#andromeda meta

[bluerose5]

On Heleus and the Jardaan

Y'all ever think about how little we actually ventured into the Andromeda galaxy in ME:A? I mean, we only really touch one cluster of the galaxy, and its considered to be "in the outskirts" of Andromeda. We only touch a single corner in all of ME:A. For reference —and yes while not all of them have groundbreaking, plot-relevant locations— ME1 has a total of 17 locations classified as "clusters," according to the fandom wiki. For ME3, there are a total of 34.

I only mention this because it raises so many questions, in my opinion. Questions that I know will likely remain unanswered, but I like to consider them anyways. For instance, the Jardaan. I can't remember whether it was established if they left Andromeda as a whole or if they just left Heleus. And if that's the case, did they evacuate to other clusters after deploying the Scourge, only to quarantine Heleus off? Did they just (wrongly) assume that the remaining angara would die off in their absence, but that was an accepted casualty of a bigger war being waged against an unnamed Big Bad™ or even against the kett? Because, if I remember correctly, it's basically implied in-game that the kett have a larger empire outside of Heleus, so it would make sense for these two major factions —one of whom, their entire way of life is built upon destroying others— to be at war. Maybe the Jardaan thought the kett were foolish for wasting resources in trying to recover Heleus, believed there was no way for them to possibly find anything like Meridian, not knowing what they left behind.

Then, there begs the question, "why make a sentient race?" What would they possibly have to gain from making the Angara? Slightly off-topic from the original point, but I like to consider it nonetheless. My current theory is that, the Angara are the Jardaan, in a way. The Jardaan has had to develop so much advanced technology, has had to incorporate it into their ways of life and into their very being (think of a sort of hybrid species like in the Trilogy's Synthesis ending). But this was done out of necessity. More importantly, to lengthen their lifespans until they are bordering on immortal. Why did they do this? Because the kett are taking more of their people in the galaxy at-large every day than they have ability to replace through reproductive means. They are a dying race, and they are on the verge of extinction.

They don't conduct research in Heleus to make the Angara. They work to make Jardaan, to preserve their people. It is why the Angara are compatible with their tech. It is why they wanted to make more worlds viable via terraforming. It was never meant to be a creator-created relationship. It was meant to be a relationship where they walked as equals, the Angara made in the image of who they were before the war. Because what bigger insult is there to an enemy that wants to destroy everything you are, than to live on in spite of them. Only, the Jardaan left, presumably taking some of their research and some of their people with them, and that is when those who were abandoned split off to form the people that we know as the Angara.

[sparsilees]

the blacks aren’t an incestuous family

you can say sirius is rather unhinged and depressed from prolonged dementor exposure and the violent tragedy of betrayal and loss. you can say he’s traumatised by his upbringing and the first wizarding war. or that the horrors™ have done a real number on him. that bellatrix lestrange was too brilliant, too enchanted with the dark arts, or too broken from azkaban.

don’t blame it on ‘black family madness’, it doesn’t exist in canon. don’t blame it on inbreeding.

the pureblood families generally intermarried between ‘suitable’ bloodlines (sometimes they brought in halfbloods, too). the blacks are no exception—why marry your silly cousin when there’s a wider pool of eligible pureblood contenders? because according to the back family tree *checks note* walburga and orion are the only cousins known to have married in canon—specifically, they’re second cousins.

the black family tree roots are far-reaching and expansive. there’s always a black daughter that’s married into every other notable family—the burkes, the crouches, the lestranges, the longbottoms, the malfoys, the prewetts, the potters, and the weasleys—the wizarding world is built on the black bloodline.

everyone’s related in some capacity to the blacks, with certain individuals more closely than others, like how sirius black and arthur weasley are second cousins once removed, with their closest common ancestor being former headmaster phineas black.

the black family members featured in the books descend from either arcturus (the main branch) or pollux. this means that, due to their parents’ union, sirius and regulus have black, macmillan, and crabbe ancestry. whereas the black sisters are entirely removed from the heir line and share black, crabbe, and rosier bloodlines. sirius and regulus, and bellatrix, andromeda, and narcissa share exactly one set of grandparents and one set of great-grandparents.

(also, if you subscribe to the alternate canon that james’ parents are dorea and charlus, it means sirius and james are first cousins once removed; james and arthur are second cousins; and harry and ron are third cousins, placing them in the same generation as the black quintet and closer to phineas black than draco or tonks.)

canonically, it’s the gaunts who were “a very ancient wizarding family noted for a vein of instability and violence that flourished through the generations due to their habit of marrying their own cousins”, and even nearly pulled off sibling marriage to continue their line.

unlike the gaunts, the blacks did not bring together first cousins into a union and added various bloodlines into the family, so the ‘black family madness due to incestuous practices’ theory doesn’t hold water, bye.

