#actually to tell you the truth I think Willow is the most similar to how I was at that age

[mdhwrites]

My Thoughts on Willow

I FINALLY FIGURED OUT WHICH ASK I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED! I was clearing out the Luz ones and accidentally deleted this one which was NOT something I wanted to do. And for all you Willow haters out there, I have news for you! I... don’t hate Willow. I think she’s a fine, likable character. It’s just a shame she barely is one. So this is actually one of my oldest ‘hot takes’ about the show. Willow actually has always been a weakness of the show for me. A character who I recognize as likable but gets under my skin because trying to say what their personality is feels impossible to me. There’s a theoretical base, question mark, but even that is... rocky. But let’s actually get into it. Willow’s biggest weakness as a character is that she isn’t treated as one. For the show, she is a living plot device. She is able to do anything the writers need her to do at any given time. Does she need to be confident and strong to finish an episode? Teenage and Abomination and Moving Hassle. Does she need to be meek and out of the way so Luz or others can do their thing? Winging it Like Witches and... Why doesn’t she tell Luz “No, you’re still banned, Gus is lying to you,” when she clearly believes it’s very wrong what Gus is doing? This goes for her strength too. Even back in S1, you could not explain how Lilith beats Willow in Agony of a Witch. Willow, strongest witch Luz knows, master of vines, using a hyper plant relic, grabs Lilith’s staff... And then is literally, physically, thrown to the side without the use of magic. How does that happen? Why did it happen there? Because... It would have gotten in the way of what they wanted to do. And that’s not the job of plot devices. This is true in S2 as well btw. Gus and Willow’s strength in Clouds on the Horizon fluctuates DRASTICALLY depending on how much power the show needs or wants them to have at any given time. It’s genuinely obnoxious if you care at all about these characters. Buuuut the writers don’t. It’s harder to explain with Gus and I think I’d have to make a blog to really sort my feelings out (though it just hit me how every Gus episode also features him getting emotionally closer to a male character so Gus may be given the illusion of care for more LGBTQ+ representation) but with Willow it’s easy. What they care about is Amity and Hunter. This isn’t a new take AT ALL, let alone for me. Understanding Willow is a flat out lie of an episode title. We learn pretty much nothing new about Willow... But a lot new about Amity’s past. Winging it Like Witches is actually similar. Not only is she genuinely no longer worried about the bullying happening to her, which is just dumb, she genuinely does NOTHING in that episode. Except, you know, the thing Luz did to give it a cool finale. Again, confident and strong to finish an episode. Meanwhile, what’s much more memorable in that episode is stuff like Amity’s story and her constant gay panic. And this truth only got WORSE in S2. She literally does NOTHING for half the season... Because Amity is beyond her now (despite the plot hook of their friendship needing to be repaired). She can be just a good person and doesn’t need Willow to show or tell us that she’s a good person. So until Hunter can come to Hexide, Willow doesn’t have a purpose to the show. And that’s why Sport in a Storm is when she finally does get to show up again. With, mind you, another thing tacked onto her. This is also a sign that she’s a plot device. After all, normally plots focused on a character focus on established traits, skill sets, etc. like that. Every single one of Willow’s episodes, minus S3, tack something onto her. Hooty’s Moving Hassle is the closest to not because it’s about her strength (done so poorly, most of the fandom didn’t realize it was resolved then) but it also tacks on that Amity and Willow were friends and that part is given more or at least equal importance to her magic issues. Understanding Willow tacks on “Out of sight, out of mind” despite that never having been true about her before now. Winging it Like Witches tacks on SUDDEN POPULARITY BECAUSE OF PLANT MAGIC! You know... at a magic school... with a track dedicated to plant magic... And Sport in a Storm tacks on Flyer Derby so she has something to do with Hunter. Because the writers seem to have such little concept of who Willow is that if they don’t tack on something, they don’t know what to do with her or have others do with her. And of course, Sport in a Storm is hardly a Willow episode anyways. It’s a Hunter episode with Willow just being there to further? his character arc. Reminder: Hunter’s arc is a mess. Which means Willow, for literally two seasons, exists SOLELY for other character’s development. And anyone who says “Labyrinth Runners” needs to seriously ask themselves if anything Amity and Willow did in that episode was remotely satisfying. They just filled time and also it was about Willow’s STRENGTH. Which of literally anything, Amity should have been able to have noticed by now because EVERYTHING Willow does in the show is about how strong she is. Her main asset to the show is her plant magic. Which is a rough spot to be in as a character. The last thing I want to comment on with Willow is that... I think Dana must hate the “Shy plant girl” trope with a passion. Because that’s where Willow starts and then just stops being that after Teenage Abomination. But also narratively, she still has to meek at times to allow others to do their thing which would work better if she, you know... were actually shy. But she REALLY isn’t. She might back down over a small thing but she gets annoyed, she speaks up, she fights, she is on the front line on most things, etc. like that. S3 tries to claim she’s someone who just shuts up but the show supports her speaking out and against things (remember, she did the pointless rallying of the Isles for Eda’s safety at the end of S1, a moment that is so against the Isle’s character that I’m almost happy S2 contradicted it immediately. Almost.) as it does her deciding to back down. Because again, plot device. It’s... It’s a lot and it’s a problem because what I said at the beginning is still true. I don’t hate Willow. What she does well consistently is be likable. She has the strongest moral compass, cares about people the most consistently and never really does anything wrong besides when the writing tells her she can’t act on those main elements of hers. It creates a very passive character who feels like they should be doing more. And if they were shy, that feeling would back off because they also have traits that explain a more passive perception of the world. But I just don’t know if there was ever a plan with Willow. Ever a real character there or if they were like “We need Luz to have an in to Hexide so she can get with Amity but it can’t be Amity. What do we do?” “I don’t know... Maybe she could sneak in as a student’s abomination?” “Oh! And Amity can get upset at her because that means an abomination was better than hers! Allowing her need to be the best to be shown and even allowing some out of character CRAZY EYES!” “Yeah!” And so even Willow’s introduction... At least can be painted very easily as having been mostly useful... for Amity.

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I Thought About "Escaping Expulsion" From The Owl House

Salutations random people on the internet who most likely won’t read this. I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

Do you wanna know what I love the most about The Owl House? The writers waste no time getting to the good stuff.

Things like Willow working things out with Amity, Lumity, Lilith's redemption, and Luz's fight with Belos are stuff that most shows would drag out and wait upon using until several seasons down the line. Most of them for the final season. And yet, it all happens in the first! The writers somehow knew what the fans exactly wanted and gave them just that before they even had to ask.

Take "Escaping Expulsion," for example, as it has some great plot points and ideas I thought would happen later in the season and maybe even near the end. But it's only episode TWO of the new season, and I'm appreciative of it for that reason alone.

But explaining the good stuff this episode delivers requires spoilers, so if you haven't watched the episode yet (even though you definitely have at this point), I recommend that you do so. Now let's review, shall we?

WHAT I LIKED

Blight Industries: Huh. I'll be the first to admit: I would have never expected that the main reason why the Blights are rich is because of their technological advancements. Large in part of how the Boiling Isles is a fantasy world, and rarely do you see technology taking place in a setting such as that. Still, points for total expectation subversion added with some pretty cool tech, I might add.

Odalia Blight: It's nice to put a face to the name I've grown to hate with a fiery passion. Now I can update my dartboard!

But to tell you the truth, it feels weird saying I like someone so vile. I mean, the woman is a manipulative, smarmy b-word who nearly killed Luz. Anybody who does that last part deserves to go on my s**t list! I despise her with the same fiery passion I've had since "Understanding Willow" premiered...and it's that reason why I like her.

Because here's the thing: Characters and people are two different things. If Odalia existed in real life, she better hope that I never meet her. But as a character whose purpose is to have the audience hate her, she succeeds with flying colors. It's the same reason why I consider it unfair to hate an episode like "Something Ventured and Someone Framed" because Mattholomule exists. I get it but understand that hating him is his purpose. It's the same with Odalia. I love her, but only because I love to hate her.

Alador Blight: Wow. I guess Alador really is the lesser of two evils.

By the way, keep in mind that I said "lesser of two evils" and not "the nice one." I don't care how adorable it is to see him get distracted by a butterfly. He's still an abusive figure who stood aside as Luz fought for her life against the Abomitron and still goes along with Odalia's plans despite how heinous they are. And whenever I remember how he treated Amity in "Understanding Willow" as well--

Also, don't make him neurodivergent so he can seem redeemable. It is painfully obvious that he is just exhausted after hours of toiling away in his lab working on his inventions to the point that his brain is beyond fried.

Now, seeing that I've dismissed the argument about how Alador is the nice one, let's actually talk about his character. Because I can see what Dana Terrace meant when she said that he's interesting. He's not explicitly as awful as Odalia, as he mostly seems to be in his own little world half the time. Despite that, Alador still shows signs of being just as dismissive of Amity in general. You see this as he focuses on how her strength shows signs of Amity being a potential coven leader instead of noticing how his daughter nearly died to his own invention. Alador doesn't manipulate, but he doesn't love his daughter in a way a father should either. I'm very intrigued by this route for his character, and I can't wait to see what is done next with him.

Amity’s Amulet: My heart sank when I realized the true purpose behind Amity's amulet. The thought that Odalia found a way to literally be in Amity's head at all times...I hate that. I mean, I love it because it's A+ storytelling and symbolism, BUT I F**KING HATE IT!

Amity in General: And seeing how we're already talking about Amity, let's dive into the fact that "Escaping Expulsion" is easily her best outing so far in the series. I say this because it really puts to the test Amity's dedication to being a part of the group. You can tell by her expressions and Mae Whitman's performance that Amity so desperately wants to help her friends, but she can't due to being afraid of her mother's wrath. Which doesn't surprise me, given what we know about Odalia so far. But what does surprise me is that Amity stands up to Odalia in this very same episode. I expected it for sure, but most likely at the end of the season, due to most shows dragging out a similar concept for drama's sake. However, as I said, the writers don't waste time giving the fans what they want. So, yeah, Amity defies her mother in the very same episode we're officially introduced to her. And it's totally believable, as Amity has been fighting her parent's control ever since Luz literally showed her the light after "Covention" (click here if you don't believe me). It's yet another impressive showcase of Amity's character development and how she's leagues ahead of other redeemable characters who would go through five more episodes like this before getting to the point.

Luz in General: But enough about Amity. For now, let's talk about the actual best character of the series!

Just like Amity, Luz is on top form in "Escaping Expulsion." She is quick to call 'applesauce' about Odalia and Alador expelling the Hex-Squad and is smart enough to figure out the deal Odalia is worming her way into making. Several people classify Luz as stupid, and while she definitely leaps before she looks at times, this episode proves that Luz isn't going to fall for the sweet talk that someone like Odalia offers. As reckless as she can be, Luz is still intelligent enough to know what someone like Odalia wants and cuts to the chase despite knowing the woman can't be trusted. Still, Luz going through with the deal anyways is fantastic character work for her as it shows her dedication to the people she cares about. It hurts my heart to see Luz get all beat up from Alador's inventions, but her willingness to put up with it for her friends is an act of service I wouldn't have expected from anyone else. "Escaping Expulsion" may be more centered around Amity, but it still proves why Luz earns her spot for one of my favorite characters.

Learning How Glyphs Work: Another solid aspect of The Owl House is that the writers find brilliant ways for world-building and explaining the rules of the Boiling Isles. Take this episode's b-plot, for instance. Eda and Lilith need to learn how to do Luz's version of magic, so having an entire section of the episode dedicated to them figuring it out is a perfect outlet to explain how glyphs work in the first place. Although, I have some tribulations with this subplot that I'll get into with the dislikes. But I still consider this a brilliant workaround to explain glyphs, even if specific executions could be handled better.

The Fairy Pie: Not only is this well-crafted dark humor, and not only is it adorable as hell, but it also shows how Amity has calmed down with her feelings toward Luz. She still blushes when handing over the fairy pie, but it is certainly more subdued in comparison to "Wing it Like Witches." I like to think the time off from her (and our) favorite weirdo helped cool down those emotions a bit, but that doesn't mean she won't get slightly flustered every now and again. Because as much as I adore seeing cool and collective, I'm still very much a fan of Disaster Amity due to how cute it is.

Principle Bump: "This character is underappreciated!"

"That character doesn't get enough love!"

YOU WANNA KNOW WHO'S UNDERAPPRECIATED AND DOESN'T GET ENOUGH LOVE?! PRINCIPAL GOSH DANG BUMP, THAT'S WHO!

So many kids' shows focus on how educators are the bad guy who treats students poorly because they love seeing children suffer. But that's not Bump! Sure, he made a misstep in "The First Day," but for the most part, he really cares for his students and hopes that they work hard to be their better selves. So when he's forced to send Luz, Gus, and Willow away, he's genuinely saddened by it to the point where he breaks down crying! On top of being wholesome, Bump missing his students is another example that a character shouldn't be written as evil just because they run a school. Sure, there are scumbag teachers and principals out there, but for others, they're a lot like Bump: People who show admiration and respect to their students rather than ridicule because a principle "just doesn't get it." And I appreciate Bump all the more for it.

Gus and Willow: It feels weird that these two basically got sidelined, especially since they have a stake in the plot as well, but it's understandable. "Escaping Expulsion" is clearly more Amity-centered, and with Luz being the main character, it would also be odd if she didn't get more of the focus than her friends. Having them do more would have been great, but what they've already accomplished is pretty decent anyway. They show how much they're on the same page as Luz when trying to figure out a way to sneak back into Hexide, Willow is still the best voice of reason when saying no one will be killed through their plans, and Gus wins the comedic highlights in the episode. While I would have loved that they did more, I'm perfectly fine with what we got. Besides, this is only episode two of Season Two. We got nineteen more episodes to go to focus on these two.

King: Ok, now, this is the version of King I like to see. A character that mocks Eda as if they're equals and acts as a reluctant voice of reason. This episode shows King more at his best and is a major step above what we've seen in "Separate Tides."

Lilith: ...Yeah, f**k it. I like Lilith.

Personally, I would have preferred seeing her dragged through the coals at least a few episodes, but that's judging the show for what I want. Not what it is. And as is...It's fine. Lilith has a great dynamic with the rest of the Owl House, it's honestly adorable seeing her refer to Luz as a teacher, and that scene where she makes presents out of ice for Hooty is all kinds of wholesome. I'd say your enjoyment of Lilith highly depends on how forgiving you are, and if you think her splitting the curse is enough of a gesture, you probably won't mind her as much. The execution of her redemption really could have used more time in the oven, but Lilith is still a decent character regardless, so what's to complain about.

Luz Making the Abomination Have a Cat Face: ...Luz...I f**king missed you.

DON'T EVER LEAVE FOR THAT LONG AGAIN!

(Also, I just love that this is all Amity needed to know Luz was in trouble)

Hop Pop Cameo: He's on the cover of one of the books Willow's dad lifts up. Which is extra cute given how Dana Terrace and Matt Braley (creator of Amphibia) are close friends in real life.

Willow’s Dad Pretending Not to See Anything: One single action defines the type of man this guy is. He's the fun and understanding dad!

Gus, Willow, and Amity Arguing How to Break In: This little quarrel just shows how much these three need Luz. Without someone to keep the peace and bring up compromises, these idiots would have just kept arguing all night.

In addition to that, this clash over ideas acts as a showcase for who these characters are. Willow is careful and smart, so she's going for the option more unlikely to get them caught. Amity is brash and to the point, so she's going for the route that gets them inside as soon as possible. And then there's Gus, who's young and naive, so his plan sounds like something out of a cartoon. The odds of any of these plans working are highly debatable, but seeing these characters with clashing personalities and ideas is a ton of fun to watch regardless.

Edric and Emira Helping: There's not much to add here. It's just another sweet scene that makes me so glad that the writers decided to make Ed and Em more like supporting characters than minor antagonists like "Lost in Language" made fans think they would be.

(Amity throwing the "Hex me" signs back at Edric is just the cherry on top).

“Stay away from my Luz!”: ...What the f**k do you want me to say that? It's f**king perfect!

Luz Catching Feelings for Amity: ...Huh. Neat.

...

...Alright, let's move on.

Luz Wanting to Take a Nap After--Yeah, I can't do it. Not even for the joke.

WAH-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO! MU! TU! AL! PINING! AH-HAHAHA!

THIS! This is more of that good s**t I'm talking about! Due to being so used to other shows going for the slow burn when writing the endgame romance, I was expecting Luz to catch feelings halfway through the season, even at the end of it. But near the beginning?! That is something I am more than ok with!

And much like Amity standing up to her parents in this episode, Luz catching feelings this early on is totally believable. Many fans have already analyzed how Luz's love language is "Acts of Service," which I'm somewhat sure is romantic gestures. Meaning that I f**king challenge you to find a grander gesture than holding back a literal killing machine while swooping down like a knight in shining armor! Oh, wait, you can't. BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY!

But by far, the best--the BEST--thing that can come from this is the dramatic irony! We, the audience, know that Luz and Amity like each other, but they don't. So the constant failings as these two fools try to work out their romantic feelings for one another is something I cannot wait to see in all its glory.

This is one of the best things that could have come out of the episode, and while it doesn't mean Lumity is canon, it is definitely closer than ever before. And I'm excited about all of it!

Luz Wanting to Take a Nap After Getting Home: I adore this because there's no one way that this can be interpreted. Either it's because Luz is exhausted after nearly getting killed for the fifteenth time that month, or it's because Luz is overwhelmed about having a crush on Amity...or both. Most likely both.

Belos Wanting The Abomatrons: Wow, what an ominous ending to the episode! I'm sure it won't come into play at all in the future...The season finale is going to hurt, isn't it?

WHAT I DISLIKED

Gus’ Growth Spurt: I mean...that's just weird. Gus suddenly being almost as tall as the others is a change so jarring that I feel like an explanation other than "witch puberty" is required. I get that they wanted to explain away why Issac Ryan Brown's voice got deep this season, 'cause puberty's a b**ch. But sometimes I feel like it's best to just ignore it, like with how Phineas and Ferb or Steven Universe just goes along with the fact that VAs tend to grow up when the characters themselves remain ageless.

Eda is Kinda Stupid in this One: It's not just me, right? Because I feel like Eda is more careful in the past than she is in this episode. She's been as reckless as Luz is at times, sure, but carelessly screwing around with magic when she has no idea how it works? I can maybe see King doing that, but not Eda. Just seeing her act dumber than usual is something that doesn't sit right with me.

Lilith Explaining Her Glyph Magic: I don't mind this. Glyph magic is pretty confusing, so having Lilith explain how it works to Eda and the audience is something I can understand. My issue, however, lies in how they did this.

Why, in the name of all that is holy, would Lilith explain her theory after the fact. It would be much more natural if she explained while saving King, but doing it after comes across as more forced than it should. Which is a shame because this series is usually on point when explaining how things work in the Boiling Isles.

And...That's about all the complaints I have with this episode. Which are nothing but nitpicks and possibly personal preferences.

IN CONCLUSION

If I'm willing to forgive and forget, I would give "Escaping Expulsion" a well-earned A+. But I'm not, so it's going to be another solid A. And, I mean, if you complain about that...there's something wrong with you.

"Escaping Expulsion" delivers on quite a bit of what fans want to see on top of giving these great character moments that show why we love these casts of oddballs and weirdos. I wouldn't say it reached perfection, but it still carries the winning streak that this new season has so far. Meaning there's no escaping the fact that Season Two is off to a better start than the first.

(Although, the fact that we got two solid As in a row means that we're in for a stinker real soon, doesn't it?)

[tarhalindur]

Rebellion’s Biggest Outstanding Question

(Big fat PMMM+Rebellion spoilers under the cut, natch:)

Homura, at the end of Rebellion, believes that she is rebelling against Madoka’s will.  But is she actually doing so?  Or is she acting in accordance with it?

Let me explain.

I’ll start with the point I’m sold on either way (and have commented on at least twice before, including my explanation of Madoka’s other big mistake): Rebellion is directly downstream of Madoka making a single mistake immediately after her ascension in episode 12, a moment when she could not afford to make any mistake at all.  Much like Madoka’s other big mistake in episode 10, this one is not obvious on the surface and only becomes clear when looking at the events through a symbolic lens.

Specifically, a Buddhist symbolic lens.

I’ll leave the full explanation there to this post, which lays out the Buddhist influence on base PMMM’s themes and imagery and on Madokami’s ascension better than I could.  (Although its author is missing a few points.  First, the shot of Madoka expanding to galaxy size is DIRECTLY out of ego death symbolism.  Which makes sense, because there’s enough accounts to suggest that regardless of whether or not it has any deeper meaning beyond brain chemistry the people who’ve had it are describing a single class of subjective experience, and “one’s consciousness expanding to the size of the galaxy” seems to be a common feature of it - I’ve read at least one account of that kind of experience from, of all people, a random Protestant minister who claims to have had such an experience on a vision trip to the Amazon and only later realized that there was precedent for that kind of experience in Buddhist traditions, and he mentions that exact expansion as part of what he went through.  Second, the flower on Madoka’s bow is a rose, not a willow... which makes sense, because “Guanyin/Kannon and the Virgin Mary are two aspects of the same goddess” has been a theory in certain parts for at least a century, and the rose has a traditional association with the latter goddess - there’s a reason they call it the rosary, after all.  (I’ve seen speculation out of a few polytheist/less orthodox Christian circles I keep tabs on that Pistis Sophia is yet another aspect of the same goddess, too...)  Third, note all the mandala symbolism floating around - most obviously Walpurgisnacht’s appearance and Kyubey’s exposition in episode 11.)

And that influence is important here, because part of the process of the escape from samsara is the breaking of all karmic ties to the world.

Except... Madoka does not do this.  She leaves one karmic tie behind.

This one, to be precise:

Now, in theory it’s possible that the tainted miracle of Homura remembering Madoka has another root.  But I have my doubts, and the biggest piece of evidence there is the OST: the track that plays when Homura meets Junko in the finale and offers to give up the ribbons is named Taenia Memoriae, aka “the ribbon of memories”.  HMM,

(That Junko scene is in this regards the single most enigmatic scene of the main series finale to me.  My instinct is that it’s drawing off of Christian mythos again, either canonical or Gnostic, but I can’t quite place what piece; I kind of want to compare it specifically to the Denial of Peter.)

Now, there’s two other pieces here that are worth noting.

1) While Homulilly is described as the Nutcracker Witch in Rebellion, Homulilly’s name and Witch card are first revealed in the PSP game, and there she goes by a rather different epithet: Witch of the Mortal World, nature is karma.  Which is rather on the nose (the Mortal World [shigan] being another term for samsara), but then that’s probably by design - main series PMMM is not subtle at all when it wants to make a point.  And it is this epithet, not the Nutcracker Witch, that the Doppel versions of Homulilly in MagiReco draw off of, which suggests the staff considered it important.  (There’s a second distinction in the latter, because Moemura’s version of the Doppel implies that Homulilly’s nature was originally slightly different again - Witch of the Mortal World, nature is closed circuits - but I think for our purposes here this is a difference without true distinction, much like the Witch of the Near Shore pun for swimsuit!Moemura’s version of Homulilly.)  And there’s echoes of this even in Rebellion: the Clara Dolls are of course referred to as the Children of the Mortal World, plus of course the obvious “Homulilly’s Rebellion barrier as the Mortal World” take.  (Which, hmm.  Hello second-order symbolism - Homura failing to “break out of the egg” as failure to escape the cycle of samsara.)

