#enormity of my grief etc etc

[barrenclan]

I hope its okay to ask- what motivated you to keep the body count so low? With how often it was reinforced that this was a tragedy, that no one was safe, etc, I'm in an odd spot in which I think, logically, that it makes perfect sense that it happened this way (straight up think its brilliant, actually!! The thematic relevance of Pinepaw accepting the meaninglessness of his life being what stops Deepdark? Poetry, even) but not being able to reconcile that with being somewhat emotionally let down that only two minor characters died aside from Rainhaze (which was a given imo). This isnt a criticism, the more I digest it the more I enjoy it/I realize what a great choice it was - I actually wouldnt want any of it to change- I'm just very very curious about your thought process on this. You already spoke of Asphodel and Rainhaze, but how did you decide who and how many were going to die? Is it more about the *after*, the picking of the pieces after its over? I am so very excited for the picking of the pieces after its over, actually lol.

Real answer: I have far too much I want to explore thematically with nearly all of the characters, and the vast majority of it only happens if a lot of them remain alive.

When I wrote the ending of the comic, I actually struggled to find another character to kill in the attack besides Mallowstar and Rainhaze - like I said when talking about Cypressfoot's death. There were absolutely no more characters beyond her that I was willing to sacrifice, in terms of what they would give me narratively alive versus dead. This was never a story about everything ending in total destruction, anyways - it's a story about learning how to grow after grief and deal with random acts of misery that seem to leave nearly everything unchanged except for the enormous effects they have on you. You often don't get to choose what is going to happen to you and it's up to forces beyond your control if you and your loved ones live or die.

This is a worldview I hold, anyways - the future is entirely fluid and loose, and just as much as terrible things can happen, everything can turn out fine, too. Misery is not the natural state of the world (that's entropy, haha), and the other side of the coin is always possible. But once events happen, they are locked into an unchangeable permanence and you simply have no choice but to try and grapple with how they will affect your unknowable future. You have infinite branching paths, but you'll only follow one once you look behind you... not to get too much into personal philosophy.

Joke answer: SNIFFLE, SNIFFLE, SOB, I DON'T WANNA KILL MY LITTLE GUYS

[pommunist]

Ok tangent about communication (and lack thereof) in mcrp - can we as a community PLEASE normalize using safety tools??? Imagine being in an rp where you're frequently playing out heavy stuff like grief, dysfunctional family dynamics, governmental oppression, etc. and you aren't allowed to contact your rp partner AT ALL. Discussing boundaries? Exchanging feedback on how the rp went? Unwinding after a particularly intense scene together? Yeah if upper management catches you doing that they're not gonna let you rp anymore. Idk if this is parasocial of me (and it sorta feels like small potatoes in the face of the enormous workers rights violations that are still an issue) but qsmp ESPECIALLY is such an emotionally charged rp environment where it seems literally everyone was feeling intense emotional bleed around the eggs, so it boggles my mind that there were pretty much no safeguards in place to ensure the comfort of everyone involved. (Frequent ooc communication before during and after rp is the absolute minimum but I am on my knees BEGGING for minecraft roleplayers to download a ttrpg safety toolkit or at least agree on a safeword first)

YES TO ALL OF THIS 👆👆👆👆

I think there’s this frequent misconception in the collective mindset that improv rp is just coming up with things on the spot and rolling with it.

to an extent it is but there’s also a lot of etiquette rules to abide by or else it wouldn’t be possible to tell a story.

And like you said, when heavy topics are involved, you have to have some safeguards put in place by communicating with your rp partners, even when doing more light hearted stuff, there are still topics that could upset the person you’re playing with and that’s why it’s important that you can regularly check with each others if everything is going smoothly.

A great example is if you want to establish a relationship with a rp partner you don’t do it by excessively flirting with them without talking about it first, or it may be uncomfortable for everyone involved.

[milehighmegs]

Good Omens Playlists

So I've seen some pretty wonderful Good Omens playlists on Pinterest, most of which are based on music in the show (especially Queen, natch), songs that say how Zira & Crowley feel about one another or describe them as characters.

In the wake (double meaning totally intended) of S2, I wondered: how do they feel about each other NOW? We've all been there. The sad love songs, the sleeping all day, entire pints of ice cream while watching romcoms... but mostly the recounting of how it all could've gone so wrong, what we wished we'd said & done, and what we wish we could say now.

Since Zira & Crowley definitely have communication issues (Nina & Maggie were SPOT ON in their convo with Crowley), I imagine they would have an easier time telling each other their feelings through other means. I'll admit, there's a bias here: this is what I would do, so of course I project onto these characters. But isn't that the beauty of fan art? We put ourselves into the work/live vicariously through them because we have such a damned hard time saying want we want & need and how we feel in plain language? Mostly because such complex feelings are REALLY REALLY hard to explain to ourselves, let alone to another person. But art- writing, music, imagery- can say what we struggle to put into more direct words. Music is an enormous part of who I am, so I often find that the songs of others say perfectly what I feel I never could.

On that note (pun only slightly intended), I've created 3 playlists: one for Crowley, one for Zira, and one for the both of them. The individual playlists are meant to reflect the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. There are elements of other stages within the songs meant to correspond to a particular stage, even coming full circle (it seems like acceptance, but there's a hint of denial in there, etc.). The joint playlist is of songs I imagine would make the memories of each other start to creep in (or totally gobsmack them in the feels) when they hear them, or things they wished they'd said/want to say to each other.