[rawliverandcigarettes]

Thinking about Mass Effect, as you do, and how I'm kind of sad that the way it's been engraved in pop culture has more to do with the way internet reacted to it at the time than what the actual game is about. Yes sure, it's about romance (and not that much all things considered) and it's pulpy (but not solely because of hot lady aliens), but it's also intricate worldbuilding that touches on a lot of sharp ideas, and a complicated tug-of-war between a genuine and vulnerable belief in reconciliation and community VS post 9-11 US military propaganda and steadfast belief in heroic exceptionalism, and the melancholic yet energizing mood, and the daring narrative systems, and so so much more than the 'We'll Bang OKs" and the "There's No Shepard Without Vakarian" and the whole ME3 ending situation

It's all there, but I'm sad the impact of the series is often reduced to (what I think is) the least interesting parts of its sum

[regheart]

i'm thinking about how the characterisation of the black family tends to be really difficult to get right and one of the reasons that i can think of is that we don't know enough of wizarding culture, so we try to convey the atmosphere and the dynamics through codes that are familiar to us

that's why they are so victorian in so many fics. they act and speak like they're inside a victorian novel, they only ever wear black and dark green, the high society/pure blood circle is also composed by meeting for tea, and having balls, and discussing politics, and arranged marriages

and that's not bad!!! i read and love some fics like that, but i think this is an aesthetic that completely ignores some of the things we know about wizards and about the blacks

first of all, the clothes. wizards wear robes. not late 19th century clothes, robes. and they're most often dramatic and colorful. this is something easily observed in the very first chapter of PS. so i think the blacks should wear deep purple and emerald green and silver and burgundy and turquoise, make outfits fun!!!

second, grimmauld place tells us some things about its inhabitants. the fact that it's a muggle house in a muggle neighborhood shows that they must have some level of cognitive dissonance in terms of what elements of muggle culture and lifestyle they hold (but i don't think that applies to holding the same patterns of views and behaviors of high society, again, it's about how the writers tries to convey "rich and uptight" with codes that are familiar to them). the decoration choices for the house are also very telling, family heirlooms, big clocks, tapestry... troll leg and house elf heads??? that's morbid. that's camp.

and my point is, black family characterisation lacks on campiness. wizards are inherently weird. anything in which they're overly polite and too aristocratic is inaccurate. they are bigots and lobbyists and one of them was literally headmaster of hogwarts. they are into the dark arts but they don't torture their children. make them funnier and messier and weirder and more like real people instead of a bunch of lines from downton abbey glued together

[star-rises]

I’m endlessly curious about Andromeda’s interaction with privilege in the wizarding world. She walks away from her family to marry a muggleborn and casts herself out from the epicentre of power, but how much does she still hold as a pureblood witch? She might no longer be welcome at the country houses of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, but when facing down some middling Ministry official or a half-blood family she’s still a Black. How much does she lean into that?

As far as we know she doesn’t provide any support for Sirius when he runs away from home nor does she try and get him out of Azkaban. She doesn’t seem to play any part in the First War at all. I think all of this could be justified under an explanation of her cutting herself off from the wizarding world entirely in order to protect her family, but that kind of disconnect doesn’t make sense when Tonks not only goes to Hogwarts but becomes an Auror. So does that mean Andromeda doesn’t have any power or resources to lean into, or just that she doesn’t care about Sirius, or a bit of both?

Then there’s the fact that Auror is the profession Tonks pursues. For someone to choose to be part of upholding such a problematic institution, she has to be normalized to wizarding society’s power structures - enough to accept them, or maybe not question them at all. So that makes me envision an upbringing where Andromeda said her family were the problem, not pureblood power and privilege in itself. (And there’s a whole other conversation in there about the pressure of gender conformity and internalized homophobia that Tonks grapples with tbh.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Andromeda fan. I actually think these gray areas are what make her fascinating. Like Sirius, she straddles contradictory worlds, and both benefits and suffers from wizarding social power. I think there’s a lot to dig into there.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

what do you think is going on with the malfoy family tree? it kinda cracks me up how it’s basically just a trunk, like father and only child son all the way down and they *all* look very similar? it makes me wonder if one of their ancestors made a deal with like, an actual demon to functionally clone themselves forever…and a cursory google search tells me Lucious and Abraxas are demon-y names, although this naming scheme doesn’t quite fit for the entire trunk (i realize the answer is probably just jkr getting lazy/not wanting too many characters to account for but where’s the fun in that)

Hello 👋

I think what's going on with the Malfoy family tree is the same thing that's going on with the Potter family tree or the Weasley family tree — that is, JKR/whoever on Pottermore made them didn't bother writing any family tree in detail other than the Blacks (and even the Black family tree is flawed, but more on that later). It's not necessarily that JKR doesn't know what the tree actually looks like, she just never wrote it out where we can find it. This is the Malfoy family tree:

Looking at the tree, it has more Blacks on it than Malfoys. Hell, even among the Malfoys we are seeing, we're not only lacking the wives of all these Malfoys but potentially generations as well, since Armand Malfoy (unless the one on the tree is a second Armand, which is possible) is the name of the first Malfoy that arrived in England with the Normans in the 11th century. Just from looking at it, it's clear the tree is lacking and is not a full version of it.

And the Malfoy's aren't the only lacking family tree:

If we look at the "official" Potter family tree, not only are there many unnamed members and skipped generations, but we are missing some known members, such as, Charlus Potter, who married Dorea Black and is a cousin or brother of either Fleamont or Henry (we don't really know how old Charlus is and both are a possibility).

The "official" Weasley family tree is similarly lacking. Not only is Muriel on it as a Weasley although she is a Prewett, not a Weasley, and many Prewttes actually are present on this tree as if they are Weasleys. The familial relationships are clearly missing. We know Muriel is Molly's aunt and Ron's great-aunt ("Your Great-Aunt Muriel doesn’t agree" (DH)). We know Lancelot Prewett is Mureil's cousin ("For your information, Elphias, my cousin Lancelot was a Healer at St. Mungo’s at the time" (DH)). We know Uncle Billius is Arthur's brother. That both are sons of Septimus and Cederella and that they have more brothers (as implied at the wedding in DH). Similarly unmentioned is that Ignatius Prewett is married to Lucritia Black and that he is Molly's uncle. None of this information is on this tree even though it's canon in the books and written there clear as day.

