#canon Remus would absolutely hate fanon Remus because fanon Remus is just so mean and canon remus isn’t

[maladaptivedaydr3amer]

I think all the canon marauders & co would for real hate their fanon selfs.

[midnightstargazer]

thoughts on sunshine james

I mean, it's not canon. I can see where it comes from, but it's not the James we see in the few actual flashbacks of him.

James, in canon, was very loyal and selfless towards the people he loved the most. He treated Sirius like a brother and welcomed him into his family's home when Sirius ran away. He accepted Remus when he found out he was a werewolf and went to great lengths to help him. He fought and died in a war that he could have opted out of, probably for Lily's sake and because it was the right thing to do. And, of course, he never questioned whether he could trust Peter, to disastrous results. This is where the sunshine characterization comes from, I think.

But he was also someone who had very black and white ideas about right and wrong. The other Marauders + Lily showed a capacity to see gray area when it came to the people they were closest to, or just in general.

Lily was friends with Snape for years, even after he started hanging out with the future Death Eaters' gang, even knowing he was using Dark magic.

Remus understood that the Marauders' bullying was wrong, but did not stand up to them about it and still saw them as good people. Later in life, he was able to tolerate Snape and trust Dumbledore's judgment on him.

Sirius gave us the line "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters" and was pretty forgiving in his assessment of Regulus ("stupid idiot" is a very mild insult to be immediately followed by "he joined the Death Eaters")

Peter - well, Peter betrayed them to Voldemort, so obviously he wasn't very concerned with morality.

James, on the other hand? Saw the world in black and white, not a lot of nuance. He absolutely despised pure-blood rhetoric and Dark Arts and wanted nothing to do with people who aligned themselves with those things. No exceptions. And while he was generous and loyal towards his friends, he had no problem being cruel to people he deemed bad. It's very strongly implied that his reasons for targeting Snape were connected to Snape's interest in the Dark Arts and use of the word "mudblood." He felt like it was acceptable to bully Snape because Snape was not a good person.

(I think there was definitely also some personal dislike involved, which would have existed regardless, hence the "it's more the fact that he exists" comment. But still, Remus and Sirius seem pretty convinced James hating the Dark Arts had a lot to do with it).

This sort of "it's okay to do bad things to bad people" mentality is pretty much opposite of what sunshine James usually ends up looking like in fanon. Largely because sunshine James is usually paired with Regulus. And, obviously, to make that work, even with the softer versions of Regulus that usually go with the ship, James has to be a very forgiving sort of person who's willing to see nuance and give people a chance, not someone who takes a hard line stance against blood purist ideology or Dark Arts.

This is why Jegulus doesn't work for me unless it's very far removed from canon. Because if Voldemort exists, and the war is happening, and they both have their canon views on blood purity and Dark Arts and join their respective sides, I just don't see it. If Regulus survived his trip to the lake and was actively working against Voldemort in the long term, then maybe. If his views also changed quite a bit. But even then, I still think James would be starting with a negative opinion of him and it would take a lot to get him to reconsider. I'm not saying Regulus doesn't deserve a second chance, or doesn't deserve to be loved by a good person. It's just... not how I see James at all.

tl;dr - canon James is a good and loyal friend but not an all-loving ray of sunshine who wants to see the best in everyone. The sunshine characterization makes Jegulus possible with a closer-to-canon plot and setting, but it isn't really compatible with James's canon characterization.

[sofoulandfairaday]

1 for the ask game

from: choose violence ask game

1. the character everyone gets wrong

Err... all of them? I'm not even kidding. More on this here.

Bellatrix: fortunately there's been progress in the fandom, but for years everyone loved to describe her as an overly sexualized, crazy, shrieking mindless slave, when she's actually quite the opposite. She is sadistic, but not insane, she's passionate but not irrational (she is the only one who knew Snape was a traitor; to me, it's because of a peculiar mix of rationality and intuition that shows her to be actually quite intelligent). Nothing suggests her being promiscuous in the text and I would actually argue the opposite of her (why would she ever lower herself to sleep with someone who she deems her inferior - so basically everyone -, even just to satisfy mere physical desires? This post, to me, is Bella at her core).

Narcissa: this is canon Narcissa, all of you are perfectly entitled to your soft babygirl headcanons, of course, but then again you are perfectly entitled to be wrong <3 [also, shameless self-promo: x]

The blorboification continues for every single member of the Black family and I hate it so much you have no idea:

Andromeda: somehow described as a soft little girl who loved her mean, mean sisters so much and had to run away? Bitch stood up to seven centuries of tradition, and abandoned her sisters and parents, to marry a boy she had fallen in love with maybe two years prior (we know this based on Tonks' age). Good for her, but as I have said previously, both Narcissa and Andromeda (and Sirius, really) strike me as a bit selfish. The one with the romantic attachment to the idea of her family, the child most like Walburga, is Bellatrix.

But this is nothing, NOTHING, compared to what this fandom does to Regulus and Sirius.

Regulus: canonically a Voldemort fanboy, with newspaper clippings of him everywhere, and a blood supremacist. Sirius says it better than anyone: Reggie is soft. But not in the way the fandom believes, nope. He's just a coward who, much like Draco years later, was super excited to be like Bellatrix (Lucius) until he realized what killing really meant, what fighting a war really was, and most importantly because Voldemort touched him personally (Kreacher, whom he loved). Voldemort was probably a little more deranged than he had been at the beginning of the First War, and someone that had inherited the Black pride/haughtiness probably didn't like being branded like cattle and treated like a slave, on top of everything else.

Sirius: fanon Sirius is basically another character. Canon!Sirius is: tall, canonically incredibly handsome, quite masculine (in an explicit and toxic way, especially as a teenager in the fucking 1970s - the skirt-wearing, feminist one-liners spouting version of Sirius is something I just cannot get behind), a dick, a bit classist ((don't come @ me with your "oh, but what about Moony?!" because a) we don't know Remus' wealth when Lyall and Hope were still alive, we only know he can't get a job as an adult because of his condition and b) Remus is Sirius' exception, in the same way Lily is Snape's when he calls her a Mudblood - everyone else is in his eyes)), brave to the point of recklessness, quite cruel, funny, witty, magically talented, loyal to a fault, extremely charismatic and everything else outlined here. For the same reasons, I'll say Remus too.

Don't even get me started on Severus Snape. Other people have spoken on this better than I could ever. At least here on Tumblr, though, it seems to me that things are getting a little better after years of absolutely bizarre takes. Or maybe I've blocked all of the idiots idk.

Dumbledore. More on this here and maybe I'll outline my ideas better in a future post.

Also: I do not accept any characterization of Evan Rosier, Barty Crouch jr, Reggie, and Rabastan Lestrange as anything less than violent blood supremacists. Yes, they can be nuanced and gay (and only for each other might I add), but these people are the KKK (metaphorically, of course, because I hate comparing real-world tragedies to completely fictional ones, but still).

Lucius: a complete dick, but definitely not abusive. The man couldn't raise a hand to Draco if the Dark Lord threatened to kill him over it.

Speaking of which: my darling Lord Voldemort. Not much to say about him really because I know that some people do write him in a very interesting way (and I am open to interpretations of his character even if they are different from how I see him - and I have a very fucking specific vision of him). The problem is that perhaps three (3) of these people write him with Bellatrix and that saddens me.

Now, I mostly read First Wizarding War stuff or Death Eater stuff so I can't really speak to many other characters, especially in Harry's generation, but anything other than cowardly Draco is not a good Draco characterization to me. Ron is hands-down the best one in the Golden Trio and Ron Weasley bashing is pathetic. Hermione has faults but is ultimately a strong, take-no-bullshit girl and I'll take that over basically any and all female YA protagonists. And Harry is sassiness personified, but with a heart of gold, and oh-so-caring. Which is also why I can't read dark!Harry for the life of me. It just makes me giggle.

[seriousbrat]

Also I just want to clarify - there’s no wrong answers, I love your opinions even when I have completely different ones - (tho you have changed my mind on several).

Still on the topic of home decor, I’ll leave here a prompt for you to tour us through:

- Remus’s flipped derelict cottage in Wales

- Sirius’ first place he got for himself (is this canon or fanon? Another option is his Azkaban cell, but that just sounds mean)

- James and Lily’s Godric’s Hollow love nest

- Peter’s bedroom in his extremely awkward house-share with Snape.

I’m clocking out! Free at last.

Omg I absolutely love this idea!

-Remus's house: so idk what the deal is with Remus's parents, I believe Hope dies at some point and it's unclear if Lyall is still alive. But let's say Remus owns/inherits the cottage. I see Remus as pretty neat and careful with his belongings; he obviously doesn't have a lot of money as an adult so he has to take care of his things. I see him as pretty minimalist honestly, I think he'd conserve a lot of it the way his parents had it but maybe add some tasteful prints and curios. I WILL say that if Remus was wealthy he'd actually have extremely good taste in interior design. Kind of mies van de rohe vibes although with a little more charm and warmth. To me he's spartan but tasteful.

Also, I love a welsh cottage and I think it works well with what I see as Remus's style, it's slightly colder, more minimal. We're talking SLATE, dark woods, white walls.

-Sirius's flat: first of all it is canon that he got a place at 17! This flat features pretty heavily in the next part of my fic because Lily stays with him for a while, so I've got a pretty clear image of it. I've set it on Railton Road in Brixton and this is how I've described it:

The décor is unexpected, given what Lily knows about Sirius Black. The sitting room’s rather bare, with a moth-eaten sofa and a few upended milk crates functioning as tables, laden with ashtrays and empty cans functioning as ashtrays, as well as an assortment of pamphlets and rolled up copies of the Daily Prophet. The walls are decorated with a few colourfully patterned fabrics and a couple of scattered posters— mostly advertising local gigs, and clearly taken off the street.

Sirius later explains that he hates that his parents' house is full of useless pretentious tat that symbolises the former glory of the Blacks, so he's gone the complete opposite of that. I'd say he's going for squat house core, except (in the universe of my fic) he's been influenced by his muggle boyfriend so the 'colourful fabrics' that Lily describes here are african prints which personally i loooooove. Here's a pic that is Sirius and Lily roomie vibes to me (and yes i just recoloured Jane Birkin's hair)

-NEXT, Godric's Hollow: I see this as a fairly typical quaint little English cottage in terms of decor. To me it's the historic home of the Potters before Fleamont struck it rich and they still holiday there (I believe I have Godric's Hollow in Somerset) so it's rustic, cosy, warm. I think this gels well with Lily's taste so she wouldn't have changed much, plus idk how much opportunity they'd have for interior decorating when they were in hiding.

-lastly (i LOVE this lol) Wormtail's cell in Spinner's End. I might turn this into something of a discussion of the Spinner's End house in general because it's very clear in my mind, but Snape and Peter's roomie era is so funny to me. Snape obviously LOATHES Peter so he'd want him to suffer as much as possible. I think Snape made serious edits to Spinner's End when he moved in (for instance, I don't think Tobias had so many bookshelves and definitely didn't have magically concealed doors behind them) but my view is that Snape gave Peter his old room because to him it's the most miserable one in the house. It's tiny, grimy, with ancient peeling walls, cracked ceilings and very little light. Snape would move into the master bedroom that once was the dominion of Tobias as a power move.

about Spinner's end in general, it's very much a working-class victorian terraced house typical of a mill town, and Tobias and Eileen definitely decorated it in the WORST 70s way possible. It's grimy, dark, cramped, with a soot-stained brick exterior. This is some inspo from a quick search:

you can also check my cokeworth tag for more, though it's mostly exterior.

[iwriteasfotini]

The Marauders: Canon, Fanon, and the Battlegrounds Between

I know there is fierce contention between various camps within the Marauders fandom. Whether it revolves around ships, characterizations, or who knows what else, it’s out there. Everyone is fully entitled to their own opinion. And I’m personally unsure why there is so much animosity. People like what they like, and no one should be made to feel shame over the way they enjoy a character. 

There are things about the living Marauders era characters we can glean from canon. However, as the story is told through a single character’s POV, we have to take the narration with a grain of salt. Is it horribly inaccurate and unreliable, no. But is it biased? Absolutely. And thus how Harry views Sirius, Remus, and Severus during his teen years is not the end all be all to these characters. 

For James, Lily, Regulus, and anyone else who died during the first round against Voldemort, SO much is left open for interpretation. And there are many arguments to be made which have solid canon derived ground to stand on, arguments which at times even contradict each other. And I think this is what is so enticing and exciting about the Marauders. There is a lot of possibility depending on how you view a single character or a single event. It’s how so much fanfiction can exist without it all just being copies of the exact same story. And even when the plot lines follow a similar theme, people still love it because everyone throws their own little dash of pizzazz on these characters. 

How I relate to and then project the cast is heavily influenced by ME. Who I am as a person. And for you, the characterizations I portray may not be your cup of tea. Awesome! We shall continue to both enjoy the fandom gleaning what we love from the creativity of those who contribute. But it means I can’t complain when you don’t love my work, and you can’t complain when not enough people write about your ship or the characterization you connect with. We have to amiably agree to disagree, and find common ground from which to base our shallow internet understanding of the other. 

Even fanon is contested, as it should be. Maybe a majority of us agree Wolfstar is fanon, but people who ship Prongsfoot would heartily disagree. What I’d love to see is more posts about what you love about a character, rather than what you hate about the general characterization adopted by the fandom or a specific characterization. I think my mind would be opened to a wider array of ships if I could understand what it is about James and Sirius’ personalities which draws them together romantically rather than just platonically. I won’t necessarily agree about how those characters manifest to make that relationship take shape, but at least I can say “ah, I can see that.” It is far preferable over someone degrading a person’s characterization of James or Sirius. 

