#canon discourse

[fannedandflawless]

From Student to Staff: The Adults Who Watched Him Break, Then Welcomed Him Back

Severus Snape didn’t just return to Hogwarts as a professor. He returned to a castle full of ghosts—not the ones who drifted through walls, but the ones who once looked through him. The ones who had titles, robes, and responsibilities. And Merlin, the way they smiled when he came back.

These weren’t strangers. These were his former teachers. The ones who watched him unravel—slowly, painfully, obviously. They saw the weight—emotional bruises no child his age should have been burdened with. They noticed the robes that hung too loose, the way his voice softened into nothing, the eyes that dulled year by year. And then, as if memory had been Obliviated, they greeted him with polite nods and teacups.

Let’s name them. Let’s drag the velvet curtain back. Let’s ask what they refused to.

🧙‍♂️ Albus Dumbledore — The Grand Strategist of Silence

He saw everything. The twinkle in his eye? That was calculation. Dumbledore knew Severus’ pain. Knew his background. Knew the Marauders were brutal, and knew exactly how Hogwarts worked for boys who didn’t shine the right way.

And what did he do? Nothing.

Not until the prophecy.

Not until Severus—broken and desperate—came crawling with regret.

Only then did Dumbledore offer protection. And even then, it wasn’t mercy. It was strategy. It was cost-benefit arithmetic.

He kept Severus close, yes—but not out of trust. Out of necessity. And in that same chessboard logic, he raised Harry the same way. A pawn to be protected, yes, but only until it was time to be sacrificed.

Severus recognised it all too well. The same cold detachment Dumbledore had shown him as a man—keeping him close, not out of care, but for utility—was now being applied to Harry. Despite the tangled mess of resentment and reluctant protection he felt toward the boy—born of Lily, shaped by James—Severus could see the pattern. He could see the purpose.

He saw through it: "You've kept him alive so that he can die at the proper moment. You've been raising him like a pig for slaughter!"

Two lives. One broken young, the other burdened late. Both groomed to serve, both shaped for sacrifice—and in the end, perhaps, both meant to die on cue.

And when the war ended, Dumbledore offered Severus a position—not because he sought to make amends, but because it served a purpose. Severus had returned to spy, initially under orders, a reluctant shadow caught between masters. And once the mask was worn long enough, Dumbledore simply let it stay.

As if a professorship could heal years of sanctioned cruelty. As if being called "Professor" would cleanse the memory of being a punchline in the corridor.

⸻

🧪 Horace Slughorn — The Collector of Potential

He loved talent. But only when it glittered.

Slughorn praised Severus’ brilliance in Potions—called him promising, sharp. But he never once shielded him.

He didn’t invite him to the Slug Club. Not until Severus’ name meant something. Not until his mind could decorate a shelf.

Slughorn’s affection was conditional. You had to be charming. Presentable. A legacy. And Severus? He was none of those things. Just a poor boy with a hungry mind and no surname to flaunt.

And perhaps that is why, years later, Severus held nothing but quiet disdain for him. Because if anyone should have noticed what was happening in the shadows of Slytherin House, it should have been its Head. Not McGonagall. Not Dumbledore. Slughorn.

He should have seen it first. And yet—he didn’t.

Slughorn used him on parchment, but never sat beside him in reality.

⸻

🐈‍⬛ Minerva McGonagall — Sharp-Eyed and Selectively Blind

Minerva loved her lions. James Potter was golden in her eyes—brave, brilliant, bold.

She watched him torment Severus in broad daylight. She called it mischief. At best, she scolded. At worst, she said nothing.

She taught Severus Transfiguration. She saw his talent. But she never once stepped in when he was dangling upside down in a public corridor.

And years later? She called him Severus. Perhaps it was meant as respect. Perhaps it was all she had left to give. But even that name, spoken in her steady voice, must have tasted hollow.

Because if I were Severus, I don’t know what I would feel beneath the careful nods and professional courtesy. Not really.

Respect? Yes. She was formidable, fair—in her own way. But also a bystander. A witness to pain who never raised her wand.