Because of this, I just assume that the trees we have are clearly not the full versions. (I actually have my own version of various family trees that I made based on quotes and book evidence + the bit of info we have from Pottermore and the above trees + some headcanons that I usually work with). Also, I'm pretty sure these above trees weren't made by JKR at all. They were illustrated by Jessica Roux who was a Pottermore artist and I don't know how much JKR gave her to work with. So, I take the various "official" family trees with a hefty grain of salt and take book quotes as evidence over them.

This skeptical approach includes the Black family tree JKR made which I believe has mistakes in it. Not only with the ages of Cygnus and Pollux, but it's missing members such as Araminta ("and Araminta Meliflua . . . cousin of my mother’s . . . tried to force through a Ministry Bill to make Muggle-hunting legal" (OotP)) who should be on it (as Sirius points to her on the family tapestry in the books) but she's nowhere to be seen in JKR's tree.

That being said, I don't think the full version of the Malfoy family tree is much different in the current generation. Like, I think Lucius, Draco, and Narcissa are the only Malfoys around when the books take place. But I believe there were more Malfoys in prior generations and they inter-married other pure-blood families much like any other pure-blood family.

I sort of headcanon that both Narcissa and Andromeda (and perhaps Bellatrix) had certain problems with fertility. I mean, both Andromeda and Narcissa seem to me to be characters who would've wanted more children if they could have them. Both place their families in very high regard, especially their children, so it seems, somewhat off to me they don't have at least 2 children each, you know? It seems oddly out of character from what we see of them. Since it's both of them, and they are sisters, a genetic issue with getting pregnant (or carrying a pregnancy to term) seems like a plausible explanation to me.

(I kind of also think Bellatrix has the same issue and that she and Rodolphus tried to have kids and couldn't. Even if you want to go with some of CC canon and have her have Delphini, it actually makes a lot of sense. Like, if she slept with Voldemort thinking she couldn't get pregnant and then did. idk, I find this hypothetical more interesting for them)

[youryurigoddess]

On love and sacrifices

There’s so much more to this scapegoating business and big sacrifices referenced in the Good Omens narrative than the literal goats. And they’re only getting bigger, louder, final.

But let’s take it slow and start with the beginning, quite literally — i.e., with the Good Omens 2 title sequence. As we follow Aziraphale and Crowley on their journey, the universe warps and their usual left and right side positioning switches during the magic show (not accidentally an act of trust and sacrifice required both from the angel and the demon). They stay so throughout the next scene, which is their little dance in the air, and after they seemingly get settled on the A. Z. Fell and Co.’s roof and back to normal, the flipped sky in the background suggests that something’s not quite right yet. In the central part of the shot looms a large, humanlike shadow of the Elephant Trunk Nebula.

The nebula is a part of a constellation called Cepheus, after an Ethiopian king from the Greek mythology who agreed to sacrifice his only daughter in order to appease the gods and end a local calamity started by her mother and his wife, Cassiopeia (talk about generational responsibility). With time and a delightfully ironic twist of fate, the name of said daughter, Andromeda, became more famous than that of her father. Although she was chained up to a rock and offered to the sea serpent Cetus, the girl was spotted by the warrior Perseus, casually flying over the sea — either on the back of the Pegasus or thanks to a pair of winged sandals — after his victory over Medusa. He fell in love on the spot, defeated the serpent (with the help of a magical sword or Medusa’s severed head, depending on the varying sources), and freed the princess. That’s not exactly where their story ends, but we won’t be getting into the rest here.

Not surprisingly, Neil has mentioned two parallel child sacrifice stories from the biblical context back in August. The first is one of the big ones — The Binding of Isaac. God's command to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, was a test of Abraham's faith. The angel of the Lord intervenes and provides a ram to be sacrificed in the boy’s place.

The second one isn’t nearly as popular, but you might have heard a variant of it in fairy tales or as the Law of Surprise invoked in The Witcher saga. In exchange for Israel’s victory over its enemies in battle, Jephthah had rashly promised God to repay the debt with the first thing seen on his return back home. The victorious warrior didn’t suspect to see his only child moving innocently "to meet him with timbrels and with dances" though. In horror, Jephthah covered his eyes with his cloak, but to no avail: ultimately, he was forced to honor his vow to God, and the girl was sacrificed. As grisly as it might look like in the Old Master’s paintings, it’s important to remember that human sacrifices weren’t limited to physical offerings only — Jephthah’s daughter might have been offered to God in the sense of officially shunning her family and dedicating her life to service instead, probably sequestered in a temple somewhere.

Interestingly, the main character of a big chunk of the Bible and the reason for the Second Coming happens to be THE most influential child sacrifice in the modern history. You know, a certain 33-year-old carpenter sent by his Heavenly Father to die on a cross for the sins of the mankind? Someone better call Aubrey Thyme ASAP.

Circling back to Aziraphale, he could be also seen as a representative of the concept of filial piety, since Eden willing to personally take a Fall not only for the humanity’s collective or individual transgressions, but the shortcomings of his Ineffable Parental Figure as well. Our favorite angel angel always fights for what is right and good, sure, but why would that be even a thing if God was truly omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent?

If Aziraphale’s medal is anything to go by, it looks like we might get an answer from the way it’s introducing another mythological narrative into the game, that is the story of Daedalus and Icarus. The most absorbing thing about this is the stark contrast to the recurring child sacrifice references for S3 mentioned in this post — Daedalus isn’t a father who wanted to sacrifice his son, it was his attempt to save him from imprisonment that ultimately drove Icarus to his death. The boy ignored his father’s explicit instructions, committing the grave and culturally universal sin of disobedience to one's parents that simply couldn’t go unpunished, one way or another.