Even when a characterization goes rouge and totally doesn’t align with canon, who cares! That fic probably won’t get super popular as many people will be scratching their heads thinking “this isn't the [insert name] I know and love.” But if someone wanted to write it, good for them. They connected and reshaped a character to suit their own liking. No one says this is illegal. 

I feel like the broader Harry Potter fandom accepts that fanfiction does not necessarily have to be canon compliant or even canon relevant all the time. But for some reason, with the Marauders this sentiment is pushed to the recesses of our minds. People will climb the mountain of their ships and die on that hill. It could be generational (social media has changed how we interact with each other and how people interact virtually through fandoms as a result), it could be the nature of the characters themselves, it could be the ships. I don’t know what the catalyst is, but the things I read sometimes just make me shake my head. Thankfully tumblr’s algorithm keeps that stuff far from my feed. But sometimes people I follow reblog or post about this contention. 

I will never understand why someone feels the urge to go out of their way to write a terribly negative comment on someone’s work or a negative post about a ship they hate. Don’t like the tags, DON’T READ! Don’t like a ship, find and follow people who share your preferred ship. Don’t like the direction the fandom is headed? Dig, create, and stop complaining about how the ‘modern’ Marauders are nothing like how they are portrayed in canon. 

And accept that as the fandom grows, the way people interpret tags broadens. I’m sure fifteen years ago, a canon compliant tagged work looks a bit different from a current canon compliant tag. We can debate the minute details of canon and each of our individual interpretations or we can say, “you like the world of Harry Potter? So do I!” The only REAL rift should be between people who support JKR’s personal beliefs and those who do not. That shite’s real life folks. Not some fantasy world thought up by a single mom in the nineties. 

So spread the love! Not STD’s though cause that shite is also real. Practice consent and protection people. 

In unrelated notes, my tumblr timer app timed out for the day, kicked me off on my phone, and I promptly went to my computer and wrote this little rant. Also, it's election day and I've been avoiding the news/media/everything all day to wait until tomorrow to see the hopefully more stable 'results.'

Alright, enough for now. Night all!

Except I just saw some Drarry pirate AU art I'm probably going to go reblog because for some reason it really hit home. And by home I mean it was f*$%ing hot. :-)

[fandoomrants]

welcome back to ur fully hp obsession <3

it's just...i really respect ur opinion but as someone who ship Wolfstar for so many yrs I think i have to say sth

This story (harry potter) has so so SO many ships, like everyday we get a new pairing ...you can't tell me the only reason why wolfstar has been so popular for nearly 20 yrs is bc we didn't get interaction between marauders... otherwise what? prongsfoot would be the most popular one or Wolfstar would not be this popular? because we always knew that Sirius and James were extremely close. it's literally there..in the books...we know that.

I never understand the "Sirius was closer to James" argument...yes they were so close but that didn't stop James from falling in love with lily (shocking right? these days ppl tend to forget that this man was in love with someone that is not reggie and they got maried and had a child who this whole series is about)

And yes Sirius was taller than Remus ...ty for mentioning , love u <33

Hi, yeah, soo first of all, thanks for this ask, actually! I mean, I share my thoughts and I appreciate it when someone actually takes the time to read it and especially when they have something to say about it! I'm afraid that's gonna be one very long answer coming at you.

Second, I feel the need to start with this here cause likee, these things I wrote are just a bunch of random canon facts (plus one I just think makes sense) that I realised after going through some stuff and they sent me into a near depression episode because I have totally forgotten most of these things thanks to fanon and I think I'm not the only one. I actually lost a bit of sleep that night.

Third, I knew my wording in that part of the post was weird and was going to create the wrong ideas. So don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Wolfstar. Likee, to me they make sense and I hate what happened in the end. I just meant they're a popular ship because we really get to see lots of interactions between them. And the reasoning is that we got to see these interactions between them as adults, with one of their best friends already dead and one of them (and later the other) aware that it's another one that killed him. We basically get to see only their dynamic and that's what started the ship.

But about what I said that maybe they wouldn't have been that popular if we had seen more interactions between all four of them was based on if we had seen the whole story in chronological order. Without the knowledge that James is going to die or that Peter would betray them.

And I don't think if that was the case, people would have shipped James and Sirius much more. I'm a firm believer that there is this level of platonic friendship that is so strong that there is absolutely no way it can be seen as something else, and this is exactly the type of friendship between Sirius and James. Why I mentioned the closeness between them was just because a lot of people somehow seem to forget that they were the closest ones and instead seem to believe that Sirius and Remus were the closest ones because we first saw them interact as adults when the others weren't around. Not to also mention the Prank or some other things that might have made people a bit wary of the ship. So I think that if we had seen the story in that order, maybe they would have still become a popular ship but not as fast or maybe there would have been people shipping the two of them with other people too, maybe even Peter. Or maybe we would have seen evidence of them being closer to canon than we thought!

I also want to say that in any case, I have things which I love and ship but I also don't mind other people's ships and I don't judge, even if I don't see the appeal myself and I might even read things that have such ships in the background, as long as what I ship is not in any way harmed (e.g. read a fic where one of the people in a ship I have is with someone else). Like, I might dislike a ship only if it is abusive or there is something that's really not okay with it. As I shared a post earlier, there are some ships I don't entirely understand but this doesn't mean I hate them. In that trail of thoughts, I also understand most of people's hcs and somewhat fanon facts that everyone accepts and I don't mind these at all.

Finally, again thanks for this post! I plan a second part where I'll also mention that in addition to Sirius being taller, he also had short hair.

Feel free to ask again or, yk, just send a DM.

[hokeytheelf]

Blackinnon, a measured response.

Would update if more discussions comes out. This post is not for a specific person. If the statement doesn’t apply to you, do not take it personally.

If you think Blackinnon is homophobic, think again!

Here are the facts: yes, Blackinnon is fanon. yes, we are a small community. yes, it’s heterosexual. But does that mean we hate queer ships?  No.

Some may think,  “Marlene Mckinnon is not even a background character, why on earth does people ship it? They must be homophobic.” This may be a little shocking, but accusing someone of being homophobic just based on what they ship is an act of denigration. You’re just putting hate on other people’s mouth to make them your foe, even if they have no intentions to be so.

We can ship blackinnon and wolfstar or dorlene. Some of blackinnon shippers actually believe those can co-exist. So what is the problem?  We can ship wolfstar or dorlene and not blackinnon or the other way around. It’s really based on taste and what they’ve read. 

Shipping a straight ship is not an act of homophobia, nor does it make you straight. I could be gay or bi and ship blackinnon. It’s not a hard concept to understand.

I know a lot of people who hate blackinnon rant because they have a passion for their own ship, and I don’t blame them. You can ship whatever you want. But is it really necessary to bring other ship down?

If you have the need to rant and hate about a certain ship, make sure you use the anti tag. If you knew about the tag but still refuse to use it, you’re just writing rants to belittle other people in your favor. Doesn’t sound very accepting.

read more about my points on Blackinnon and sexuality from previous discussions here (x) 

Seriously, though, WHY do people ship it? 

If you genuinely want to know, then ask the person who ship them. I can’t speak on behalf of all the Blackinnon shippers because they ship it for different reasons. Some ship it for their dynamic, from the fanfics they’ve read, from the headcanons, from their view of Marlene, from their view of Sirius and many more.

For me personally, I ship them for two reasons. Their character dynamics throghout almost all the fanfics i read and, because in my mind wolfstar couldn’t work because of Sirius’s insensitivity for Remus throughout the books (i.e. The Prank, him liking the full moon, giving his riches to harry, his suspicion, etc.), and Frankly i think Remus deserves better. Shockingly, that’s just my opinion. And I have no problem with people not agreeing, but that’s what I concluded when I read the books. and the idea of Sirius having someone is nice you know? The flexibility of Marlene’s character is very inviting for everyone because they have their own interpretations.

Someway or another, you should accept that people have different opinions and interpretation. If you think blackinnon is unbelievably bad, then you do you. Doesn’t mean you have to leave a hate-post on their tag, nor should you blame them for shipping stuff they like.

Blackinnon is a very small ship. And if you hate it, you shouldn’t even bother commenting, responding, or ranting. It just makes people defend it, really. Some people love this ship and you’ve gone out of your way to make them feel bad about themselves. Why?

Marlene McKinnon is not even a a proper character

Here are the facts about Marlene McKinnon: Her name means star of the sea, she is a member of the order, her name is mentioned in Lily’s letter to Sirius, Sirius pointed at her in the movies.

A person that we know Sirius is at least acquainted/friends with makes her a blank canvas. As we all know, Sirius has no romance life in canon, so our options are very minimal. 

There are people who ship Sirius with Caradoc, Benjy, Dorcas, Mary, Gideon, Fabian, and so much more. There are less hate for them compared to blackinnon and here’s why: Marlene McKinnon seemed to be in the spotlight because she is second to Remus in terms of possible pair for Sirius. That’s it.

Some Blackinnon shippers like blackinon because Marlene is practically a walking OC. She can be whatever you want.

 But people tend to focus on the fact that she’s female. Putting that aside, Marlene is an absolute blast to read. Yes, she’s mentioned only a few times, but the whole point of Blackinnon is the possibility. Isn’t that always the case for fanon ships?

Understand the hate towards Blackinnon

When I first dive into Blackinnon years ago, all I see is hate thrown at them. The hate hasn’t stop, whether it’s from private messages or from hate-post.

The conversations I have with fellow Blackinnon shippers usually consist of the same things, “Why don’t they just leave us be?” and till this day I still wonder.

I’ve done my research, and really I wanted the results to be different. 

There are many many many ships out there, using incest, pedophilia, or other stuff, and shockingly, it receives less hate from people. Doesn’t that beg the question? 

Do people hate it because they simply dislike it or are they hating it because they have biased opinions about other ships. The truth is, (I’m going to unfilter- god protect me from hate messages) Blackinnon received a lot of hate because it’s the opposite of wolfstar. It’s straight. It’s not Remus. The audacity of people shipping Sirius with a person other than Remus! It’s the same argument for Remadora hate. More than 70%  (not all ) of the people who hate on blackinnon and remadora, I observe, is from wolfstar shippers. (Yes, I counted it. I am a math god, and in need of a job)

People don’t have as much of a problem for Sirius/Mary, Sirius/Dorcas, Sirius/ Benjy, Sirius/Hermione etc. They have a problem with Blackinnon and Remadora (I wonder why).  I’ll say it again, Marlene McKinnon seemed to be in the spotlight because she is second to Remus in terms of possible pair for Sirius.

Hating other ship to make your ship appear better is.... to be honest, understandable. But to tell you the truth, It doesn’t change a thing.

It doesn’t make me hate my ship. If your intentions on writing hate post is to receive approval from other people, I suggest you search for something else than the topic of hatred.

But, again, if you have the need for the feeling of satisfaction of speaking your opinion of something you passionately hate, then use anti-tag. It’s not so hard.

***CONCLUSION***

At the end of the day we have so much love for these characters, and our biases is only for ourselves. Can’t we just agree  that although we love Harry Potter, we can also love different characters throughout the books/movies? There are communities for everything, focus on the community you love, not the community you hate.

If you got offended throughout reading his post, I’m sorry. But let me clear things up, I do not hate wolfstar, queer-ships, etc. I just like blackinnon, as simple as that. This doesn’t prove that I’m straight, or bi, or anything. It’s just what I like. This post is a defense and obviously not a hate-post. What I ask of you is just to leave blackinnon (and remadora) alone. Thank you.

I am doing this measured response so I don’t have to re-write everything every time people leave hate-posts. If you receive this from a link in the comments, thank you for taking the time, and remember that it’s not meant for you specifically. Disclaimer: Do not share this to people in anti tag.

Check out my Ultimate Blackinnon fanfiction masterlist here

[harrypottertalks95]

for my first post, i thought that i would give my opinions on harry potter charcters..... just so y’all know where i stand

harry potter himself

-amazing

-love him

-my third favorite character

-my favorite bisexual

-he literally saved the wizard of world, give him some credit people

ronald billius weasley

-how can people not like him?

-good friend

-funny

-what more could you need?

-the definition of a “token straight”

hermione “badass” granger

-does her back hurt from carrying the golden trio?