2) The red ribbons of course suggest a very specific form of karmic tie - the Red String of Fate.  And you can be very, very sure that the staff intended that, too.  To drag a certain piece of key animation back out from storage:

While it’s hard to tell at this size, it sure looks to my eyes like the two ends are specifically tied around the girls’ pinkies.  You know, exactly where the proverbial Red String is said to be tied.

Or, to put it another way: AI YO.

Everything in Rebellion is downstream of this.

But all this is prologue.  Now that we have established the mistake, we can address the actual outstanding question: Did Madoka intend to make that mistake?  People have noted the applicability of Junko’s comments about intentionally making a big mistake when backed into a corner to Homura’s actions in Rebellion; do they also apply to the action Madoka took that led to that?

I am not sure.  Both cases are consistent, and I’d put about even odds either way.  But it’s the affirmative case I want to lay out here, to show that it does in fact exist:

- Let’s start with the one point someone else might bring up that I don’t really weight: Madoka’s final conversation with Homura in the flower bed.  This one, I think, can mostly be discarded.  We have word from both Kyubey and Sayaka that Madoka does not have her memories here; I can’t see both of them lying here.  (Also remember that Kyubey seems to have restriction that is sometimes said to apply to demons, at least under certain circumstances: he cannot directly tell a lie.  This is of course a very different thing from having to tell the truth, as episode 9 alone is enough to attest, but in this specific case it’s a boost to his credibility.)  If there’s an actual argument here, it’s a second-order one; it is possible, especially given her divine abilities, that Madokami was running a Xanatos Gambit and counting on her amnesiac projection to unwittingly relay her true feelings.  (In which case I would have to grab a certain infamous line from another well-known anime: “Just as planned”.)

- That one shot of Madokami’s gloved, scarred arm reaching down through the window to touch Homura.  Operative word scarred.  (And honestly, looking at one of the subs for that scene again Madoka’s comments there look potentially consistent with her actually supporting of or at least accepting Homura becoming a demon...)

- Mata Ashita, specifically the lyrics thereof.  With the perspective of the full series, Madoka’s character song is fairly clearly from the perspective of Madokami, and it’s suggestive that she is not entirely happy with the results of her wish and ascension.

- The fact that Rebellion happened at all.  There’s a complaint that I’ve seen regarding the mechanics of the Incubators’ plot in Rebellion: logically, by the wording of Madoka’s final wish the Incubators’ plan to use the Isolation Field to block the Law of Cycles should not work, since part of Madoka’s wish was to rewrite any rule or law that would prevent her from destroying Witches with her own hands, including the one the Incubators set up with their Isolation Field - doubly so if you take Madokami’s statement can see every world that ever existed or could ever exist and apply it to the Sealed Reality the experiment generates.  Except... there is one way that argument fails, regardless of anything else: namely, if Madoka saw what the Incubators were doing and intentionally allowed their experiment to proceed.  And at this point there is precedent for her doing something very similar; AIUI in her Magical Girl Story in MagiReco Madokami does something very similar wrt the MagiReco timeline, deliberately declining to destroy it despite its continued existence conflicting with the Law of Cycles.

(- Magia.  This point of argument I’m not convinced of either, but let’s lay it out.  (Honestly, even if I’m right I’m not sure how much of this was consciously intended, but creations can have a life of their own - especially creations where fucking natural disasters delay them so that they’re released on the most appropriate day possible!)  There’s two pieces to this, one I’m more sure of than the other:

1) The visuals.  Here’s the spot where I feel most solid about interpreting Magia: the ED visuals are clearly a reference to Madokami’s ascension.  (The show loves hiding that sort of foreshadowing in plain sight, why would you be surprised?)  Note the second half particularly, both Madoka’s hair lengthening and the starfield she’s running past.  (I think the order of the four other girls in the first half is probably how long they held out without Witching out.)  That leaves two issues, one more obvious to Western audiences and one less so.  First, that enigmatic and ominous shot of Madoka in fetal position (appropriate - her request in 10 and then her wish in 12 can be rephrased as “don’t let me grow up”) in the eye of Mephisto.  Second, there’s a point I’ve seen raised in analyses of Connect: in Japanese cinematography, motion from right to left indicates a correct course (unlike its Western equivalent, where the opposite applies)... and for the entirety of Magia Madoka is moving left-to-right.

2) The lyrics.  This is the part I’m less sold on, but once again let’s lay out the affirmative.  My line here derives from a hunch: Connect is famously from Homura’s perspective despite appearing to be from Madoka’s, perhaps the inverse is also true?  I’m still not sure there, but especially if you’re considering the TV version it can work... provided the lyrics are specifically from Madokami’s perspective again.  Grabbing the wiki version of the translation: “The light of love lit within your eyes will transcend time” sure fits better if we’re talking about Homura rather than about Madoka, likewise “with this power that can break even darkness” sure sounds like a better fit for Madokami to me.  And in that case the most interesting stanza is the second: “Swallow down your hesitation.  What is it that you wish for?  With the direction of this greedy admiration, will there be a short-lived tomorrow?”  The former two lines  are quite consistent with Homura’s decision in Rebellion (and I note the visual of Homura biting down on her Soul Gem to break it!), and “tomorrow” is consistently a reference to the possibility of Homura and Madoka meeting again in other PMMM songs (Mata Ashita again, Colorful, Connect full version) - which is realized courtesy of a greedy admiration, no less.  So.  Magia’s full version might count, too - there’s lines there that are harder to square from a Madokami perspective (”if I can move forward without hesitation then it’s fine if my heart gets broken” especially), but “Someday, for the sake of someone else, you too will wish for great power; on the night love captures your heart, unknown words will be born” fits Homura’s fall better than Madoka’s wish, I think.)

- If Madoka’s mistake in 12 is intentional then it more closely mirrors her (unintentional) mistake in 10: she’s implicitly asking Homura to once again do something she can’t and stop her from/alleviate the effects of her making a mistake.

- At a Doylist level, if they go for a proper happy end (either in Walpurgis no Kaiten or in a hypothetical sequel to the same) I’m not sure there’s any way they can get there without using this interpretation.  (In general, the two outcomes that make the most sense to me are “Akuhomu becomes the core of Walpurgisnacht, cue ending scene with Moemura making her wish” (the Logic Error ending, consistent with the Eternal Return of the Self; cue MagiReco as the way out) or an ending based on the answer to this question being yes - the easy version being a movie of everyone except Homura fighting to let Madoka rejoin the Law of Cycles only for her to surprise everyone with some sort of ending based on “actually, I was counting on her to do this from the start”.)

[sepublic]

I am curious as to how Amity’s family is going to react to her having a broken leg.

           Knowing her parents? I can see them perhaps admonishing Amity for being so reckless in the first place, less from a place of care and more like, “A Blight should be more competent than this!” That Blights shouldn’t get injured like a weakling! That, or… They’ll just reaffirm that yes, Amity is due to heal and there’s not much else they need to do, and then otherwise they just leave Amity be without actually caring, you know? Like “We’ve done our bare minimum and our job is done here. You’re on your own now.”

           What’s worth noting is that an injury caused by Amity towards her teammates is what led to her quitting Grudgby, cold-turkey; When she was at her prime, no less! I’m really curious as to how the Blight Parents reacted… Was Grudgby something they wanted Amity to do? Perhaps not from the start, but after seeing Amity do so well, they decided that she should keep doing well to make a good image for the Blight family.

          I can see them criticizing Amity for her decision, because who CARES if she hurt some other, weaker witches; Their only purpose is to help Amity reach greater heights of fame and social standing! A Blight should not show such weakness and hesitation. Besides, Amity, I thought you DIDN’T like them, I thought they were mean- If you care that much about them after all, then maybe you’ll stop complaining when we make you hang out with those girls!

           …I feel like that’s something they’d say. So they could’ve easily held the injury against Amity to guilt-trip her even more for quitting Grudgby. Like, “Quitting Grudgby because of another injury? Please!” Never mind that Amity was the one who was injured, because I really don’t think they’d care about that sort of thing if family status was involved.

           That, or the Blight Parents disapproved of Grudgby because it distracted from Amity’s schoolwork, or whatever inane reason such as it being ‘not proper’ or whatever. So her quitting was what they wanted… OR, they just did not care either way, so long as Amity was getting good grades and wasn’t making the family look bad. Who can tell what goes on in their heads- Because oftentimes, abuse isn’t really logical, just cruel and senseless.

           I could see Amity lying about the circumstances of breaking her leg, or at least not telling the whole truth; And again, while her parents may or may not lecture her for being incompetent and a ‘burden’, needing to be cared for and thus being weak… Otherwise they may not care about howAmity got hurt, just that she did and needs to be punished for it, because they don’t really care about her. I have to wonder if they even know about Amity sticking up for Willow, hanging out with Luz, challenging Boscha, etc.

          I could see Amity getting away with cutting ties by Boscha, by carefully wording it in a way that would seem palatable to Mr. and Mrs. Blight; Like “Oh, she was too weak and needy for me, and just dragging me down! Boscha even got arrogant and began overstepping her boundaries, thinking she was just as good as me… So I needed to teach her a lesson, and remind Boscha that she only got to be team captain because I let her! It’s not my fault she doesn’t want to be friends anymore.”

           …Honestly I have to wonder how much the Blight Parents know, in general. Amity knows that she loves Luz more than she fears them at this point, Grometheus was NOT subtle… But still, can she even stand up for herself though? Especially if she doesn’t feel like she deserves to be Luz’s friend, or doesn’t want to get Luz in trouble; Especially after her parents threatened to ruin Willow’s education.

           …As for Emira and Edric, well. I think that while they’ve definitely had their nasty moments in the past, I think their little sister being physically injured is the kind of circumstance where they drop the teasing and pranks, and –until she’s healed- be nothing but good siblings to Amity! Taking care of her, making sure she’s okay… (Helping hide her injuries with Illusions so their parents don’t get mad)…

           Though for THIS specific scenario, they might want to know how Amity got injured, and upon hearing it was to save Luz… Well. Aside from congratulating Amity on being her own person, they’d DEFINITELY tease her about her crush! But at the same time, Ed and Em would actively encourage Amity to be with Luz- I could see them NOT taking care of her this one time, simply so that Luz could instead…! Similarly, I can see them trying to keep their parents from learning exactly what happened, if only to preserve Luz and Amity’s friendship; While at the same time preparing for the inevitable moment when they need to defend the two!

           Also, I can see them hearing about if Boscha caused the injury, and… Let’s just say Boscha is freaking screwed. The twins literally took on the Slither Beast and managed to hold it down for a whole half-minute; You know, the Slither Beast that Eda -the most Powerful Witch in the Boiling Isles- is wary of, the monster that can casually snap a tree trunk in half? The twins are stronger Witches than Amity, and she’s stronger than Boscha… They wouldn’t even need to beat her up in a fight, they could always resort to a cruel prank similar to what they might’ve done to Amity, but way worse. Keep in mind, even if Boscha’s parents apparently have some status, the Blight name is always stated by Amity as one Boscha should treat with reverence, and not without reason!

[twilight-hogwarts]

Friends at last

AN: We all know James and Lily got together on their 7th year but I feel like they would have became friends before that and in my head James would have mature a lot during the summer before their 6th year when Sirius went to live with the Potters because that was when the reality of the imminent war against Voldemort finally hit him hard. So here is how I think Lily and James finally became friends. (I might continue this.)

 Lily`s 6th year at Hogwarts have been quite different from the last five. She used to spend a lot of her free time in the library or on the grounds with Severus but now that she wasn’t friends with him anymore she started to hang out in the Gryffindor common room and was constantly with her house friends. She was always been especially close to Marlene McKinnon and Dorcas Meadowes, but now she was also spending more time with Alice Westenberg and Mary Longbottom too. Lily was always fond of the two others girls who shared their dorm and was happy to have became closer to them.

The only down side to it was that spending more time with them in common room meant to spend more time with the boys from Gryffindor`s 6th year. After all they were all good friend. Marlene and Dorcas seem to always hang out with the four pranksters. But Lily soon found out that being around them wasn’t as bad as she tought.

She never minded being around Remus, she has always considered him a friend and the most mature one in the group. Since they both became prefects, the year before, they grown even closer and were now really good friends. So she was glad to spend more time with him and at first she thought that whenever the boys were around she`d just talk to Remus and ignored the rest of them, but soon she realize that would not be possible and that it wasn’t exactly a bad thing.

She also never minded Peter much, he was a shy boy that laughed and admired everything the others boys did, he had always been nice to her, and very soon she found herself helping Peter with his charms homework and actually laughing with him about something Sirius had said.

What really surprised when she started liking Sirius. At first she really tried to keep a safe distance but since she was spending more time with Remus that automatically meant more time around Sirius, who she always tought that he was James` shadow when in fact he never seemed to live Remus by himself.

For her, James and Sirius has always been worse than the other two, she knew they were the minds behind the pranks and the adventures of rule breaking. She also hated the fact that they were excellent students, even tho they were constantly disturbing classes with their funny remarks and pratical jokes, somehow everyone seemed admired them, even the teachers loved them, no matter how many detentions they got, James and Sirius had the entire school at their feet. But soon she realized they weren’t that bad. She didn’t know if it was because she never spent that much time around them or if something had changed but she found herself laughing at their jokes and not minding at all being around them. Lily did not loved Sirius and James as much as the rest of the school, but now she finally understood what their appeal was and why such nice boys like Remus and Peter were friends with them.

She came to that realization on a late Wednesday night in the end of September, all the sixth years were siting close together in the common room doing their large amount of homework in silence, when Remus suddenly closed his heavy book of Advanced Transfiguration and said “I give up” under his breath, Sirius immediately started saying it was the end of the times in a loud voice like he was a minister on a Sunday service, James followed suit and got on his knees screaming “hallelujah”, soon everyone was laughing, even a couple of seventh years who were sitting in the other end of the room. But instead of continuing the joke like Lily thought he would, James stood up to sit beside Remus to help him out with his late essay for Mcgonagall, since he had lost a couple of important classes that week because he was “sick”.

That was something that Lily started noticing: the way Sirius, James and Peter treated Remus, and it made her change the way she saw the boys. She knew about Remus secret, she knew why he was always getting sick, missing classes sometimes and almost sleep walking for a couple of days after a full moon. She had never openly talked about it with him but she had a hunch that he knew she knew since she was constantly covering for him on prefects duties. She had notice in the pasts years how the boys would visit him in the hospital wing and get his homework for him but she never really notice how very protective they were of Remus, how whenever he was looking a bit miserable they would find a way to make him laugh, how Sirius and Peter was always handing him chocolate and how he seemed to accept it without even noticing. How Sirius, just the day before, when Remus came back from the hospital wing, let him fall asleep on his shoulder,  and how James, sitting on the other side of the sleeping boy, took his hand to Remus’ forehead to measure his temperature and took of his robe to cover his sleeping friend with it. In all fairness she had also seen them piling up objects on top of a sleeping Remus a couple of time, but they seem to had a understanding on when not to do it.

Lily started noticing little things like that as if to justify to herself why she didn’t mind being around them anymore. So she notice the little things, she notice when James during the first week of term helped a group of first years to find their way to class (although Lily only payed attention in case James was giving them a wrong direction as a joke), she saw when James stopped two second years from dueling in the middle of the entrance hall, she saw when Severus called Remus a bad name and was surprised to see James telling them to ignore him only to see Sirius losing his patience and hexing Snape and finally she notice how James hasn’t ask her out once that year. He had of course flirted with her, but after seeing him winking and saying “thank you, gorgeous” to Alice as she passed him the mashed potatoes and later in class seeing him blowing a kiss at Mcgonagall after she congratulated him on his perfect transfiguration of a rock into a pillow, she realized that was how he talked with every women. Actually flirting with Mcgonagall seemed to be a inner competition between him and Sirius, although Black had more practice since he always flirted with all the other teachers trying to come out of detentions (something that, according to James, made him lost point with Mcgonagall for cheating on her). So after a few weeks Lily started to relax around them just enough to stop hating him and Sirius, and eve laugh a bit of their jokes.

In mid October Lily finally gave in and fully admitted to herself that she actually liked Sirius. They started talking a lot about muggle music, after he saw her with a t-shirt from a band he liked, then they started talking muggle books, movies and Lily was very surprised to see  that he knew so much about the muggle world. Eventually their conversations grew into more deep meaningful stuff. They would talk about politics, Voldemort and the imminent war, James and Remus were also very passionate and opinionated about that and had similar views to Lily’s (she also notice they were not afraid to say Voldermort`s name), but Sirius was by far the most opinionated about the subject and seemed ready to fight anyone who said anything remotely unpleasant  about muggle borns.

After some time they started talking about families and shared their complicated relationship with their siblings, Lily was a bit surprised to found out that Sirius had left his parents house, and was know living with the Potters, because of his family sympathy toward Voldemort. She knew Sirius was quite different from the rest of his pure blood family but never imagined he would go to such lengths. That made her admire him a bit and she was now happy to call Sirius Black her friend.

James was the last one she warm up to. She would talk to him, laugh of a few of his jokes and he had even helped her with a particular hard transfiguration homework but she would still keep some distance in a way to guarantee that he wouldn’t ask her out. Finally in the end of November, on a full moon, something happened that made it impossible for them not to be friends. Lily was laying in the sofa close to the fire reading a novel all by herself very late at night, almost early morning, on a Friday when the Fat Lady portrait opened up and James being support by Peter stumbled over the hole with his left arm bleeding and his shirt cut open from his shoulder blades to the wrist. Lily stood up immediately and asked:

“Oh my God!! What happened??”

The two boys did not notice she was there and were surprised to see someone awake in the communal room at that time of night.

“Err” Peter looked at James who lost the little bit of color he still had on his face.

“Sleepwalking” said James “I was sleep walking and Peter came to recue me.”

“Exactly” confirmed Peter “woke up for a bit of water and saw James crossing the grounds thru my window so-” but he looked at James and the face his friend was giving him made him stop talking.

“What happens to you arm?” Asked Lily

“I got hurt.”

“I can see that.” She said rising her eyebrows. “How?”

James seemed to be having a hard time finding the right words. So he surprised himself when he told her the truth.

“The Whomping Willow. Got to close to it and never saw it coming.”

“You should go to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey will sort you out in a second” the girl suggested.

“No” the two boys said together a bit to fast.

“I can’t.” said Potter “I don’t want to lose anymore point or get another detention. Please don`t give us in. It’s just a small cut I’ll sort it out myself.” He looked at her with pleasing eyes.

“Have you looked at your arm? It looks pretty bad. You need more than a band aid.” She said still debating with she should insist on taking him to the hospital wing.

“I’ll be fine. Just don’t say anything. Please, Evans?”

“I won’t. I promise.” Lily wasn’t sure why she agreed to that so fast and suddenly remembered what day of the month it was and regretted making that promise. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to Madam Pomfrey? You don’t want that getting infected.”

“I’ll be fine.” Said James and they started walking towards the stairs to their dorm but Lily suddenly moved to get in the way.

“Wait a second. I have something that might help. Sit down and wait here.” she ran up stairs to get her medicinal potions kit thinking it was a really great idea to do the extra medicinal potions class with Madam Pomfrey like Professor Slughorn had suggested. When she came down James was sitting on the sofa with his eyes closed and Peter beside him looking at his bleeding arm. She sat in front of them on the coffee table.

“Let me had a look. I’m no healer but I happen to know how to bread Madam Pomfrey healing potion. It will help with the pain, it will heal faster and avoid an infection. That’s the best I can do.” She said while examining his arm.

James looked at her like she had grow a second head. He had been avoiding being a prick with Lily like Remus told him and they have been spending time around each other without her wanting to hex his head off, but they were not exactly friends. Actually, James didn’t said anything to anyone but now he was a bit frustrated that Lily seemed to became good friends with everyone but him. So he was a bit surprised that she was so promptly to help him.

“But, with you want me to help we have to find a empty classroom.” she continued pretending not to notice his shock.

Lily and Peter helped him up and the three of them reached a classroom in the end of the hallway, Lily made him sit down on a table and started sorting out the ingredients.

“You can go back to bed Peter.” said James. “Let Remus and Sirius know where I am in case they wake up.” he gave  a meaningful look to his friend.

“Yeah. I’ll let them know.”And slowly backed away to the door.

Lily ignored that and continued to prepare the potion without looking at their direction. She knew Remus was not sleeping in the Gryffindor tower tonight.

After Peter closed the door James looked intensely to Lily observing the girl work her way thru the potion. They kept silence for a while, but after some time Lily found his staring a bit too distracting and she finally asked “Lost something, Potter?”

“Sorry.” James looked down with a tiny smile. “I’m just trying to understand why are you helping me.”

She gave him a half smile. “You rather I let you bleed to death? That can be arranged.” She looked at him and without waiting for an answer she said. “Excuse me, I have to clean you wound and I’ll need cut shirt to clean the wound.”

“Oh right. Let me just...” James moved on the table he was sitting and cringing he slowly removed his shirt trying not to touch or move his left arm that much. “I think it’s just better to take it off because I think it got a bit of my neck too.”

He moved to show his back to Lily and she saw there were three gashes, one that went from the base of the back of his neck to the tip of his shoulder, the other close to his elbow and a very deep one on his forearm. For Lily despair she noticed that they looked like animal scratches.

“James” Lily took a deep breath “are you sure this was made by the tree right? That wasn’t an animal or anything like that?”

“What? No, no, it wasn’t an animal.”

“Because if it was an animal you have to tell me. Because with we use the wrong potion it will be worse.” Lily looked right into James eyes trying to pass him the seriousness of the situation.

“I promise you, Evans, it was not an animal.” He looked back at her eyes trying to show her that he was telling the truth. He tought he had memorized every detail of Lily`s face by that point but by looking into her eyes he noticed how intensely green her eyes were.

“Okay.” She turned her attention to the wounds and his arm.

They didn’t say anything for some time. But Lily’s curiosity took the best of her.

“Where were you tonight?” She asked.

“I.. hmm I was sleeping walking… like a said. Woke up with that freaking tree throwing me to the ground.” But she noticed how when he said that he looked down to his lap.

“Fine. You don’t need to tell me the truth. But if you were putting yourself in danger by trying to be a good friend please don’t do that again.”

He looked up at her. They looked at each other for a few seconds and Lily wanting to make sure he was receiving the message completed said: “Imagine how Remus would few if he hurt you.” With that James confirmed his suspicions: Lily knew about Remus.

“You know.” he said, it was not a question.

“I know.” Lily confirmed

“How? When? Does he know you know?”

“We never openly talked about it but I think he knows I know.”

“How? Since When?” Repeated James.

“I had my suspicions since our third year. But I was only sure about it last year when I could no longer ignore the facts.”

“Snape told you?”