But Icarus’s transgression could be seen both as high-flying ambition and striving for personal accomplishment as well as humanitarian sacrifice for knowledge and humanity’s advancement in general.

Similarly to a certain angel who left everything for what superficially seems like a work promotion, but is the ultimate act of love — both for his demon and the children they have been protecting and nurturing together for six thousand years. From the very Beginning, his white wings have been shielding everything he holds dear in this world.

[sk1fanfiction]

blood of the covenant/water of the womb

The Black sisters are so tragic.

I mean, imagine:

As kids, Narcissa is the baby sister that the elder two dote on, while both Narcissa and Andromeda look up to Bellatrix, the proud, beautiful, powerful, accomplished, perfect eldest sister, who has always known who she is and where she's going, but especially Andromeda, since they look so alike she's always been encouraged to act like her too but since Narcissa doesn't have the stereotypical Black looks and her parents didn't follow the Black naming scheme she's encouraged to be her own person a little bit more.

At Hogwarts they're all Sorted into the same House, Slytherin, which only increases their bond. Bella does really well at school, probably the top of her class, which makes Andy, who's only a year or two behind hyperaware of where the bar is. She walks, talks, and dresses like Bella.

Until

Andy follows in Bella's footsteps (who's probably Head Girl by now) and becomes a prefect, but she gets assigned to do rounds with a Muggle-born Hufflepuff. And despite everything she'd been taught, everything she knows to be true, she finds herself falling for him and the worst part is she can't tell anyone, even Bella, the one she has always been able to confide in, always reassured her and set her on the right path.

Meanwhile Druella and Cygnus are arranging Bellatrix's marriage to Roldophus, someone she doesn't even like never mind attracted to but because she's the perfect Black and the perfect daughter she has to do it. And Andromeda sees and fears how she could get trapped, too, how there's another Lestrange boy in her year.

Meanwhile a strange foreign Dark Lord comes to dinner and he's so different to Roldophus and all those other men who think because she's a woman she must be weak and she's just a vessel for their pureblood children. And despite the way she shouldn't feel this way, Bella doesn't care. He listens to Bella's opinions and he takes her seriously and he sees her magical talent and her thirst to prove herself and he's not scared of her in the way others say that she's 'too intense.' And when he offers to train her, and adds that he never does this, she says, one better, I'll follow you.

Andromeda and Narcissa watch this strange man burn the Dark Mark into their sister's arm and they don't know what to think. Narcissa's scared Bella will put herself in danger, that she'll do too much, give too much of herself because she doesn't know when to pull back. And Andy's scared Bella's going down a path she cannot follow, because deep down she can't say she believes in blood supremacy, can't say she hates Ted and she can't figure out a way through so she leaves.

It's like part of Bella's heart has been ripped out. They were all close, the Blacks, but Andy and Bella had a certain je ne sais quoi, they were thick as thieves and inseparable. Bellatrix is the one who burns Andromeda off the tapestry, crying while she does it, the scorned love for her sister, the anger and shame that Andy chose that Mudblood over her turning that love to bottomless hate.

Meanwhile Narcissa, the lucky one, watches it all. Narcissa is the one that gets it all, she's the only one who's able to marry for love and stay with her family but there's also this Andromeda-shaped hole in her and there's a Slytherin resentfulness of being Bellatrix's supporting act.

Every night that Bella is on a mission, Narcissa stays up, even while pregnant with Draco, until she knows her sister is safe.

That fateful Halloween she waits and waits and waits but Bellatrix never comes home. When she finds out her last remaining sister is serving life she completely breaks down. Won't sleep, won't eat. The thought of leaving Draco without a mother is the only thing that helps her hold on. Regulus, Andromeda and Sirius are dead/burned off the tapestry/imprisoned; she and Draco are the last Blacks, that makes their bond even stronger, makes her scared of losing him like she did her sisters. She curses Voldemort for putting her in danger, aware of her feelings for him and that Bella would do anything for them, swears she'll never let that happen to her son.

All the while Andy raises her daughter, who hates the name she gave her in the same way Andy know she would hate the Blacks. Narcissa and Andy watch each other from across crowds; Tonks and Draco are never at school together, never know more than scattered off-hand mentions of a cousin on their mother's side. But both Narcissa and Andy fantasize of a reconcilation, of Tonks babysitting Draco while they rekindle their bond. Neither bridges the gap. That burn, that rift cannot be healed. But they still ache for each other.

When Voldemort returns that fear for Draco grows, but it's tempered with the joy of having Bella back after mourning her for 14 years -- Bella, traumatized, starved, jagged and torn up at the edges, different, but alive.

And just like knowing he was innocent kept Sirius sane, Bella's love and trust of Voldemort is what made her able to hang on. Yes, they're both drastically different physically (the snake face and the emaciation) and mentally (both shaken, less confident), but everything else can be the same. Maybe better.

But everyone is scared. It's not the same world, where the Death Eaters have control and are undefeated. Voldemort is scared of that boy, Narcissa is scared for Draco. It's clear things are not the same, things are not normal. Far from it. Fear makes Voldemort angry, and cold, and distant and nothing she does feels good enough.