-ron and harry would be lost without her

-what a queen

-also poc hermione. thank you for listening.

draco malfoy

-i cant stand this bitch

-fanon draco is a whole other story.... but canon draco..... no thanks :)

-literally was a racist dickhead

-i am ashamed that i simped over this man when draco tok was thriving

-please forgive me, i was brainwashed by this bleached headed bimbo

fred weasley

-so the twins aren’t my favorite charcters, but that doesn’t mean i hate them

-i just never really connected with them

-they were dicks to ron, so i think that just turned me off from get-go

-his death is actually so sad considering all of the factors

george weasley

-same thing as fred

-but i head canon him as bi and in love with lee jorden

-let me have my moment

percy weasley

-i love him pls

-the percy slander is a bit much sometimes

-was he annoying? yes, sometimes

-did he make awful decisions? absolutely

-do people ever take into account what might have lead him to make those awful decisions? no

-he lived in a house where he wasn’t appreciated and was constantly being tormented by his siblings.... no wonder he wanted to get out

-is gay and in love with oliver wood

snape

-go die in a hole

-i hate him

-he literally repulses me

-was obsessed with lily an unhealthy amount

-abused children

-makes me wanna punch his face in

dumby dore

-i think i might hate this bitch even more than snape, and that’s saying something

-“for the greater good” stfu

-used the shit out of harry

-planned the potter’s death, and made sure that sirius would be put in azkaban so that harry would be forced to turn to him

-i hate him

-i hate him

-i hate him

remus lupin

-fav character

-i am him, he is me

-i would die for this man

-bi

-i cant put into words how much i love this man

sirius black

-second favorite character cause wolfstar duh

-dunno if i wanna make out with him, or be him

-again, my love for this man simply cannot be put into words

james potter

-wanna be bffs with him

-him and snape had rivalry, so don’t hit me with the bullying crap

-if anything, bullying a self absorbed racist is okay in my books

-didn’t steal lily.... she was her own person.... with her own choices..... and she CHOSE james not snape

-james “the ally” potter threw the first brick at stonewall

ginny weasley

-the movies did her so dirty

-she’s such a badass bi queen

-in love with luna, i don’t make the rules

-she’s not my favorite, just cause i don’t really relate to her, but she’s still amazing

luna lovegood

-pan

-i love her

-was my first comfort character because i too was bullied relentlessly as a child

-nothing fazes her, and it’s amazing

bellatrix lestrange

-i hate her, how do people like her

-she killed sirius, dobby, tonks, and tortured hermione and neville’s parents

-i’m glad she died



molly weasley

-she’s so over glorified

-movie molly > book molly

-favorited ginny and harry

-her and the twins were the root of so many of ron’s insecurities

narcissa malfoy

-she’s also over glorified

-idc if she cared about her son, she is literally a racist

-just because she doesn’t have the dark mark doesn’t mean that she still didn’t serve voldy

regulus black

-marry me

-is the true hero of slytherin

andromeda black

-what. an. icon.

-her and ted are so cute leave me alone

-love her

ok that’s all for now :)

[bloatsome]

Hey so same anon that talked about fenir lupin snape bit.

I just think it's v insane and like funny how there was literally pleanty of opportunity for Joanne to give lupin the chance of facing his fears like actually being this person who was molded by his past but also not letting that effect him. (basically I'm saying hey be a bit more like snape lmao)

Like there were 2 wars and to my knowledge (idk if it's fanon or Canon) at both times lupin this influencer/spokesperson for other werewolves so literally in the first war it would have been such a cool way to see him grow because like you know he's in the real world where his friends can't really help him 100%. Like him going through the whole how long are you gonna let peoples judgement effect you and then being more assertive with himself and also just simply having fenir Grey back terrified of him.

But Mr throwback Thursday over here is so defined by his past that he makes peace with it???? While we have snape over there deadass being a competent spy for dumbledore army and the order, like he knows he's defined and can't escape his past shitty actions but his active role in atonement for it is incredible. (like both Remus and snape know what's it's like to be at both sides of the war to be hated yet to strive to do good,,,, they both could have ended up like Peter Pettigrew after seeing the damage done in the first war but they both didn't which is neat)

But like back to fenir and snapes overall relationships with werewolves. Like both lupin and snape were traumatized, both having a sense of self hatred regarding this overall experiences and there is this ownership issue (severus snape = Potter saving him, lupin =mauruader friendship and fenir / of you want to add the canon (?) element his dad's original hatred for werewolf).

But one of them only goes : how long are you gonna let this fear of judgement get to you and it isn't lupin. It's fucking snape!!! Which is so cool because it's one thing to tackle the people who hurt you but it's another to make this charecter (fenir) terrified of you.

Like once again it goes back to who's more deserving of this level of bravery to have a nightmare experience be your future baddass moment. And I guess it's snape because it fits his overall charecter of having being molded by his past but not letting it all effecting his task (very solidery) One of them allowed self hatred and fear to define him their decisions ( lupin with tonks the whole deal from her liking him to the child) while the other just didn't (snape being dumbledores spy).

And it's this fear and self hatred that allows fenir to have a leverage over lupin, fenir probably knows lupin hates himself more than he hates fenir (interestingly enough dumbledore knew this and definitely could have used it to his advantage) . Also you can fucking bet the second snape turned into a werewolf he's killing fenir (he is more morally Grey so I think he absolutely would do it)

Yep I think all this is definitely valid. Snape's flaws are that he's super petty and mean which can, interestingly, strike fear in everyone's hearts, be it students or a freaking werewolf. Snape dealt with his past admirably in all ways except one, which is how James Potter treated him (I'm not even saying he should've gotten over the bullying, but he got over pretty much everything else which is so respectable)

Snape is a lot of things, but by no means is he a coward.

Lupin however, has a really bad case of cowardice and how he deals with it is by denial/minimising the damage done. ("oh what Snape and James had was just a rivalry", "oh it was a prank and nothing more"...)

Lupin has a conscience but he rarely listens to it and dismisses and undermines everything, including himself. He'd never ever do something horrible or admirable. He's resigned himself to being an average werewolf while he could've been so much more. I like him as a character, and he's all about doing the least possible to ignore any consequences he might have to face after actually stepping up and doing the thing.

I can understand that though. He's a pretty relatable character (self hatred and cowardice much?)

[thequibblah]

⭐ honestly there are so many things that I'd likevto ask which is why I want to ask a broaderish question.. How do you approach the characterisation of your "Main cast"? I think you have created some really great complex characters even though they do not exist in canon or even fanon (Germaine in example)

I hope this isn't too broad lol

no, i don't think it's too broad! just let me know if my answer doesn't actually touch on what you were wondering about haha

character creation for me tends to be spontaneous rather than conscious — i.e. i'm just writing my way through a scene and i'm like anyway, these people are new and they're friends or they're dating or they hate each other, and there's rarely a ton of forethought put into it. the vast majority of the ct cast was like that, i would say, except possibly michael, who was the first love interest i invented so there was a little more intention there

(but other than him i was really pulling things out of nowhere for the rest of the students especially — including with emmeline which sometimes surprises me)

the exception is, of course, the main cast. they and sara were very intentional, and i wrote little bio thingies for them before i started even outlining the fic. i mean the non-canon main cast, of course, lol — mary, dorcas (they're both canon but i've invented virtually everything about them, so), and germaine.

i did actually do a lot of hemming and hawing about how many girls there would be in lily's year in gryffindor. as discussed in a previous "my beef with j/k/r" instalment on this blog, the numbers of the hogwarts population really don't make sense at all, so i knew i could be flexible and kind of hand wave any questionable bits away. but the composition of the gryffindor girls was crucial in deciding lily's characterisation, imo — an easy way to convey implied characterisation is to show someone in contrast to the people around them. so: who is lily within the context of her friend group? is she friends with all the girls she rooms with?

separately, i've always liked writing friends in groups of four. in the planning stage of this i was like urghhh it's four girls, the four marauders, is that like too perfect....... and one thing i HATED was that people could then map on each marauder to each girl (lily = james is a bit questionable, though i firmly believe they're much more alike than they seem, but it kind of works.... mary = sirius, dorcas = remus, germaine = peter). and i didn't, and don't, want to make it seem like i've just made vaguely distinct female versions of each marauder!

i've made my peace with that risk, of course, and i think each of the girls is significantly different from "their marauder" (LOL) that it's actually fine — and, better still, if that thought occurs to anyone i hope that their characterisations will go on to provide interesting nuance to the parallels

but, anyway, tangent aside, i love groups of four because i think basically all my life i've had groups-of-four friendships. to absolutely go to bat for us foursomes, it's nice because no single person is the obvious odd one out, and each combination in pairs brings something different to the table — the role that doe plays in the group of four at large, for instance, isn't exactly the same as who she is in her individual friendship with mary, lily, or germaine.

the three main cast members came of some very clinical answers to those initial questions about lily.

one, i have always liked having mary be one of lily's friends, and in my characterisation of her she's obviously a great foil to lily, as a fellow muggle-born student. so, she was a lock.

two, i wanted to write one other canon order character, but i didn't want it to be marlene because in my reading of her canon mention, lily is unlikely to write a letter to sirius with her full name (paraphrasing but "i was so upset when marlene mckinnon died, i cried for ages") or, indeed, write a letter discussing how sad marlene's death made her, if they were besties and schoolmates. i went with dorcas because why the hell not? in developing her i then added all these thoughts

three, i felt the need to make up an oc so i could have absolute freedom over their fate. i had certain preconceived notions about mary and dorcas and what their stories would be, so there were other things (e.g. playing quidditch) that i wanted to have a friend of lily's do that they couldn't. plus, i wanted to write a massive lesbian.

another little sticking point, though, was that i (for a very SHRUG?? reason) didn't want lily to be besties with everyone she's lived with, but i didn't want to insert a catty rival into her dorm either. (now, don't get me wrong, i do love a good rival. i did, after all, write mary and amelia, and i am a known appreciator of carlotta meloni, and i adore TLE's marlene mckinnon. but i wanted the gryffindor girls to be like lily's safe space — a contrast both to her home life and to her recently-strained friendship with snape, where she's spent some time having to second-guess herself a lot. in my mind her friendships with all three of her besties coalesced at various points organically, until she was like wow wait i do actually have a home base here.)

the compromise was someone who was friendly with lily, but there's no strain on that friendship to be more than it is — which, sara and lily respect each other but have also learned they're not so alike that they need to hang out all the time. sara, to lily, is the girl you do things with because you're schoolmates, and then once you're out of school you amicably drift apart and occasionally leave a nice comment on their instagram

so that was how the gryffindors coalesced in my mind as placeholder figures. i will fully confess i start with tropes and then work out ways to deconstruct them or complicate them — as i've talked about in multiple of these questions, i think a lot of my characters are caught between sticking to their perceived label and acting the way they want to, aka the ripest high school drama fodder known to humankind

Wearing a fake smile and watching her sister’s sickening love life had put things in perspective a little. Why should she always do what was expected of her?

(we construct ourselves in contrast to those around us....)

mary started off as boy-crazy, doe started off as idealistic, and germaine started off as struggling to find her place. then i built up from those foundations, adding in tropey bits i enjoyed and wanted to engage with — i wanted doe to be passionately principled, but the gentler counterpart to mary, and even-tempered where lily runs hot. i wanted germaine to be a little bit thoughtless, changeable, someone utterly herself but still uncomfortable in her own skin. knowing, then, that the other two were going to be, how shall i put it, gentler hearts (LOL), i went back to mary and decided she would have this tough-girl, queen-bee persona.

then doe got her family background, which added in her ambitions and hinted at her future, and made it so her foundation would be threatened by events of the story. obviously i was writing mary in the aftermath of the mulciber/avery incident, so i needed to ask how much her take-no-shit vibe was threatened by it — and if not, why? how? unsurprisingly, even to people like amelia...

“At least I’m not overflowing with insecurity,” said Amelia. Mary laughed. The sound echoed through the courtyard. “We both know that’s not true.”

...the persona is put-on, but the "real mary" is so caught up in the invented mary that even she couldn't hope to uncover an authentic self...nor would she necessarily want to, because her affected self is still her...

wait don't get me started

germaine was already a quidditch player, and i wanted her to be a seeker because that's automatic investment in perhaps the single player with the most impact on the game — crucial for what i knew would be many, many quidditch sequences, where james wasn't always the most important pov! some of that seekery vibe leeched into who she is: she's searching, right from the start, for a sense of self that feels just out of reach:

“This year is going to be a year of change,” Germaine said [...] “Henceforth I will be going by... Gemma.” The girls looked at one another for a beat. Then Lily, Doe, and Mary burst into laughter.

she's more anxious and outwardly uncertain than her friends, and i wanted to consciously engage with that — proper teenage awkwardness, the kind that wouldn't really happen to Main Character lily, I Have No Sense of Shame mary, and I Am Overflowing with Good Sense doe. more than the other three, germaine is a normal person in the context of this world — she's not a muggleborn, so the war has a different impact on her; she's not the child of activists; she's not well-off. an absolutely spontaneous invention that i was really quite thrilled by was having her sister be crouch's secretary, because it's such a sudden, shocking realisation for her that she's got such a close connection in the thick of it

Germaine clapped a hand over her mouth. “Big news soon,” she mumbled. “Big news soon, that’s what Abigail said, only she didn’t say what big news…”

so germaine is really just... living her life, an indie coming of age film in which her friends' subplot is a fucking war LOL

i defined germaine in contrast to the other girls a lot when drawing out the characters for myself, mostly for a practical reason — i didn't want her to overlap too strongly with any of them, since she's the only one who's wholly my invention. i think some of that remains in her characterisation, but i decided to make it conscious instead:

Germaine saw herself as a happy medium, flexible enough to stretch sympathetically between her friends. But— What does it mean that I define myself in comparison to them? Nothing. She was only seventeen and she was finding her way.

i knew germaine was going to get the chaotic sporty romance pretty much right off the bat, but, fun fact, i hadn't actually picked out who her love interest would be until after i started spitballing other sixth years' names and had a basic idea of who emmeline was. wild!

i feel like i haven't said all i want to say but let's stop there or i'd go on forever, ha!