“What? No! Severus knows? How?”

“He saw it, long story, but Dumbledore made him promise not to tell anyone.” James said.

“He never said anything to me. That was one of the reasons I never gave my suspicions a second tought, didn’t want to feed Sev’s obsession. But after spending so much time together during prefects duties it was impossible to ignore so I figured I was right and started covering up for him.” Lily explained.

“You don`t mind?” Lily looked confused so he continued “that he’s a...”

“No” Lily cut him off, sounding a bit offended “I like people for their character not for their blood status.”

“I didn’t mean... of course not. I just... I’m sorry I didn’t mean it like that” James looked down a bit ashamed for being so surprise that Lily would be okay with it.

“It’s okay. It’s just... I always liked Remus, he has always been a friend and I’m a muggle born so I don’t really understand where wizards prejudice against werewolves comes from. It’s not like anyone would choose that.” She started to clean his wound. “Let me clean that while we wait for the potion to chill.” She finished cleaning his arm in silence put the dirty cottons aside, turned on her back to lean into the table James was sitting. “So how long have you know?” James hesitated, Lily felt like she had cross over some line but wasn’t sure how. “Sorry you don’t need to answer that.”

“It’s not that.” James said. “It’s just weird to talk about it with anyone outside our bubble.”

“I get it you don’t need to say anything. Look I think the potion it’s fine now, it won’t burn your arm.” Lily said putting her finger on the caldron and started applying the potion on his injured arm, making him flinch a bit.

“We’ve known since our first year. It’s impossible not to notice certain things when you share a dorm. Remus was so relieved when we told him we knew and did not care about it.” He took a deep breath and continued. “We just want to make things easier for him. We are not putting ourselves in danger. We just like to be there when it’s over, give him company until Madam Pomfrey comes to collect him.” He finished and actually felt relieved to have told her the truth. Lily was looking at him like she had never seen his face before. He misunderstood the look. “Please, Evans, don’t tell anyone that. I promise we are not in danger. We just want Remus to see some familiar faces when all is over. Please, Lily, don’t tell anyone.” The despair on the boy face was such that Lily, who had a lot of questions about the logistics of the whole thing nodded and said “Don’t worry. I won’t say a thing. Like I said, I like Remus.” She said with the last part with a smile. “Just promise me the worst that can happen is being attacked by the Whomping Willow”

“I promise” James said but Lily notice he looked down to his lap when he said that.

They sat quiet for a moment, Lily applying the potion carefully on his arm, then James remembered something. “I haven`t thank you.” He said. “Oh… don`t worry about that-“ Lily tried to say but James cut her off. “Thank you, Evans. Truly, I appreciate it more than you know.” He finish and noticed she had gone a lovely shade of pink.

He also figured that, since her was alone with her and that did not happen very often, it was the perfect moment to do something Remus told him to do weeks ago. “Also, I believe I owe you an apologize.” James said making Lily look quite confused.

“What for? May I ask?”

“Well, mainly for being a prick to you. It has been brought to my attention that the way I handled my crush on you wasn`t the most chivalries.” He said with an ironic smile. “In my defense I was stupid and was trying to make you notice me in any way I could. Anyway… I am sorry and I won`t treat like that again.” Lily had stopped working on his arm and was looking at him like he had grown a second head. “What is it? What`s wrong?”He asked when he saw the look on her face.

“Nothing. I… just… Well, I`m impressed.” She said and with a smile on her face she continued. “I mean, James Potter apologizing… Wow… That`s not something you see very often.” Lily gave a small chuckle.

“Oh shut up, Evans.” He said smiling and chuckled along with her.

“No, but seriously, why are you apologizing? What...” She stopped talking not knowing how to ask that in a nice way.

“What made me grow out of my big head?” He continued her question for her, smiling. “Well, mostly, Remus. But I`m not really sure what made me finally listen to him.”

“Remind me of thanking him sometime.” Lily said. “Jokes aside, I noticed you matured a lot since last term, and I don`t mean just the whole harassing me thing.”

“Harassing is a really strong word…” James said timidly.

“You know what I mean. Anyway, you haven`t been bullying anyone just for fun anymore and I swear I saw you telling off a couple of first years for trying dueling each other. In all I`m just really glad that I can be around you without wanting to hex your head off.” She finished.

“I`m very glad about that too.” James said smiling. “And I really am sorry for the harassing thing.”

“No worries, Potter.” Said Lily while wrapping his arm on bandages.

“So… Friends?” He asked with a shy crooked smile.

“Friends.” She confirmed, finishing wrapping his arm and standing a hand to shake his.

[fangirlbase]

The Howl of the Moon - Remus Lupin

Summary:

After a terrible accident in the battle at the Ministry in 1995, Hermione Granger wins a one-way ticket to the past. Unable to go back to his time, his only chance for survival is to adapt to the late 70s and get on with his life, interfering as little as possible so that the future does not fall apart.

However, everything goes downhill when Remus John Lupine starts to notice too much the new girl who clearly wanted to go unnoticed by Hogwarts.

Chapters: Prolog | One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven

Warnings: matureSummary:After a terrible accident in the battle at the Ministry in 1995, Hermione Granger wins a one-way ticket to the past. Unable to go back to his time, his only chance for survival is to adapt to the late 70s and get on with his life, interfering as little as possible so that the future does not fall apart.However, everything goes downhill when Remus John Lupine starts to notice too much the new girl who clearly wanted to go unnoticed by Hogwarts.Chapters: Prolog | One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | SevenWarnings: mature

                                         5.The one of the fight

- Come on, Remus! It's no problem for you to spend Easter at home! - Peter offered just before they boarded the express for the holiday.

- I would be a nuisance, Rabbit. Your parents wouldn't know about my arrival, and I haven't even told my parents about the change of plans.

- But if you thought it best not to come back this year...

- I'll be fine, Pete. It's not even close to the moon, it's just a few days. - Remus calmed his friend, saying good-bye to the rest of the group, and as usual Sirius would spend the holiday with the Potters, after all he had been practically adopted by Euphemia.

That hadn't been a lie at all. His parents were really going through a fight at the moment-and he didn't want to go into an environment where they were at war-but the decision to stay in school had been his alone. He knew that Jean would stay in school, and since she didn't have any other friends he thought it was a good idea to stay and keep her company.

I mean, at least he had thought about it, since Jean didn't seem to be that interested in his company. She had unfortunately found another poor soul to disturb-or at least that was how Severe Snape liked to grumble about her company. Since the day the girl had helped him with his transfiguration work, time and again they had met and studied together in the library - not together, together, but in the sense of coexisting at the same table, with occasional exchanges of words where they would clear up a question or two with each other.

That was the most Snape could allow himself to do considering the amount of eyes around, after all, he was a sonserine and proud of it, but he also had to consider the presence of his housemates - not that his fellow diners would attack her just for asking a question, but they would make the Griffin girl's life a living hell if they wanted to (as hellish as Sirius Black calling her out daily) and he didn't want that for her, after all she was even tolerable. After all, Severe Prince Snape had acquired a mild sympathy for Jean Granger to the point that he wanted her to have peace during her years as a student - and of course even sporadically study with him.

"Only Griffin girl who has a bit of brain matter" - he had muttered one day, eliciting a low chuckle from her, as well as a small smile of his own.

Remus did not share the same hatred for Snape that Sirius and James had. To tell the truth, he was perhaps at the same level of dislike that Peter had for the sonserine, which was nil. He honestly had nothing against Snape, he just thought he was snotty, but this whole situation of comp-dividing Jean's attention was irritating Moony, at least that's what Remus was telling himself, that it was his wolf side that was really bothering him and not him per se, not completely, maybe a part of it?

Truth be told, since Remus had witnessed the whole Severo-Lillian situation (two years earlier) he felt duty-bound to spare Jean from going through any situation merely similar to the one starring the sonserine. She didn't deserve to be called names or anything like that! So, in Lupin's eyes, Snape was far from being someone to be trusted, especially considering the other friendships he maintained when he was away from the girl.

Thus, unconsciously, Remus had taken it upon himself to be the "knight in shining armor" for Jean, not that he needed to or much less that she would accept it if she knew what the boy was thinking, but in any case for him to protect her from the evil sonserines he needed to find her first. Come on, it was almost eleven o'clock in the morning on a Thursday, where could the witch be?

The common room? No.

Great Hall? No.

Astronomy tower? No.

Library? No.

Black lake? No.

Whomping Willow? Yes.

Yes!?

What the hell was Jean doing there? Was it really her? Forcing his eyes open, Remus saw a figure sitting in the line just before the range of the Whomping Willow, staring up at the tree with a lost expression on her face. Approaching without any care, Remus could not hold his curiosity as he sat down next to her.

- Why are you alone here?

- The castle is almost empty, I would be alone anywhere else.

- But why here?

- I woke up in a mood for fights, and since we don't have an active dueling club at school, I thought that watching the willow fight with the air would be a good substitute.

- Wouldn't that be hurting any tree protection rights? - Remus amused.

- I'm not the one hurting or attacking the tree, I'm just here as a spectator! - Hermione defended herself. - By the way, in all your time here, have you by any chance ever seen it treated by a gardener? - Hermione pondered, remembering when the Weasley's car had crashed into her in her second year.

Professor Snape had gone to a lot of trouble to get the bodywork back that night, along with Madame Hootch and Pomona Sproutch.

- I think only a couple of times... Did you know that she was almost killed once?

- Hit by a car? - She joked.

- What?

- I mean, I guess it takes an accident like that to almost kill a tree that fights with anyone who comes near it!

- Actually, it was just a very intense winter. He even kept a scarf wrapped around his trunk, out of respect.

Hermione bent her body to the side, leaning her head briefly on Remus' right shoulder, imagining the situation - but as she giggled from imagining the willow tree with a thermometer in its knot measuring its temperature, Remus froze. Wide-eyed, his breath caught in his throat. Was she really lying on his shoulder?!

Looking away, he could see that yes, she was. Should he move? Should he sigh? At least breathe again!

But with his breathing, came along Jean's scent, penetrating through his entire respiratory and cardiac system, making a....

"Yummy..." - Nosy Stupid as always allowed himself to pay attention to the conversation.

Oh my! He had stopped himself for a second before sticking his nose into the short hair of the girl next to him!

"Get a grip, SLOUTY" - Remus scolded the wolf, hearing a snort in response.

- Sorry. - Hermione realized where she was, pulling away immediately.

- No problem. - Remus replied, blushing.

- If you don't mind my asking, why did you stay here?

- Did you think I was going to leave you alone with that snotty guy? - Remus was amused, but when he saw Jean's closed expression, he realized that jokes didn't work on her. - Besides.... I didn't want to go home. My parents... They're fighting, and I didn't want to be in the middle of it all just when... I feel guilty about everything.

- Guilty, Lupin?

- I said, you can call me by my first name. - He gave a half smile.

- I like your last name, it's nice.

"Just the last name?" Moony took offense.

"With the scars you left me no one will ever think I'm handsome, you idiot."

"I a comma, you who did this to yourself trying to suppress me!"

- Caham - he huffed, focusing again on the conversation and not on his mental monologue with his other animal part - They fight a lot because of me, so I prefer not to be around, so as not to cause or feel pain.

- Nothing is your fault, Remus. - Hermione looked deep into his eyes, holding up her hands on impulse.

She hated the feeling of guilt she knew he always carried. He was a child, damn it! If there was one guilty party in that story, it was Greyback!

Remus just stared in shock at her joined hands. God, would she ever stop surprising him?! Hermione realized what she had done, but when she tried to pull her hands back, she felt him hold them tightly, preventing the movement. But Lupin had nothing to add to the conversation, he just wanted to feel the comforting touch in her hands some more, with the cool breeze hitting his face, bringing along with it Jean's scent and calming him in unthinkable ways.

He was letting someone else - and more specifically, a girl - touch him, and enjoying it.

* * *

- I didn't know your favorite chocolate, but I thought you might like this one. - Hermione passed the candy to Snape as if it were contraband when they bumped into each other in the hallway on Sunday.

- Chocolate with mint? - Severus looked at her strangely, stopping in his tracks to pay attention to her.

- Yeah, not sour, but weird enough to give you a reason to frown. - She joked, receiving a cold stare from him.

- Is this some kind of joke?

- It's not cursed, it's an Easter present, that's all!

Suspicious, Snape opened the package and broke off two pieces, handing one to her first, informing her that she would be his guinea pig. Rolling her eyes, Hermione put the candy in her mouth, making a face, being followed by him.

Who, instead of grimacing, smiled.

- It looks like I swallowed a tube of toothpaste!

- And you're happy about that?!

- It's a two-in-one chocolate, Granger! You eat it and brush your teeth in the process.

- Was that a joke?

- It was just a thank you, that's all. - He closed his expression again, but gave her the slightest smile before walking back towards the dungeon.

Just the fact that he could see she was running from those stupid Marauders and preferred to spend her time with him was a good softener for his ego.

And just as quickly as they had met, the two of them parted, each to their own corner. There were not supposed to be more than fifteen people in the school during that holiday, so that supervising the students became much easier - and gossip-worthy among the faculty, that is.

Minerva McGonagall stood at the end of the corridor, keeping an eye on her pupil. Not that she was curious, but she had already noticed that Mr. Lupin was no longer the only one the griffin girl interacted with, as now more recently Mr. Snape had become a constant in the girl's daily life. Of course Minerva as teacher and tutor was happy that little by little Jean was opening up to the reality she found herself and was making new friends, or perhaps more than friends. Was there something going on between Remus and Jean for their estrangement? The incorrigible romantic part of her wanted very much to believe so - even more so with it being a love triangle! Lupin and Snape would excuse her, but the thrill of a love story between quarrels and declarations had always attracted her, but since it wasn't her place to get involved, she could only observe Jean, and once in a while interfere, just like now.

- Jean, dear, are you all right? - Minerva intercepted her as she passed by.

- Yes, Professor. Is something wrong?

- Just checking.  As head teacher of Griffin, I can't go out on holidays, unless no one from my house is staying.

- But at Christmas some people stayed...

- That was a separate situation. Principal Dumbledore took over the supervision of our house and gave me a leave of absence. Anyway, is everything all right?

- Yes, yes. I didn't used to celebrate Easter so much before, so it's just... another Sunday. A Sunday with chocolate. - Hermione gave a half smile.

- If you need to talk, you know where my room is.

- But talk about what?

- Just about anything. - And with a wink, Minerva left.

Which meant nothing to Hermione, who thought her tutor had a nervous tic in her eyes.

____________

On holidays like this one, where only a small number of students remained at school, Dumbledore usually abolished the house system and unified everyone at a single table - and this Sunday dinner was no different. However, not everyone was comfortable with the situation, preferring to stay away from each other.

- Do you mind if I sit here? - Remus asked, already sitting next to Jean.

- Would it make any difference if I said no? - Jean asked with a smile.

- Not much. - He returned it with another, setting the alert for the gossips on duty. - I haven't seen you all day.

- I was out and about, nothing very special. Have you looked for me? Do you need anything? I thought we were only going to go over the lesson plan for the tutorial on Tuesday.

- Actually, there's not much to do on holidays around here. - He shrugged. - Sirius, James and Peter aren't here and I'm already ahead of schedule with all my assignments.

- So I'm only your third choice for company? I'm disappointed, Mr. Lupin. I thought we were friends. - You teased.

- I would say fourth, since I only looked for you now in the evening and not in the afternoon.

Neither of them had noticed when the flirting had begun, but if you were to bet, it was more of a flirting situation - just like Sirius with anyone, or James with Lily at the beginning of his romantic pursuit of the redhead.

- You've been reading all afternoon, haven't you? That's why you only remembered me now.

- Studying is quite different from reading. - He shrugged.

"I think you spend too much time with boys.

- By the way, since you reminded me. I think we could take the opportunity to discuss some of the monitoring stuff later in the communal hall. - Remus couldn't help himself.

- Do we have to?

- For some reason people in my year prefer your mentoring to mine.

- I didn't realize this, but if you say so.

Their conversation was interrupted by the dinner in front of them, occupying them for the next twenty minutes. Contrary to what Sirius had said months before, Hermione didn't murder the chicken thigh with her hands, she ate it delicately even - but she had no reason to be upset and take it out on the chicken.

As the two of them got up together, one or two gossiping professors exchanged galleons of a bet not at all worthy of educators. As they passed the stairs, they had to wait five minutes until they decided to return to their original position, giving them permission to go up towards the tower, in the meantime they talked quietly as if the whole scene created by Evans had never happened and had shaken their friendship. Once in the communal hall, Remus sat down on the rug in front of the fireplace, waiting for Jean to sit down on the couch next to him.

- You know, not that many people go to the monitorship.

- But of all the three who went, two went to you.

- In contrast, the four below in seventh grade ignored me and asked you for help, and I'm not complaining about that.

The truth was that most of the people who went to talk to him were only because it was the only possibility and opening he gave them to approach him.

- Probably because they think you will jinx them. - Remus commented, pulling a chocolate bar from his coat pocket.

- And why would I do that? - Jean asked, taking the chocolate he offered her.

- You're not one of the more sociable ones, you know. - He looked at her as he bit into the candy.

- Neither are you.

- But you're different. I've been here for seven years, you've just arrived, and you still have that frown on your face. That's scary, you know?

- At least the person I wanted to scare the most, the one I wanted to scare the most, the bridge of running away with my tail between my legs, is still giving me a hard time.

- Sirius?

- That's right. How do you manage to hang out with him without going crazy? Worse, how can you eat so much chocolate and still have this body?

- This body? - He was surprised.

- Come on, don't play dumb! You don't seem to know how you... Yeah!

"She likes what she sees...?" - Moony found it strange.

- My metabolism is fast, that's all. - He shrugged trying to hide that he was slightly embarrassed both by her noticing him and by the unnecessary comment from the wolf that divided his body and clearly was the reason he kept stuffing himself with candy and never gained an ounce more.

'You're welcome.' - The wolf had the nerve to say thank you.

- Well, mine is too, and if I don't control myself, I'll win very quickly.

- I don't think... I think you're fine the way you are, it's just your hair that I have my disagreements with, but you already know that. - Remus said without thinking, stuffing a giant piece of chocolate into his mouth to keep himself occupied.

- Was that a compliment? - Hermione was amused.

- I only returned what you said before, but I really preferred your long curls.

- Thank you, Hermione. For the compliment and well... for liking my curls.

* * *

As fast as it came, the easter holiday was over, and as far as our couple "friends" were concerned it was as if all the misunderstanding of Valentine's Day hadn't happened, Hermione and Remus went back to talking quietly, exchanging books of common interest, preparing the tutoring classes and when they didn't study together it was because Remus was with the Rascals while Jean was in the library with a certain sonserino.

Saturday had arrived once again and naturally the morning was busy with the various groups of students coming and going from their tour of Hogsmeade! Hermione had left early, intending to buy some new feathers, since hers had mysteriously appeared enchanted the previous afternoon, just writing...

"Sirius Black is a handsome fellow"

"Sirius Black is calling you to go out next weekend"

"My dream is to go out with Sirius Black"

"Why does the pretty girl pay attention to nerdy Lupin and not Sirius Black?"

She had to admit, Sirius had style - he even managed to get a smile out of her with that tactic (followed by a celebration a la Pele and Galvão Bueno at the 1998 World Cup final when the older man noticed her smile in the communal room). But although she found the gesture funny, Hermione couldn't hand in her assignments with those sayings - how funny would it be for Professor Binns to receive an essay with only invitations to leave Sirius?

Making sure to leave her feather case well away from the naughty ones, Hermione slipped into the local bookstore, spending the next fifty minutes lost in thought, just perusing the new titles.

- Why isn't it a surprise to find you here? - Snape blinked as he pulled a book from the shelf and bumped into her.

- Probably because this is my natural habitat.

- A complete library pussy. - He replied in a sour voice, causing Hermione to look strangely at him, only to see Malfoy walking past them.

Which meant nothing, since he was more interested in wooing Narcisa Black than anything else.

- Since you insist on it... -Hermione shrugged, ignoring the sonserino, if he wanted to be her friend away from the eyes of others she wouldn't mind, it wasn't anyone's "dirty little secret"!

-Problems? - A third voice chimed in beside her.

Remus and Peter had arrived a few minutes ago only to hear the slight cursing.

- Why would I? - she wondered. Okay, Snape's tone when he called her a "Library rat" was anything but cordial, but she was a library rat and proud of it, so she would let herself be taken aback.

- Isn't that snotty guy bothering you? - Peter, who was not even in the bookstore of his own volition, made himself present, holding up his nose.

Oh, he hadn't done that.... Until then Hermione had treated him as politely as she would any other student at school, she kept reminding herself that he was still a normal person, a good friend of the rascals who hadn't yet betrayed them like the real rat he was. But calling Snape by that ridiculous nickname for no reason had given her every possible reason to disdain him, at least for the moment.

But she remembered that Remus had also called Severus that.

Gee, this floor is dirty, isn't it? You'd better give it a good wipe, that's for sure.

- Sorry, what?

- Snot...

- I heard perfectly well what you said, I just don't understand what or who you're referring to.

- Snape. - Remus translated uncomfortably, realizing how annoyed the girl was now with them.

- If you want to refer to him, call him by his last name, not by unnecessary nicknames. And no, I haven't had anyone bothering me so far. - She pointed out, and the next second she saw Lily walk through the doorway, which caused both her and Snape, who was still in the next hallway, to shiver. - If you'll excuse me.

She quickly left, or rather fled, the establishment - Hermione intended to hide from the redhead as long as she could after all the misunderstanding on Valentine's Day. Not that she thought Lily was going to make any little jokes about her and Lupin or anything, but she wanted to avoid any uncomfortable talk about apologies or anything like that. Hermione knew that the older girl hadn't meant any harm, it was actually a big misunderstanding, but running away seemed much easier than facing the redhead who insisted that she should get out of her bubble and make friends with the other girls she shared the dorm with...

Remus, on the other hand, had misinterpreted the whole situation.  In his perception, Jean had left because she was really upset with the way he and Peter had treated Snape. That is, he who was already annoyed by Sirius' last attempt to get the girl's attention, was now infinitely more unhappy for having disappointed the witch. Come on, just when he thought he had succeeded in catching the attention of a pretty girl, Sirius went and tried and succeeded before him! Worse, even Snape had been defended by her! He was not happy about that at all.

"GO AFTER HER!" - Moony imposed his opinion, moving his legs and sending him after her.

He didn't have to walk very far, as soon as he left the bookstore leaving Peter with Lily and James he managed to spot her at the end of the street passing just followed her to .... House of Screams. Well, this was probably the first time he had seen her in the village, so it was only fair that she went there to see the famous haunted house... He just hoped she wouldn't be curious about the screams, since the person responsible (Him) had been trying to be noticed by her for a long time - he definitely didn't want it to be in the context of: "Hi, is I'm the reason people think the house is haunted because once a month I turn into a beast with claws and fangs that likes to howl at the moon." Ignoring his mental outburst he took a deep breath to build courage and ease the tension before getting the girl's attention.

- Is everything all right, Jean?

- Why wouldn't I be? - She didn't look at him.