And that boy -- lying hateful filthy boy -- he dares suggest that her Voldemort's filthy-blooded like him. No, he must just be taunting her, scaring her. But there are things Voldemort's said, things he's done -- she would notice, the way she hangs on every word he speaks and plays their conversations in her head over and over again in Azkaban -- Bellatrix just does her best to silence it and block it out, all these confusing things, she's a great Occlumens after all.

She'll make things certain, make things right, trim off the weakness, cut out the sickness. Like Sirius. Like that young woman with Andromeda's face and Andromeda's laugh, that filthy half-blood Andy left her to create.

Narcissa can't keep Draco safe like she, the baby sister, couldn't keep Bellatrix safe. When Voldemort burns the Dark Mark into his skin she sees her son emaciated and dead-eyed.

To assuage Narcissa's fears Bellatrix trains Draco like Voldemort trained her; but he's not the same, he's weak, he's moralistic, he looks at her with wide scared eyes and he's a failure. The glory of the Blacks is gone.

All the while, Narcissa's fear grows, when Lucius is imprisoned, when Voldemort's ire turns on her family, on her son, sets him an impossible task. The despair she feels, she hasn't felt for nearly sixteen years -- Bellatrix more interested in eking out morsels of approval from Voldemort and turning her frustration on Draco, and Narcissa by extension.

All the while, Andromeda's fear for her daughter grows, of the danger she puts herself in as an Auror and a member of the Order, and she's reminded of Bellatrix, of how she gives everything of herself and how Nymphadora does too, begging, begging her to hold back.

She's not good enough for him, not with the sickness, the weakness still clinging to her. Bellatrix very much wants to kill the woman with Andy's face. She's always been perfect. It's everyone else around her that's wrong, everyone else who has to go. She'll do better. Try harder.

And when the Snatchers catch that filthy boy, and he slides out of her grasp like a buttered eel, Bellatrix hits the bottom rung of the ladder of despair. She doesn't know who she is, anymore.

Voldemort's retaliation and rejection breaks Bellatrix's heart, but it hardens Narcissa's.

Bellatrix will do anything to make him happy. She finally kills the witch with Andy's face -- do you see -- do you love me now -- but he's still cold, still frightened, still different, and she despairs, but it will be all over when Harry Potter is dead and he can breathe again. They've won. It will be alright. It will go back to normal. She can have it all again -- Voldemort and Narcissa and her perfect, pruned family.

Narcissa will do anything to keep him safe. And so she chooses Draco's life, she lies, her heart in her throat, in front of her beloved sister, to the Dark Lord, with unshed tears in her eyes and Harry Potter's 'corpse' before her.

Bellatrix's death is something Narcissa knew was coming, deep down She mourned her sister sixteen years ago and she mourns her now, but it will all be worth it if Draco survives this ordeal; Potter must win, he must live, Voldemort must die. And Bellatrix will never allow this.

She wishes she could tell Andy that she understands.

[justaneedle]

They: Percy wouldn't end up like Luke, because there's no way he would hurt a twelve-year-old kid.

Me: ...

Princess Andromeda: ...

Me: ...

Princess Andromeda: 💥💥💥💥💥

[maxdibert]

oh more of sirius-bellatrix and regulus-narcissa parallels please! andromeda is also an interesting character for me sometimes i wonder as she was someone that grew up in such household what if she happened to fall in love with another pureblood would she be another ‘narcissa’? and a lot of people always automatically assume that before the marriage just like sirius that she was not a pureblood supremacist because she married a muggle-born but what if she was someone that somehow still aligned with the black family’ views but with ted tonks ‘he’s an exception’ but ‘rebellious’ enough to leave her privileges and then able to grow to changed her view after the 1st war and experiencing life with her family(tonks)

I honestly don’t think Andromeda was like Sirius. I also can’t really say how she was or how I imagine her because we know so little about her, but considering that she was in Slytherin, I’d say she probably didn’t have many issues with her family until she decided to marry Ted Tonks. Maybe she didn’t completely agree with her family’s ideas, or maybe she had never considered that blood supremacy was wrong until she started a relationship with Ted. Personally, I prefer this latter version, where she was probably a somewhat alienated person but without very strong convictions, therefore more open to other opinions, and that by meeting and falling in love with Ted, she made a decision. It fits much better with the role of the middle sister between two sisters with very strong personalities, while she had a softer one. But this is pure personal headcanon.

As for the parallel between the cousins, I’ve always thought Sirius has a lot in common with Bellatrix. Both are characters with extremely strong temperaments who hate with a passion and love in an obsessive way. Their feelings blind them. Bellatrix develops a personality marked by quite evident mental instability, which I believe stems first from her fanaticism and later from her years in prison, but her absolute loyalty to Voldemort and that obsession to please and go to the end for the person she holds as her reference is very similar to Sirius’s behavior with James, although Sirius does it in a less corrosive way. Sirius (like his cousin) is completely blinded by the memory of the person to whom he swore loyalty and fidelity. He committed to James in a platonic way, with James being his moral compass and at the same time the person he identified as his new family. Just as Bellatrix sees the Death Eaters as part of herself, the place where she belongs, Sirius does the same with James and everything he represents (the Marauders, the Order, Harry), and he does it in a visceral and totally irrational way that doesn’t heed any kind of coherent reasoning. At the end of the day, Sirius is a dog, and as a dog, he will follow his master to the grave and bite anyone he sees as a threat. To me, Bellatrix represents that darker and corrupted side of the Blacks, that vision of themselves as aristocrats with rights over the rest of the mortals—not just from a social perspective, like Narcissa, but also from a militant one. She is willing to kill and be killed for her ideals, just as Sirius is willing to kill and be killed for his. Both are aggressive, violent, and display a resentful and quite volatile, uncontrollable character. Only Voldemort can control Bellatrix, just as probably only James could control Sirius. They only obey their masters because they don’t recognize any other figure of authority. After all, they are both the eldest siblings.