[retvenkos]

“this world isn’t ready for us”

requested

HOW I IMAGINE THE BASICS OF THE  MARAUDER ERA HARRY POTTER CHARACTERS…

James Potter

hogwarts years 1971-1978

james potter is indian, you cannot convince me otherwise

he has the greatest hair ever - it’s black and fluffy, and even though his father literally invented hair products, he doesn’t style it

it just naturally falls in a really beautiful way and sirius hates it

james potter is left handed, you cannot convince me otherwise

he always has smudges all over his hand and he’ll wipe the ink on remus’ face when he wants to be annoying

he’s 5′11″ (180 cm) and he had the majority of his growth spurt in his third year

he was awkward and gangly all year, and that mixed with his new crush on lily was hell in a handbasket

he eventually filled out, though, and by 5th year he wore it well

he had big round glasses because without them he’s blinder than a bat

he also  n e v e r  wore his tie - mcgonagall hated it more than anything and she would always fix his tie (with magic!) in class

she would also lecture him in that mom™ way

lily laughed at him one time because the end of the tie hit him in the face and that’s when james realized he loved the sound

also, most people have this idea that james was suave and flirted with lily all the time, but i disagree

he was an awkward mess when talking to girls and would make the most corny jokes, hoping lily would laugh

he only got good at flirting in his seventh year, after a summer of sirius teaching him how to be cool

but talking with his mates, james was an arrogant idiot.

but always respectful.

he was really good at transfiguration but absolutely terrible when it came to potions

also, i know he’s canonically an only child, but i think he has a younger sibling - probably a sister. he just has the older brother vibes. adopting his friends the way he did? only an older sibling, mom friend would ever.

Remus Lupin

hogwarts years 1971-1978

so i’ve already covered a lot about remus here but i’ll go off again

so i like to think that remus is secretly really good at drawing

we all took him for a writer but i am adamant in the idea that sirius is the poet, not him.

he can also do calligraphy - the writing on the marauders map was all him, fam

he’s also ambidextrous or at the very least able to use both hands pretty well

he’s definitely the tallest of all the marauders, coming in at a whopping 6′3″ (190.5 cm)

he was always lanky, too. james swore that one day he would be taller than remus, but it never happened

and i know we all like to think of remus as being the most studious child there ever was, but honestly,,, he was struggling every day and the reason he was constantly doing homework was because he was chronically behind in school work

i’m talking like at least a week out at all times

of course, the teachers knew why, and so they allowed him some slack, but still, he had the same expectations

but he was interested in most of his classes, and he worked on all of them equally

i think how he and lily met was that he needed a tutor because he was behind and she offered to help him

he just generally has this sad air around him, too

it was kind of a thing that he and snape shared for a while - two sad boys who were desperate to prove they belonged

and then, in their later years, they both take very different routes

oh, and because i haven’t said it enough, i love the idea of latino!remus lupin

and he could be bilingual!!!!

Sirius Black

hogwarts years 1971-1978

okay, here. is. the. thing. sirius is average height. i cannot emphasize this enough. i always see things about him being tall, but you are incorrect. he’s not super short, but he’s  a v e r a g e .

5′8″ (173 cm)

that’s still pretty good.

and while he can whine about how short he is, he is the most handsome out of all of the marauders

he has that regal look that makes his so attractive.

if he had an awkward phase, hogwarts never saw it. sirius just always looked really good.

and he did everything else to make himself look as chaotic as he could

he never once wore his school uniform correctly.

there were always buttons undone, ties pulled loose, shoe laces untied

and he acted chaotic, too

laughing overly loud

making unnecessary comments

every day he tried his hardest to be everything that his mother never let him be

as for classes, he’s one of those kids who is naturally gifted in everything (you can thank his mother for drilling him in the years prior to hogwarts) and just really doesn’t care that he has a natural aptitude

the only class he got really excited about was dada

also, i’ve seen the idea that he’s a womanizer be a thing, but,,, no?

i mean, he definitely flirts (most of the time jokingly) because it’s just another thing that can make his family upset and separate him from that image, but i don’t think he’s especially promiscuous

he’s literally a kid, guys

oh, and with every passing day, the lily and sirius friendship goes glaringly underdeveloped and it pains me - they could have been so close to each other but we just sleep on that, i guess

Peter Pettigrew

hogwarts years 1971-1978

so i get why fanon leaves peter underdeveloped, but he was important

first of all, peter is the same height as sirius 5′8″ (173 cm) and the two of them constantly argue over who is taller

they are also constantly aiming short jokes at the other, even though they are the same height??? they’re just insulting themselves.

at the very least, peter is a half-blood (i think he might have been muggleborn but then why would voldemort tolerate him, y’know?)

i like to think that he is really in touch with his muggle side - he and remus talk about muggle stuff all the time and play jokes on sirius and james who are oblivious but want to learn

peter was also really good at finding secret passages

he found the better part of the ones on the map, and maybe he knows about a few others, too

he was definitely the cartographer of the marauders map. who else would have had the skill?

he was definitely more awkward like james, and he never quite grew out of it like the rest of them

but it was okay, because his friends were fiercely loyal to him

even if it screwed them over in the end...

i also have this idea that peter was really good at games? like, gobstones and chess were his area of expertise

it’s definitely something that he would do with the other marauders when they were stressed out or sad

and he would sneak them food from the kitchens and they would just sit up and play games for a while

i think that peter was also that marauder that would check their schedules, seeing what classes they had together, and which ones they could all bail on to hang out in the forbidden forest

i also think that peter was a huge music enthusiast

he and james definitely talked about music a lot - he took james to his first concert and it was really precious

james would sing at any an all times, and peter would know all of the lyrics, singing more quietly but supplying all the words.

Lily Evans

hogwarts years 1971-1978

lily was a nervous wreck in her first year of hogwarts

but also vvv excited - she wanted to learn everything

she had a natural talent for dada and was also pretty good at potions, thanks to snape being her bff

she struggled when it came to history of magic because, y’know, she’s brand new to all of it

lily had really long, beautiful red hair ever since her first year

and, of course, those eyes

she was always very pretty, but she also got a lot of hatred because she was a muggleborn, so she struggled with herself - especially in the later years

i imagine she’s average height or maybe a little tall, definitely not short, since harry was his dad’s height

probably 5′5″ (165 cm)

also, lily was the one who gave harry all of his sass

she definitely was the one to sass james (who loved it, despite being taken aback the first few times) and she was very adamant in her beliefs

she loved her friends more than anything, of course, but she would put her foot down when she had to

i also feel like lily was a thrill seeker

it’s why she and james got along in their seventh year when they were head boy and head girl together

he probably showed her secret passages or shortcuts to places and she couldn’t bring herself to reprimand him

she’s also a little impatient

she always sips at her tea too soon, burning her tongue

or she’s tapping her foot five minutes before class ends because she’s raring to go

she also walks fast

Severus Snape

hogwarts years 1971-1978

so snape’s biggest thing is that he will not be the small fish in the big pond - he will not be picked on

and so that has screwed up some of his relationships because he will do anything to not be the last kid picked

this also means that his loyalty is only with himself (and lily, previously, but when it was him or her that had to take the fall, it was her) so he’s definitely a lone wolf

i think his slow way of talking didn’t manifest until he was in his sixth year

it was a way to be calculating - see how people react to what he’s going to say before he says it

he was definitely a wide-eyed kid

really big, sad eyes that would have made anyone feel bad for him

they went away during the end of his third year and beginning of his fourth

he traded it for pushing his head down, not allowing anyone to look him in the eye

snape was definitely a book nerd, and he used to spend all of his time in the library with lily

but after the marauders started hanging out in there (thanks, remus and lily), he had to find a new place

he wore his robes properly, and with a lot of care since he was pretty poor growing up and he was determined to wear them as long as he could

that’s where a lot of his formal aesthetic came from

also, it was a stark contrast to the marauders - where they were carefree he was uptight, where they were informal he was not. the recipe for disaster.

also, he was pretty short up until his fifth year, where he grew like a weed

at full height, he was 6′1″ (185 cm) - just tall enough to look down at james

Dorcas Meadowes

hogwarts years 1971-1978

i’m pretty sure canon agrees with me when i say that dorcas was black, and a pureblood.

her family weren’t blood supremacists, tho, they were vehemently against voldemort and she grew up with those ideals

she was sorted into ravenclaw but quickly became a friend of lily’s because they both had so much interest in school

dorcas would help her study for history of magic, and in return lily would talk to her about the muggle world

and when i say dorcas was talented, she was talented

i mean, it’s literally canon that voldemort killed dorcas personally, so she had to be a particularly skilled witch

i like to think that in her spare time, dorcas would even make her own spells - similar to snape, they were both inventors

she was very studious - studying long into the night and always reading a book or doing homework during lunch

she was definitely taking many n.e.w.t. level classes when she had the chance

she was probably the model student that the teachers were all very impressed by - she was going places

she was head girl and a prefect, sometimes working alongside remus lupin

i also think that she had a crush on marlene mckinnon

and she thought she was being obvious about it, too - going to quidditch matches? since when had she ever done anything remotely social?

she was planning on being an auror, and she was made one almost immediately after leaving school

james would always ask her for notes, and if he said they were for remus she would always give them to him because remus was a sweet kid and he wouldn’t ruin them

5′4″ (163 cm) but she packed a punch

also, she had great cheekbones. you can’t convince me otherwise.

Regulus Black

hogwarts years 1972-1979

if you were wondering where all of the tall genes went in the family, then look no further

he’s still not super tall, but he surpasses his brother, coming in at 5′11″ (180 cm), the same height as james

he also hit his growth spurt sooner, in his second year, when sirius was still short

and where sirius is overly handsome, regulus is a little less so

he’s still handsome (don’t get me wrong), just in a more... quiet way.

he’s always been a more sombre boy, with sadder eyes and lips less inclined to smile

i think he was always the more plain boy, the more overlooked boy, and that really got into his psyche at a young age

he’s also bookish - this, again, stemming back to his childhood

he was always looking for a way to top sirius, be better than him

if you wanted a boy to speak french in the hp universe, this is him

i feel like regulus would have just been really gifted with languages? he probably knows multiple and reads a lot of literature (including muggle literature - sirius got him a book once, please don’t tell his mother)

he excels in school - went all the way with potions and fell in love with alchemy in his sixth year

but while he’s intelligent, there’s a lot on his mind so he’s never super present in lectures and he doesn’t over participate

he cuts his hair short, always clean and the perfect image that his family wants

in his first two years, he tried to talk to sirius a lot and keep their relationship at something like brothers, but sirius could never understand him and regulus could never understand sirius so they drift apart by his third year

he still feels guilty about that, after all this time

oh! also! regulus is seeker for the slytherin quidditch team. it’s just a thing he does, he doesn’t super love it or anything.

Mary MacDonald

hogwarts years 1972-1979

so mary is a gryffindor a year below lily and the rest of the gang, friends with lily because she, too, was a muggleborn and lily stood up for her against some mean older boys

i headcanon mary as being latina, or maybe just from spain

either way, she comes from a big family and is a middle child

and she speaks spanish.

she’s 5′1″ (155 cm) and you know her friends use it against her all the time, short jokes galore

and she’s very outspoken amongst her friends, making giraffe jokes in retaliation, but it just never really stuck the way short jokes did

she excelled in healing magic and was definitely an ace at potions

she also really loved divination, mostly because it worked in ways that were very different than other magic

she was always braiding hair and definitely taught lily how to braid that long hair of hers

her favorite place was the gryffindor common room because it was always so alive? it reminded her of her big family, that’s for sure

oh, and if james does have a younger sister, when he meets mary macdonald, she immediately reminds him of his sister

and so the two of them quickly become a chaotic duo, singing muggle songs together but also getting on each other’s nerves just for the fun of it

Marlene McKinnon

hogwarts years 1970-1977

she’s one year older than lily but immediately sees this cute first year, lost on the stairs and adopts her

marlene is definitely the reason that lily can be so sassy, too. she’s a terrible influence, really, especially with that mouth

marlene is a gryffindor, too, and she’s definitely on the quidditch team

a chaser, probably - she most likely helped train james when he joined the team and that’s how she knows all about his crush on lily and teases them both

and she 100% gives james tips on how to talk to lily, shhh, no one tell

she has masses of curly, blonde hair and it’s constantly being pulled into a messy top knot or ponytail

she did a dare in fifth year that involved shaving her head and she did it, but immediately freaked out afterward. lily had to find her a hair growing potion, but for a week she had a shaved head that sirius teased her about mercilessly

in her defense, she thought it would be fine at the time.

she was a talented witch, but she struggled in care of magical creatures

she just wasn’t an animal person, okay?

she swears that unicorn was going to gore her.

her favorite class was astronomy - she liked to be outside, and being in the astronomy tower was pretty close to flying.

oh, and she was tall for a girl - 5′9″ (175 cm) and taller than sirius. it was a thing

she was fiercely loyal of her friends and would have been down to duel with anyone if they said anything about lily

she had a lot of siblings and she was the oldest, so it was kind of a given

marlene would have punched death eaters if given the chance

she wanted to punch snape a solid three (3) times during her school years but lily always held her back

Frank Longbottom

hogwarts years 1969-1976

frank was a gryffindor, and a rather sweet one at that

he was a pretty social guy - he had lots of friends, despite being pretty shy. he was just a generally great person to be around and he cared about people a lot. it got him places.

he was pretty tall - 6′0″ (183 cm) - and he had a kind of dorky look to him

but he cleaned up nicely, and every year he got a little better looking

neville got his awkward phase from his dad, and when alice was pregnant, frank said he would have to apologize to his boy for inheriting those longbottom genes, one day.

he really loved movies - he and alice were kind of pop culture nerds

he was a little before remus lupin’s time at hogwarts, but they would have gotten along famously, had they been closer in age

but he definitely had a soft spot for the marauders - those younger gryffindors who were funny and bright and made living in these dark times a little easier

his best class was definitely charms

he loved that class and hoped to one day teach it.

going back to hogwarts one day was always a dream of his

he was terrible at divination, though. something about looking into the future just never felt right.