The bitterness would have settled in strange places. Not hatred. Not fury. Just that sharp ache that lingers when someone could have helped—and chose not to.

As if calling him by name could erase the silence that came before it.

⸻

📚 Filius Flitwick — Gentle, Brilliant, Absent

Flitwick was kind. Clever. Charms master of immense skill. The sort of professor whose praise felt like sunlight.

And yet—he kept to his corner. He didn’t speak up.

Severus wasn’t just a good student. He was exceptional. The sort of student whose talent should have lit up the classroom like a Lumos Maxima—quiet, focused, effortlessly precise. The kind of brilliance that doesn’t need to shout because it radiates.

He invented spells. Created incantations from scratch. If anyone in Charms class should’ve stood out like a blinking sign under a spotlight—radiating silent brilliance from the back of the room—it was him. You didn’t need him to speak to notice. You just had to be looking.

Surely Flitwick noticed. How could he not?

But maybe noticing brilliance wasn’t the same as seeing pain. Maybe house loyalty got in the way. Maybe the politics of Slytherin versus Gryffindor made it easier to stay silent.

Perhaps he thought it wasn’t his place. Perhaps no one ever taught the professors how to reach past a student's wandwork and into their wounds.

And so, in the silence between spells, a boy learned that even kindness could be hollow.

⸻

🌿 Pomona Sprout — The Kind Bystander

Warm, earthy, nurturing. That was Sprout’s image. A Hufflepuff’s dream.

But she, too, looked away.

Maybe she frowned at what she saw. Maybe she clucked disapproval over tea. But she never interrupted the hierarchy.

Not when Severus slouched through corridors like a shadow. Not when he withered a little more each autumn.

She believed in fairness—but not enough to fight for it.

⸻

🏥 Madam Pomfrey — The Healer Who Didn’t See

Out of all the professors, Madam Pomfrey may be the one I find myself most curious about. Not because she was cruel—she wasn’t. Not because she was blind—she couldn’t have been. But because if anyone should have noticed—it was her.

She could spot a fractured rib with a glance. She healed Quidditch injuries between spoonfuls of broth. Her hands were warm, her wards comforting.

And yet… she didn’t notice Severus returning each term thinner, paler, greyer?

No trace of curiosity when he flinched at loud spells? No quiet pause when he walked too carefully, too lightly—as if even the castle floors might punish him?

Did she not see the hex marks? The magical burns? Did she really miss the boy who never sought help unless he was near collapse?

Or perhaps... he hid it too well. Perhaps he wore silence like a second robe. Perhaps he'd already learned that pain, when visible, only made you more vulnerable. That vulnerability made you expendable.

But still—she was a healer. She would have known the signs. Malnutrition. Exhaustion. The long-term magical residue that clings to a child who’s been hexed too often.

Pomfrey, as matron, was in a position to notice it all—if he had come to her. But maybe he didn’t. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he knew better than to hope.

We know his home life wasn’t gentle. Tobias Snape, his father, was a drunk—furious, unkind, loud enough to silence the whole house. We weren’t shown every bruise or every scream, but we were shown the aftermath.

So when Severus came back each September—robes loose, eyes dimmed, voice flat—surely, surely she must have seen something. Anything. A flicker of concern. A whisper of doubt.

To be fair, we cannot fully blame her. Hundreds of students passed through her care. She healed what was asked, tended what was brought. Perhaps she was simply overwhelmed. Perhaps she assumed someone else would act.

But still… I can’t help but wonder.

She offered pepperup potions to those with sniffles. She wrapped bandages around bruised Gryffindors.

But Severus? The boy who never asked, who needed most?

She offered rest to others.

But not to him.

⸻

They all had eyes. They all had wands. They all had duty—but they wore it like a decorative cloak, not a vow.

And oh, how one wonders. How could they not see the bruises? The shoulders pulled too tight? The voice too low?

How could a castle brimming with portraits, portraits that whispered and staircases that listened, miss the slow crumbling of a child?

Perhaps they did see. Perhaps that’s what makes it worse.