- It's not like you to leave like that.

- If I had stayed, you would either have started a duel with Snape in the middle of the store, or Evans would have come to disturb me. Since I wanted neither, I left.

- Does she annoy you that much? - Remus didn't like the way he felt cringe at that idea.

- Doesn't she annoy you? It would be the same if you started pestering me that I was dating Snape, or worse, Malfoy. - She had been thinking about Draco at that moment, she admitted. I mean, not that she is this matchmaking or pushy person. I know she is a wonderful person, but she is trying very hard to get me to fit in with people and any sign of any interaction I have with any other student or pupil she turns into a huge happy thing

Every statement about a possible flirtation with Snape or Malfoy irritated Moony a little, so much so that Remus himself barely paid attention to the end of the girl's statement as he was trying to convince the wolf that eating snakes was not healthy at all.

- Can I ask you a question? - Hermione roused Remus from his bubble.

- He just did.

- What do you have against Snape?

- I have nothing against him, exactly..." She began to say, remembering not to call the boy a snot. - He is a sonserino who insists on mocking, even if not as openly as the other snakes, any Griffinian. And, well, after the whole situation with Lily in fifth year... I don't know if you know, but... In short, they were best friends until he said horrible things to her! So I can't tolerate guys like him on principle. Not to mention the company he keeps. It seems that I have a lot of things against him...

It wasn't as if Hermione had an answer for the situation, she herself knew how horrible it was to be called a bad blood, so it wasn't as if she could defend Snape in that sense. And the Griffinian-Sonserine implications were a rivalry as old as time, meaning both sides were wrong and unless someone decided to be an adult in the situation and put an end to those implications nothing would be solved. But soon her contemplative silence was interrupted when Remus turned to her.

- That's why I don't like him! - said the boy as if he had just discovered the real reason for his dislike of the Sonserine. - He hangs out with Avery, Mulciber, Malfoy, and Black, and if you haven't noticed, all of them are the offspring of dinosaurs!

- Sirius is also a Black and the son of a diner, and frankly I don't see either you or James becoming one. - Hermione let it slip, losing her color after the quick realization that she had left Peter out of her statement.

A fact that Remus, thank God, didn't notice.

- But they are diners, diners, Hermione! - Remus said his real name, low and exasperated. - The ones who destroyed your village, killed your parents and friends! The same ones who sent you here, made you need to change your name and... e.... cut your hair! - He spoke louder the last part, putting too much emphasis on his haircut than on everything else.

- It's just hair, Remus! - Hermione was already a little annoyed that he was insisting so much on this and wanted to divert the subject from anything about her "dead" parents or the attack of diners on her "village".

- Very nice hair! - His voice had come out a little huskier, with a golden glow quickly passing through his eyes.

"MOONY!" - Remus scolded the wolf, who was struggling to be heard since he had realized that all that arguing between Jean and her human part was certainly heading for a fight. Their first fight, by the way.

- Lupin, honestly... - Jean shook her head negatively, holding back from rolling her eyes. - If you're really going to give me a hard time about my friendship choices, I might as well do the same.

- What do you mean by that?

- You say I can't hang out with Snape because of what he's done to Lily in the past and because he's friends with "proto" dinosaurs, but you forget that you're not in a good situation yourself. If you really want me to stay away from Snape, I'll do it.

The smile began to grow on Remus' face, only to be interrupted with a

- But only if you stay away from James. - She would have liked to include Sirius in the speech by mentioning when the boy had set Severus up to go to the screaming house on a full moon where he could have died! But in theory she didn't know that so she wouldn't say anything.

- What? What does this have to do with anything?

-You complain so much about him calling Lily a Bad Blood, but you forget that he only did that after being hung upside down with no pants in the middle of the garden! By the way, why didn't you stop them?! You can't dislike people to the point of being irrelevant in matters like that!

- He told you...

- It wasn't only you who tried hard to keep me away from someone potentially dangerous. - he joked.

Remus took a deep breath, processing all of this. He couldn't, he just couldn't do that for just one girl, even if she was the most amazing, intelligent, beautiful girl he had ever met. James was his brother, the one who knew his secret and wouldn't give up his friendship even if it meant befriending a monster.

- I'm sorry, Granger. I can't do this.

- I know, that's exactly why I won't stay away from Snape either. They both made mistakes, but that doesn't mean they can't get a second chance and change for the better. James did it for Lily and I believe Snape just needs a little better friends. After all, as you pointed out, the company he keeps is dubious to say the least, but that doesn't mean he is evil. I'm not asking you to approach him and invite him over for tea, I'm just asking you not to worry about it.

- But I do worry about you! - he let slip, watching Jean's body tensing immediately. - I mean, you are my friend, and you are clearly associating with witches who will surely become the same as... those who took everything from you.

Indeed they would, but it would take them twenty years to do so.

- Remus, I'm not marrying him, just studying together. But if it worries you so much, I think you should start reviewing your list of friendships as soon as possible. - she said, turning her back to the boy.

Remus didn't know what to do when he saw her leave. He hated her disappointed tone, disappointed in him and his friends. And worse, he didn't know how to fix it, he couldn't just walk away from his best friends to defend his point of view, after all he himself knew that wasn't what Jean wanted when she forced the topic. But he also couldn't stop worrying about her and the risk she was taking by getting close to Snape and consequently other sonserinos who could be a real risk to her!

James' fights with Lily seemed much more fun, mainly because they were settled in the next second. Why couldn't his fight with Jean be the same way? He asked himself as he walked back to the village alone.

"It wouldn't be bad at all to get a reconciliation kiss" - Moony opined, remembering how James and Lily's fights were resolved.

Remus just laughed defeatedly, considering that lately the Wonder Couple's heated fights ended in a public spat, but Jean was just a friend?

No, she was definitely more than that! She was his best friend! And maybe... Anyway, he just wanted to work it out with her as soon as possible.

They needed to work it out!

[lilytakeharryandgo]

STOP ROMANTICISING SEVERUS SNAPE - A MANIFESTO

“Albus Severus Potter, you were named after two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a great strategist, the other one was a racist, hateful, bitter, scary bastard. Voldemort must have damaged some brain cells when killing the Horcrux inside of me.”

Now that I have Snape fans raging and screaming for blood, here’s my show of evidence:

If the boring, same argument brought up by Marauders stans is Snape being a Death Eater, I know it’s basic, but it’s basic for a reason: it’s true. Supporting Voldemort doesn’t mean you support his ideas? I’m sorry, what did he support? The Dark Lord’s contouring skills? It is a truth universally acknowledged that joining a group of racists and following them in perpetrating crimes does make you a racist and a criminal.

JK Rowling herself said that Death Eaters are an analogy to Nazis, Marauders stans are not making this up. Are you questioning what JK ROWLING said? Because you know, she is JK ROWLING.

We know it was Snivellus that created the Levicorpus. He must have used it against the Marauders in order for them to learn it. And let’s just remember that “Snape’s worst memory” takes place after the Shrieking Shack’s incident, when dear, lovely Severus tried to unmask Remus so that he could be expelled for being a Werewolf. He went down to the Whomping Willow of his own free will, no one forced him, and he supposedly knew what was happening there: he risked his own life only to get Remus expelled. Yes, it was Sirius who thought it would have been funny to lure him to the Shrieking Shack where Lupin was due for his transformation, and that was wrong. However, why did he do that? Because Snape was constantly spying on them. Was it wrong? Definitely, no one is trying to get Sirius out of this one. Still, James saved Snape in time. Did James do that just because he wanted to protect Remus? Most likely: James gave them all a family and he loved his friends and would have done everything for them, and he did. But also, he wouldn’t have let an “innocent” (if we want to call him that) die. So James saved Snape’s life, which dear Half Blood Price seemed deeply ungrateful for later, and yet, Snape constantly tried to get the Marauders expelled from Hogwarts time and time again while using Dark Magic and creating his own dark spells (see the irony?). Stop saying that the Marauders’ actions pushed him to become a Death Eater. As if “Snape never missed an opportunity to curse James” was a lie. As if Snape wasn’t on his way to being a buddying Death Eater by his 5th year. As if Snape hadn’t came up with a curse that slices your body open by his 6th year. As if the Marauders had nothing to do but ruthlessly bully Snape all day and all night, when they actually are described as the brightest as some of the brightest students of their year despite being engaged in loads of other things like the creation of the Marauders Map, becoming Animagus, dealing with Remus’ monthly transformations (because those demonic guys didn’t leave him alone and didn’t report him to get him expelled as someone else was willing to do), James and Remus being responsible enough to be Head Boy and Prefect. Oh, and training for a war and joining the Order once they graduated. Minor things, right? Things they were busy doing in their personal lives such as surviving, living and being happy? Nah, that never happened, their entire life consisted of bullying innocent, poor service teenagers, that was their goal. Snape experienced one side of the Marauders (and we read that from his own pov, so it’s a little biased too): that is not a deciding factor of whether or not they (and especially James) are good people. He was so fascinated with the Dark Arts, even after Lily’s death and hence his presumed redemption, that Dumbledore did not appoint him as Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Snape’s apologetics make it sound like the Marauders made Snape’s life hell every minute of everyday and he was the poor victim who was not capable of standing up to himself against those horrible demonic creatures, but he was the one inventing the Sectumsempra and using it against James, against George. Only a truly tormented person could have invented such a bloody spell. 

So now let’s talk about Remus. Remus, a hero who fought against Voldemort and joined an anti-terrorist resistance organisation when he was just 18 years old, who fought alongside Frank and Alice Longbottom in the Order, is about to start his first class with the third years. Neville is there, of course, Remus knows his parents’ fate, how they were tortured into madness, and probably guessed that Neville’s biggest fear would be similar to what he guessed Harry’s would be. He’s probably planning on stepping in before Bellatrix Lestrange shows up, but then it’s not her, it’s Snape. Snape who insults him in front of his class, Snape who tries to shame him. Can you imagine how he must have felt? Yes, they bullied him, but his best friend James grew up, and what did he get in return? Death. Instead, Snape hasn’t gotten over himself a little and most importantly he does not realise that being a teacher also means being responsible for those children. Snape never changes: he is the same petty, angry, bitter child that he had been in school, except now he’s bullying children half his age instead of yelling racial slurs at his classmates. While Snape is one of his students’ greatest fear, Remus starts off the year by letting his pupils confront their biggest fears. Remus truly, deeply cared about his students, and wait… what did Snape do? He got him fired! But even most achingly than that, just imagine… it’s 1993, Remus is coming back after a rough full moon. He’s feeling down, he’s weak, both physically and emotionally, he’s one more time without his friends by his side, one more time alone as he was before the Marauders became Animaguses to be alongside him to support him during the roughest times (horrible people, isn’t it?). So Remus is coming back to his class of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and his best friend’s son is writing an essay on how to kill him. But Snape didn’t stop there, no, he told the whole Wizarding World that a man who had struggled to keep his condition secret all his life was a Werewolf. He had to withdraw from his position as a professor because of that, and straight after that the Ministry issued a law against Werewolves which made it impossible for Remus to have a job. So, to sum it up, not only he exposed him as a Werewolf, he also condemned him to live in poverty and be persecuted for that reason. Also, quoting, when Remus was trying to explain things in PoA he attacked him and said “I’ll drag the Werewolf, perhaps the Dementors will have a kiss for him too.” James and Sirius were the kind of persons, the kind of friends and brothers, who risked their own life every month for one of his best friends. Think about this: they found out about Remus’ situation when they were just boys in their first years of school, and they didn’t leave him, they decided to help him embarking in something much bigger than themselves. Whereas dear lovely 33 year old Necrophilus told everyone about Remus’ secret and basically had him fired. Sounds angelic, why haven’t I thought about doing something like that before? That would most certainly secure me a spot in heaven!

Do we want to talk about an abusive person? Well, Snape was not just abusive as a person, he abused and took advantage of his position as a teacher (and Head of House too, to reward extra points from the other Houses) to bully his own students (even after his presumed “redemption”). He told Neville he would have given his failed potion to his toad, Trevor, so that the fatal effects of the potion would teach him a lesson. He bullied Neville to the point that he was literally his greatest fear - Neville’s parents were tortured to the point of insanity by Bellatrix, yet Snape was his greatest fear. He also condoned and took part in bullying when Draco cursed Hermione’s teeth to grow. He said he didn’t see any difference, then watched as she ran off crying. From the very start he starts bullying Harry: he perfectly knew he was raised by muggles, he knew how Petunia was and still went on to ask questions that he wouldn’t be able to answer. And after calling Neville and idiot for a mistake that anyone could have made he took points from Gryffindor because Harry didn’t tell him how to do it right - great teaching strategy, let’s nominate him for Most Valuable Teacher. Harry had nothing to do with what went on during Snape’s school years, but he physically resembled James and he was his son, so let’s bully him from the very first second! And honestly, asking an 11 years old Muggle-raised kid the difference between monskshood and wolfsbane in front of everyone on the first day? There is no difference! They are colloquial terms for the same plant. He just wanted the intellectual upper hand over a goddamn little kid. But he didn’t stop there: that resentful git always tried to blame Harry for something even without proof (as most of the time), and he physically abused Harry because he was angry (“Snape threw Harry from him with all his might. Harry fell hard onto the dungeon floor.”). He knew how important it was for Harry to learn Occlumency and he stopped giving him classes and later ignored when Lupin asked him to start them again even when he knew how poorly Harry’s progressed. And he was cruel: he knew Harry was sad about Sirius’ death, and gave him a detention in which he was going to see his and his father’s names multiple times while copying out old detention records. Yes, Harry’s deeds should have called for expulsion, as McGonagall states, but Snape chose something more painful than that. Not only he punished Harry (don’t get me wrong, he almost killed Draco, he deserved detention if not expulsion), but he chose to inflict him more pain and at the same time tried to ruin the memory of Harry’s father figures. Ordinarily, copying out old detention records wouldn’t be worse than writing lines, but Snape vindictively tailored that detention to inflict pain.  In addition to this, he could have been an awesome teacher if he wasn’t a disgusting waste of a human being. He knew from his teen years that the instructions that the textbooks were giving were not as goos as they could be so he improved the potions and recorded his own methods at 16. Harry himself states what an amazing teacher “the Prince” is. If Snape were not such a horrible person, he could have either written the entire textbooks himself, or taught his students his own alternate methods. Instead he spent his time bullying children. He could have been great and become everything a Slytherin should have been

Snape also saw his friends perform Dark Magic on Mary Macdonald and when confronted by Lily, literally didn’t see any problem with it and compared it with the Marauders’ pranks.

He called Lily, his supposed best friend, a Mudblood. Then he tried to get away with it by saying he didn’t mean it and that she (and only she) was different from the other Muggleborns. And Lily tried, she tried to tell him he was not on the right path, she tried, and she got called a racial slur from the person she trusted the most at the time. And, for the extremist Snape apologetics in the back, who even hate Lily (how can they hate on Lily I don’t know, but apparently these people exist too): Lily Evans did not owe anyone anything. She had the right to cut ties with her friends for any reason she pleased, whatever that’s because she was sick of them or because they were hanging out with a group of terrorists wannabe. She did not owe anyone her love, loyalty or energy. She tried to be Snape’s friend despite his other group of friends (“but Mulciber’s and Avery’s idea of humor is just evil. Evil, Sev. I don’t understand how you can be friends with them”), but there’s canon evidence that Snape chose his Death Eaters friends over Lily’s friendship and safety. It was her choice to cut ties with him after what he and his friends had done (and the racial slur of course, truly a touch of class), and it’s not like he was a good friend to begin with: he called all other Muggleborns “Mudblood” and was canon friends with the people who wanted Lily and other Muggleborns killed, and he even still wanted to be a Death Eater while being her friend. Like, wait here while I go out and slaughter your people, Lils! And if Snape stans are still arguing that he was suffering because he got dumped, that’s another no: he did not get dumped, she just didn’t have romantic feelings for him but was trying so hard to be his friend and he was just a whiny baby about it. Is that a crime? No, it isn’t. Is not getting over it and taking it out on countless kids who weren’t even born instead a crime? Yes, it is.

Also, from the get-go we see him drop a tree branch on Petunia. That shows that he didn’t see a problem in hurting the people Lily loved (seen later in a larger proportion, that’s his tag line). Lily loved her sister, but Petunia was an obstacle between her and Snape, hence, Snape hurt her. And no, that was not accidental underage magic, just as Lily performs magic on the flower, Snape uses magic to cause a tree branch to fall on Petunia. Even as a child he had no qualms about hurting someone Lily loved, this really serves to underscore the idea that Snape, with his so called love for Lily, was not invested in her happiness or wellbeing because he didn’t care about the people she loved. As a child he didn’t care about hurting her sister and at 20 he didn’t care about the imminent deaths of her husband and son. If he truly loved and cared for her, he would have wanted to see her happy. Not even considering how crushed she would have been if her husband and only child were dead, and she was left alone and pregnant in the middle of a war.

Okay so now let’s talk about James. Yes, James was a spoiled brat, and Lily hated him for that, then guess what? He matured, he started protecting the weaker ones and joined the Order along with Sirius, Remus and Lily to fight for a better world. He didn’t hold it against her nor did he sulk for days, he grew up and matured because he was a well adjusted human, unlike some. James Potter was many things other than an “arrogant bullying toerag” (hey, also, well done for trying to destroy a 15-year-old orphan’s memory of his heroic father): he was a friend who risked his life every month for Remus’s safety and comfort. A brother who took Sirius in and was “the best friend he ever had.” An adored friend of half-giant Hagrid, in an age when all “half-breeds” were looked upon with suspicion during the war. An all time “favourite student” of Minerva McGonagall, so much that she waited all day at his son’s future home and wept at his death. A savior of his enemies even when they were trying to expose his friends’ secrets. An activist protecting the right of existence for Muggles, Muggleborns and hybrids right out of school. A soldier who faced Voldemort three times and lived to tell about it. A caring father who went into hiding to protect his son. A loving husband who sacrificed his life for his family. A faded trace of magic still trying to guide his son when the man that killed him returned to life. A young man that inspired so much loyalty in his friends that Remus Lupin, who so feared the idea of harming people because of his condition, was 100% willing to abandon those morals to avenge his death, and would have done so, had Harry not reminded him and Sirius that James would not have wanted them to murder anyone for him. A Patronus helping Harry through his darkest moments until the very end.  James had a friend facing bigotry and he became an illegal animagus to help make that friend’s life better. Snape had a friend facing bigotry and he joined up with the bigots. No one is trying to pretend that James was an angel, but he got better and better until his last breath. And again, that spoiled brat and the love of his life joined the resistance and were martyrs. James, Lily, Sirius and Remus all died for Harry. Are you trying to blame James and Lily for sacrificing their own lives to save their infant son? What terrible parents they were! Their sacrifice was an act of love and wait… actually ended up saving the Wizarding World. The only thing James and Snape had in common was that they would have both sacrificed James’s life in order to save Lily’s. James was the hero, he was the one who faced Voldemort without his wand (pretty dumb thing but he was a Gryffindor, hence no surprise) in order to give his wife and son more time to flee. When he opened that door on Halloween, he thought he was sacrificing his life so that they could live. He literally died wandless perfectly knowing he wouldn’t survive, but facing death for those he loved, hoping he would be able to stall enough time so they could escape. He was never more dedicated in anything in his short life than he was to the loves of his life: he died for Lily and Harry, and would have happily died for Sirius, Remus and Peter. And this is absolutely canon, of course it is: we might not have some explicit description of him but all we know comes from the lives he touched, how they talked / not talked about him, the pain they felt - the seven books are a testament of James and Lily’s love. James Potter was the kind of person that would have been happy to die for love, he would have taken pride in that. How do we know that? Are we making this up? No, we are not: all we have are the words of people who knew him, from his best friends to McGonagall, and who remembered him as a hero. This, albeit indirectly, speaks volume about the kind of person he was. He might have been obnoxious and arrogant as a teenager, but at 21 he died a hero - wandless, alone, betrayed, hopeless, but also bravely and out of love - and nothing can change either of those. Yes, he bullied Snape (let’s be clear here even though I highly doubt Snape did not retaliate) and that is a disgusting attitude. But how can you forgive a 31 year old man for bullying his kids and not a 15 year old boy who bullied one of his definitely not innocent classmates? Who matured and who later died, at the young age of 21, for his wife and son? How can you hate James Potter when as soon as he graduated, he was ready to fight a war against the most powerful wizard of his age? Yes, he had a big head and I am fairly certain he did actually strut - and let’s just take a moment to remember why Harry doesn’t know anything about him… oh, right, Snape went to Voldemort and told him about the prophecy - but he was a caring person, who stood up to what he thought and stood up for his friends and his family. The spoilt boy Snape’s apologetics hate, who grew up to be a great man, who died fighting and protecting, not some emo with a crush and an ego the size of the Great Lake!  Wait, I hear somebody trying to bring up the “we have no real evidence of him becoming a better person” thing. Let me get this straight: James was mentioned to have jinxed other students, not to have bullied them. He did not pick out targets, it was implied to be done at random as it is explicitly stated that he jinxed random people in the corridors. Fred and George pranked other students in the same way, and they would have often have more disastrous effects, but no one calls them bullies. We know that on one known occasion attacks Snape with Sirius at his side and almost pantsed him with a spell of Snape’s own invention. James and Snape had a rivalry, and it was two-sided. It wasn’t James relentlessly hexing poor, innocent Snape, so if you still want to call James Potter a bully, okay, do it, he was a bully bullying a bully. The evidence speaks for itself: he was Head Boy in 7th year (hence I don’t think Dumbledore despised him that much), he was unapologetically a blood traitor, he dated Lily Evans (who hated him for how he was and would have never fallen in love with such a brat, so it’s pretty evident he did actually change), he joined the Order of the Phoenix (an anti-terrorist organisation, at the peak of the war, as a teenager, whereas someone else joins a racist dark cult), he died protecting his wife and child! And if we really, really want to bring the ‘evidence’ thing up… well, we have no evidence he bullied Snape, except for one little incident - I’m fairly certain he did, but let’s play it literally now. And since we are there, we may not have been blessed with more about the Marauders, but Sirius and Remus both tell Harry Lily changed his mind about James because he became a better person, why don’t Snape stans consider that an evidence pro James but “Snape’s worst memory” is their pro Snape pamphlet? That chapter showed us an incident where both Sirius and James were assholes but everyone that was there supported it but Lily. All the other Students supported it because of what the fandom conveniently forgets that Snape loved Dark Arts, disparagingly called Lily a Muggle twice, tried to expose Remus and run around with a group of Death Eater wannabes tormenting Muggleborns all through his school years (he literally says that torturing Mary Macdonald was funny - “That was nothing, it was a laugh, that’s all”), to the point where Lily’s friends and herself questioned their friendship: “none of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. I’ve made excuses for you for years.” And eventually, when questioned by Lily if he wanted to join Voldemort, he couldn’t find any way to lie to her: “you and your precious little Death Eater friends— you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You Know Who can you?”. He literally didn’t find anything wrong with Voldemort’s political position (only the fact that he wanted to kill his obsession, he only had that so called change of heart when it personally affected him as his beloved Dark Lord wanted to kill the object of his lust). So yes, he did join the Death Eaters because he wanted to and was everything he’d always desired. Does this make him a bad person? HELL YES.  