Alice Longbottom

hogwarts years 1969-1976

so we never get confirmation on what alice’s maiden name was, but i’ve seen in the fandom that it’s widely regarded that it could have been alice fortescue, and i thought that was sweet and kind of just absorbed the idea

alice was a hufflepuff, and a pretty social one at that

she was constantly chewing bubble gum and talking with her large group of friends

i like to think that she always had short hair in school - a dark brown bob that kind of bounced whenever she walked

she was short - 5′2″ (157 cm) - and when she and frank got together in their sixth year, he would always hold her hand and guide her through the crowded halls

she got where she was going so much faster that way

i like to think she’s east asian, or maybe half, on her mother’s side

she was best at herbology, and it surprised everyone when she turned out to be really good at combat magic?

turns out she was great at non-verbal magic and doing magic without her wand

she had lots of practice when helping the plants thrive in herbology - she unwittingly used magic a lot to help them grow

she had so much magical potential, neville definitely inherited that

i also think that she was the more forgetful one out of her and frank, and that’s why neville’s also kind of forgetful, himself.

Narcissa Malfoy

hogwarts years 1966-1973

so let’s get one thing straight - draco gets his incredible bone structure from his mother

this girl had the greatest cheekbones this world has ever seen

and it gave her a very regal look that would have appeared cold on anyone else

but narcissa was kind, okay? she was soft.

also narcissa is queen at wizards chess and strategy - she beat amos diggory’s winning streak in her third year - but she’s also really great at history

and it interests her!

even though lucius was a year ahead of her, he’d always ask her if he didn’t want to do his homework, offering her anything in return

most of the time it was white chocolate or some kind of cream filled pastry - she always had a bit of a sweet tooth, and lucius is her greatest enabler

her worst class was probably herbology or care of magical creatures

she didn’t like working with her hands. she said it wasn’t very “becoming”

andromeda taught narcissa how to do her makeup in her third year, and she picked it up fairly quick, very partial to a dark lip

andromeda also taught her how to do hair, but narcissa preferred to wear it down when she was younger

she’s said to be tall, so i imagine she clocks in at about 5′8″ (173 cm), taller with her usual heels

Lucius Malfoy

hogwarts years 1965-1972

lucius malfoy... where to begin

lucius was really good at reading people. it was one of his strongest talents, and it, interestingly enough, made him really good at divination and other intuitive magics like charms

and even those classes he didn’t like, he did his best to excel in because 1) expectations, and 2) lucius knew there was power in knowledge. and he wanted all of the power he could get.

but he was also great at charming people so when he didn’t want to do his homework, he was all over everyone else, not so much asking for help as just getting it after a word or two.

yes, he always had that long hair

narcissa would sometimes give him little braids when they were in the slytherin common room, but if you were present to witness it, you didn’t ever mention it

he would know and your life would be over. it’s just the facts

and did he always have impeccable style? mostly, yes.

he was always very neat with his clothes - things were always in their rightful place, no matter what

he didn’t get the pimp cane until later, though. it was a graduation gift.

and lucius isn’t actually super tall? i mean, he’s tall, but not super tall

he’s 5′10″ (178 cm)

and he never hated how narcissa and him where basically the same height? (she liked to wear heels) supportive husband, i guess.

and i guess i should tell you - they got together in their 6th year

Amos Diggory

hogwarts years 1963-1970

amos diggory was a hufflepuff, and honestly, he was really cool in his day

he’s the oldest out of everyone on this list, but he went to school with lucius malfoy and xenophilius, leaving before the marauders ever came to school

he was head boy in his 7th year and a prefect prior to

he was kind and worked hard, so the teachers thought he was a good fit

he was particularly gifted in care of magical creatures and transfiguration

he was also really good at wizards chess - he was unbeatable for a while - even against lucius

narcissa beat him in his sixth year, though, and she became the new student to beat

he had a lot of freckles - especially on his arms. they faded a bit with age but he still has quite a few

and he was really good looking?

plenty of people had crushes on him and it may have went to his head just a bit

but he was still very kind and humbled because he wasn’t the most talented or bright, but dedicated to what he loved

whoever he gets with definitely brings out more of his humility and it’s a good match for him

he’s so whipped.

he’s 5′9″ (175 cm)

Other Characters:

Mafalda Hopkirk

hogwarts years 1963-1970

mafalda is portuguese and spoke the language in her home. she mostly learned english for the first time at hogwarts. she had a few exposures before that, but hogwarts was really her first place to learn it.

she was a hufflepuff and honestly exemplified the “hard working” and “kind” traits. truly a friend to all.

she was great at flying and became a chaser for the hufflepuff team almost right away

she also really loved divination - she got into xylomancy early on and was super skilled

she loved making up omens too just to scare her friends

she teased her friends a lot tbh

she’s 5′0″ (152 cm)

oh! and in the hufflepuff common room she basically claimed one of the couches for herself - she’s a bit of a night owl so she perpetually claims the same chair and ends up falls asleep in it.

and since she went to hogwarts during amos diggory’s time, i kind of think the two probably dated at one point. it didn’t last, but maybe in their sixth year the two went on a couple of dates

Xenophilius Lovegood

hogwarts years 1965-1972

xenophilius was a ravenclaw who honestly had a handful of friends and managed to get one in every house  - including slytherin

yes, he could be weird, but he was honestly fun to talk to and gave a lot of interesting insights that weren’t technically wrong, but kind of sounded like it

he was made fun of for it, don’t get me wrong, but his oddities gave him a couple of friends that would let him just ramble

he mostly stuck to himself and his small group of friends, so nothing big ever came of his teasing

plus, when he was younger he wasn’t nearly as out there. that came with age and isolation.

he was actually really intelligent and, like narcissa, had a knack for history

he was also really good at charms - he could do non-verbal spells sooner than most

i imagine he started to grow his hair out in his fourth year, but before then it was short.

all fourth year it was at this really awkward length, but by fifth year it was longer and more natural looking

he only gained his odd fashion taste in his seventh year onward.

Edgar Bones

hogwarts years 1965-1972

edgar bones is a ravenclaw with the biggest fascination with space - more than anyone else you’ll ever know

he was really interested in it when he was younger, and when he went to hogwarts for the first time, his love for astronomy just skyrocketed

good luck getting him down from his tower, because it’s a near impossible feat

he has freckles all over his face (his mom used to tell them they were constellations) and brown eyes hidden behind a pair of square glasses

he actually wears them really well, he’s pretty good looking not going to lie

and for height, he’s pretty average at 5′7″ (170 cm)

he’s italian. idk why, but i just really think he’s italian.

sports aren’t really his thing, but he grew up in a family that lives for quidditch, so he’s a pretty decent chaser if you ever put him up to it.

he’s also really good at potions, although he doesn’t really have a love for it.

if you partner up with him, it’s great because you’ll get your work done fast, but you will end up talking with him about astronomy and divination for the rest of the class.

Bathsheda Babbling

hogwarts years 1966-1973

bathsheda was average height - 5′5″ (165 cm) - with wide, peach color glasses that sort of made her look perpetually surprised

she was black with dark, coily hair that was usually kept short.

she was incredibly gifted in arithmancy and study of ancient runes - the latter which she would one day teach

she was a hufflepuff who set the standard for kindness, always helping the younger students

which made her realize she would love to be a teacher

i don’t think that she was ever given a blood status in canon, but i’ve always thought her to be a halfblood who’s pretty in touch with both the muggle and magical world

i also imagined her to have a younger siblings in ravenclaw, so she could be seen cheering for them at quidditch matches

Fabian Prewett

hogwarts years 1968-1975

fabian and his brother are more well known, so i’ll just hit the basics

so fabian and gideon are clearly twins (don’t @ me with canon, it’s not valid, here), but i also think they were in different houses

fabian was in hufflepuff, and if he ever wore his tie (he was perpetually without it) you would have been able to use it to distinguish the two of them

he was on the quidditch team - a keeper - and was actually really good despite being kind of clumsy on the ground

he was really good at charms and dada but he sucked at transfiguration

gideon was great at transfiguration, though, so it was a constant argument as to who was smarter

fabian definitely gave off younger sibling vibes - he was always joking around and teasing, but he was also very soft hearted when he wanted to be.

he gave terrible life advice, though, go see gideon for that.

i feel like he and gideon had really great hair, although idk why. i just really want them to have nice, curly red hair.

they both kept it short, though. they hated when the curls would get into their eyes.

Gideon Prewett

hogwarts years 1968-1975

now gideon was the brother who was sorted into gryffindor, and you could tell why once you noticed his reckless behavior

if there was anyone the marauders looked up to, it was probably gideon prewett

he definitely helped them set up their first prank and he created such a beautiful legacy, tbh

he was on the gryffindor quidditch team, but he was a beater

the sibling rivalry was really palpable but it made the game so much more fun

like i mentioned, he was great at transfiguration but also had a knack for potions

he was terrible at herbology, though. a plastic plant could die in his care.

gideon is the older twin, but he honestly feels like the younger one sometimes just because he’s so impulsive

but he’s fiercely loyal of his family - don’t even look in their direction or so help him...

also, i forgot to mention that they’re identical twins (because that runs in families and fred and george had to get it from somewhere, right?) and they are both 5′9″ (175 cm)

the tall™ genes came from arthurs side of the family

Bertha Jorkins

hogwarts years 1968-1975

so i know that canon says bertha jorkins isn’t very bright, but i think she was in ravenclaw

i don’t have much on bertha other than she was really curious and loved to listen to gossip

if you ever wanted the good kind of gossip, you went to her because she knew it all

she had connections, y’know?

and i like to think she was creative - probably a writer of some sort, something that would make her want to be a reporter when she left hogwarts

i also think she was a pretty girl. not super gorgeous, but pretty in a more natural, soft way.

Amelia Bones

hogwarts years 1968-1975

amelia bones is the younger sister of edgar bones, and she was a hufflepuff

an athletic girl, she was the seeker for the hufflepuff quidditch team and wanted to be a professional quidditch player for a while, although she eventually turned her gaze to becoming an auror

she was a sweet girl and had a great relationship with her brother - she could sometimes be found in the ravenclaw common room rather than her own, studying with her brother because if he didn’t keep an eye on her, she wouldn’t do her transfiguration homework

she was really good at astronomy, since her brother had been teaching her about the stars since she was little, but her real interest lay in the more tangible magics

again, i like to think that her family is from italy, so she has a really big family and she’s the youngest, which makes her a little pampered, but it’s not too bad.

Sturgis Podmore

hogwarts years 1968-1975

sturgis podmore was a slytherin in hogwarts who mostly kept his head down through his hogwarts years, never really bothering anyone

he had this habit of being able to just slip into the background, no one really noticing him or anything

he was pretty good looking at 5′8″ (173 cm) with a square jaw and a soft demeanor

but again, he had the sneaky ability to just not be seen, so he wasn’t a heartthrob or anything

he was a halfblood and sympathetic to muggleborn students, often helping them in quiet ways so that he wouldn’t get singled out by certain members in his house

he joined the order of the phoenix because he hated feeling like he couldn’t help anyone or do anything that made a difference

he was a really agreeable sort of guy - kind, intelligent, talented.

he should have been the model slytherin, but he was mostly overlooked.

sturgis podmore deserved better, smh

Florence

hogwarts years 1968-1975

florence taylor was a slytherin halfblood who mostly kept to herself

she was friends with sturgis podmore and had a couple of other friends.

she was perfectly kind to others, but she could be a bit curt with acquaintances.

but with her friends, she is the most loyal and would kill for them.

she was made head girl in her seventh year due to her high intellect and generally kind demeanor

she had a secret artsy side - she loved photography and painting, and she had that kind of dark academia aesthetic in all of her work

she liked history of magic and care of magical creatures

she loves animals and is actually really sweet with them?

sturgis may have a bit of a crush on her and there might be a bit of a friends-to-lovers storyline involving the two of them

they are honestly very sweet together - he gives her his sweaters and everything.

and she kind of sucked at potions, but it’s okay because she partnered with sturgis and he absolutely kills it in that class.

they could often be found studying together in the common room, books spread out between them as they worked on the floor

she was 5′4″ ( 163 cm) and had beautiful, brown skin

oh, and she had dimples. that’s important.

Mulciber II

hogwarts years 1970-1977

this sadistic little punk.

his full name is xavier mulciber and he’s in slytherin (obviously)

the leader of his pack (w/ avery and rosier), he’s the most well spoken out of the three of them, and was the one to scout out snape and get him to join them

he was an only child and knew how to work people from a young age

he’s 6′2″ (188 cm) and it helps with his intimidation, even though he’d much rather just talk things out

he was also pretty smart, too, and knew a lot of hexes and jinxes

when he’s cornered someone, he’ll talk to them while walking in a circle, never quite making eye contact because he thinks you’re less than.

he had black hair that he slicked back and sharp, green eyes

Avery II

hogwarts years 1970-1977

punk #2, douglass avery was another slytherin crony of mulciber

now, avery is a bit more complicated

he came from one of those pureblooded slytherin homes, but he himself wasn’t super prejudiced or terrible. he was actually kind of sweet in his first five years at hogwarts.