Because silence isn’t always ignorance. Sometimes, it’s a choice. Sometimes, it’s self-preservation masquerading as neutrality. Sometimes, it’s indifference dressed as decorum.

And still—they looked away.

Severus Snape returned to Hogwarts as a man.

But once, he was the boy they failed.

And they seated him at their table as if none of it ever happened.

[caspinsoands0]

Honestly I would support Fiddleford 100% if he got a villain arc because,

After you tell Ford thousands of times “hey I think your “muse” isn’t who you think he is”, being ignored, getting to the point he had to literally PHYSICALLY make himself forget, not even talking about the closet incident, made you lose any connections with your family/wife/kid, made you miss out on potential gay relationship (because he was with a fucking demon triangle).. yeah yeah I would get my gun, and not the memory gun, I’m talking about a real gun that shoots real lethal fucking bullets.

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

and also just to add one thing my last point:

i think the toxic canon thing really forms a basis for the foundational problems of the series - narrative. its one of the reasons i believe feyre often gets dubbed an 'unreliable narrator.

because in theory - feyre is not made purposely to be unreliable. honestly - the problem is that the story makes feyre's thoughts declarative for the series as whole. feyre tells us one thing, and the story shows us another.

for example: when the story tells us 'tamlin didn't fight for me,' - its implying that tamlin has the tools to do so. bc the story establishes an entirely difference scenario. we learn that (1) amarantha is madly obsessed with tamlin, so she keeps him next to her every night and (2) tamlin doesn't really have skills to navigate utm. what im saying is - feyre says these things about tamlin which are dubbed 'canon' but they don't actually reflect the reality of the situation. the story gives us to no solutions as to how tamlin could have actually helped feyre under the mountain. and i should also add that feyre couldnt have left ANYWAY -- she made a bargain. had she not did her part, the trials, her life would have just been forfeit.

and then on the flip side - we get told that rhys had to bring feyre to those parties and drug her so would forget (which is dubbed canon) but the reality of the scenario doesn't reflect that. rhysand never had to make feyre dance or embarrass her infront of everybody.

why? let's look at the established information:

rhysand disables the guards through his daemati abilities, so feyre is safe in her cell:

“No more household chores, no more tasks,” he said, his voice an erotic caress. Their yellow eyes went glazed and dull, their sharp teeth gleaming as their mouths slackened. “Tell the others, too. Stay out of her cell, and don’t touch her. If you do, you’re to take your own daggers and gut yourselves. Understood?”Dazed, numb nods, then they blinked and straightened. I hid my trembling. Glamour, mind control—whatever it was he had done, it worked. They beckoned—but didn’t dare touch me. Rhysand smiled at me. “You’re welcome,” he purred as I walked out.”

2. feyre is given a hot meal in her cell everyday - which again, establishes her cell as a relatively safe place:

“From that point on, each morning and evening, a fresh, hot meal appeared in my cell. I gobbled it down but cursed Rhysand’s name anyway. Stuck in the cell, I had nothing to do but ponder Amarantha’s riddle—usually only to wind up with a pounding headache. I recited it again and again and again, but to no avail.”

and even after she has to dance every night, this does not change:

“I awoke ill and exhausted each morning, and though Rhysand’s order to the guards had indeed held, the nightly activities left me thoroughly drained.”

so - the whole point of taking feyre out of cell is instantly negated, as her cell was never a place of torture. if anything - the only person actually making her cell a place of horror was rhysand. when he drugs her, she becomes so sick that she can't keep the food down; he leaves her essentially naked in her cell, so she's cold and shivering, and her leaves her so exhausted that she can't even think about the solving the riddle.