And wait, can somebody remind me why the Potters were forced to hide? Wow, it must have been because Snivellus dearest spilled the tea to his master. So basically it went like this: “Hey Dark Lord! Our adorable group of racists kills Mudbloods for fun, but there’s this filthy Muggle born I fancy, can you please kill her husband and baby so that I can have her?” How the hell could he think Lily could have ever forgiven him? He was totally fine with Dumbledore saving Lily but not her husband and infant son (see how deeply he cared about Lily’s happiness?) and only cared for him being the rebound. James and Harry were totally expendable but hey, bravest man ever known!  

So yes, he protected Harry (in his very own and questionable way, he did), but I’m sorry, that’s not enough. However, before someone says “in the end he cared about Harry” let me say a big, important fact: NAH HE DIDN’T. And not only he didn’t, but he also openly states that: in the Deathly Hallows chapter with the Pensieve, Snape describes Harry as selfish, self-important and arrogant - does it matter than all the other teachers like him and see none of those things? Of course not. And he’s not talking about sassy 4th-6th year Harry (who I really thank for that “there's no need to call me "sir" Professor” gem): Snape is tasing about an 11 year old who was picked on his whole life, who never had a family of his own and who lived in a cupboard under the stairs. He’s a child, an orphan (now tell me what’s that heroic about tormenting an orphan). However, Snape had decided that Harry must be bad news from the start, so he reasonably spends six years making his life as difficult as possible. That’s a great way to honour Lily’s memory, right? Do Snape stans remember what their hero answered when Dumbledore asked if he had grown to care for the boy, after all? He literally shouted “for him?” before casting a Patronus (a little over obsessive too). He felt he owed it to Lily to make sure Harry survives, and for Merlin’s sake, he did! He went to Voldemort and basically condemned the Potters. I’m not saying he is THE reason why they died, that honour goes to the lurid latrine rat, but he is one of them. Protecting Harry was the least he could do. Switching allegiances doesn’t cancel the awful actions before Lily’s death, as much as taking advantage of his position can’t be justified by his loyalty to Dumbledore. And most importantly, he cannot be redeemed by his stalkerish obsession for Lily (or by the creepy ‘look at me I want to die looking into your mother’s eyes,’ ew). All he did was made out of selfishness, even in his quest to redeem himself. Snape had a chance to honour Lily's memory, and disregarded it every single day. He claimed to regret his past, yet his cruelty to Harry was persistent and immature. Plus, loving someone doesn’t redeem terrible deeds. He aligned himself with a terrorist organisation who murdered for sport entirely of his own volition, endorsed the torture of Muggleborns, but of course, what a hero! I will never understand how people continue to use Snape’s obsession with Lily and ‘protecting’ Harry thing as an excuse for all the pain and terror that he inflicted upon small children. Does that mean you’ll excuse a father who continuously hit and emotionally abused his child and made their life a living hell if his excuse was “well I was still protecting them they had their dead mother’s eyes”? This is SICK.

And if you can still argue that “he had a terrible childhood,” that is inarguable, however, it just cannot justify him. Remus was bitten when he was 4, he had no friends until he was 11, lived in constant fear that he was going to be outed as a Werewolf, was forced to turn into a monster every month, lost everyone he loved and lived in poverty for 14 years and still managed to be a decent person. Luna watched her mother die, was picked on by almost everyone, was treated as a freak and only had one friend until she was 14 and still managed to be a decent person. Ginny was literally possessed by Voldemort himself for almost a year, guess what? Decent person too. Neville was constantly told how worthless he was, lived knowing his parents were tortured to insanity and was bullied and belittled by everyone. Decent person? Yes, right again. And do we want to talk about THE lonely kid who was abused his entire life? Sirius was raised and abused by blood supremacists, was disowned by his family, framed for murder (of his best friends, for Merlin’s sake!) and literally lost almost everyone he loved and still managed to be a decent person. He couldn't help the way he was? The environment around him conditioned him to be that way? If I remember correctly, Harry was raised by neglectful relatives, wore ill-fitting clothes, felt inadequate among his peers… Harry is proof that a terrible childhood doesn’t excuse despicable behaviour.

So, Snape hated Neville because he could have been the Chosen One instead of Harry (but it’s definitely on him for going to Voldemort and condemning the Potters), he hated Harry because he was James’s copy and he hated Hermione because she was a Mudblood and brilliant as Lily was. Makes sense, again, and again, it stresses how much of a beautiful person and teacher he was, don’t you think so? Also, had Voldemort picked Neville to kill instead of Harry, Snape would still be a Death Eater. It’s not like he thought being part of a group of supremacists and terrorists was wrong. It wasn’t until something directly affected him that he turned his back to his master - so brave, right? Snape may have done some good for the Wizarding World when he joined the Order, but while he was alive, he was horrible. He wasn't fighting the good fight because he couldn't possibly imagine a world where Voldemort was in charge (honestly, he couldn't have cared less), he was doing it to spare Lily’s life and get her for himself. James and Lily fought for the light because they believed in the light. Snape fought against the dark because the dark had offended him. Had Voldemort gone after the Longbottoms instead, Snape would have lived and died as the most loyal Death Eater in history.

Wait, I hear a “there’s no evidence that Snape voluntarily murdered anyone in his entire life” over there! He joined a group whose aim was genocide and was actually one of the few members which were part of the inner circle of Death Eaters, he didn’t get there by throwing kisses and rose petals around. It is explicitly said that not all Death Eaters actually bore the mark. Only selected wizards can be part of Voldemort’s circle, and not only Snape was part of that circle during the First Wizarding War, but it is also heavily implied that he passed messages from Voldemort more than once. Plus, he was also able to speak directly to Voldemort and even ask him to spare Lily’s life. Voldemort actually told Lily to move over three times before killing her, and he didn’t do that because he had such a kind heart and wanted to spare a Muggleborn’s life, he did that because Snape begged him. And maybe we haven’t read the same books, but it’s not like Voldemort strolled along Diagon Alley offering favours to random people. In addition to this, Snape did most certainly kill someone since Dumbledore compares Draco’s soul to his, meaning he has done remorseless acts of great evil before, hence his soul was already damaged, unlike Draco’s. So please, stop saying Snape was somehow influenced into joining the Death Eaters and never committed any crime: he fully believed in what they pledged and actually longed about being one of them for years (according to Lily). No one manipulated him into joining said group nor into perpetrating crimes. And no one manipulated him into being a horrible person even after he “switched sides.” He’s the one who willingly decides to be a terrorist, he’s the one who willingly decides to abuse children half his age, and he’s the one having the nerve to be awful to Harry when he’s the reason why Harry doesn’t have any parents.

And he was so childish and cruel! He threw a tantrum after discovered he was getting an Order of Merlin and wasn’t going to see Remus and Sirius in jail (even though he knew they were innocent).

There we go: HE KNEW SIRIUS WAS INNOCENT (don’t try to deny it, he was part of the inner circle of Death Eaters, he perfectly knew Sirius was not the one selling the Potters to Voldemort)! Did this matter for him? Of course not! And was Snape cruel and abusive to Harry because he blamed himself for Lily’s death and Harry was a constant reminder of his guilt? Yes, he was. But you know who else blamed himself for the Potters’ deaths and also was constantly reminded of them by Harry, and yet, did not abuse him because of his guilt? That’s right, Sirius. Sirius whose death was indirectly caused by Snape who kept making fun of him for being locked in Grimmauld Place. Sirius who had no problems breaking out of Azkaban, all he had to do was turn into a dog and leave. He could have left anytime he wanted to over those twelve years but he didn’t. You know why? Because he thought he deserved to be there. It was his fault his friends were dead. Everyone could blame him all they wanted with false accusations and it didn’t matter, since to him, changing Peter to the Secret Keeper, he was guilty for his friends’ death and deserved to be in Azkaban. He only broke out when he knew Harry was in danger after seeing that filthy rat on the newspaper. And when he broke into Hogwarts? Do people remember those lines: Hermione said “It’s very lucky he picked tonight, you know,” to which Ron responded “I reckon he’s lost track of time, being on the run. Didn’t realise it was Halloween.” Please, of course he realised it was Halloween, he perfectly knew that. He went after Peter on the anniversary of James and Lily’s death to revenge them and to save his godson. Sirius might have strut as much as James during his teens but again, he turned out to be a decent person.

And think about Harry, a 17-year-old grown up in an abused “family” (and still managed to be a decent person too): he has no memories of his parents, the only thing remained is a photograph. A photograph of a happy little family, showing James and Lily in love with the fruit of their love. Snape found it and ripped off and stole the half with Lily smiling so he could pretend her happiness and love were directed at him and not at her husband and son (yes, people, that disgusting moment actually existed, and it was so creepy Yates couldn’t put it in the movies). He stole Lily’s picture and Lily’s last words from Sirius, a friend she loved, the Potters’ best man, James’ brother. How nasty. What can I say, at least he waited until after Sirius’ death to go to Grimmauld Place and raid his bedroom?

Lovely Snivellus, such a cupcake, also laughed and mocked Tonks when her Patronus changed when she fell in love with Remus (let’s also remember that Tonks’s one was not the same as Remus’s, as stated by Rowling, before Snape stans can accuse me of applying double standards: Remus’s Patronus was a regular wolf, and okay Harry is oblivious at times, but he would have recognised a regular wolf) despite the fact that his own changed to match Lily’s - let’s just remember that THIS is obsessive behaviour, whilst James and Lily’s Patroni represent them being soulmates. Snape’s Patronus does not honour Lily, stop considering this the greatest romantic moment of all times, it does not show virtue nor morality, it’s just the representation of his creepy fascination with necrophilia. It’s disgusting, not noble. His so called love for Lily is creepy. She found happiness with another man, yet Snape was possessive, manipulative, and inarguably obsessive. And let’s remember that J.K. Rowling said that “he thought Lily would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater”… was he really her best friend or was he just completely blinded by his attraction to the dark side? This is not a redemptive love, this is problematic, toxic, abusive, emotionally-stunted, obsessive.

This is because there was never a love triangle and that’s why there is simply NO Team Snape! Not winning at the genetic lottery doesn’t justify being such an awful person! Also, THIS is why the tag line should be changed from “always” to “Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! I'll hold him off!” or to “until the very end” because a father’s eternal love for his son is much more important than a racist’s obsession of a dead woman (dead because he contributed to her death, to be precise). His always and doe patrons can’t get him out of this one. Eventually, let’s remember J.K. Rowling’s dedication in Deathly Hallows: “[…] to you, if you have stuck with Harry until the very end.” Not “always” nor creepy moaning, just the pure words of a hero, of a loving father who died protecting the ones he loved most. 

Now, I don’t get why we should celebrate Snivellus as the hero of Slytherin and an example of the “not all Slytherins are evil” when Regulus Black died in a cave, drowned by reanimated corpses to bring about the downfall of Voldemort, and Narcissa Black straight up lied to Voldemort because she’s first and foremost a mother, ruthless in doing whatever it took to save her beloved son. Regulus and Narcissa were brave: despite their flaws they knew what mattered the most and they were two big key factor in Harry’s survival and Voldemort’s demise. Sure, Snape was among the three that deceived the Dark Lord, but whilst Regulus did it because he realised what was right and what wasn’t, and Narcissa did it because of love, putting her family first (plus, she wasn’t even a Death Eater, and this tells a lot about her, as her loyalties solely lie with her family), Snape did it because resentfulness. Sure, Regulus joined the Dark Eaters of his own free will and Narcissa did what she did only after having her family threatened, but since one of Snape stans’ major point in his defence is his family being abused, let’s take their family into consideration too. The Blacks were pureblood supremacist, they grew up within that establishment and yes, some members of the family rejected those arguable ‘values’ but not everyone has the courage to do that (also, every Black family member is indisputably a badass, don’t get me started on that). On the contrary, Snape was a half-blood, and still, ended up hating muggleborns - yes, don’t try to say he didn’t, he joined the Death Eaters because he believed in Voldemort’s cause. He disparages mud bloods, he joins in on their massacre as a Death Eater after having idolised them for years in school before actually joining them. Read this again: he idolised a group of pureblood supremacist, he actively helps orchestrate genocide against the muggleborns. And what is his Freudian excuse? He believed that, in so far as Halfblood, he had to ‘prove’ that he was magical and capable enough (does this remind you of somebody else who hated muggles albeit being a half-blood and eradicates his whole Muggle family?), you can see that in how he strived to highlight his maternal Prince lineage in his stupid nickname. And no, now don’t try to blame the Marauders’ behaviour for this: Severus Snape, the man you glorify, hated muggleborns and went out of his way to commit genocide against them. So, in the end, if you still deny that, despite it being clear in the books, you are being dishonest. If, on the contrary, you fully realise it and still glamorise Snape despite how horrible of a person he was, well Snape stans, you have sunk to a new low. I’m not trying to justify anyone who supported said supremacist beliefs, but at least Regulus and Narcissa were born and bred within one of the Sacred 28, those beliefs were instilled in them from the very beginning, Snape reached them all on his own (well done for embracing your nazi self Snivellus). Regulus turned his back on Voldemort as soon as he realised how wrong he had been: at age 18, he literally sacrificed himself to try and stop his master. Narcissa, on the other hand, never sworn loyalty to Voldemort: she was a pureblood elitist, yes, she was guided by pride, but she was also calm, rational and restrained where her sister was crazed and her husband was reckless. So… Regulus faced death in the hope that when when the time had come, Voldemort would have met his match and would have been mortal once more, and Cissy only wanted best for her family and did everything she could to protect her son. She perfectly knew that Voldemort could have easily killed her in a second, but she wanted to find Draco, kept a straight face as the strong woman she was and fooled the Dark Lord. And why did Snape deceive Voldemort? Oh, right, he told him the prophecy that eventually led to the killing of the woman he was obsessed with (and no, again, he did not care at all about her husband and baby), this, of course after asking him to spare her life so that he could have had her (so this is, once again, classic Snivellus holding grudges). Regulus and Narcissa are pretty much the epitome of Slytherin, and still, let’s celebrate Snape! As a Slytherin myself, I am utterly disgusted by Snape’s behaviour. He could have been an amazing teacher, he had the talent to be one of the greatest Potions masters ever, and he willingly chose to throw it away in favour of being awful for the sake of bullying his own pupils. If we have to pick characters who proved that not all Slytherins are evil, let’s look at Regulus, let’s look at Narcissa, let’s look at Slughorn and Andromeda. Slughorn fought against Voldemort during the Battle of Hogwarts and refused to become a Death Eater, Andromeda married a Muggleborn. And guess what? None of them bullied children for 15 years.

Then, for the “I sometimes think we Sort too soon” thing… no, just no. Before you can start yelling at me, I am not, I repeat, I am absolutely not saying this because I endorse the whole Gryffindor being saints thing. I am a Slytherin, and a proud one. I just don’t agree that Snape was brave. Is being a resentful, childish and abusive man being brave? Wow, I’ll have to refresh my vocabulary!  It is not brave to bully your pupils for years because you lost your loved one, it is not brave to refuse to accept a woman loves somebody else and moves on, it is not brave to keep a childhood grudge against that someone because they ‘stole’ the so called love of your life, it is not brave to try to destroy an orphan’s image of their heroic father. Snape was burned Lily had chosen James over him, so burned that, fuelled by jealousy and envy (and by his pretty questionable ideals too, because it’s too convenient to forget he is 100% a Death Eater and hence a supporter of Voldemort’s lovely view for the Wizarding World), he struck out and ended up getting Lily killed. I don’t consider playing the martyr by “teaching” (if we really want to call that teaching instead of child abuse) and being an occasional spy being brave. I call it feeling guilty, I call it ‘I deserve to suffer for hurting Lily but I still choose to bully her own son instead of honouring her,’ I call it ‘I keep on tormenting an orphan because I hated his father and he looks too much like him, plus, he has his mother’s eyes so I’m constantly remembered of 1) Lily choosing James over me and 2) Lily dying because of me telling my beloved Dark Lord the prophecy.’ Any protection Snape offered Harry, he did it because of his penance, not because protecting him (and hence stopping Voldemort) was the right choice. Wow, how brave of him. I don’t think Snape could have been a Gryffindor at all, and I hated how David Yates (again, very conveniently for his martyr business) placed the Gryffindor scarf hanging up in the background in Snape’s death scene as a nod to his supposed bravery. Like, really?! Even if you really want to call him brave, he’s still an awful person who shouldn’t have been allowed to teach because of how abusive he was, an awful person who was a member and supporter of a supremacist, racist and violent sect, an awful person who caused the death of innocent people - and I could go on and on. You can’t let a few good deeds outweigh all the bad! It’s not like some potion or Imperius Curse made him join the Death Eaters, spill the tea about the prophecy and terrorise those children. He willingly chooses to do that because he was an awful person until the very end. And still, Snape apologists be like “the conclusion of his arc is that abusing your position of power over children is forgivable if you stalked one of their parents when you were a teen.” Again, sick.

Snape’s portrayal in the movies is entirely fan-service throughout the whole series of films, but especially in DH part 2: they never showed Sirius arriving at the Potters the night Lily and James died, they never showed the moment his whole world collapsed when he saw the corpses of his best friends, the moment he blamed himself for what had happened. No, we got an entirely made-up (and creepy) scene of Snape getting there, holding Lily’s body and crying when that never happened! We also never got a scene with Sirius and Remus evidently struggling to hold it together while they tell Harry about James, how he changed and how Lily fell in love with him. Their pain would have shown how much James had an impact on their lives, for the better, but of course, we only got a partial rendition of Snape’s worst memory, with careful cuts of course, they couldn’t say he didn’t find anything wrong with the torture of Muggleborns, right?

You can like Snape, sure, he’s a flawed character with an interesting past, but he’s not a hero, stop portraying him as such instead of what he really was: an abusive, creepy, racist man. You are allowed to like villains (who doesn’t?) but stop praising him! You don’t have to justify his actions because you like him: he was awful, recognise it.

Do we (still) need to talk about double standards? Well, there we go: people hate Lavender Brown and Cho Chang. Fair enough, pretty annoying girls if you want to hear me, but why do they get hate? They get hate for how they handle their feelings: Lavender gets hate for how she handles her unrequited romantic feelings, and Cho gets hate for crying and grieving over the death of her boyfriend. Does this sound like a thread to you? With the sole difference that they get more hate than Snape and this is disturbing and honestly just sick. He is a terrorist, he literally moans the entire series and abuses and terrorises children because he couldn’t have Lily but hey, misunderstood hero!

Stop romanticising Snape: the only reason why people love him is Alan Rickman, and all of this hatred is just a pathetic way of trying to cover up that James grew up while Snape didn’t. How can people glorify and stand up for a man who canonically is a vindictive bully? To be honest, I’m genuinely concerned for people who over romanticise such a man. Correct me if I’m wrong: do you see anyone sticking up for the Dursley’s or Umbridge, when they do basically the same stuff to Harry as Snape? How is Necrophilus any different? I will never regard him as a hero for as long as I am alive, however, the movies conveniently cut those parts where Snivellus was the half princey of baddies, right? Also, I really wish Sirius could have found out about this lovely nickname Snape gave himself as a teenager, that alone would have cured his depression, post traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism, this is a real tragedy.

Severus Snape did not die for love. He died because Voldemort thought hew was the true Elder Wand owner. I repeat: he did not die for love. Period.

He raised a wand to McGonagall!

Avada

Kedavra

[dashuisofanubis]

Another ghost AU

Okay the premise for this one is sort of a what if they figured out Nina was the chosen one and performed the ritual, but its also an AU.

KT, Eddie and Willow move into a boarding house for the prestigious Ankh school. They notice there are a lot of awards and items in the school dedicated to a group of students.

It turns out that on the 7th of July, around 50 years ago, these 7 students were discovered dead. The cause was believed to be poisoning as the students were all from the same house and the two surviving students admitted to having skipped meals at the house that day. The house mother was arrested and sentenced for murder, despite rumours that she was innocent.

The truth of the tale is different:

An ancient Egyptian artefact was believed to have power beyond scientific knowledge, and, once assembled, was said to grant immortality. However, nature must maintain a balance, and for every life extended, another has to be cut short.

Despite all their research, the Secret Society were not aware of these consequences, or most likely were at some level but chose to ignore it. So, when the ritual took place and life was transferred, they had what they wanted, but at a cost.

The Immortals:

Victor Rodenmaar. Location unknown. Has been off the grid for 25 years after vanishing one night in the middle of the school year

Daphne Andrews. Still a teacher at Ankh. Taught many student's parents and has said she will retire next year for the past 20 years

Eric Sweet. Eddie's father, and a man he's always admired and looked up to. He's not what he seems, and is a lot older than Eddie believed.

Mercer, father to one of the lost students. Has realised immortality is not all it's cracked up to be. Having lost his wife 10 years ago, he lives a lonely life and regrets ever joining the society and offering up his daughter.

Jason Winkler. Joined due to degenerative illness, hoping this would be a cure. It was, and he lives a mostly happy life, when he can forget what part he played in the tragedy.

Doctor Delia. Now the CEO of the local hospital, she's experimented with her immortality, to see if there is a way to transfer part of her life to a patient. It took a lot of work, but 11 years ago, she finally had some success. 14 year old Sophia was fatally injured in a car crash, and Dr Delia used her blood in a transfusion, saving the girl.

Rufus Zeno is the final immortal. It was supposed to be Roebuck, but Rufus broke in and threatened the Chosen One, unless he got what he wanted. Wanting to save the girl, and being the only one who hadn't drunk from the cup, Roebuck sacrificed his chance.

(Had he known the girl would die anyway, it might have been different)

Rufus is out there, somewhere, and he's dangerous.

Back to the story:

(Idk what the plot really is but here goes)

The trio (Eddie, KT and Willow) discover the students used to live in Anubis House.

One night, they're playing truth or dare with their housemates: Stella, Marco, Anna, Raf and Peter. KT is dared to go down into the cellar, where she finds a secret panel. Behind it, she finds 7 balancing scales, an intricately decorated cup, and an empty bottle.

The scales have discs with names written on them. The names match those of the 7 students who died. However, the discs are only on one side of the scales, suggesting there were 7 more previously. KT takes the bottle to prove she went into the basement, and something compels her to take the discs as well, which she shows to Willow once they're back in their room.

They let Eddie know about it the next morning and the 3 begin to wonder if the students' deaths were really as they seemed.

Eddie is walking up the stairs when he trips on a loose floorboard. Annoyed, he goes to try and put it back into place when something catches his eye. It's a metal disc, tarnished with age. He cleans it up and sees the word Zeno printed on it.

He tells KT and Willow, and KT realises it must be from the scales she found. Something doesn't feel right, so they decide to investigate.

Eddie jokingly suggests they hold a seance, and despite Willows warnings, they do.

It doesn't seem to work.

The next day, Willow discovers an intruder in the house, someone who looks very similar to photos in the school...