BUT, his family found out about his muggleborn sympathies and weren’t having it. terrible stuff went down at his house, and when he came to school for his sixth year, he was just as terrible as his summer

in his fifth year he was made prefect, but it was revoked half way through his sixth year when he started becoming nasty to students

he’s 5′10″ (178 cm)

he had brown hair and sort of big, brown eyes

Evan Rosier

hogwarts years 1970-1977

and now we have punk #3, our third sadistic slytherin

now evan rosier was the traditional broad chested, strong bully who looked like he could snap you in half without breaking a sweat

standing at 5′11″ (180 cm), he was a beater on the slytherin quidditch team, and was extremely loyal to voldemort’s cause, even then

he was more aggressive than his friends when it came to negotiations, but he still deferred to Mulciber, knowing his place.

he always had his reservations about avery, and he’d pick on him since avery was objectively lower on the pecking order, but he was also aware that everyone served a purpose

not the dumb jock archetype because while he was always ready for a fight, he knew when he had to wait things out

he was blonde with blue eyes

Dirk Cresswell

hogwarts years 1971-1978

dirk cresswell was a muggleborn hufflepuff who embodied the idea of hard working

he was really talented at everything, and it honestly can be attributed to his work ethic

he was really good at potions and was frequently the partner of dorcas meadowes

they both worked really well together, and dorcas said that she wouldn’t have any other partner because no one else was half as smart and kind as dirk

he was a commentator for quidditch in his fifth year of hogwarts but said he didn’t love it too much - the sport is much funner when you can just watch

he was 5′5″ (165 cm) and was teased for being short (and a muggleborn, but that’s not the point)

he had sandy brown hair and freckles

Greta Catchlove

hogwarts years 1971-1978

greta catchlove was a ravenclaw who mostly kept a low profile during her school years

if you did see her, she was most likely sneaking into the hogwarts kitchens where she learned how to cook from the house elves

a lot of their secrets would be told when she wrote her book “charm your own cheese”

i also feel like she probably had an entire cookbook lineup - not just one about how to make cheese

anyway there’s not much to say about greta

she’s blonde and kind of short at 5′3″ (160 cm)

she was perfectly kind

Farley

hogwarts years 1971-1979

theodore farley was a half-blood slytherin who had to work rather hard to get where he was

he was quidditch captain for his last 2 years of hogwarts, and he was a beater - and a pretty good one, too

he nearly took out james a few times, but it was all in good fun 

because what is key to theodore farley is that he’s noble.

ambitious, sure, but not underhanded or sneaky. he’s the youngest out of a fairly big family, so he’s determined to prove himself, but not at the expense of what he believes

he has honor and dignity

theo was pretty strong, seeing as he’s a beater, and he stands at 5′7″ (170 cm)

he’s half brazilian and had really nice hair - you would not believe

he was very into slicking it back

he was absolutely amazing at charms and actually really enjoyed arithmancy

he struggled in potions, though, and was one time partnered with severus snape

it was horrible. he’ll never do that again.

Emmeline Vance

hogwarts years 1971-1978

emmeline vance was a ravenclaw, and a talented one at that

she was top of the class at charms and she was really good at dada, too. she was a really great spell caster and was good at dueling, too.

she’s half-veela, making her very gorgeous, but she wanted to make a name for herself outside of that beauty, y’know?

she was extremely competitive when it came to school, and she would do anything to get there

but she had a soft spot for her younger brother and would honestly do anything for him.

she was 5′9″ (175 cm) with long, blonde hair that was even more hair goals than sirius black, which is saying something.

Corner

hogwarts years 1973-1980

apolline corner was the younger sister of a few older brothers, sorted into ravenclaw

she was more of an artsy ravenclaw - she played the cello in the music class they had at hogwarts and did the art class, too, although she mostly doodled

she started doing calligraphy and she got okay at it. it didn’t last.

being a half blood, she took muggle studies as an easy class, but she ended up really liking it because it talked about some things she didn’t know or it deepened her understanding of what she already knew

plus, y’know, it helps that it was easy

she was really good in potions, too, something that her whole family was good at because her mom was a potions master and taught them all at a young age

she was absolutely terrible at astronomy for some reason, always messing up the skies by a long shot

she was 5′6″ (168 cm) and had long, black hair and brown eyes

-- taglist: @musicallisto, @babyplutoszx2, @locke-writes, @randomfandomimagine

[ts-unpopular-opinions]

Alright since you guys asked... Time to rank the sides!

Before I start, it pains me to do this. I love all of the characters for different reasons and I believe they all deserve top spot. But that of course isn’t how ranking works, so I’ll just go off from favorite to least favorite.

1) Roman: Roman has been my favorite side for a really really long time (he hasn’t always been... foreshadowing) so at this point I can’t put him anywhere but first. I have a thing with dramatic, loud, flirty, but insecure characters, so it’s kind of a no brainer for me. In my opinion, the team has sone the best with Roman’s arc out of any of the sides so far. It’s not over yet, but I can see the potential and I LOVE IT. Not to mention he’s a twin and I love a good sibling dynamic.

2) Janus: Yes, the snake lad himself! Surprisingly, I also have a thing for well written, suave, sassy, but dorky villians so... I mean... that’s just Janus 😂. Other than that, I would say that Janus’ reveal sticks with me until this day. I had no idea that a new side would be coming and then BAM Deceit was Patton the whole time?! It was wild! I’d say Janus is a real showman and that dramatic flair is what makes me obsess over a character.

3) Logan: Yep! When I first started watching sanders sides (back with Fitting In) Logan was my favorite. I think i found myself relating to him a lot because I had a major obession with school and order at the time. I liked things to be a certain way and done when they needed to be. Now that I’ve learned to relax more with my school and work life, I relate less to Logan, but I can now see how much I love him from and outside pov. The guy tries so hard and really cares about Thomas and all of the other sides. I’d argue he’s the most important side in almost all of the debates the group has. I’m really looking forward to his arc in the future, expecially with how ignored he was in the most recent episode. Give the smart boi some time to shine! Logan stans are honestly the most patient people 🖤

4) Virgil: As much as I dislike fanon virgil, I have to admit that canon Virgil is super interesting. His arc was really early on in the series so he’s slowed down a bit in the character development realm, but I just really respect what he represents. He’s the physical embodiment of anxiety and that is just... really cool? Like I’m sure there are so many fans that can relate to virgil and who have been able to look at their anxiety in a different way because of him. Virgil reads as a snarky, tired, over anxious teen and he’s just great honestly. I love that he isnt afraid to take crap from anyone, expecially Janus. He even tells patton off when he does things that make him upset. Either way canon virgil is a great character and some people need to see that!

5) Remus: Goddd it hurts to put him this low on the list, but I just gotta. He’s had the least amount of character development out of all of the sides and I doubt much more will come..? Like he’s kind of a flat character when it comes to his arc as everything about him was practially solved in the first episode he appeared in. Despite this, Remus is literally such a good character. I think he, similar to virgil, can be really helpful for people suffering with intrusive thoughts and thats awesome. His reveal was also super iconic... like the TV?! His fingers came up from behind that TV and I lost it. Other than that, it’s just refreshing to have a character who isnt constantly pestered by Thomas’ ongoing turmoils. He just exists and does his thing. He literally has no alternative, secret plans. He doesnt have a certain way he thinks Thomas should be. He just wants to be listened to and given attention. We love that 💚

6) Patton: I knowwww... I’m sorry Patton! I love you! I really do! You’re just not the kindof character that usually interests me. Like I’ve said earlier, I always latch onto cocky, loud, arrogant characters and Patton is just not that? I completely recognize how great his arc has been and I really respect the writers for showing that he isnt perfect and that he can make mistakes. What they did with Patton in the new episode was so risky and honestly awesome! I absolutely hated how he was acting throughout the episode, but that’s how we were supposed to feel. He was being vague and subtle and that can be really annoying sometimes. But seeing him absolutely lose it? That was so shocking and really well done 👌 Basically, do I love and respect patton as a character? ABSOLUTELY. Do I find Patton as interesting as the other sides? Not by a long shot, but that is simply based on personal character preferences.

❤️💛💚💙🖤💜

[toujourspur13]

What’s so interesting about Sirius Black... apart from the obvious?

Well…I feel obliged to jump into this discussion about Sirius and his family.

I actually think that canon Sirius Black is a good example of multidimensional character with a complex personality (rare thing in hp series)…at least the way JKR wrote him implies some psychological depth (hp is mainly teen literature about friendship - the marauders friendship, the golden trio are all great examples of it - but let’s face it - this literature has a tendency to a very specific narrative - maybe that’s the reason for popular Sirius fanon - I mean…Sirius being part of the Harry’s story is seen through the lens of Harry’s problems). The thing is that usually Sirius is greatly simplified when, in fact, he’s one of the most interesting and complex character in the whole series.

OOTP is the longest hp book - it contains huge amount of text about Sirius’s family incl. RAB who’s indeed very important to the story; and it also contains excessive amount of Walburga Black content. Why excessive? Well because she is not even important to the plot…I mean, at all. Harry (and the whole 7-books journey is Harry’s POV) doesn’t even care about her. But she is important. To Sirius. To the extent that he can barely shut up about her.

And as Sirius’s important to Harry we got all those extra pages about The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

When he’s showing Harry the family tree, he keeps going back to her - she did this and she did that, she removed him, she removed Andromeda, Uncle Alphard…

I saw how he managed to squeeze her in one passage in two different contexts. She’s clearly weighing heavily on his mind. Grunted, he is very angry about everything she did - but can you really disagree that he is super fixated on her.  Frankly speaking, you could’ve expected that he’d be talking so much about James (in Flitwick’s words ‘You’d have thought Black and Potter were brothers’) - but in fact he doesn’t talk a lot about James - it’s his family he seems unable to shut up about. Cross out all his rant and the book becomes significantly shorter. Sirius shows Harry all of his relatives because he wants to.

Remember Araminta Meliflua…his mother’s second cousin?! Is it of any interest to Harry - I doubt it. Harry’s more interested in the Malfoys at the tapestry - but then again Sirius pays little attention to them - and only answers the direct questions. The only one about who he truly doesn’t want to talk in that scene is Bellatrix.

Btw if I remember correctly, he’s even distantly related to the Potters…but for some reason he chose to ignore this. So let’s just say that his thoughts in that scene are clearly one-sided and family-centered.

Even in POA Sirius is mirrored to his mother (we can only understand this after reading the 5th book though) - Sirius slashes the Fat Lady portrait when she refuses him the entry to the Gryffindor Tower - Walburga burns holes in the family tree. Angry management is what they both clearly need. They are so extremely alike that I am almost sure it’s all deliberate and JKR used her as a way to show deeper levels of Sirius’s personality (and not the abusive nature of his childhood).  Loud, high-strung, passionate and very emotional.

Sirius says that he ‘hated the whole lot of them’ and that’s why he ran away and instead of saying something like ‘I got so fed up with my parents lecturing me how I should avoid mudbloods at all the cost/ hate them/ whatever fits the profile of pure-blood maniac’ he says in the next sentence that he was constantly reminded that Regulus was a better son. This is a very jealous remark. It’s pretty obvious that what he wanted is unconditional love - ‘either you take me with all my extreme political views or I’m gone’. The things Sirius says are often contradictory and half-truths and sometimes he just chooses to withdraw certain information at all.

I sometimes come across the strange ideas that JKR tried to parallel Harry’s life with the Dursleys to Sirius’s childhood - I mean, do we really need to go there? You’d be better off trying to parallel him to Big D rather than to Harry. It’s fairly obvious that the odd ideas about Sirius’s abusive childhood are used for the sole purpose of helping him to bond with Remus (in terms of being subjected to physical pain) where he wouldn’t be able to relate to James (you know what popular phenomenon I mean).

Another popular idea - that the 1st year fiasco with Sirius’s Sorting was a big deal. I admit we have very little info about this BUT the fact that he put Gryffindor banners and pictures of  bikini-clad Muggle girls into his room makes me think that the parents were clearly disturbed and disappointed but not to the extent that it became something crucial in their relationship. Clearly Sirius used that as a means to annoy them. To tell you the truth, I find this attempt to go against fanatical blood purists quite feeble and certainly below Sirius Black’s level - it feels more like «hey, mum, look I stick posters of barely-clothed girls on the wall in my room - let’s see what you can do about this».

Btw the interesting thing is that it somehow feels that Sirius’s relationship with his mother (unlike the ones with his father or brother) was the relationship of equals which is odd because she was older and his mother. The explanation for this can be that they were very much alike and she in fact allowed it…maybe (well here I agree that it’s vague and can be just because it’s only the portrait and not the real person but still there is something about this).  And they have this you-hurt-me-now-I’ll-hurt-you-back attitude that implies equality and a certain degree of exclusivity. They both very clearly are not careful with words and actions.

And thus we’ve come to the very touchy subject - her psychotic portrait - her little ‘welcome home’ present. I grant her that - very impressive and colorful vocabulary.

She definitely wanted to be sure that in case Sirius had come home he would never have a moment free from her. Very dramatic.

“Yoooou!” she howled, her eyes popping at the sight of the man.

“Blood traitor, abomination, shame of my flesh!”

“I said — shut — UP!” roared the man, and with a stupendous effort he and Lupin managed to force the curtains closed again.

They match each other really well. (All the drama aside, if we consider this matter seriously - it’s just a portrait of hers and she was insane and alone for years after she lost everyone. But yeah - pretty nasty thing to do - I agree).