3. nuala and cerridwen have the ability to walk through walls and actually usher feyre through utm without ever being seen or caught:

“a tapestry that hadn’t been there a moment before falling over us, the shadows deepening, solidifying. I had a feeling that if someone pulled back that tapestry, they would see only darkness and stone.”

so when we get this line in maf:

“So we endured it. I made you dress like that so Amarantha wouldn’t suspect, and made you drink the wine so you would not remember the nightly horrors in that mountain.”

or his explanation in tar:

“Working Tamlin into a senseless fury is the best weapon we have against her. Seeing you enter into a fool’s bargain with Amarantha was one thing, but when Tamlin saw my tattoo on your arm … Oh, you should have been born with my abilities, if only to have felt the rage that seeped from him.” I didn’t want to think much about his abilities. “Who’s to say he won’t splatter you as well?” “Perhaps he’ll try—but I have a feeling he’ll kill Amarantha first. That’s what it all boils down to, anyway: even your servitude to me can be blamed on her. So he’ll kill her tomorrow,”

none it actually make sense. we are offered several solutions to how rhys could have respectively helped feyre without sexually assaulting her. like for (1) if he wanted her to forget, he could have given her the wine in her cell (2) he didn't have to bring feyre to those parties. amarantha doesn't even remember feyre is there until rhys brings her, and she never finds out about the food or the guards. (3) nuala and cerridwen can actually walk through walls and veil feyre, so whose to say they couldn't have sneaked feyre from utm (4) rhys can mindspeak which means he could have always just talked to feyre without visiting her cell. (3) his plan of 'making tamlin angry makes no sense as the book already established that amarantha was warded against physical attacks, hence why it makes no sense for the story to demonize tamlin for not fighting back as there's no established canon way he could have. it also makes rhysand's display of fighting amarantha pretty much pointless as if he could have just killed her, he would have just done it earlier. its also why i don't forgive the kiss bc the only valid motivation was rhysand's jealousy which literally is why i can never forgive the kiss. he (and tam) put her in the situation by bringing her there in the first place and putting the paint all over her body (and he literally prove that he could altered the paint at any time so it served no benefit but to dehumanize feyre.

soooooo that's what i mean when i say people take canon without factoring into the story as a whole. if the story doesn't actually have things that back up declarative 'canon' statements, its not useful.

[mofsblog]

"This is some gay shit" Good. Silly. Fair enough. Doesn't inherently invalidate other interpretations of the relationship. Honestly yeah, it is kind of gay regardless of their canonical relationship status

"There's literally no platonic explanation for th-" WRONG!! KILLING YOU WITH AMATANORMATIVITY KILLING LOBSTERS 🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞

[phantasm-masquerade]

reblog for a bigger sample size if you feel like it

[idolomantises]

man i dont want to get all "fandom elder" on people because i think its cringe when people talk about the "good old days" of shipping culture and then ignore the rampant misogyny, queerphobia and racism in those communities but i gotta say: why are people so weird about shipping now?

Like there's really bizarre things i keep seeing younger/newer people in fandoms get upset over. like the obsession with only shipping canon couples. getting upset over crackships. viewing two characters as siblings (who arent considered siblings in the narrative) and getting mad when people ship them. If you get a relationship slightly off people will right a massive thesis statement about it flat out harass you over it. people have to put "not a ship" under platonic art because shippers will blow a fuse if they read it as slightly romantic. pick me queer people getting pissed off when people ship two characters of the same gender and accusing them of "not appreciating platonic relationships" (which by the way, funny to me that this is only thrown at m/m ships and never f/f ships).

Like shipping culture is supposed to be fun, what are we doing here.

[zhelin-thames]

Danny Brings the Justice League to the Ghost Zone

Clockwork: “Why did you bring them here, Daniel?”

Danny: “I didn’t bring them. They followed me through a portal like lost ducks.”

John Constantine: “In my defense, I thought you were being possessed again.”

Danny: “I was LITERALLY holding a Dunkin’ bag and floating. That’s just me. That’s Tuesday.”

Batman: “This place violates every law of physics and at least four zoning bylaws.”

Fright Knight (materializing from the floor): “You violate my patience.”

Wonder Woman: “This realm... it’s alive.”

Danny: “Yeah, her name is Realmia. She likes boba and cosmic storms.”

Realmia (the actual Realms, vaguely embodied): blows a ghostly kiss and short-circuits three Bat-gadgets

Flash: “Can we talk about how the sky just blinked at me?”

Superman: “The sky has teeth.”

Danny (casually): “Yeah, don’t worry, they only bite time travelers.”