Willow is unnerved but curious, so she says hey to them. They turn around, apparently spooked that someone can see them, and vanish.

Willow tells the others, who initially disbelieve her, but soon they come to meet the former residents of their boarding house.

The ghosts were obviously affected by their own deaths, and the fact that they're ghosts, but it's been 50 years now, so they're getting over it. They generally try to stay out of the students' ways, as they learnt that people generally freak out at the sight of ghosts.

They appeared as ghosts the same moment their lives transferred to the immortals, but were extremely weak and found it hard to keep themselves together. They were unable to dissipate completely though, something was keeping them there. They had to watch as Trudy was arrested; as their house was put out of action till an increase in students forced them to open it again 15 years later; as Victor still wandered the halls; as all the students came and grew and left while they were trapped in the house.

Unable to die, but unable to live.

Slowly, they began to gain more power, and for the past 10 years they've been able to hold a corporeal form for lengthening times, meaning they can actually do things and go places. They're capable of leaving the house for short distances and periods of time, though if they're out for too long they fade away and reappear back in the house with a killer headache.

They think (hope) this means the immortals are weakening, but it could just be they're getting used to the whole being dead thing.

Their lives were tied to the balancing scales and the person on the opposite side, so they each have some connection to an immortal

This means they get fleeting impressions/feelings from their immortal, which strengthens with their proximity.

Connected Immortal and Ghost:

Rodenmaar - Nina

Sweet - Fabian

Andrews - Amber

Delia - Alfie

Roebuck/Zeno - Jerome

Mercer - Joy

Winkler - Patricia

Amber gets the most impressions because Ms Andrews still teaches at the school

Nina and Jerome receive hardly any because both Zeno and Rodenmaar are unknowns

However, recently they've started getting fleeting emotions and visuals that aren't their own. The two missing immortals are becoming active and they're heading for the house.

The ghosts can't do much on their own so Eddie, KT and Willow have to be prepared to discover what these two immortals want and put a stop to it.

Eddie finds out that his dad was once Eric Sweet (he chose a different name after leaving the school, to distance himself), the former headmaster of the school and is horrified by the part he played in all this. A confrontation goes down.

There's a bit where they track down Mick and Mara, now in their 60s, and bring them back to Anubis House to reunite with their former housemates. It would be a really emotional scene because while most of them weren't close, you can't live in close quarters with people for a long time, without forming a bond. And when it ended so abruptly with no goodbyes...well.

They also track down the other immortals and bring them to the house to face their ghosts (literally). Ms Andrews regrets it immensely; Delia has no (some) regrets, but argues she's able to save many more lives this way, Jason is in denial.

Don't imagine immortal!Mercer finally seeing his daughter again, only she's a ghost and he caused her death. He's full of apologies, but they're all based around how he missed her, not how he cut her life short.

There would be a lot of regret and grief all round, and anger on the ghosts' part.

While Trudy probably wouldn't be alive after all this time, the trio and the ghosts want the immortals to clear her name.

Zeno and Rodenmaar arrive at the house. They're both searching for an ancient artefact hidden in the house.

(Is it the mask? Is it the Book of Isis? Robert Frobisher Smythe? Who knows? Not me.)

They also want to try and end the other because, why not. Grudges can last forever.

The trio also meet Sophia at some point, who is undergoing weird transitions as a result of the blood transfusion. Her body is fighting it while also trying to embrace it, and it causes her to randomly absorb life/energy from plants or other people. She can also transfer energy to other beings, but this causes her to collapse. She also still looks 14 when she should be in her 20s by now. The trio befriend her and try to figure out a cure.

While their existences are tainted with regret and bitterness, the ghosts still make their own fun. Sometimes they'll pull pranks on unsuspecting students, or just sit in the back of the class room to listen to the lessons like they're students again. They know for a fact Ms Andrews hasn't changed her curriculum in 50 years and can now recite her lessons by heart. They also like to play games in the house like tag or hide and seek, and they will admit its more fun when you can phase through walls.

When they reveal themselves to the trio, they enjoy tormenting them, but also help them with their games nights, charading the answers behind the other 5s backs. Everyone's had near misses with the 5, but somehow they remain oblivious to the SEVEN GHOSTS living in their house. But then again everyone else is oblivous to the fact the 5 are on some Arthurian quest.

I don't know how this story would end, but the best outcome is that they fight Zeno and Rodenmaar, and some truth comes out that Rodenmaar has discovered a way to reverse what was done and needs an artefact from the tunnels to conduct the ritual. Zeno, meanwhile has discovered another ritual that would give him the power from the other immortals to essentially make himself a god.

Naturally, both are trying to stop the other from achieving their goals.

Initially, KT, Eddie, Willow and the ghosts (and Sophia) attempt to stop both parties, but when they discover Victor's plan they work to take down Zeno. Once he's subdued (taken down by Sophia draining his energy), they summon the other 5 immortals.

Some of them take some convincing, but others are all too ready to give up this immortal life. They get time to tie off loose ends. Ms. Andrews hands in her resignation, Delia entrusts someone (Sophia?) with her work, Mercer has a long talk with his daughter, Eric has an even longer talk with his son. Victor spends his time in Anubis House, telling the kids his story and apologising for taking so long to fix his mistake.

Eventually, the ritual takes place, and the next day sees 7 new students enrolled who look uncannily like the students in the pictures.

(It takes them a while to adjust to the fact they can't walk through walls anymore)

[rahirah]

via Barb's Place Ms. Fix-it by Barb C Rating: G Setting: Post-The Gift Characters: Willow, Giles Synopsis: If Willow doesn't take care of things, who will? Author's notes: Written for the 2019 Which Willow Ficathon. This is a stand-alone, canon-compliant fic. (I.e. not part of the Barbverse.) Buffy Summers had been dead for exactly one week, three days, eighteen hours, and forty-two minutes. Not that Willow was counting. She didn't have to; the slow and steady energy drain of the spell she was using to keep the body from decaying while they all decided what to do was counter enough. The click-click=click of her heels on the pavement followed her around the corner as she turned off Wilkins and onto Maple, heading for the Magic Box. The sun's last rays painted the western sky a brilliant orange behind the roofline of the storefronts. The strap of the satchel she carried dug into her shoulder, and she concentrated on the small discomfort, willing it to drown out the whirring of her thoughts. Inside her head, Goody-Two-Shoes Rule-Following Willow kept pointing out that concealing Buffy's death was seriously dodgy, and could only cause more problems the longer they kept it up. Once the authorities did get involved, surely they wouldn't be happyif they found that Buffy Summers' friends had just... buried her in the back yard, well, in Miller's Woods, in a home-made coffin, without a permit or an autopsy or a death certificate, as if she were a pet goldfish or something. Buffy had died without a will, so would the house go to Dawn, or to Mr. Summers? Or to both? Would they have to go through probate? (What even was probate, anyway?) She was pretty sure that they couldn't afford a lawyer, if Mr. Summers wanted to fight for custody, and even if they could, what judge would let a minor stay with a couple of unrelated barely-out-of-minorhood hemselves women instead of her own father? And could they pay the mortgage? Would the bank foreclose? But Dawn didn't want to go live with her father, and no one could contact Hank Summers anyway. And there was also the hiding-the-Slayer's-demise-from-demonkind-because-the-replacement-Slayer-was-doing-ten-to-twentyness of the whole situation. What Willow really wanted to do was curl up somewhere and cry. But if she did that, nothing would get done at all. Dawn was a mess, Xander was obsessing over the planning of the aforementioned back-yard funeral, Anya was great at pointing out problems but not nearly as forthcoming with solutions, Spike was an alcoholic puddle on the crypt floor. Tara could offer emotional support, but not much else. And Giles, the actual certified grownup, was wandering blankly through the motions of, well, just about everything. So (argued Subversive Countrculture Hacker-cum-Superwitch Willow) obviously the only thing to do was fix up the Buffybot yet again, and pretend that Buffy Summers was alive and well. Not that that would really help much on the paying-the-mortgage front, unless they sent the Buffybot out to get a job, which at this point was looking like a better and better idea, but totally aside from all of that, the truth was, part of her simply wasn't able to bear the idea of sealing, stamping, or certifying that Buffy Summers was really most sincerely dead. The sign on the Magic Box door said "OPEN," but only a single light shone in the back of the store, illuminating the rare books section. Willow cupped her hands against the glass and peered through the blinds. She could see a dark figure hunched at the reading table. Was Giles just... sitting there, in the dark? Biting her lip, she pulled the door open. The jangle of the bell was loud in the nearly-deserted street. The hunched figure straightened. "Ah. Willow. I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting you." Giles stood, a slow, jerky unwinding, and came to meet her, a particularly musty volume tucked in the crook of one elbow. His deeply line face was unutterably weary. Not just tired, but lost. Not that Willow imagined she looked particularly chipper herself; it had been a rough couple of weeks. He crossed to the checkout counter, set the book down, and flicked on the switch for the front lights, flooding the store with brilliance. Well, relative brilliance. Willow caught a glimpse of The Rituals of Osiris on the cover, embossed in eye-twisting curlicues. Giles adjusted his glasses. "I beg your pardon. I was just doing some, er, inventorying. I've been composing my final report to the Council, and frankly, I needed a bit of a breather." He trailed off, and Willow gulped. Final report? She wasn't oblivious; Giles had been chafing at the bit to go back to England for years. Or was it champing at the bit? Whatever, Giles had been doing it. But always before there'd been something – someone – to tie him to Sunnydale a little longer. "No, no, I was wondering if Anya was around? For financial-type questioning and answering. I can come back tomorrow if it's a bad time." Were there any good times? "You - you're not already finished with the report, are you? Are you sure you included all the relevant details? The monks, the Knights, the minions? Whatever was up with Ben? There was an awful lot going on." Giles replaced his glasses. "It's quite comprehensive, I assure you." He busied himself behind the counter, doing something mysterious with receipts. "I'll submit it as soon as we determine how to best... handle the details of Buffy's passing. Once that's done, I'd expect to hear back from Travers very shortly with my new assignment." Apprehension blossomed into panic. Giles couldn't leave. Not now. Everything was changing, falling apart, and she couldn't move fast enough, hold on hard enough, to keep the shards together. I have to fix this, I have to fix this, I have to fix this. "You can't leave," Willow blurted. "I mean, no matter what we do, the Hellmouth is still going to be here, being all hellish and mouthy, and if we're trying to convince the demony types that Buffy's still around – " she unslung her satchel and plunked it down on the counter top, rubbing her aching shoulder. "Shouldn't her Watcher be around too? For verisimilitude?" Giles straightened, sighed, ran a hand over his face. "Willow... we've had this conversation before." "No. No, no, we haven't." She waved her hands in agitation. "Not this one. We had a similar-yet-different, almost but not quite totally unrelated conversation! Last time you wanted to leave because you thought Buffy didn't need you around, and now – " "Buffy is no longer around to need me," Giles finished. "But that's exactly why you have to stay!" Willow pulled a sheaf of printouts from the satchel and fanned them out across the counter – schematics, wiring diagrams, reams of C++. "Buffy's gone. I've got to the get the Bot repaired if we're going to have a hope in heck of fooling Social Services, but that's a walk of the cake variety compared to getting it to fight demons on the regular, and it's – " His expression wasn't softening. Giles had serious leaving-on -a-jet-plane face. Think, think, think – what had snapped him out of it the last time he'd wanted to leave? Buffy, of course. Buffy telling him that she still needed him. But Buffy was gone. (Did it make it better or worse, saying 'gone' instead of 'dead?') Buffy couldn't need him anymore. Except, except... inspiration struck. "Giles, it's not going well. The demon-fighting of the Bot, I mean. I was hoping you could help." "Er." Giles regarded the stack of printouts with an expression of faint alarm. "I'm afraid that my expertise doesn't extend to chipsets. And what do you mean, it's not going well? The robot was quite successful against Glory." "Not that kind of help. And that's because we were basically just using her as a distraction." She leaned across the counter, voice dropping to a confidential whisper, as if the Buffybot were listening in and might get its feelings hurt. "The problem is, the Bot's strong, but she's not very tough. She's actually pretty fragile – all those delicate gears and servos and circuits. She wasn't engineered for heavy-duty demon fighting. She's got all this fighty-kicky programming based on Buffy's combat style, but when she's actually fighting a demon, if it gets its hands... claws... appendages on her, a lot of the time it can just rip her apart. That's fine if we just bring her out once a year to fight some major baddie, but if she's going to be patrolling every night? She can't heal by herself, and we have limited supplies for repairs, and..." she threw up her hands. The glasses were getting a thorough polishing again. "That's unfortunate, but I'm not seeing how I can be of assistance. I'm neither an engineer nor a programmer, Willow." You're not getting away that easily, mister. "You don't have to be! What she needs is a teacher. That's the beauty of it. She's got learning routines. I don't want to think about whatever it was Spike wanted her to learn, but she can incorporate new options into her decision trees. Someone needs to show her a different kind of fighting style, one that minimizes her chances of getting grappled. And there's nobody who can do that better than you can." Giles was wavering, she could see it. Maybe Fake Buffy was better than no Buffy. She stared up at him, beseeching, willing him to say Yes, yes, Willow, I'll stay, I'll help you. Finally, his shoulders slumped in defeat. "Very well. I'll make the attempt, at any rate. But as soon as the robot is capable of protecting herself adequately, I really must – " "Oh, Giles, thank you!" Willow flung herself across the counter to give him an impulsive hug, scattering the printouts and knocking the book to the floor. She let him go with a squeak if alarm and dove after them. Giles knelt to help her pick the papers up, and she stuffed everything back into the satchel willy-nilly. "This will work, I'm sure of it! She's almost ready for a trial run – I'll call you as soon as she's ready! Oh! And I'll come back tomorrow morning to talk to Anya." She couldn't exactly say her heart was lighter as she left the store, but at least one piece of her shattered world was glued back into place, however temporarily. Surely Giles would realize after awhile, that staying was the right thing. Willow hurried along the darkening streets towards Buffy's house, where Dawn and Tara would be waiting. Tomorrow... well, maybe tomorrow Anya would have some ideas for what to do about the money, and the legal questions, and... Willow groaned. There was so much still to do, so many things she had to make right – because who else would do it? It was all too much. Even with the Bot... everything would be so much easier if only... If only Buffy wasn't... She shivered, though the late spring evening wasn't cold, not at all. Buffy was gone. Buffy was dead. And there was nothing she could do to make that right. Her eyes stung. She wiped them defiantly, then ran a thumb under the satchel strap. Her heart might be ligher(ish), but the satchel definitely seemed to be heavier. She opened the flap, peered inside. What on earth...oh. Drat. She'd stuffed Giles' spellbook in there by accident. She should return it. But she was almost back to Revello Drive, and she was going back to the Magic Box tomorrow to see Anya anyway... she'd keep it just for tonight. Maybe read a few chapters. She'd been wanting to brush up on her Egyptian rituals anyway. Maybe it would distract her from her problems, if only for a little while. What could it hurt? End comments

[sepublic]

Belos the ‘Humble Messenger’?

           A thought just hit me, but if Lilith deflects some of the blame of her own actions onto Belos, by claiming she’s just enforcing his will, that he’s making her do this, in addition to considering what HE would do and how that influenced her initial choice to curse Eda…

           …What if Belos is the same way, but with the Titan? Especially with how he constantly insists that he’s just a Humble Messenger for the Titan… It’s not BELOS that’s choosing to hurt people, it’s the Titan! Blame the Titan, don’t shoot the messenger… I have to wonder if Belos is also being a coward like Lilith in this own way, absolving himself of what he’s done wrong, of his own mistakes in carrying out the Titan’s alleged will. Like Lilith, Belos could be operating on a “I was just carrying out orders” type of defense here.

           And given what his VA said about Belos being ‘misunderstood’ in his own way… Maybe that’s what he meant? Belos thinks there’s nothing he can do, he’s resigned himself to his own powerlessness because he really thinks he lacks the ability to make a change. That he really isn’t enjoying this… Though of course, like Lilith or Amity when she cut ties with Willow, he still bears some responsibility for the consequences of his actions, as cruel and unfair as it is. And with Belos, I imagine he bears WAY more fault and guilt for carrying out the Titan’s will, than any other character has for doing what others tell them to… Belos might think he’s choosing the path of least resistance, that he’s actually being helpful by implementing the Titan’s will in the least bloody was possible; Which, when you consider his implied genocides, says a LOT…

           But it also calls into question if Belos even IS communicating with the Titan, or some impostor, or if this really is the Titan’s will, and not the influence of Belos trying to make it be the leader and role model he WANTS it to be, the way Simon Laurent from Infinity Train felt with Grace, or how Jasper tried to mold Steven Universe into the Diamond she wanted him to be; It’s that desire to have someone who validates you, who takes responsibility for you, who comforts and knows exactly what to do… While always enabling any decisions you make and encouraging them, because you can do no wrong; You’re just doing what THEY’re saying, you have no blame in this!

           Maybe Belos is outright influencing the Titan, or at least interpreting its will in a very specific way, and has deluded himself into believing he’s carrying out exactly what the Titan is saying… Even if that isn’t exactly what it said, because Belos secretly knows what the Titan really meant and that’s why it was so vague, because of course Belos will understand the intent! So when the Titan tells him to spread the knowledge of magic, Belos interprets it very specifically as ‘Establish a Coven System’, because surely that’s what the Titan specifically meant…

          It’s like how some alleged ‘Christians’ interpret the Bible in a way that’s very tailored and convenient to their own pre-existing beliefs and bigotry, to justify their own terrible actions. And given the comparisons between Belos and Western Imperialism by fans… In addition to Dana Terrace mentioning how she was once put into a headlock by a nun, and the way some Chrstians appropriated and assimilated pagan cultures (again sounding a lot like what Belos does)… And maybe Belos has a deluded perception of reality, of projecting of what he thinks is best, and believing that everything his role model does is actually indicative of and in support of his own beliefs. Kind of like what I speculated with Boscha, thinking Amity’s actions as a bully were validating to her own cruelty, when really Amity was horrified at the kind of person she was becoming, and did NOT approve of Boscha whatsoever!

          Maybe Belos has a warped sense of identity, because he’s so convinced to himself that everything he does is the Titan’s will, he assumes the Titan’s feelings are the same as his (“The Titan will be pleased!” A triumphant Belos cries upon receiving the portal from Luz), etc. And Belos has trapped himself in his own fantasy, into thinking that he basically IS the Titan because everything he does is surely a reflection of what it believes, because it obviously agrees with him 100% and he completely understands it in a way that nobody, not even the Titan, does… Because Belos KNOWS better, he knows what’s good for the Titan, just as Odalia and Alador claim so for Amity, or what Lilith used to for Eda!

          Which, this just leads to a lack of identity, no sense of self on Belos’ behalf, just as he inflicts upon others with his cult-like indoctrination… Just as Lilith might question who she is without the Emperor’s Coven, perhaps Belos, deep-down, doesn’t know who he is without the Titan; A question any parasite would ask, because Belos can’t stand on his own. He has no will nor convictions of his own, he can’t rely on just his own reasoning to justify himself because he lacks that confidence… So Belos seeks someone who CAN justify what he does, and then warps them to fully fit that idealized image of his. And so just as Lilith realizes that she doesn’t really understand Eda, that she hasn’t figured out that Eda secretly wants to join the Emperor’s Coven but just needs time or a cursed curse to join… Belos will realize that he didn’t exactly understand the Titan at all, and probably was outright influencing and projecting onto it!

           This is going to lead to a lot of confusion, self-doubt… Plenty of denial, certainly. If Belos did accept this reality, this truth, and discern his delusions from what actually is… Then I could see him recovering in a way similar to Lilith, and maybe the two could find a very unusual solidarity in this, while awkwardly naviating how he used to be her feared boss and influenced Lilith herself, threatened her… And yet now she’s way past him in terms of growth and sense of self. Maybe Belos HAS considered that he’s been wrong about the Titan’s will in the past, but he doesn’t want to admit/explore this possibility, because he’s already done so much….

          Maybe he’s just doing what seems to be the least challenging for him, maybe Belos has legit fooled himself into thinking he too is at the Titan’s whim and mercy, he feels bad for his victims, but what else can he do? He’s already sacrificed too many people by this point, he doesn’t want to invalidate those deaths by not going through with what he (and the Titan) planned… He’s not brave enough to do the right thing and Belos is convinced that even if he tried, he wouldn’t accomplish much. To him, he’s most at his useful as a ‘humble messenger’, probably… Belos could be a lot like Krika from Bionicle, perhaps.

          Belos is certain that what the Titan has decreed WILL come to pass, it makes no difference if he or someone else carries out its will- So Belos can’t really be blamed for getting it over with, because someone else will… Or he CAN be blamed, but so what? Maybe Belos thinks he’s the best candidate to do what has to be done, the only one willing to do the dirty work, kind of like Thanos from Infinity War. Maybe he ironically thinks that only HE is the one who is acknowledging this cold, hard truth of the universe, and actually doing something about it; While everyone else is simply in denial…

          If only people could just understand what he’s doing, where he’s coming from, that Belos takes no pleasure in this, he’s trying to make this as smooth and painless as possible. It really, truly DOES hurt him to sacrifice others like this for his goals… And while he ultimately disagrees with such people, Belos can still admire witches like Luz, as he used to be like them, and he finds an almost admirable youth and naivete to their traits that reminds him of his young, foolish self, so wide-eyed and really believing it could all be that black-and-white and simple, that good will prevail… Belos can’t totally blame them for thinking that way, because he made the same mistakes, so he doesn’t have THAT much of a place to judge; But he still has a tiny place, because at least Belos had the ‘wisdom’ to realize the truth and move on.

           Of course, Belos doesn’t see what the Titan or the world is secretly getting at, because there’s nothing there. The Titan is indeed being fully transparent about what it has to say, it isn’t secretly ‘testing’ Belos’ faith… He is acting VERY contrary to a lot of people and things, but just as some deluded, alleged ‘christians’ believe that their god is secretly testing their faith, offering them temptation and false evidence to convince them to go off the right path, when really they just need to keep being stubborn and blocking out all other noise… Maybe Belos is just like THAT.

          It’s like Luz saying that she’s picking up what Amity is putting down, even though as far as Amity can tell, she’s not putting down anything (in addition to maybe being autistic and thus not understanding this kind of saying), she wasn’t suggesting that Luz challenge Boscha to a grudgby game; Except, Belos took it WAY worse, and WAY too far to an unimaginable extent… Again, as a dark parallel to her, despite being associated with a much blinding and radiant Light than Luz’s.

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of DC: Week of September 11th, 1019

Best of this Week: Gotham City Monsters #1 - Steve Orlando, Amancay Nahuelpan, Trish Mulvihill and Tom Napolitano

Who wanted this?

Serious, this is a strange team of characters to put together for a story, but it’s so jarring in a way that it makes me really interested to see what their team dynamic is like. This book carries so much of a Universal Monster movie vibe while mixed in with the superheroics of comic books in a manner that it’s already caught my eye.