In the case of Narcissa and Regulus, both are the youngest, and both are on the same side. But they not only coincide ideologically, but also in how they approach their political tendencies. Narcissa embodies the aristocracy that lives in a bubble and simply moves to maintain that bubble of privilege. She has been taught certain values that she doesn’t question, but she also doesn’t have an actively militant or bellicose attitude. She opines from the comfort of her home and is fine with others doing the work to uphold those values. She has a passive attitude, which I also see in Regulus, who probably joined the Death Eaters simply because it was expected of him and because he hadn’t questioned too much the extent to which his decisions might have consequences. Just like Narcissa, both are nobles who feel untouchable and don’t expect the course of events to turn against them. But it does. The events lead them to feel threatened and realize that the game of politics has consequences for everyone, and they are no exception—they aren’t immune to the war. And it’s at that moment that they see that something precious to them could be taken away by those who represent the values they once believed were in their favor. They don’t question their beliefs; they simply oppose those who represent them for strictly personal reasons. Neither Narcissa nor Regulus stop being who they are; they’ve always advocated for an individualistic view of the world, and when things individually go against them, they choose to act to come out as unscathed as possible and preserve what matters to them.

I really enjoy thinking about the dynamics of dysfunctional families because there are always parallels between their members, no matter how much they hate, distance themselves from, or separate from each other. It’s inevitable because, in the end, blood calls to blood.

[whinlatter]

something tells me you don't really like tonks, just a hunch xD

For the relationship ask if you're still doing it: harry and remus, molly and remus, teddy and adromeda. I would love to see what do you think <3

noooo i love tonks! i had a ball writing her and think that @evesaintyves’ rendering of her is one of fandom’s greatest gifts 😭 i just find it very funny that harry thinks she should low key get a grip. and as a clumsy young woman who should myself get a grip, i say: get off her case, hjp.

ok the remus + tonks/black extended family universe... hyped for this one. delicious choices, thank you anon. (i have a few more in the inbox i'm going to take a stab at but am trying to avoid spoilery ones or ones where i risk boring you all again by repeating old talking points, so if i don't get to one pls forgive me...)

right — to business. we begin with everybody looking at remus lupin waiting for him to put his crippling self loathing aside to write (1) singular letter to his dead friend's son:

i jest (to an extent). but i do think the entirety of harry and remus' dynamic is best encapsulated in one singular scene in PoA:

“When they get near me — ” Harry stared at Lupin’s desk, his throat tight. “I can hear Voldemort murdering my mum.” Lupin made a sudden motion with his arm as though to grip Harry’s shoulder, but thought better of it.

i know there's a very understandable move in AUs to imagine what would have happened if remus had raised harry - or, more often, if remus had been 'allowed' to raise harry by dumbledore. but looking past the whole plot-requiring-harry-to-be-at-the-dursleys thing, the truth is, canon remus lupin would never have put himself forward to raise harry, because of his own (not unfounded!) concerns about the precarity of his existence and the dangerousness of his condition. remus' sense of self - more specifically his fear of himself, and his very low self worth - consistently lead him to hold harry at arm's length from the moment he's introduced in the series until its bitter end. i don't think remus at all approves of the way harry is treated at the dursleys. but i can very much imagine that remus thinks it would still be better than the life he could have given harry if he ever had been called upon to serve as his primary caregiver. one of the most interesting implicit dynamics in the series is that harry notices this and does, to some extent, resent it (obviously the fact that he only ever calls him 'lupin' in his narration, though uses remus to his face, and also: 'Harry had received no mail since the start of term; his only regular correspondent was now dead and although he had hoped that Lupin might write occasionally, he had so far been disappointed.') while the harry & remus fight in DH is about harry's view of what remus ought to do re tonks and the baby, it’s also harry coming as close as saying to remus: you're letting your own child down like you let me down. ('I’m pretty sure my father would have wanted to know why you aren’t sticking with your own kid, actually... He had it coming to him,” said Harry. Broken images were racing each other through his mind: Sirius falling through the veil; Dumbledore suspended, broken, in midair; a flash of green light and his mother’s voice, begging for mercy… ‘Parents,’ said Harry, 'shouldn’t leave their kids unless—unless they’ve got to.')

molly and remus: i think this is a very, very underrated relationship! i know there’s a lot of molly-bashing around these days, especially if you’re a marauders and/or sirius and/or wolfstar stan. but i think it is very very overlooked that the person who looks after adult remus the most from 1995 onwards, and who shows him some of the deepest trust and roots for his happiness, is molly. for a man who has plainly known a huge amount of financial/food/housing insecurity, and who is so villainised in wider wizarding society, it is no small gesture for molly to not only provide for remus materially but also to trust him in a house with all of her children and encourage him in a romantic relationship he struggles to feel entitled to and worthy of. (i love sirius, but he is in no fit state to ‘look after’ remus in the last year of his life, and fandom’s continued unwillingness to recognise the importance of domestic/caregiving labour as a vital contribution to the resistance will never not be problematic af). remus clearly values and admires molly in return - the only time he actually ever entertains a parent/guardianship role is when molly is weeping over her boggart, crying onto remus’ shoulder (‘what must you think of me?’) and he assures her that if anything were to happen to her and arthur, he would be a part of the team making sure her children are taken date of (‘what do you think we’d do, let them starve?’) remus’ relationship with molly is often the more mild-mannered translator of her viewpoint to others (especially others with hot tempers), and mediator trying to find middle ground between molly’s protective instincts and the battle/ready instincts of others. (more grist to my sirius & ginny parallels mill — in DH, when a fuming ginny is desperately trying to sneak off to fight in the battle, it’s remus who appeals to molly and ginny to find the compromise of ginny staying in the room of requirement to know what’s going on but not actively fight, a mirror image of his role mediating the dispute between sirius and molly over harry’s right to know what’s going on at grimmauld in ootp…) molly accepts this compromise, a sign that she trusts remus implicitly (she never frets that a werewolf is living among her children in ootp onwards, and invites him to christmas readily even after months undercover with the pack) and also feels able to call him out (‘i’ve always said you’re taking a ridiculous line on this, remus’.) this is too long but basically — justice for molly and remus, unlikely buds!