[The sky above them yawns open like a black hole with glittery teeth.]

Flash (Barry Allen): “...Wait.”

Danny: “Yeah?”

Flash:“I am a time traveler.”

Danny: “OH. That explains why the clouds keep growling at you.”

The Clouds: growl louder

Clockwork, sipping tea with visible amusement: “They’re merely curious. You're like a chew toy made of paradoxes.”

Flash (panicking): “I CAN FIX THIS. I CAN FIX—”

Danny: “No, Barry, this is not a ‘run really fast and mess up the timeline’ moment.”

Flash: “EVERY moment is that moment!”

Batman: “Allen, do not run. You will trigger a Realm storm.”

Flash: “What’s a Realm storm?”

The sky above them screams. Loudly. In Morse code.

Danny: “...Oh. That means ‘hi’ and ‘bite.’ It’s kinda both.”

Clockwork, sipping tea with a thousand-yard stare: “It’s been a long week.”

[mid-knight-black]

There is something so heartbreakingly beautiful about Chris comforting his Buck 🥹

[we always talk about how much Buck cares about Chris but we don’t talk enough about how much Chris loves Buck 😭😭😭]

[valtsv]

You allow yourself a moment to indulge in the fantasy of yourself as their chosen companion—their trusted right hand when their own fails them—before the sheer laughable impossibility of anyone finding comfort in such reliance on you clamours and shoves its way to the forefront of reasons why that can never be. You understand this. You truly do. It’s only that—

sketched some scenes from my fic

+ better quality under the cut:

[fannedandflawless]

Selective Loyalty and the Lily Problem

This post continues from my previous analysis, "WHO LIT THE MATCH?" — specifically section 5.) Loyalty Worn Two Ways, where I compared Lily Evans’ loyalty to that of Bellatrix Lestrange. The response to that post made it clear: we need to talk about Lily.

"She was written with strong loyalty." That’s what they say. But loyalty, when selectively applied, isn’t virtue — it’s comfort dressed as conviction.

Let’s talk about Lily Evans. The girl who stood up to bullies — sometimes. The girl who defended Severus — once. The girl who walked away — and never looked back.

🔨 The Double Standard No One Wants to Name

Lily called Severus’ Slytherin friends cruel when they hexed others.

"You think that’s funny?" she asked. "You think that’s all just a laugh?"

But when the Marauders hexed Severus in front of a crowd — dangled him upside-down, flashed his underwear to the world, humiliated him — it was brushed off as mischief. She scolded James, sure. Called him a “bullying toerag.” But she didn’t disown him. Didn’t stop speaking to him. She married him.

Why is one hex cruelty, and the other mischief? Why is one unforgivable, and the other… flirtation?

When Severus defended a fellow Slytherin, it became proof he was on the wrong path. When James hexed Severus, it was part of the journey to redemption.

Lily’s moral compass didn’t shatter — it shifted. And Severus saw it happen in real time.

⸻

🎭 The Performance of Principle

It wasn’t just the bullying. It was how she measured it.

Lily had the self-righteousness of someone who meant well — but only when it was safe to mean well.

She never went after Sirius, who cast the spells. She never called out Remus, who stood by and did nothing. She never looked James in the eye and said, “You humiliated my best friend and I won’t stand for it.”

Instead, she turned to Severus, and said:

“You’re choosing the wrong people.”

They all did. And yet only one was punished for it.

⸻

🔍 She Forgave James — But Never Severus

This is where the comparison starts to sting.

Lily was willing to believe James could change. But not Severus.

She gave grace to the boy who tortured her friend — but not to the friend who broke under pressure. She extended second chances to the boy she dated — but cut off the one who needed her most.

That’s not just a mistake. That’s selective loyalty.

⸻

⚠️ Not Villainy — But Still a Problem

This post isn’t about demonising Lily Evans. She was young. She was flawed. She was human.

But so was Severus.

And for a fandom that preaches kindness and forgiveness, it’s strange how selective that kindness becomes when his name enters the room.

⸻

♾️ Coming Full Circle

When Bellatrix was loyal, she was honest about it. When Lily was loyal, she chose who earned it — and who didn’t. One was mad. One was adored. But both were uncompromising.

