which to speculate on and if the author demonstrates willingness to break rules they themselves set then there is a problem.  Examples might include having a character cliff hanging involve falling into deep water in full armor and somehow swimming to escape anyway.  If you don’t want your character to die, don’t put them in a situation they can’t escape, it cheapens the experience and the story.  

 Third I care a lot about guiding principal.  I realize story telling is an art and not a science really, but I think everything should be built on something.  If you are designing anything you should have a purpose in mind and stories are no different.  Sub plots are a great example of a violation of this, something tossed into the story that doesn’t belong or have anything to do with what the story is about.  The most common subplot is romance, many stories will include this for the sake of a quick fix for the reader, like taking a drug. Instant gratification may sell, but it rarely makes for quality.  I find sub plots to be distractions and often detracting from a story.  Since this is the third thing on my list I’ll also mention these are in order of importance to me.  Generally, I’m more willing to forgive something farther down on the list than earlier.  Rules are made to be broken, right?  Just make sure if you’re breaking them you know what you’re doing because if you just think rules don’t apply to you than you’re probably just a bad writer.

 Lastly, I prefer there to be modern elements to the story, like LGBT awareness. This isn’t to say everyone in every world has to be gay or what have you.  No, this is more a comment on the author themselves.  If the author is homophobic I probably won’t read their stuff. If their work simply doesn’t touch the subject, okay, but I would rather that in some ways it is at least acknowledged. Once again, this doesn’t have to be by making a character non-het norm, tokenization can be worse than exclusion, but for instance same sex characters should be able to have meaningful friendships with each other.  For me the LGBT issue goes beyond simple sexual preference but it goes into gender identity and comfort with members of the gender which someone is not attracted to. A great example of being anti-lgbt in my view is if a character only truly interacts with potential partners and ignores everyone else and treats same sex characters purely as romantic rivals. In those hyper het-norm settings I find my interest quickly wanes.

 So now in a nutshell you know what kind of books I’ll be considering.  The last thing to touch on is genre.  The only one I don’t particularly like is romance. Why don’t I like the romance genre? Mostly because I feel it focuses a little too heavily on one aspect of human nature.  Stories usually exclude description of the main character when they shower.  Most people shower every day, see themselves naked every day.. ect.  These things are not parts of stories, why?  Well one it doesn’t usually have anything to do with the guiding principal, but two it’s just gratuitous.  I feel many or maybe most romance novels to be gratuitous. There is probably lots of good ones in the genre, but I’m not prepared to dig through the others.  It is unlikely I will review many, if any, romance novels.

 Now that you have a feel for me, you can keep reading my blog, or you know, not.  Also, my reviews are available on Amazon.  I try to review everything I read, though the stuff that is already reviewed to death I may just skip.  Happy reading!