Frankly speaking, her personality isn’t really that significant in this case - it’s more important how Sirius feels about her, the way he can’t let her go. He’s relatively okay in the 4th book while on the run in the cave eating rats and arguing about Crouch, Bertha Jorkins, Karkaroff, Snape etc. But his severe depression in the OOTP clearly has everything to do that he’s locked up in ‘the house of a dying person’ (the very last one from their family) - like in the case of his mother’s true personality we’ll never know for sure what’s that about - Sirius’s real feelings are impossible to decipher - he says one thing - does another - feels maybe something completely different - for all I know, it could be about plenty of things one of which is that seeing her awful portrait, sitting in the rooms where they used to be together is a constant reminder that his family is gone and no matter what he feels and wants, he can’t fix anything about that - it’s all lost for good.

Of course, Sirius wouldn’t like to be there - a man of action trapped in his own past without any hope to ever overcome his unresolved issues with his family. The way he’s fixated on his mother is so intense that it’s almost unhealthy but I guess it’s just the visible (most explicit) tip of the iceberg.

Sirius with his hidden and repressed feelings is a great and very interesting character - he’s so much bigger than just James Potter’s best mate with a cool leather jacket. His relationships with his family is what makes him such a deep character (and not those ideas about how fluffy little angle was magically born in the family of twisted and deranged warlocks - well, it’s a little bit naive). After all it’s an internal conflict that sells the character.

Upd 2020

I think it is worth mentioning that since we’re discussing fictional world and fictional characters it only makes sence what the author implied and what the author did not. Yes, there is no absolute truth because it is all not real but the way character is written usually allows us to make certain assumtions about his or her inner world and motivation. So called ‘canonical evidence’ only matter in terms of what the author wanted to show us. I’ve never had any problems with fanon and headcanon - the only thing that bothers me is saying some things were in the main text when it is explicitly implied that there was nothing of that sort.

[dreamingbrownie]

Tagging games part 4

Stole this from @potter-at-the-disco and as sure as heck nobody will ask me all of this bunch but I wanted to answer them all the same, I’m doing them in their entirety now. Tagging @fandom-glazed and @luckymoony (I can’t properly tag you for some reason, http://luckymoony.tumblr.com/) if you guys want to do this. 1. Which Hogwarts house are you? Ravenclaw, proudly so. 2. Who is your favourite professor at Hogwarts? Remus. By far. He’s the kind of teacher that we would need a hundred times over and more in our schools. 3. Would you have an owl, cat, or toad? ohmygod give me an owl to pet and send my letters, I still want to have my much loved black cat Nonny at home back tho 4. Favourite character and why? Ufff, tough one. Albus Dumbledore is turning more and more into my favourite at the time because Fantastic Beasts gives him even more depths, aspects of the Harry Potter books make more sense now and I’ve developed a good many headcanons about him and his feelings over the decades by now. On the other hand, I still adore Luna to pieces because she’s so loving and the special kind of person that I tend to gravitate to in reality. Also, I sure as heck relate to being bullied all your damned school career. Can’t really decide, honestly. 5. Pro or anti Marauders? Okay, this is a direct contradiction to having been bullied for 7 years: I’m a bit conflicted about them. I love the Marauders as a concept of very strong male friendship, coming of age, growing up in war times... Still, I’m well aware how shitty a person James and Sirius had been towards Severus, and man, I was so sorry to see him dangle upside down in 7.2, but it’s that friendship aspect that fascinates me. (And Wolfstar, Remus and Sirius, will forever be my OTP that I consider very much in tune with the canon and you can pry it from my cold dead hands.) Even if I never got the whole enemies to lovers between Lily and James. Until somebody explains to me how that happened, I’ll be a bit sceptic about that. I mean, a guy pestering you for a date who just won’t get the hint to leave you bloody alone already? Meh. 6. Avada Kedavra, Crucio, or Imperio? Man, this is a cruel one. Imperio, I’d say, cause it’s the most “““harmless”““ one. Take this with a huge grain of salt. 7. Favourite book and why? At the moment, Jane Eyre. Read it just before Christmas last year for uni and adored it from start to finish for all its directness, unmasked honesty of the conditions of early victorian times, Jane being the most self-respecting person I have ever encountered in a book and the tender love story between her and Mister Rochester. 8. Who do you think was the best father figure towards Harry? Remus. I still wish he could have grown up under his tender care. 9. Favourite movie and why? Interstellar. No unnecessary love story despite the fact that the setting very much would have allowed one between the main character Cooper and the female young Doctor Brand, for once, secondly, I’ve been in love with realistic space movies for ages and this one is by far the best in my opinion. The relationship between Cooper and his daughter Murphy is so heartbreakingly loving from start to finish, I always, ALWAYS cry during the last half hour and frankly, the director Christopher Nolan is a genius. To finish it all perfectly, the score comes from Hans Zimmer. And if Nolan and Zimmer in combination aren’t reason enough to watch a movie, I don’t know what. ... Ah, wait, you asked about my favourite Harry Potter movie, right? That would be 7.1 for the terrors of war displayed realistically for the first time and the Shell Cottage scenes with Dobby that moved me to tears. Also, riding a majestic dragon will get me every time. 10. Which character do you relate to most, and why? A mixture of Luna and Hermione. People say I’m like the latter one all the time due to my perfectionism in History and Literature (that honestly only developed when I started uni last semester, I was a mixture of okay and shit at school) and, as I said, being bullied makes you like the bullied characters more. But she’s unbroken. I admire that a lot in her. It sure as hell didn’t leave me as untouched... 11. Who was the most evil character? Umbridge. Discussion over. No, seriously, I’m well aware that Voldemort was a fascist, killing people, using Black Magic, yada yada, and Bellatrix was mad and cruel, the Dursleys abused and neglected Harry... but who didn’t hate Umbridge the most? Let’s be entirely honest there. :D 12. Thoughts on Severus Snape? Misunderstood arsehole. His character is fascinating and I loved his redemption ark, but I’d never in a lifetime want him anywhere near children to teach because he was the picture example of How Not To Be A Teacher At All. Being amused by scaring students, a fucking cynic (which stems from his character, yes, but keep that out of the class room please), favouring and mistreating certain students due to their House (or parents, for that matter)... Nope. I’ve had enough of that type in my school time, thank you very much. But as a character, he’s very interesting indeed. If you want to read a Snape that’s just as grumpy, magically capable, dark and dangerous but very much lovable in the end, read Naomi Novik’s Uprooted. Trust me. The wizard the Dragon is Snape 1:1 and it’s just so hilarious how blatant the adaption was done, I loved it. 13. Who was the bravest character in Harry Potter and why? Harry himself, I think. To sacrifice yourself so that others can live is the greatest act of bravery in my opinion. He stood up for others time and time again, somehow survived years of neglect and difficult years in school at the best of times, he would have had every right to throw it all to hell at one point, turn his back on everybody and leave. But he didn’t. 14. Best subject at Hogwarts? Transfiguration and Charms would fascinate me the most, I think, because essentially it’s the core of everyday magic. It fascinates me infinitely what one could do with Magic in Harry Potter. 15. Worst subject at Hogwarts? Potions, by far. I can’t cook, I’d be shite at Potions. xD 16. Who would be your enemy or enemies at Hogwarts? I absolutely agree with Harry that Draco was the worst, although I ship the two to death in a fanon sense and in the movies. I hate bullies and Draco was precisely that. Yes, he was scared, forced to do horrible things and under a lot of pressure by his parents, but he was arrogant and said horrible things from the very beginning until he finally grew up in book 7. You asked for my enemy, not for the worst character, because he’s absolutely not. 17. Who would be your best friend at Hogwarts? I’d probably gravitate towards Luna, Seamus, Hermione... Those are the people I’d like to have as friends. 18. If available, would you use a love potion on someone? Nope. 19. Favourite Weasley? The twins. By far. I love them so much. :D 20. Favourite Death Eater? O.o Uhm, ehrm, Snape? If he counts? Because he’s not murderous and mad and all, you know? 21. What would your boggart be? Either a very big spider, Aragog would make me scream like a child, or my math teacher from 10th grade. Yeah, no. The giant spider. Definetely the spider. 22. What is your patronus? An applemare horse according to Pottermore, personally I’m fine with that, but it wouldn’t be the first animal to come to my mind as a patronus. It’s supposed to represent me as a person, isn’t it? That would be a cat without any doubt. :D 23. Fuck, marry, kill *Insert 3 characters* Fuck Gellert Grindelwald (don’t ask me, honestly), marry Luna, kill Dolores Umbridge a dozen times over. Torturing children is Not Cool. 24. How do you feel about Cursed Child? Meeeeeeh. 25. How do you feel about Fantastic Beasts? Fucking loved it from the start, still hyping it and very much looking forward to the next movies.

[amorremanet]

Arthur/moody, lucius/moody, lupin/snape?

the brutally honest ship opinions game

Arthur/Moody: ……okay, like, I have basically no positive feelings about Alastor Moody — I mean, I feel the same need to defend him from JKR’s ableist garbage that accidentally got me in too deep with Lockhart, but we are still talking about a guy who supports using Dementors on people and apparently dngaf about what someone’s done, just send ‘em all to fucking Azkaban (GOF ch. 30, the flashback of Moody we see in the first Pensieve scene)

who thinks that the best present you could give to a kid who’s lost his parents and just watched a classmate be murdered…… is going over a photo of the First War Order and telling him about how all of them died horribly and he doesn’t ever stop to think that this might not be the best idea (OOTP)

and who is legitimately less sensitive to other people’s needs and less dismissive of people who aren’t his exact model of “useful” than a literal fucking Death Eater one of the biggest points where Barty Crouch Jr. drops character in GOF is when he takes Neville to his office and gives him a pro-Herbology pep-talk, and goes, “so, hey, Longbottom, Professor Sprout said you’re super-good at this subject, why not pursue it,” because based on the actual canon about him? The real Alastor Moody would never do something like that.

Like, he might have the moment he has with Harry and Hermione, where he goes, “so, hey, both of you could be gr10 aurors if you wanted, you should think about it” because that, from Moody, would be a compliment, and Harry and Hermione more closely fit his own ideas of usefulness, but not so much the Neville moment)

—but seriously, do you hate him or something? Why else would you even dream of shipping him with Arthur Weasley? (okay, fine, I acquiesce that there is enough of a canonical basis for some people to roll with here, and I myself have made ships out of far less…… but seriously, why would you ship anybody with Arthur Weasley. Like…… wow, rude.)

Lucius/Moody: again, I’m not on the Alastor Moody fan-train or anything, but why would you even do this. Nobody deserves to be shipped with Lucius Malfoy, like? He’s not even an entertaining villain, he’s just pathetic. He’s a sad, pathetic fantasy-fascist who gets his kicks by bullying twelve-year-olds and torturing muggles who can’t defend themselves. He’s a complete waste of character space and forcing anyone to be in a ship with him is just unfathomably cruel

Lupin/Snape: meh, whatever. Like, it’s not my thing, but… *shrugs* meh?

Like, idk what you’re looking for here, nonny, but I’m guessing, based on the other two ships, that you’re looking for me to get cranky and ship-bashy and figured that Snu//pin was a good way to get there, since there are a lot of legitimate Problems with this ship in the text

But the thing is, I’m just under 900 years old (at least in fandom terms), and I remember the days back before HBP came out, when Snu//pin was the second-most popular Remus ship (after Wolfstar, to the surprise of no one), and was, in fact, so popular that it had its own private archive and got black-listed from most rarepair comms because it, “wasn’t really rare, just less popular than D//rarry, Wolfstar, Ro//mione, Dra//mione, H//inny, and J//ily”

—I mean, there was a short stretch before OOTP where I tried to make myself like it because there was a BNF whose art I loved, and she shipped Snu//pin, so I felt like I had to be missing something obvious and cool and because I was, like, twelve, I tried to make myself ship the thing. That didn’t work and I eventually just moved on, but one thing that I recall about the Snu//pin fandom that appears to still be more or less true, based on everything I’ve seen of the present-day Snu//pin fandom?

Is that they came out about the same as the Wolfstar fandom, in terms of how many shippers ignored or made excuses for #Problematic things about the ship vs. how many shippers work those things into the overall fabric of how they ship the thing, how many shippers LIKE the ship because of those Problematic parts and having the opportunity to explore them in fiction, how many shippers actively dive head-first into exploring those parts of the ships because that’s where they find the most engaging character interactions or whatever they’re into, etc.

For examples of what I mean when I say #Problematic things about the ships:

the fact that all three of them are self-loathing [human or werewolf] disasters who are often passively suicidal and either prone to acting out on those feelings (Sirius and Severus), or prone to repressing those feelings until they explode all over some innocent bystanders (Remus)

the fact that all three of them have suffered horrific abuse in their pasts — whether from their parents or other sources — and find ways to take it out on other people (Severus on his students, Sirius on Severus and Kreacher, and Remus on almost anyone who tries to get close to him, even as he makes it seem like he isn’t doing that)

Severus outing Remus as a werewolf because he’s upset and felt like punishing someone else for it, thereby leading to Remus tendering his resignation

the fact that Sirius assuming Remus had to be the spy would’ve been at least partially based on anti-werewolf prejudices, and Sirius still clearly had at least some of those prejudices on his own, because even if Peter totally manipulated them in his favor, there had to be something there for Peter to manipulate in the first place, so???

the fact that Remus doesn’t help shit anything, in any situation ever, with his habit of trying to weasel out of any Emotionally Difficult™ conversations and his tendency to mentally spin most situations so that everyone is going to leave him in the end anyway so it’s acceptable to shut down, close himself off, and pull stunts that more or less come down to, “totally up and bailing on everyone,” which is understandable, given his backstory, but dude, that doesn’t make it okay or helpful??

basically, “literally anything about the characters as individuals, or in terms of their interactions with each other — both past and present — that could potentially cause problems for either/both/any/all of them and potentially make the relationship unhealthy (or unhealthier than it already was, in the cases of Snu//pin and Snack because…… oh boy, let’s not even act like either of those — or any ship with Sev in it, for that matter — is ever going to be ‘healthy’ by any definition)”

So, like? Is Snupin #Problematic? Yes, definitely. Are some of its shippers prone to ship it in #Problematic ways? Oh, yes, absolutely (Hell, the BNF whose art I used to like even flat-out said things like, “Sirius would never be able to be there for Remus like Snape could” and… um? Even granted that this was pre-OOTP: ummm???)