teddy and andromeda: i weirdly think a lot about teddy lupin these days. i tend to imagine teddy as a very mild-mannered, affable, calm child, like who remus might have been had he not been bitten, with tonks' heart and sociability but also with something of remus' more philosophical disposition. i think he'd slip very naturally into a big brother role because, in part, he does see himself as having a responsibility to take care of people, and i think this would shine through in his relationship with andromeda. we know teddy was raised by his gran, and i imagine she feels enormously protective of him, perhaps bordering on strict in her desire to keep him safe from the harm that came to all the rest of her family. but i like to imagine teddy didn't act out against this too much, in part because he understands where it comes from and in turn feels very protective of andromeda. growing up in the aftermath of the war would make teddy as a child particularly aware of the grief and pain and the silences among the adults around him, and i think teddy would take any compensatory protective strictness on andromeda's part with good grace, and humour her for it. i like to think teenage/young adult teddy serves as the translator for any of his gran's more prickly edges, and that they have a very close relationship that both of them really treasure.

[poetryandbloods-blog]

Black family, at the end of adolescence.

Sirius, Regulus, Andromeda, Nynphadora, Narcissa, Draco, Bellatrix and Delphini.

[siriusblack-the-third]

The Black Family: Indian?

Inspired by this meta by @narcissa-black-supermacy

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Dani made some really good points about how the Black family could be MENA, and while reading it I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the culture there and the culture in India, specifically Maharashtra.

So many of the points Dani made are so reminiscent of the casteism in India that i absolutely had to make a separate meta instead of rambling in the tags over there.

A few of the points that i want to gloss over are taken directly from Dani's meta so. Let's get to it!

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The first point I want to tackle is how large the Black family is, compared to other Pureblood families.

Yes I know what you're going to say; "but Amrut the Weasley family is also really big". I'm quite aware. The books state quite a lot that the Weasleys are weird for having such a large family. Well, the Blacks have a lot of people in their House, too (before the first world war, that is).

Walburga had 3 siblings, and so did Orion. Orion's father Arcturus had two siblings, and Walburga's father was the eldest out of four. Druella and Cygnus Black had three daughters. Arcturus' father was also one of four.

Indian familes are notorious for being large and complicated. I myself am the eldest of seven siblings, my father has four siblings of his own and my mother is one of three. My mother's father is the youngest of five, my father's father was the middle child of three.

The second thing that struck me was the similarities between the Black Family's brand of blood purism and the inherent casteism that prevails in the Kshatriya Maratha families of my Maharashtrian town.

Listen, listen. I don't give a fuck about the bullshit that the government feeds us about casteism being abolished. It might be "abolished" in theory but where I live, Maratha families are notorious for being hard-core when it comes to casteism and classism.

Caste intermarriage is considered "social suicide", especially if you're a person from an upper caste marrying someone from the lower caste. Sound familiar? A Pureblood marrying a Muggleborn sounds the same, doesn't it? The disowning of Andromeda and blasting her off the family tapestry is very similar to what happens here; disinheritance is very common for people who marry a "lower caste" person.

Casteism has been around for centuries, the same way the Blacks were blood purists for centuries. And keep in mind that the Black family were not your regular pureblood supremacists. Their views have been around for generations, passed down from parent to child. Unlike regular Pureblood "I'm-better-than-you" bullshit, the Black Family's brand of blood purism is so similar to casteism in India that I'm embarrassed it took me so long to realise.

The cousin intermarriage! That is such a huge point!

In many parts of India, marriage between cousins is pretty common. Orion and Walburga are second cousins, if I'm not mistaken.

If we look at it genetically, the people of Ancient India knew that chances of deformation and/or mutation of a child born to first cousins was almost the same as that of a child born to non-related people i.e an extremely low chance. Thus, cousins marrying each other wasn't and isn't considered weird or strange.

You may argue that the Gaunts were also inbred. Yes well, the Blacks were intelligent enough to know how far of a relation must be there between two people. And the Gaunts probably married their own siblings for them to be so inbred.

Now, as Dani said, 12GP being at the heart of Muggle London is pretty interesting.

As she mentioned about the Blacks, they're raging bigots, but they still live in a very muggle neighbourhood in a very muggle region of London.

Exactly like it makes sense with sectarianism as Dani explained it, it also makes sense with respect to casteism. Upper caste (Brahmin, Kshatriya) will mingle with intermediate castes and lower castes. They will talk, they will laugh, they will build friendships and make acquaintances. The different castes mingle a lot. But marriage? No. The Black family is essentially the same.