The book begins with several haunting establishing shots of Monstertown, one of the few neighborhoods in Gotham that is doing well under the control of Bane. These shots set the tone for what the story will be; a grimy, dark outing where the only light to be found is in the darkness. Naheulpan does such an amazing job capturing the essence of Gotham, while at the same time making things feel so...40s and 80s right before we’re introduced to our first hero, Andrew Bennett aka. I, Vampire.

Bennett, having been hunting down vampires that choose to spill the blood of innocents, dispatches a large group of evil vampires and learns of a new vampire king that’s soon to be restored to life. Bennett tears out the lead vampires heart and tries to drink his blood to kill him, but finds that his blood is poisonous to him. He then vows to kill their new leader no matter what. Within only a few pages Bennett is established as a noble vampire unlike some of his kin and those who were previously unaware of him are given all that they need to know about the man. His scene also feels very reminiscent of The Crow or Queen of the Damned in terms of style and color palette.

Soon after, we cut to a newly freed Waylon Jones who’s very excited to leave his past life as a criminal behind to carve out a new life in Monstertown, but sadly he knows that people will still only ever see him as Killer Croc. I can see that his arc will be all about redemption as he tries to make things in his life right after all of the turmoil he’s been forced to go through. Part of me wonders if he’ll ever learn about Roy Harper and his death at Sanctuary, given that he acted as Roy’s sponsor when the archer was getting off of heroin. He’s not seen again after his two pages which does suck quite a bit as I thought he would have a larger role starting out.

Things start to heat up as we run into the actual lead character of the story, Frankenstein, former Agent of SHADE. It has been quite some time since Frankenstein has been seen in any book, I think the last one he was in was a Valentine’s Day special from 2018. Before he is even shown, we see patrons of a local bar running in fear of the chaos that the undead one has wreaked in search of one of the last open cases SHADE had before Leviathan destroyed them. Frankenstein is not here to play games, holding the throat of a man infected with a disease that turns him into a bull-man.

Naheulpan draws this scene with the dourness that Frankenstein is often known for as Orlando scripts him to say that “in a far world you would live, but now more than ever… the world is not fair.” Napolitano’s letting also helps to make this scene even more saddening with Frankenstein’s shaky word balloons even if Frank himself is anything but. He lights the man on fire after smacking him upside the head with a bottle of ”Damn Fine Whiskey”, totally not Jack Daniels’, and watches as the creature tries to crawl away in fear and pain, terror in his burning eyes.

After this short excursion, we are introduced to our last few cast members in The Orca and Lady Clay, the latter of whom I had no clue existed. While I have limited experience with Orca as a character, mostly from Nightwing: Rebirth and the Injustice 2 tie-in comic, I know her story (and have an attraction, don’t judge me) and it’ll be interesting to see if Steve Orlando plays into the romance angle from the latter comic to give Croc the strong beau that he’s been missing since Enchantress was taken from him. Lady Clay, however, is new and exciting to me because she doesn’t know who she is anymore and finds solace in taking on the appearances of others like a Faceless Person. I’m very interested in whether or not she’ll betray the team for a sense of understanding from the main villain.

Throughout the book there had been murmurings of an opera going on in the city. This plays as the hook that will cause all of the plot to go full steam ahead in the next issue. While the crowd thinks they’re watching an amazing show, they are soon sacrificed to bring back Melmoth, an immortal whose blood was used to help in Frankenstein’s creation. Melmoth’s entire motivation is to continue being what he considers the “Last King.” He wants to subjugate all beneath his feet and will kill as many as he needs to do so, yet his followers see him as some sort of savior.

Gotham City Monsters succeeds as a story in the vein of the cheesy horror movies I liked to watch at a younger age. The stories and motivations given for each individual hero are simple, much like to protagonists of those old movies and gives this comic a nice monster movie team up feel. Naheulpan’s art is grim and made even better by Mulvihill’s gritty coloring and great use of dark inks for the moments that need shadows. For a first issue, this one was a blast and I absolutely cannot wait for the next one!

---------------------------------------------------

Runner Up: Wonder Woman #78 - G. Willow Wilson, Tom Derenick, Trevor Scott, Norm Rapmund, Romulo Fajardo Jr. and Pat Brosseau

Love is dead. Cheetah has killed her.

The fallout from Cheetah’s actions continue as Wonder Woman has lost her will to fight and is easily overpowered by her most deadly foe. Things begin in the most bleak way possible as illustrated by Tom Derenick. We cut back and forth from the immediate past to the current present as Cheetah wrests or destroys Wonder Woman’s armaments. 

Her sword is cut in half and her shield is demolished after swipes from Cheetah’s new Godkiller sword. Her tiara is broken and sent flying after a solid punch. The Lasso of Truth is snatched away as Cheetah mocks her, asking who is truly worthy. Even the Gauntlets of Submission are absolutely destroyed after being hit with the sword. 

Cheetah smiles with absolute glee as Diana is driven before her, helpless and unable to defeat her with her new and powerful weapon. She manages to escape into a nearby river and calls Atlantiades to help her. The demigoddess hears her call and with the help of Steve Trevor, they find Wonder Woman, broken and defeated without love.

Superman is commonly thought of as being the main hope in DC and there is a lot of merit to that, but at the same time, Wonder Woman is just as much of an inspiration to some if not more. She has almost never given up hope, even after killing Maxwell Lord in the past or losing her ability to see, hell even after fighting the Amazons after they invaded Man’s World she wasn’t at all fazed. Losing to Cheetah and feeling the crushing weight of the world on her shoulders now that she doesn’t have the hope of love to keep her head up high. It’s even worse when Steve Trevor is also suffering from this lack of love. Even while giving Diana a soothing bath for her injuries and trying to console her, his eyes are empty of the love they had and she can tell. 

Not only is love gone, but so is compassion as we see in a short scene shortly after the bath. A mail carrier on a bike accident hits a car and no one does anything to help him. It's telling that people just either drive around him or stand idly by seeing no reason to try to walk through traffic. We see even later on that people are far more willing to commit crime, especially after Lex has been offering people gifts and changing how they think, bringing out the darkness inside.

Eventually Wonder Woman is left with no other choice than to ask Veronica Cale for help. Veronica Cale, who has nothing but enmity for Wonder Woman, decides to help her as she doesn't even remember the feeling of dread that she had when her daughter was trapped in Themyscira and see this as an opportunity to show the Gods that mortals can see what they cannot.

In a way, Cale and Cheetah are similar in that regard. They have nothing but hate for the Gods and Wonder Woman and will do everything they can to tear them down, Cale with wit and guile and Cheetah with pure rage. 

G. Willow Wilson is absolute bringing out the bloodlust from Cheetah that we haven't seen in some time and is making her a pretty credible threat. If her trajectory continues the way that it jas, then there's no doubt in my mind that this entire run of Wonder Woman will end in one of their deaths and that is exciting.

[lucyweaslev]

CHINA ANNE MCCLAIN? No, that’s actually LUCY WEASLEY from the NEXT GENERATION ERA. You know, the child of PERCY WEASLEY and AUDREY WEASLEY (NÉE BETHENCOURT)? Only 21 years old, this RAVENCLAW alumni works as a HEALER IN TRAINING and is sided with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. SHE identifies as CIS-WOMAN and is a HALF-BLOOD who is known to be CREDULOUS, PRESUMPTUOUS, and DISORGANIZED but also FOCUSED, KNOWLEDGEABLE, and HONEST. — &&. ( SAM, EST, THEY/THEM, 24. ) 

character parallels: charles boyle ( brooklyn nine-nine ) + adrian monk ( monk ) + fear ( inside out ) + c3po ( star wars ) + samwell tarly ( game of thrones ) + susan pevensie ( the chronicles of narnia ) + ben wyatt ( parks and recreation ) + seth cohen ( the o.c. ) + willow rosenberg ( buffy the vampire slayer ) + the little prince ( the little prince ) !!

THREE HEADCANONS

01. Lucy was conceived through the help of a sperm donor. She doesn’t know why, andreally isn’t interested on how her parents decided to procreate. She knows she’s not Percy’s biological child, and though she’s not typically one to fight, just try and tell her she’s not a “true” Weasley to see just how that side of her can be awaken. Percy’s her dad, and she loves him. He, her mom and her sister are Lucy’s favourite people in the world. Plus, she adores the rest of her huge family. She’d do anything for any of them, and that used to include snitching on them when they were younger if she thought they were putting themselves into danger. Her logic was that, even though they may not like her at that moment, she could keep on loving them for the rest of forever since they were still alive. She was a slightly overdramatic child.

02. She’s dreamt of becoming a healer since she was eight years old, and though she changed her mind a few times in the process, she always came back to it, which is why she’s now a healer in training at St. Mungo’s. She’s always been fascinated with healing, but most of all, with the way it could converge with muggle medicine. Lucy thinks she got that passion from her grandfather, as he’s the one in the family who’s always been fascinated by all things muggle, and though her own mother was muggleborn, it was with Grandpa Arthur that she talked about all things muggle. She loved sharing the passion with him, and loves discussing the differences and similarities between medicine and healing, the more she learns about them, with him.

03. Lucy doesn’t lie, and therefore, she always assumes that people are saying the truth. She’s not very good at discerning sarcasm, and tends to need things to be straightforward to understand them. Sometimes, she can be a bit brutal with her honesty, but she’s been working on that, as she honestly despises hurting other people. She wants to heal others, after all. Her tendency to take things to the first degree can be a bit problematic, though, especially when she gets sarcastic patients who are very obviously hurt, but say “Oh, no, I’m having a great day.” To make sure it doesn’t get in the way of her work, though, she’s started taking more value in facts than words, though. So, for example, if someone is hurt, she’ll analyze their physical problem and take their words into consideration, and then try to determine what it is that is wrong exactly. It’s a bit more work than for some other people, but Lucy’s smart and knowledgeable, and she’s excellent at her job. Not so much with talking to the patients due to her honesty, but… At healing them? Excellent.

MORE INFORMATION

AN ABSOLUTE NERD! But like, my favourite nerd. 

Panromantic and demisexual, and a hopeless romantic. Problem is: she’s very clumsy when it comes to love and flirting and what not, and more often than not, she ends up embarrassing herself. I imagine her having a huge crush on someone, too, which will be in the wanted connections part of the connections page!

Loves her family with her whole ass heart. Not that she’d put it like that, because she does try to be careful with her language; what if she slipped up in front of a patient? She has to constantly be careful.

FOOD TW // Has a huge sweet tooth, and loves all things cute. Adores baby animals, but is also terrified of them because they’re so unpredictable. Chooses her clothes based on how cute she thinks they are, and does sometimes sacrifice comfort for cuteness, except maybe for shoes and when she works. 

Is always cold.

Always manages to say the wrong thing when she’s trying to flirt. It’s funny, really. Well, to everyone but her.

Loves reading muggle fiction! I’ve decided that she loves both science nonfiction and YA sci fi & fantasy. There’s absolutely no in-between. Hates mysteries, though, because she always manages to find flaws in them. Which is not to say that the books she does read are flawless; just that their flaws bother her a lot less. 

+ ABOUT PAGE !! + PINTEREST BOARD !! + CONNECTIONS PAGE !!

[lauraklly]

Interviews

Interviews

Interviewee 1

Rebecca, 20, F

I am single

Not single - been in a relationship for a year, met a festival

I have used a dating app

Yes

I can name 5 dating platforms

Tinder, hot or not, sugar daddy/babies (seeking arrangement?), farmers dating

I have experienced some form of catfishing

Fake profile added her on facebook

I think dating apps are helpful

Generally, no. Knows people who have had long term relationships, personally thinks they aren’t helpful, when she was younger - made her feel wanted, personally wasn’t helpful to her now. Has used tinder when she was younger, wanted to make herself feel good - age 15, 16

On average my experience with dating apps has been positive

Negative experience -  unsolicited dick pics, heard of stuff where things may have gone wrong

I have met up with someone from a dating app

Has met up with someone from a dating app for a friend (as a safety buddy - went to the movies to make friend feel safe)

I have made a meaningful connection from a dating app

Hasn’t made a meaningful connection

Added information

Enjoys the idea of our interview - having the swiping idea

Make it a bit broader - relationships in general, making friends online

Interviewee 2

Willow 20 F

I am single

Single for life

I have used a dating app

Yes

I can name 5 dating platforms

Tinder, bumble, sugar daddy one

I have experienced some form of catfishing

Instagram catfishes, uses bumble, but not tinder. More prone to catfishes unsafe, more legit, less sleazy

I think dating apps are helpful

Not helpful, but offers validation, and will not use again

On average my experience with dating apps has been positive

Neutral, not positive nor negative, boring not exciting enough, meeting people in person is better

I have met up with someone from a dating app

Met up with 1, went on 2 dates, knew them mutual friends, dog died so she wasn’t in contact for a short period then didn’t hear anything

I have made a meaningful connection from a dating app

No meaningful connection

Added information

Not looking for a partner

Feels like a game, doesn’t feel genuine

Depends on who, changes the outcome

Signifier, to show intentions.

So many people, repetitive

Interviewee 3

Male

22

Have you used a dating app or website?

Yes

Tinder.

Why?

Free

Popular, knew that everyone was getting on there.

Through friends and the internet

Have you ever met up with someone from a dating app?

Yes

How was that experience?

Positive

Do you think dating apps/websites are helpful?

Yes

Why?

Easier, than trying to figure out every chick you feel like talking to is interested or not.

Are you single?

Have You made a meaningful connection from a dating app/website?

Yes

Have you experienced some form of catfishing?

No

Can you name 5 dating platforms?

Tinder, Bumble, OKcupid, Christian singles, Grindr

Would you say your main form of communication is online?

Yes

What outlets do you use for communication?

Messenger, Snapchat, Discord

Would you say you prefer talking to people in real life?

Guess so, no i changed my mind

Why?

I feel like i don't have to accommodate them, usually if i’m talking to someone online i don't have to entertain them. It depends on the situation, hanging out with people is still better in real life but it depends what your doing and how often you see them.

Discord, It’s easy to leave/end a conversation less effort to get into one. Same with messenger. But i'd prefer if i didn't have to use any of them and everyone was always around all the time.

Meeting new people in real life make you anxious?

Depends who the person is

Random stranger

Not really

Friend of a friend

Nah

Someone's family

In a situation where you feel like you have to make a good impression.

Do you enjoy meeting new people?

Yeah if they're cool. Especially if i've heard of them before, if i know of them. It’s a bit of a two edged sword because sometimes you get on instantly or you meet people that are just too different from you.

Are you currently using any dating apps/websites?

No

What did you like/dislike about the using app?

Positive

Easy to set up easy to use

Negative

Inconvenient for people that don't live in a city.

Making you pay for a feature that should be added and free to use.

What's something that helps you feel closer to other people?

Common interest common hobbies

Similar age

Mutual friends

Do you think people make connections online are not as strong as real life?

Not as good but if you meet someone online and you've never met them they only show you a part that they want you to see.

Couple who met in school vs a couple who met in a dating app are either superior?

Still genuine , Just a starter. Seen as something that's, perceived as something to be embarrassed about. New age.

Interviewee 4

Female, 20

I am single

No - in a relationship for 4 years

I have used a dating app

Yes, when I was younger

I can name 5 dating platforms

No; Tinder, Bumble

I have experienced some form of catfishing

Yes, on facebook and instagram fake accounts have added me/followed me. Someone at my school catfished her ex boyfriend and made a fake profile and everyone talked to this profile - the boyfriend thought he was dating the girl I think?

I think dating apps are helpful

Yes - people can get a lot of positives from them, but there’s also a lot of negatives

Positives - connections, new people, relationships, ego boost

On average my experience with dating apps has been positive

I guess (yes), was great for the ego lol

I have met up with someone from a dating app

Not really (no)

I have made a meaningful connection from a dating app

Uhhh, my boyfriend and I also talked on tinder but we had talked on facebook first (before we were together)

My main form of communication is online

Not really

I prefer to talk to people in real life

Yes - can take things the wrong way online so real life is easier and you can make more of a connection

Meeting people in real life makes me anxious

Yes

I like to meet new people

Sometimes

Interviewee 5

Katelin, Female, 20

I am single

No

I have used a dating app

Yes

I can name 5 dating platforms

No, Tinder, bumble

I have experienced some form of catfishing

Yes, Not in person, but definitely have come across fake accounts

I think dating apps are helpful

Yes, I think they can be used for many different things to suit different individuals needs, or if you’re shy/take time to get comfortable speaking in person it’s a good way to start

And to meet more people

On average my experience with dating apps has been positive

Yep! I got what I wanted and could choose to ignore what I didn’t

I have met up with someone from a dating app

Yep, twice

How was that experience?

Mostly good, but you definitely can’t get your hopes up because people tend to be more flaky and cancel last minute. Can be slightly awkward at first/depending on who you’re with

I have made a meaningful connection from a dating app

No because that’s not what I was looking for

My main form of communication is online

Yes, mainly because I’m not constantly with who I’m talking to online

I prefer to talk to people in real life

That’s a tricky one, yes because it can be much more meaningful and real, you can tell someone’s emotions and if they are telling the truth, but then no because you can take time to think about a reply online and it can be a good build up until you’re actually with them

Meeting people in real life makes me anxious

Yes, especially if it’s a stranger because you never know how it’s going to go, you’re completely outside your comfort zone

I like to meet new people

Yes definitely, life would be boring without new people

Interviewee 6

Female, 25

Have you used a dating app or website?

Yes

Tinder.

Why?

Most popular/Most heard of

Friends using it, good features like location

Have you ever met up with someone from a dating app?

Yes

How was that experience?

Positive mainly

Do you think dating apps/websites are helpful?

Yes

Why?

Takes away the initial awkwardness of trying to find out if someone is attracted to you Creates more opportunity to make connections

Are you single?

Have You made a meaningful connection from a dating app/website?

Yes

Have you experienced some form of catfishing?

Not really

Can you name 5 dating platforms?

Tinder, Bumble, Match.com, OKcupid, Grindr, POF

Would you say your main form of communication is online?

Yes

What outlets do you use for communication?

Messenger

Snapchat

Discord

Would you say you prefer talking to people in real life?

Not really

Why?

There's less tension and anxiety involved when talking to someone online. Especially via messages.

Meeting new people in real life make you anxious?

Yes

Why?

The pressure of leaving a good impression

Do you enjoy meeting new people?

Yes, expanding your circle of people generates new opportunities to learn things and become more understanding.

Are you currently using any dating apps/websites?

No

What did you like/dislike about the using app?

Positive

Customizable setting

Large user base (tinder)

Negative

Creepy people

Not everyone has the same intentions

What's something that helps you feel closer to other people?

Similar outlook on life

Same humour

Do you think people make connections online are not as strong as real life?

The opposite

Interviewee 7

Grace, F

I am single

Yes, never had a bf

I have used a dating app

Nope, weird, people use them to hook up, not really serious, don’t want to see people you know, parents etc finding out, everyone has mutual friends

I can name 5 dating platforms

Tinder, bumble, okcupid

I have experienced some form of catfishing

Never talked to anyone online that hasn’t met in person

I think dating apps are helpful

Yes, for some people, getting married when you’ve never met someone

My main form of communication is online

In real life more, 70 30,

I prefer to talk to people in real life

Yes, hard to express yourself through writing, emojis,

People do make connections but wouldn’t do it herself, different form of connection, weird

Would delete facebook but need it for uni, convenient

What do online connections not have - parents are against that kind of thing - if it’s not in real life it’s not real

Not against it, but wouldn’t personally chat online like that

Dad works in IT, against companies having data, big on security

Online security - important

Would be cautious messaging someone even if they knew them - would only message a close friend

Doesn’t really use snapchat and instagram

Meeting people in real life makes me anxious

No - sometimes can get anxious meeting new people, if she doesn’t know anyone

I like to meet new people

Something that helps you feel close to people

Talking to people, talking about deeper things, spending time with them

Interviewee 8

Charlie, 20, M

I am single

Yes - been single for a couple years

I have used a dating app

No

I can name 5 dating platforms

Tinder, grindr, old myspace, foreign ones?

I have experienced some form of catfishing

Yes - found someone using friends pictures, tried to hit him up, that’s not you lol

I think dating apps are helpful

Mixed bag, good to meet people online that you wouldn’t usually, physically finding people there’s a lot of bullshit, online you’re straight to the point, common interests, a lot of risk, people seeing you on them and then your work knows etc, privacy is important

My main form of communication is online

Tries best to make it physical, but spends a lot of time on group chats, uses messenger, snapchat, used to use skype a lot or viber, instagram less for communication

I prefer to talk to people in real life

Enjoys both, online there’s a lot of communication, misplacement of a full stop, consciousness

Always going to be issues with text based communication, not a fan of emojis, enjoys the horse emoji, friend said she wanted to f**k a horse, uses horse and water squirting emoji, person with cowboy hat is fun

Meeting people in real life makes me anxious

No, depends on the person, if you were meeting Elon Musk would be a bit nervous

I like to meet new people

Yes, likes making jokes, last year for minor got grouped up, friends with them now, spends more time in WG with those friends

[layla256]

Key to Her Heart Chapter 1/52: Halloween

So, some context first. My friends and I decided to do a 52 fanfic challenge this year, one prompt each week. The only rule is that you must adhere to the prompt, one post a week, and they all must be in the same universe. So, for example, if you have been writing marvel fanfic all year, but you think a prompt would be GREAT for Supernatural, you have to somehow fit the Supernatural universe into the MCU. 

Now, because I hate myself, I decided I was going to write an entire series consecutively with only a basic outline of my AU and no knowledge about the future prompts.

KILL ME.

But, either way, I think this’ll be a fun adventure into writing for me. So behold the first in my Spuffy AU Key to Her Heart. I’ll probably post this on AO3 and EF as well.

The prompt this time was:  Our hero (or heroine) loses his memory.   Who will help him find his way back?

And doesn’t that just scream “Halloween episode”?

WARNING: At one point at the end of this chapter, Spike makes the assumption that Buffy was raped in the episode Reptile Boy. While no detail is given and Buffy reveals that there wasn’t any rape, it’s still an issue mentioned and I don’t want to blind side anyone with it.

Spike wasn’t a traditionalist. He never pretended to be one either. No matter how much Dru had wanted him to be, that just wasn’t something he cared about. All that chanting and ritual? It just wasn’t him. However, if there was one rule he was willing to take seriously, it was the one about Halloween. You don’t start shit on Halloween. It’s everyone’s fucking vacation day. Sure, if a tasty snack wanders by he isn’t going to say, “No thanks, I’m dieting today!” But he also understood that, at a certain point, causing problems on Halloween was just being a dick.

Spike can respect an asshole (he is often one), but being a dick is an entirely different story.

So, you can imagine the conflict he felt when Dru told him that someone was, as his mother would have said, “making shenanigans” that were going to deliver the Slayer into his lap. On the one hand, he had his principles dammit! He had said he would respect the Halloween rule when he first learned of it. However, on the other hand, he was an ancient, evil vampire and he did whatever he wanted! Not to mention the fact that the slayer was a royal bitch who had it coming.

Eventually, Spike made a compromise with himself. He’d go out and enjoy whatever chaos occurred because of this newcomer. If he saw the slayer? Great. Dinner and his Dark Princess back at her best again. If he saw the person responsible? A beating and lecture that would make his father weep with jealousy.