But on the whole, Snu//pin shippers aren’t actually any worse about totally ignoring and/or excusing these elements of their ship than Wolfstar shippers are (and, actually, they might be doing better than a LOT of the present-day Wolfstar fandom, since I usually don’t see any more recently made Snu//pin that doesn’t grapple with at least some of the #Problematic elements of it — they don’t always do it well, but at least they’re trying, which counts for a lot, to me, because most people don’t even try — while most Wolfstar these days flat-out ignores all the #Problematic elements of Sirius and Remus as characters, and of their relationship, in the name of what often amounts to borderline-OOC caricatured fanon nonsense, so…)

(……Look, I love Wolfstar, and I have for longer than some people on this website have been alive. But I don’t love a lot of Wolfstar shippers, which has been the case since the beginning of my Wolfstar shipping

stayed the case when HBP came out and I was all, “Hey, guys? I don’t like this BS Remus/Tonks thing either, but can we NOT erase bisexuals or treat Tonks like garbage when we’re talking about it, it’s not her fault that Molly Weasley is a meddling nosy garbage buttinski who thinks it’s her job to play matchmaker to fully-grown adults who didn’t ask and don’t want her input,”

and is still the case as I’m over here, all like, “ugh, man, at least we used to have SOME people in this fandom who enjoyed reading Wolfstar angst, now it seems like nobody cares about anything unless it’s all fluff, all the time, with absolutely no room for anything else because god forbid you ever want to write about LGBTQ characters whose lives aren’t 5,000% perfect, that obviously must mean that you’re a gross fetishistic cishet and not, for example, a neurodivergent, mentally ill lesbian survivor who feels left out by the trend towards forcing every LGBTQ person to act like we’re happy, all the time, and to act like we’re only interested in fictional LGBTQ people who are perfectly 5,000% happy all the time

“and to decry any and all depictions of LGBTQ people being UNhappy as gross fetishistic straight people garbage even when they were actually created by and for LGBTQ people, only to be misappropriated by straight people, as if there’s no way you could possibly be LGBTQ and NOT feel ~used and maligned~ by depictions of LGBTQ people that are less than 5,000% perfectly happy, even when they are being created by other LGBTQ people, yeah? ……but yeah, no, clearly: the fact that I like angst obviously means that I am a straight person because no ~real~ LGBTQ person ever has any need for those ~gross negative feelings~ or fictional outlets for them, never mind how many LGBTQ people get excluded from our narratives and spaces by this bullshit bc lmao who cares amiright. ://”)

—anyway, my motto has been and remains, “It isn’t a question of WHAT you ship, it’s a question of HOW you ship it,” so hey. Snu//pin is not my thing (it’s not even as non-shippingly interesting to me as Sirius/Severus is, because I love how much those two hate each other while unwittingly being perfect foils for each other), but I don’t actually have any desire to ship-bash it and most Snu//pin shippers are okay with me because unless they’re actually doing anything that’s harmful to anyone else, it’s not my business what they ship

That said: “Snu//pin” is still one of the worst portmanteau ship names ever and it still sounds like a deadly virus or something, but *shrugs* Whatever, it’s not the shippers’ faults that their ship members’ names don’t smush up all that nicely

[amorremanet]

10, 23, 37, 42

asks for fanfic writers.

10. how do you do your researches?

Depends on what I’m researching, but usually, it starts with Google and/or Wikipedia, unless I have other sources that are immediately on-hand, or that have pointed me to places I should be looking. Sometimes, I’ll go use my grad student access to various academic databases for something that is actually useful.

Then, I filter through the stuff to find contradictions I should look at, find the pieces that are unreliable (e.g., gossip journalism with no demonstrable basis in fact, history about POC that was written by white people, LGBTIQ history written by straight people, things that might have been questionably translated, etc.). And then I sorta have to play it by ear, because this is about when it starts getting more variable, based on what I’m researching and what I’ve found or not.

23. least favorite story you’ve ever written

Do you want me to go chronologically or alphabetically? That being said:

* A lot of my old school, “I wrote this when I was fifteen and so deeply closeted that I was Katniss Everdeen levels of, ‘Everybody seems to know my secrets before I know them myself’ before Katniss was even a character who existed, and I really, really thought I was straight for like a minute. A really extended minute” Wolfstar fics are capital-B BAD.

Like, they’re OOC as fuck, they buy into all of the heterosexist and misogynistic top/bottom bullshit that fandom is still so fond of, I forced myself to write a bunch of fluff that I hated and that is absolutely disgusting to me because it’s: 1. overly derivative of “The Shoebox Project” but with absolutely no nuance or depth (so like, the fanon version of TSBP), because, like every other Wolfstar shipper at the time, I loved it and unfortunately, I subsequently emulated it way too much in my own writing, because I was fifteen and thought the only way to find any kind of a place or friends in fandom was to do the popular thing

Pro-tip, kids at home: this is an absolutely bullshit way to try and find a place or friends in fandom. It just straight up DOES NOT WORK.

All of the happy feels that resemble friendship you get will be totally surface-level at best, and unless you are really socially competent — which I was and still am not — you won’t be able to translate it into any meaningful connections with anyone else, because they won’t really be accepting YOU.

They will be giving you attention and appreciation, but you’ll be more or less the same as everyone else who’s doing The Popular Thing Of The Moment, especially if you’re creating content for a huge ship, like Wolfstar was at the time — or for newer examples, like K*laine, like S*terek, like V*iktuuri, like Skittles after a certain point, like [insert literally any popular dudeslash otp here] — but they won’t be accepting YOU, YOURSELF.

If what you are legitimately into happens to be The Popular Thing, then disregard this and keep doing your thing because you’re doing it in earnest and that means that you actually ARE sharing yourself with people through the content you make, and have an actual chance of finding a fannish place for yourself and finding friends in fandom who actually value you as a person, and not just as a creator of The Popular Thing.

But for everybody who’s just doing The Popular Thing because it happens to be The Popular Thing? No. Stop that. You are better and you deserve so much better than that.

Find what really makes you happy. This is a deceptively simple idea, because finding your bliss as a content creator — or the thing that gives you the most sense of purpose as a content creator, since tbh, finding happiness as a content creator is often going to feel pretty impossible — it’s hard. It takes time. It takes a lot of trial and error, it takes soul-searching, it might very well take skydiving and seeing what flashes through your mind (it didn’t for me but I wouldn’t be very surprised if it did for someone)

—but whatever it takes? Find what kind of content it REALLY makes you happy to create, and then do that. It won’t always be The Popular Thing, and yes, let’s be honest, it will fucking suck to put your heart and soul into something, only to feel like people are just totally ignoring it.

But it’s also more likely to help you find people who genuinely share your interests and who are more likely to click with you (especially out in Rarepair Hell; there aren’t enough of us, so we sometimes end up bonding more tightly), and in the end?

Artistic integrity and truly making something that you can be proud of? That’s worth more than how many kudos or followers you can get by doing The Popular Thing when your heart isn’t actually in it.

This has been the most pretentious, “you’re a star, baby, just be yourself” PSA ever, and now back to our regularly scheduled self-deprecation!

and 2. Those old Wolfstar fluff pieces I wrote are gross to me now because they are so fucking emotionally dishonest — both to how Sirius and Remus are as characters, and to how I felt at the time, which was, “meh, varying degrees of miserable but with no functional idea why this is and even less of an idea of how to articulate it” — because I was so desperate to be accepted somewhere and get validation in the form of people on FF.net liking my terrible fanfic.

Like, every sin you can commit as a writer, I probably committed it with those fics and as such, they’re all completely atrocious. Even the “angsty” ones aren’t worth shit because I copped out and gave most of them either pasted-on happy endings or, “lol i am using canon as an excuse to not do a happy ending but i’m still not actually exploring everything as much as it deserves la la laaaaaa~ (somebody please please love me)” endings. They are all hooooooorrible, period, end of discussion.

There’s exactly one (1) that I wouldn’t burn if it were an actual printed book, and it’s the one that has ‘vaguely genderfluid but I didn’t have that word in my vocabulary in 2005’!Sirius having gender and presentation feels about wearing pretty skirts, and a parallel Hermione/Luna story about soft dapper butch!Hermione having gender and presentation feels about wanting to wear suits that were Totally Not Inspired By The Pics from And Fanart of Tipping The Velvet That I’d Seen Online, Nuh Uh, Nope (except that they totally were).

It’s still pretty, “meh” because I wrote it when I was fifteen, and if I were to rewrite it now, I’d do a looooot of things differently but still. It’s about the only not-horrible thing I ever wrote.

oh wait, actually? There are two (2) that I wouldn’t burn.

The other one, I wrote right after we first got HBP and found out that Remus had been out with the werewolves, on Top Seekrit Spy Missions!!! — it had Albus (who was still assumed by most of us to probably be having it off in secret with McGoogles because DH hadn’t happened yet and brought us G*rindeldore For Real Though) going to his office after handling shit with Harry and the kids and all of the Order members who got injured at the battle at the end of OOTP

Because it was a Wolfstar fic, Remus is naturally in said office.

It’s, like, dawn or getting close to it, and Albus is like, “well fuck shit dammit, how am i supposed to have this conversation with Remus when he’s probably going to clam up and emotionally retreat and try to say that he isn’t hurting about losing Sirius, and i can’t entirely call him on it without invalidating him — which i am especially sensitive to at the moment because Harry just almost called me out on it lol — and it’s not like his and Sirius’s relationship was ever simple like fuck, they have one of the most complicated relationships i’ve ever seen, crap fuck dammit, remus make this easy on both of us and let me comfort you okay”

And Remus is just like, “no, fuck that, dnw”

“i don’t suppose that i can ask what you’re planning to do”

“well i’m homeless again but it’s nbd”

“the order still has headquarters—”

“I AM NOT GOING TO LIVE IN GRIMMAULD PLACE WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF SUGGESTION IS THAT”

“i’m just saying—”

“please just give me some pasted-on condolences and then give me a mission so i don’t have to think about anything”

“that sounds like one of the most emotionally unhealthy ideas that you have ever had this week”

“hey, so, you need somebody to go do reconnaissance/outreach with the werewolves, right”

“um i think that can wait—”

“NO IT CAN’T TELL ME TO GO UNDERGROUND WITH THE OTHER GODDAMN WEREWOLVES”

“…………*dumble-sighs* remus, will you please go underground to do information gathering and outreach with the werewolves :/”

“yes. thank you, professor. i absolutely will.”

“this is still one of your worst ideas ever, jsyk”

“la la la can’t hear you over the sound of you giving me permission to do it la la la”

this is, at best, a really sketchy recreation of it that isn’t historically accurate on the grounds that i’m writing the sketch with the view of canon that i have now — minus the obvious omission of the Truth of Grindeldore — but that’s the basic outline of things

if I were to rewrite the thing now, I would do a lot of things differently

but the original fic isn’t completely without its merits, even if it could be a lot better

* “Close Enough For Rock and Roll” — Absolutely terrible, forever abandoned WIP because it’s absolutely terrible. It’s completely bogus D*estiel cis mpreg that has no reason to exist because it’s TERRIBLE. I cringe so hard whenever I get any FF.net emails about people liking it because…… ew. no. why would you even. I don’t even know you but plz. Love yourself and read something better, you deserve that.

* It is a closely-guarded secret of mine — by which I mean that it’s on my FF.net account — that once upon a time, I wrote D*rarry not once, but twice. They’re patently horrible fics, and there’s a reason for that. Namely: I don’t ship it, I have never shipped it, I have never for the life of me understood why it is A Thing, and I am never, ever GOING to ship it — usually, this would be shooting myself in the foot but it’s been 16+ years and I still don’t ship it, so I think I’m in the clear — but the girl I was in love with at the time dared me to write it, just to see if I could. She had a beautiful smile, but I refused to lose.

The fics are garbage and the only reason I don’t regret them is that nah nah nah nah nah nah, I won.

* It is a less closely-guarded secret of mine — by which I mean that it is up on my AO3 — that I wrote NC-17 S*terek once. I hate it a bit less than everything else I’ve listed here, because it’s not completely awful and I wrote it for a friend who’d been having a shitty time of things, and hey, it made her happy so mission accomplished — but it’s still pretty bad. It has a Derek who’s a darker shade of morally gray than he usually is and unnecessarily special!Stiles and consent that is at best highly questionable (though at least I acknowledge it and tagged it as such).

But mostly I hate it because I don’t actually ship that and have so many better fics but ugh, of course the garbage, poorly-written porn for the fandom’s favorite OTP is one of my most popular fics on AO3. UGGGGGGGGGGGGH.

37. canon or AU?

*shrugs* Both are good, it depends on how I feel today.

42. do you plan or do you write whatever comes to your mind?

………Can I just say, “yes” and leave it at that, like??? Sometimes one, sometimes the other, but usually, it’s a mix of both?