Like Dani puts it: we can work with muggleborns and blood-traitors.... They are allowed to exist.... remind them who is the boss, but do not engage. We will not marry them, we will not let them into our house.

This is literally what caste discrimination looks like. It's not based on fear or hatred like western bigotry. (I will not elaborate more on this bc the politics are wayy too complicated.)

The fifth point is niche, but it's there: Bellatrix wanting to kill Andromeda, Ted and Nymphadora Tonks because Andromeda "sullied her pure blood by associating with mudbloods"

Let me say this once and for all: honour killings are extremely common in India.

Families hire other people, or they themselves go out to perform honour killings. Many of the honour killing cases that I've heard/read about have been about the daughter/son marrying a person from a lower caste and running away, but being tracked down and murdered by their own family for "dirtying their blood" and "sullying the family name" (yes those are the actual words).

Andromeda's disinheritance was not surprising to me; i have seen people thrown into jail for marrying lower/higher. Obviously, the reason cited in court is not the marriage, no— the person is framed for crimes they did not commit.

Bellatrix wanting to murder her own sister— and actually murdering Dora— sounds so identical to the news I've heard over the years.

The Black Family could be Maharashtrian, is all I'm saying. Just because their slogan is French doesn't mean they're from France. India has several regions where France is spoken just as much as the local language. Like Dani said, kill the idea that French is spoken only in France.

This is all for now. I might come back later with more observations if I feel like it, but yeah. Feel free to flood my ask box with whatever questions you want.

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Tag list:

@narcissa-black-supermacy @the-chaosbringer @in-flvx @padfootastic @gracelesslady23 @mycupofrum @mrunmione @thewinchestergirl1208 @fiendishfyre @ad1thi @prongsfoot-wolfstar @siriuslystarbucks @xxmysticrosexx @ghostie-0 @pan-diasaster @h-m-i-a-n @constant-diablerie @strwbi-laces @shanti-ashant-hai @roalinda @fooochka

[sarafangirlart]

Andromeda:

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

I'm loving the recent chapters to The Man Who Would Be King! I was wondering with the homophobia in the wizarding world, does anyone has a functioning gaydar?

Would Dumbledore catch on if he didn't think Tom was hellspawn incapable of human emotions? How slow would Alphard's nieces be to figure out Alphard and Tom, on a scale of 1 to Edward Cullen?

The Man Who Would Be King by me and @therealvinelle.

Look, @therealvinelle, praise!

Also, thoughts on homophobia in the wizarding world.

Like all things depends on the character and their upbringing even within the wizarding world.

You have Lily where homosexuality is a nebulous concept that exists, that gay people are somewhere and certainly in the Muggle world, but she would insist she's never seen it personally in the wizarding world due to lack of overt out people/not really having internalized it in terms of the wizarding world.

You have Alphard where he is the gay people that exists, is highly closeted, but is also a bit of a shut-in and family oriented/doesn't have many friends. He'll side eye other people and go "huh, they're acting very similar to me/have very similar life circumstances, aren't they/don't they?" So, he'll look at people like Rabastan who really really really really really don't want to get married even though his brother's over there in his mid-thirties still without an heir and goes "hm, looks familiar" but he would also shrug and accept he's wrong if someone vehemently went "no way!" to him.

But you bring up interesting examples.

Dumbledore is... Dumbledore. He'll never catch on with Tom in particular, or anyone having anything to do with Tom, because as you note Tom is an evil hellspawn with a dark glamour about him. Everything by its nature with Tom is at once both hyper sexual and also completely asexual because that's just what Tom is to Dumbledore. He's a sexy sexy sexy man who isn't sexy at all because he's evil except he is but in a dark way and completely incapable of love and intimacy and what do you mean the way Dumbledore's been describing him is weird?

So, even in a different world, I don't see Dumbledore being different because he's Dumbledore.

As for the nieces, absolutely no idea, none. Now, they wouldn't go Edward about it because but they would have weird reactions because of just who it is. Bellatrix gets to deal with the fact that her father is banging her god (and is it gay if he's banging your god or is that just something anyone would do if their god asked?), Narcissa would also be more :/ about the fact that the dark lord... is... doing things with her beloved uncle-father, and Andromeda of course would lose her goddamn mind. If it weren't Tom I imagine they'd be a bit more "huh" about it and would probably, eventually, shrug it off as an Uncle Alphard quirk of which he has many, on par with things like "Uncle Alphard really likes books!" But the idea that the Dark Lord is banging their uncle-father?

Merlin forbid, the concept is blasphemous and terrifying. They're not going there.

[not-a-newt]

I keep thinking abt members of other species doing research into the most random, innocuous pools of human knowledge where, like, councilor sparatus will unexpectedly use niche, antiquated human idioms or how director tann randomly dropped that he knows exactly what a kangaroo is...

and it's not something that the writers overlooked either, because they'll provide context TELLING YOU that this niche information is something that the character is individually familiar with —presumably drawn from some kind of extranet Wikipedia-equivalent, rabbit-hole style, personal research into humans that they then consciously decided to make you, the player character, a human, aware of...

Like, I get there's a certain level of research that's expected of political leaders in order to facilitate polite, socially appropriate interactions with alien species, but then there's this step beyond that of them just being nerdily interested in human culture specifically

I don't know how to explain it, it just really kills me. It's so fucking funny imagining one of the pre-eminent leaders of galactic civilization sitting up late at night in bed on his ipad datapad, reading about silly little niche human topics, like, I don't know, ancient sword making techniques (damascus steel) or the deadly molasses flood of 1919

Does anyone else think about this or am I just not normal??