He hadn’t been planning on what he would do if he ran into her however.

She looked beautiful, although he knew from experience at this point that she always did. Her normally well-kept hair was completely falling out of whatever adorable braid she’d managed to coax it into that night. The crown of what looked like Daffodils was almost falling completely off her head. Her make up was relatively un-smudged, but that probably had more to do with the fact that she wasn’t wearing much, just a light dusting of gold across her eyelids and a similar color on her lips.

However, the thing that caught his attention wasn’t just the confused look on her face, but the dress she was wearing. Unlike the tight black number that had been haunting his dreams since that God-awful frat party the week before, this dress matched Buffy far better. The creamy silk of the one-shoulder dress looked gorgeous folded and wrapped around her body, accentuating every curve while hiding the important parts from his gaze. The golden rope around her waist synched it all in, drawing his attention to her hips and that luscious ass that—

And he was going to stop that train of thought right now.

She looked at him with no recognition and a hint of fear, making him want to cast himself on the nearest cross. Worried that she was upset with him for the party, he shrunk his shoulders, held his hands up, and tried to seem as non-threatening as possible.

“Pet I—I would never hurt you. You know that, right? Please tell me you know I would never hurt you.”

While the confusion didn’t leave her hazel green eyes, the fear definitely did. “D-Do you know me?” She asked hesitantly, looking around them with wide eyes. “Do you know who I am?”

Spike’s brow furrowed. “Of course I do, luv. You’re—”

He was cut off as one of her friends came running towards them looking a bit odd while followed by the other one, who wasn’t moving normally. Too stiff.

“Buffy!” Red called, waving her arms wildly at the girl in front of him. “Buffy, thank goodness you’re ok!”

 Spike was stuck on baby-sitting duty, and he wasn’t sure how upset he wanted to be about it. Red, who was a very hot ghost for some reason, had run off to find Buffy’s pseudo Watcher, leaving him to look after the Whelp and Buffy, both of whom had turned into their costumes, leaving confused shells behind.

“So I dressed as a goddess and now I am one?” Buffy asked again, still trying to grasp everything after the short run-through Willow had given Spike. “That does sound rather . . . disconcerting.”

What’s disconcerting is you using that kind of language Spike thought, but he kept it to himself. He knew there was a bright mind under all that blonde, and he wasn’t going to be one of the many people discouraging her about it.

“So, fill us in,” Whelp ordered, showing more initiative that Spike had ever seen in the teen. “What is the situation like?”

Spike sighed heavily, not wanting to really get into it. “Look, I wasn’t here for the mess that was last year, alright? So you lot are getting the cliff-notes version and nothing more. Got it?”

The goddess and soldier before him nodded, though Whelp looked like he wanted to argue the point more.

“Now, I don’t know about you Whelp, but I know that little miss amnesia over there moved here about a year and a half ago after her parents split. She met you and Red and you little Happy Meals have been friends ever since.” He noticed Buffy scrunch her nose at the term “Happy Meals” and couldn’t help but smile knowing there was still some of her in that costume after all. She always did get on his case about it.

“Why would my parents split apart? Surely if they loved one another enough to marry—”

“Cliff notes version luv,” Spike reminded her gently. In all honesty, he didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. That when Hank and Joyce Summers had been confronted with the very real issue of the supernatural Joyce had dealt with it through mild panic, heavy drinking for two days, and silence while Hank had simply attempted to ship Buffy off to the funny farm. Thankfully, the idea of her daughter being sent somewhere like that for something Joyce knew was real had snapped her back to herself pretty quickly. However, Buffy had blamed herself for the divorce ever since, and Spike, evil though he may be, didn’t have it in him to hurt her like that.

“So you lot wound up getting involved in most of the nasty business here on the Hellmouth since good ol’ Watcher thought you might be a Potential.”

Once again, Buffy’s brow furrowed in the most adorable way. “Potential what?”

Spike shook his head. “Potential Slayer, luv, like that Faith bi-bint Willow mentioned she was getting. One girl in every soddin‘ generation to cause vamps like me all kinds of headaches. They thought you were one for a bit, but turns out you’ve just got major magic going on.”

Whelp shot up. “‘Vamps like me’? You’re a vampire? Then why are you helping us?” Spike saw him reach for his weapon, but waved him off.

“Easy there Rambo. My issue’s with the Slayer and her lot. I got no quarrel with you all.” He looked at Buffy with a single smirk. “Told you that the first night we met actually. You and Red threatened to light my highly flammable ass on fire if I tried to take a bite out of you. Been nothing but banter ever since.”

Buffy smiled, “So we’re compatriots then?” she asked cautiously. “Through humor and fear?”

Spike barked out a laugh. “‘Compatriots’, sure. I gave you my word that, long as you and your lot stayed out of my business, you’d be safe as houses. Yer Mum’s got permanent protection too, in case you’re worried.” No need to mention how pointless he thought it was, seeing as how the woman bashed him over the head with an ax right after thinking he was attacking Buffy.

Buffy nodded her head gratefully, more of her hair spilling out of her braid. “Thank you very much Spike. That puts my mind at an ease.”

Bloody hell, Red needed to hurry up with whatever plan it was she had for fixing this mess.

After that, things eventually quieted down a bit. Soldier Whelp went into the kitchen hunting for “provisions”, leaving Spike with a curious Buffy.

“Spike,” she said cautiously, tilting her head as she looked at him. “Spike, why were you concerned that I was afraid of you when we met? If we are friends and you have upheld your end of our bargain, then surely I would have no reason to fear you.”

Spike sighed heavily for what felt like the thousandth time that night, running his fingers over his gelled hair in frustration. He’d honestly been hoping she wouldn’t ask about that.

He could lie to her, tell her some made-up story to keep in the goddess’s good graces for a while longer, but he immediately shook the thought off. He might not mind it, but Buffy would be offended. She’d see it as a manipulation. While she won’t come out and reprimand him for it, he’ll still be subject to those disappointed eyes. Like last time.

“You, well, pet, that is—” he cut himself off with an angry growl. Rip the bandage off. “You’re upset with me. I went and killed some blighters who absolutely deserved it, but you didn’t appreciate it. Haven’t spoken to me in a week for it.”

Buffy’s head tilted once again for a moment, considering. He hated when she did that. For one thing, she looked bloody adorable. For another, he could never tell what she was about to say. “What was their crime?” She asked finally.

Spike blinked at her twice. “What?”

“Their crime.” She repeated simply. “You ascertained that they deserved their fate, but what crime did they commit to deserve such a thing?”

Spike couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t explain the pain on Buffy’s face when she’d told him of the drugs they’d put in her drink, they way they’d dragged her about as they saw fit.

She hadn’t come out and said it, but he knew that you only drugged a girl for one reason and one alone. That in and of itself would have earned them a solid beating session with him (he’d never much liked rape, even after being turned), but the fact that they’d done it to Buffy, kind, innocent Buffy who went so far out of her way for her friends and family, even an undead monster like himself, was unforgivable. There was only one appropriate punishment, and he certainly didn’t regret being the one to give it out.

Thankfully, he was saved from explaining as the crown completely fell off of her head, and Buffy, blinking as if to clear a fog, looked at him with recognition for the first time. “Spike?” she asked her nose once again being too freaking cute for words as it scrunched. “Ugh, what happened? I feel all magic-y.”

“Thank Eric Cantona, she lives to butcher the mother tongue once more!” Spike grinned and swept her into a hug, swinging her around once before dropping her onto the ground.

“Spike, what’s got you all ramped up? You’ve been all with the brooding worse than Angel lately.” Despite her words, a bright smile took over her face. “Ever since Willow, Cordy, and I almost got sacrificed to that snake demon thingy last week—”

Spike gripped her shoulders tightly, eyes tinted yellow. “Wait, what? What sacrifice?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Remember? The frat party? I was all with the crying and the depresso girl and you went on a completely unnecessary warpath through the whole freaking frat?”

Spike felt the distinct need to lay down. A sacrifice. The boys hadn’t raped her. Just a failed sacrifice. That he hadn’t even known about.

Yes. A kip was definitely a requirement right now.

So that’s the first chapter! In this AU Buffy is the key as opposed to Dawn, and Faith is the Slayer. This is actually a thought I had back in high school when I first watched the series and couldn’t get my hands on anything past the first third of the fifth season and none of the Angel series, so recognize that a lot of my characterization won’t stray from my feelings about characters past around the Dracula episode. While I’ll be referencing and maybe even writing about things in later seasons (maybe even the comics, I’m not sure yet), my main influence are going to be those first few years. For example, I am perfectly aware of the fact that Faith gets a redemption and becomes a great Slayer and a good friend to Buffy. However, I had seven years to sit and stew on how much I hated her before I could get my hands on the later seasons, so . . . yeah.

[thehelpfilm]

A Critical Film Review of “The Help”

         An entertaining and somewhat light-hearted take on the harsh realities of racism in 1960’s Mississippi, “The Help” is a deeply moving, poignant, and hopeful story about how courage and working together can create change. It serves as a reminder of how compassion, strength, empathy, and honesty have helped in making the world a less horrific place to live in.

         The film is based on Kathryn Stockett’s bestselling novel “The Help” which tells the story of African American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi, during the early 1960s.

Synopsis

Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (played by Emma Stone) a young white woman who is an aspiring journalist starts by writing for a cleaning advice column “Miss Myrna” –– having no idea about how to clean, Skeeter enlists Aibileen (played by Viola Davis) to help her. Due to these series of events, they form a strong bond that later inspires Skeeter to write a book on the perspective of “The Help” –– that exposes the racism they are faced with as they work for white families.

Not only is this task illegal, it goes against all of her friends, her family, and her boyfriend as they all live quite happily with segregation in society. As time goes on, more maids get involved and have a great deal to say about their lives raising white children and serving their mothers.

Awards and Acclaim

Touchstone Pictures released The Help worldwide, with a general theatrical release in North America on August 10, 2011. The film was a critical and commercial success, receiving positive reviews and grossing $216 million in worldwide box office. The Help received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress for Davis, and Best Supporting Actress for both Chastain and Spencer, with the latter winning the award. The film also won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

The Directing and Filming

The film is a historical period drama set in Mississippi. The setting looked realistic and it looks as if the movie was straight out from the 1960s. The costumes, the hair, even the television and other background props really encapsulated the time period. It was visually stunning. The transitions were on point. It was an immersive experience that really took you to the 60’s and I can’t see any flaws when it comes to the filming of the scenes.

Each frame meant something. Every scene was necessary in telling the story. An example would be the scene wherein Skeeter and Constantine, her family maid who happened to just disappear, were having a conversation about the school dance and how no boy has asked her yet. They were talking beneath a huge willow tree.

In this scene, Constantine and Skeeter feel safe under the shade. It shows how they are free to have a conversation there because they are hidden under the tree and no one else could judge them. This scene also shows how Constantine was more of like a mother to her than her actual mother which is a common theme in this movie.

The maids seem to know far more than the mothers of the white children they take care of. They motivated the kids and made them feel important.

The Characters

“You is Kind, You is Smart, You is Important” a significant line in the film said by Nanny Aibileen Clack. She says this to Moe Mobley, the child of Elizabeth, her boss. The character is seen to be taking care of the child even better than her actual mother.

The white women are seen as snarky and oppressive to their maids, but not all of them. Some have good stories and treat them well like in the case of Celia Foote –– who has never once hired a maid before. Minny becomes her maid and helps her in cleaning and cooking for Celia’s husband Johnny.

Celia is seen as an outcast because she comes from a trailer park community. People who come from that and suddenly get into the suburban lifestyle because they married a guy whose lifestyle is white, rich, elite often get shunned because they are seen as “white trash”.

This is seen when the ladies pretend to hide and turn off the music when Celia knocks at their door carrying a pie that Minny made.

I especially enjoyed the dynamic between Minny and Celia. It was sweet and serious at times. It showed that not all white people are bad, some were allies and good hearted people just like Skeeter and Celia.

The acting was believable and convincing. None of the characters seemed flat to me, everyone had character development, some stayed the same like Hilly Holbrook but as an antagonist, she did her job of being hated and despised.

Skeeter’s mom was another character I thoroughly enjoyed. Her journey throughout the film really made a good character story arc. At first we find out she has cancer and she wants Skeeter to get married and find a husband quick. Forcing her to go on dates and getting excited when Stuart came looking for Skeeter.

But she ignores Skeeter whenever she asks about what happened to their maid Constantine. She’s unsupportive of what Skeeter is writing about at first, turn off the television when the black servants and Skeeter were watching national news about the Civil Rights movement telling her to not inspire them or give them any ideas.

She has a change of heart in the end and reveals what happened to Constantine and ultimately becomes a supportive mother even defending Skeeter from Hilly who barges in their house threatening to ruin Skeeter’s life.

I enjoyed the strong female characters and the dynamic between all of them. The dialogue was also very well-written and humorous despite the fact that they are talking about racism, they still have some good comedy in there.

The Historical Context and Message Behind the Film

The stories that the Black maids told Skeeter for her novel revealed that the Jackson society at that time was very racist. The maids were unappreciated by their white employers as well as disrespected in the manner in which they were treated. The wages that they were paid were deplorable when compared to the work that was assigned to them. They were the ones that raised their white employers’ children without the input of the parents. This was despite the fact that the Blacks were considered dirty, lazy, disease–ridden and having less intelligence that the average white person.

Unfortunately, the film falls short of a credible presentation, as the reality of the situation is not tackled with any degree of seriousness. One of the most jarring elements is the absence of any reference to the mass struggles that shattered the Jim Crow structure –– which was the the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life.

There were several area within the movie that describe how life was really like in Jackson was like.

There is a scene in the movie where Aibileen was in the bathroom, built specifically for her because Hilly says that black people are disease-ridden and should have separate bathrooms. In several scenes of the movie, the mothers tell their child to not go to those “dirty” bathrooms used by maids or else they will get sick.

The segregation of bathrooms was so real that in the first scenes of the movie we see Hilly putting pencil marks on the toilet paper in the bathroom to make sure that Minny wasn’t using her toilet.

The maids travel on buses that are for black people only or are at the back of a bus with the white people at the front.

This is similar to the situation back then where everything was separated. Similar to an apartheid in South Africa. Wherein, blacks could not attend the same schools and churches as the white people.

“They killed him” –– Aibileen tells the story of how her son died and explained that the white bosses loaded him up in the back of a pickup after being ran over. They dropped him off in front of the colored hospital, honked the horn, and drove away.

Also, a scene where Yule Mae gets arrested in a violent way and the white folks just watch and act as if nothing happened.

The movie shows some issues of discrimination and segregation but in my opinion it was a bit sugarcoated. Sure it can teach people about how life was like back then for African American but it does not show how bad it really was. It was violent, abusive, oppressive and frankly it was not funny. It could have done more but truth be told, the message was there and it did a great job of portraying it even if it was kind of stereotypical and whitewashed.

Whitewashing in a sense that Skeeter is seen as the hero and the brave one. Well she was brave but is it really appropriate that we are applauding this courageous, fictional white gIrl?

Truth be told it is fiction and it is meant to entertain but millions of people saw this film and might believe this to be real and an accurate representation of who were the real heroes of those times. It was a combination of black people who fought for their rights alongside white allies.

It’s not a perfect film, of course one movie cannot represent the vile actualities of the racism experienced by Black people during that time. In fact, this movie could have done more but chose to play it safe. Given the theme of the movie which is Racism during the 60’s, it’s a heavy topic that carries a lot of historical weight around it.

It could have been a more hard-hitting drama that would have made viewers bawl their eyes out after the film but like I said, it is a heavy topic to deal with. The writers and directors chose to make it light-hearted and easy to take in. It is told in an accessible and pleasurable way that almost anyone of all ages can watch and enjoy the film.

Do I recommend everyone to watch it? Yes. Do I think people should just stop at this film and use it as their basis for historical context on racism in the 60s? No.

Did I enjoy it? Yes, very much so.

[jaimistoryteller]

OC/Author PrideFest Question Mess Part 3

Thanks for the tag @raevenlywrites​​ ! Ended up sleeping longer than expected, here’s the last part of the set of questions.

Rules I am going with: answer the questions you know or are comfortable sharing, tag others, add a question if you feel like something is missing.

Note: I will be answering in three different posts, one per section, rather than all together because of how many questions there are.

Questions for you:

Introduce yourself! Tell us a little bit about you and what you write

Why do you write LGBT+ characters?

Have you always written LGBT+ characters? If no, what inspired you to start? Is it a deliberate representational choice?

Do you use modern labels in your work? Why or why not?

World builders: do you have any neat societal twists? (unique names for IDs, different marriage practices, etc.)

Do you write outside your own experiences? (cis writing trans, wlw writing mlm, etc.) If yes, how confident do you feel about it?

Tell us about a favorite book/character someone else wrote that inspired you (or just plain gave you a warm and fuzzy)

Any advice for someone else writing LGBT+ characters?

Would you like people to ask you more questions when this is over?

Free space! Wax poetic about something near and dear to your heart.

Questions for your Ocs (in character or out, dealer’s choice):

Say hi! Let us get to know you, you big beautiful person, you!

How do you feel about the world your author has created for you?

Are you out? To whom, why or why not, etc?

Tell us a little about your journey. Have you always IDed the way you do now? Are there parts of you you’re still figuring out?

Do you feel settled in your ID, or do you think it might change as you and your author go on?

Did your author always know you were [blank], or did you have to tell them? If yes, oh please, please tell us how! :3

Is being [blank] particularly hard in your world? How does your society treat you differently than ours might?

Tell us a little about your unique experiences with your ID. Do you experience dysphoria? Is it impossible to find a date? Just want to find that special someone for snuggles but everyone expects sex? Unload for a minute, it’s okay to struggle sometimes.

What’s the best part about being [blank] in your world?

Do you like getting fan-mail? Would you like people to ask you more questions when this is over?

Grab that mic! Drop some truth on us, something you’ve just been dying to share! Shout out to your besties!

Questions for either you or your OCs:

Going to answer these like I would a Q&A post, with the first three characters that comes to mind for each question.

What’s your orientation and gender? Wave that flag!!!

Tichina - female and pan. I’m proud of both. While I have not yet met my soulmates, I have had a variety of partners over the year that covers the spectrum of genders and sexualities. 

Quin - agender and queer. I am much more comfortable with my gender then I am my orientation. 

Stepan - male, demisexual, pan or poly romantic, never quite sure which is a better fit. I’m good with my alignments and try to always be respectful of other peoples. If my patient has one I am unfamiliar with, then I make sure to do research so I can help my patient to the best of my abilities. 

When did you realize you were LGBT+?

Jon - as a preteen. The others on the gymnastics team were talking about how cute people were and I didn’t see it.

Isa - in my mid-twenties. I’m older than I look.

Nazreen - after meeting my soulmates in my mid-twenties, prior to that I just thought there was something wrong with me.

What makes your heart melt?

Nazreen - not technically related to my orientation, but seeing Akaal with the children, particularly the smaller ones. He’s so big and yet I know he’s never going to harm them. 

Sitara *chuckles* Nazreen beat me to that one, *thoughtful look* I’m going with the way acceptance is the norm and not the unusual within the Balakhnov Building.

Tichina - any time I am able to get one of my high risk kids off the street, bonus points for the ones who find themselves and do so proudly. 

Do you have a favorite LGBT+ song? Movie? Book? Artist? (comic?)

Marie - too many books to list them all, the beauty of being an editor. I’ve always enjoyed All the Things She Said by t.A.T.u

Ioanna - Father would have been horrified if still alive to know I play games like Saints Row 2. I think that Gat, Aisha, and the main character are a triad. Since the main character can be anything the player ones, I take them to be genderfluid, so no matter how the relationship unfolds it’s bi

Sparks - Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman. You know she keeps them in line and makes Bruce stop brooding so damned much. 

Do you have a secret crush outside of your own work? Some wild crossover OTP?

Aither - I spent my teenage years shipping myself with Buffy and Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and there was that one time I wondered what it would be like to be an Aither sandwich with Squall and Seifer from FFVIII. . Of course, as an adult I have also shipped myself with Sam and Gabriel from Supernatural. 

Aaron *tries not to fidget* Q from the Craig!Bond movies is quiet adorable and I wouldn’t mind a good snuggle with him. 

Diego - I don’t know if I’d like anything more than friendship, but I’d love to get to know Stiles and Lydia from Teen Wolf. Maybe Even Scott if he could get his head out of his rump long enough to actually act like the friend he’s supposed to be. 

Tell us about your LGTB+ headcannons (I’d really love to see someone’s character answer this)

Karl - I always thought that William and Geoffrey from A Knight’s Tale were boyfriends. When Jocelyn joins them, they form a proper triad. 

Isaak - no one can convince me that Bones, Spock and Jim weren’t a space-husband triad!

Vara - I’d like to think that Nathan, Audrey, and Duke in Haven are a triad. Most of Nathan and Duke’s conflict coming from the fact neither of them wants to admit it for whatever silly reason.

What’s your favorite thing about being LGBT+?

Vasilia - I’m myself and able to accept that I am myself, rather than trying to be someone I am not because I hadn’t accepted being transgender.

Isa - there is a community of people like me.

Keywon - pride in my friends and community. 

Is there a cool place you like to hang out with your squad? Maybe an LGBT+ meet up?

Keywon - well, our team hangs out at the basketball court a lot, we also spend time in the community center where we are able to get help with any school work we need. We’re encouraged to bring others our age or orientation to hang out and what not. 

Quin - before meeting Aither, I spent a lot of my time at the queer book store, I didn’t really have a squad, but at least it was somewhere safe for me in public. Not that I like being in public too often. 

Molon - while I do spend a lot of time at the community center and at the basketball court, I also spend a lot of time at the nomyn san (Mongolian Library) where a lot of people of a similar descent hang out to share culture.

What are some things you do to keep positive?

Tichina - I help those in my community and the communities around mine. Every time I do so, I know I am helping someone else avoid the hardships that I and others before me went through. They’ll have a chance at a better life. 

Tzvia - prayer and regular worship, I am active in the both my faith and sports. 

Isaak - studying helps me keep positive because it means I can reach for the stars (literally)

Do you have any advice for young LGBT+ people?

Jon - you’re not broken, wrong, or otherwise odd. No matter what some people might claim, they’re idiots. 

Aither - own whatever space you are in, most won’t know how to take it.

Jamie - be yourself, it might require leaving what you know, but in the long run it’ll be far better for you. 

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Isaak - hopefully on the moon, it’s going to take a lot of hard work and study, but my Uncle and Aunt are making it possible so I’m not letting them or myself down.

Falco - retiring, I hope. I sometimes feel far too old for position within the Network that I hold. 

Ioanna - I happier and healthier me, preferably. 

Welp, that took way longer than planned because of a host of reasons. Still, have some more information on my massive world.

Tagging some peeps I am getting to know off the writer peeps spreadsheet so they can see my answers or do them as they feel fit.

@authordai @forlornraven @lagamerita @writing-at-dusk and @wordsbysarah

 Part 1 and  Part 2