Maybe that’s what makes it hurt.

Lily believed in goodness. Just… not always in the people who needed her to.

⸻

Related post: WHO LIT THE MATCH? Coming up next: The Devotion That Never Grew Up ⸻

If you found this post stirring, you may also like… A collection of emotional deep-dives into Severus Snape—the man who endured, unravelled, and remained:

Severus Snape: Widower of the Living

The Virgin Theory: Severus Snape, and the Sanctity of Unlived Intimacy

The Dignity of Suffering in Silence: Snape as the Ghost of a Living Man

[huggywuggysuppy]

The whole wifeswap bit was incredible and especially how you can see the gears turning in Gem’s head where she doesn’t want to call Joel her husband (funnier because Lizzie is on the server) and so logically defaults to wife. And everyone rolls with it!!

[clearwingedmaven]

Alright, so. I've got little time and some ideas, so I'll do a brief thought process on the death of Sherlock Holmes in 1893, and the fandom as a whole.

Firstly, getting this out of the way. Sherlock Holmes was not the first modern fandom. That honor most likely goes to Charles Dickens and his work, especially the Pickwick Papers. There is evidence and record that fan merchandise, like joke books, tobacco, and shoe horns, were made with Pickwick Papers characters, especially Sam Weller.

However, Sherlock Holmes is probably our first instance of a global fandom where consequences quite literally created a literary and cultural firestorm. This isn't an exaggeration.

ACD's relationship with Holmes is... strange. Of course, he wanted to kill off Holmes, and move onto other books. (Historical novels, mainly, or Spiritualist manifesto), but there was always a love hate relationship, and we see that most predominantly through fan letters.

Almost immediately after Holmes’s death in 1893, there was shock. Scandal. Mourning. Fans exchanged letters in newspapers, trying to reach out to other fans to figure out what just happened, and what to do next. Holmes was dead. And for all anyone knew, so was the series.

So how'd they cope?

By creating communities. Discourse communities, to be more apt. They exchanged letters, asked questions, and talked through newspapers. Each one plucked from 1893 and 1894 show grief and confusion: for a fictional character.

People even started seeking out Joseph Bell, the man who inspired Holmes, in order to try to fill the void. There's even record of fans venturing to Reichenbach Falls in costume to pay tribute to their fallen hero. And this kept happening. For years. The world lost not just a character, it was their friend.

Keep in mind! Victorian literature was a family affair. Many people would gather around and read stories and books together, so the firestorm went further.

Until, it made ACD change his mind, and bring back Sherlock Holmes. (Can we call it bullying? Perhaps. I call it a unique circumstance of cultural phenomena.)

So where does it leave the fandom?

Ah, that's the question. This fandom, uniquely, has a distinct honor of being one of the oldest living discourse communities, an exchange of reader response, engagement, and including even more material.

So to the fans: from the fanfic writers, to the game makers, to the cosplayers, to the fans of adaptations near and far, to the editors, to the artists, to the dreamers and thinkers...

It is, given the nature of the fandom, that you are all a part of history, as part of one of the oldest(and still going!) Fandom discourse communities.

Keep that in mind. And keep going. 🙂

[eyezofstatic]

I posted this to my twitter but I think it'll do better numbers over here.

[screamingfrenchfries]

anyways i cant belive ford CANONICALLY was in a Love Triangle with fiddleford and....... ironically.... a Triangle

[bekkachaos]

my most boomer opinion you ask?

I miss the days when fandom and shipping wasn't a war to see whose ship would be canon, and you could just enjoy your cute little guys falling in love and if you didn't like a pairing, well, you just didn't ship it.

[who-always-pays-their-taxes]

Why do you (as in the royal you) as a member of a fandom,, seem to believe that things need to be,,, canon??? in fanfiction??? why would? that ever be? if you wanted to read pure canon, you could,,,, idk,,, read canon? pick up the source material,,, and if you wanted to read pure canon fanfiction just search the ‘canon compliant’ tag. that’s how ao3 works. so silly.