So without further ado, here are the playlists:

Crowley's Heartbroken Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6LyYnip9XuZqcRIEsiDSwz

Zira's Heartbroken Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3YUi13sTfPSR99R1dB2XVY

AziraCrow's Heartbroken Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/48NpfV42Y8LTVSFsui8zl2

For those of you who don't have Spotify, here's what's on the playlists:

Crowley 'Never Tear Us Apart' - INXS 'Bad Romance' - Lady Gaga 'Love Don't Live Here Anymore' - Madonna 'Cosmic Love' - Florence + the Machine 'As It Was' - Hozier 'I Found' - Amber Run 'Wicked Game' - Chris Isaac 'Dancing On My Own' - Calum Scott 'Halo' - Depeche Mode 'Falling' - The Civil Wars

Zira 'i love you' - Billie Eilish 'And I Am Telling You' - Jennifer Hudson 'You'll See' - Madonna 'Somebody That I Used To Know' - Gotye 'Someone Like You' - Adele 'Boys Don't Cry' - The Cure 'Un-break My Heart' - Toni Braxton 'For No One' - The Beatles 'Comfort' - Julia Jacklin 'I Will Always Love You' - Whitney Houston

AziraCrow 'I Have Nothing' - Whitney Houston 'Nothing Compares 2 U' - Sinead O'Connor 'Torn' - Natalie Imbruglia 'Hopelessly Devoted to You' - Olivia Newton John 'In A Lonely Place' - Bush, the Tricky Remix 'With Or Without You' - U2 'Don't Let Go (Love)' - En Vogue

'Don't Speak' - No Doubt 'Here With Me' - Dido

A note on the playlists: I know that Zira wouldn't listen to most of this if any, and Crowley would outwardly cringe just thinking about some of these. The point wasn't to choose songs that they'd go out of their way to hear, it was to capture the feelings they'd be going through. Crowley's songs are a bit darker: more minor keys, moodier atmosphere, etc., while Zira's are more sad but lighter & gentler (except maybe 'And I Am Telling You'; that's a straight-up "aww HELL NO YOU AIN'T GONNA FUCK THIS UP THIS IS HAPPENING YOU KNOW WE BELONG TOGETHER"... well, the song says it pretty well).

I 'd love to hear any thoughts about this, agree or disagree, love or loathe, hate that you love it... What would you put into a ZiraCrow playlist?

Hope you enjoy it!

[good-to-drive]

would you say paul was a good husband to linda?

This is a super interesting question that I was actually just thinking about! The short answer is yes. The long answer is a little more complicated, but it's also yes.

In a way, all you really need to say about Paul and Linda is that they were happy. And I know a lot of people feel that trying to understand a happy couple is pointless (or possibly even offensive) because all that matters is that they were happy.

But I do tend to think that even a happy relationship can still be complex and interesting -- or, rather, that a real, human relationship can still be very happy. That's why I'm personally comfortable with thinking more deeply about their relationship, and those thoughts are under the cut.

Paul and Linda's relationship made them both happy and that is absolutely something to be celebrated. I also think that, like literally every other relationship in the world, the specific way in which they related to and loved one another was a product of their own personalities and experiences. It’s not necessarily fairy tale magic that made them right for each other. Or it is fairy tale magic, and fairy tales are just a lot more real and human than you might expect. 

I actually think to understand Paul and Linda it helps to look back at Paul's relationship with Jane, and how his relationship with Linda was essentially the logical follow-up.

This has been on my mind lately because I was just reading about a phenomenon where men, particularly of older generations, were shamed in childhood for wanting emotional intimacy or showing any vulnerability with their emotions (“man up,” “too old to cry”, etc.), which culminates a fear of intimacy/affection as an adult.

Because it’s generally acceptable for men to have high sexual appetites, sometimes these men will start to substitute sexual/physical intimacy for the emotional intimacy they’re deprived of, thus appearing to have a high sex drive.

(Obviously this can happen to women and young people, too, but everything I read specified that it’s most often seen in older men.) 

All this together reminded me a lot of Paul and how we often perceive him pre-Linda as having a high sex drive (i.e. cheating on Jane like a goddamn dog), and also how he seemed to fear emotional intimacy and platonic affection throughout his entire life (like when he thought George of all people was going to hit him for taking his hand on his freaking deathbed). 

It kind of makes sense given how massive and insane his life was (and how much grief and trauma he was still carrying from his childhood) that he would basically be a black hole of emotional need just like all the other Beatles were, and I genuinely wonder if he used sexuality as a band-aid for an enormous, unmet need for affection/intimacy/validation/etc. 

Which brings us to Linda, and the fact that he was able to be completely loyal to her. Which is an amazing achievement for someone who struggles with infidelity, and I definitely don't want to take that away from him, but I also think we can look a little deeper at why he was suddenly able to be loyal.

If I'm right that his high sex drive was band-aid for unmet emotional needs, then it would tend to follow that being able to be 100% loyal would mean that black hole of emotional need was being satiated, or at least soothed, by someone willing and able to do a lot of emotional caretaking to keep him happy.

Essentially, I think his newfound loyalty was a product of Linda's willingness to be a therapist/girlfriend/appeaser/etc. pretty much 24/7. (That’s barely an exaggeration btw – they spent a lot of time together). Looking at their relationship just in a practical sense, Linda really went out of her way to be with Paul all the time, to be involved in the things he cared about (even at the detriment of things that she cared about), and to make the relationship “about” him.

(Kind of a weird side note here is that John was loyal to Yoko under similar circumstances, at least until the level of emotional dependence between them got to be too much for her and she encouraged him to develop an outside relationship with May Pang, so it's arguably yet another unexpected parallel in John and Paul's lives after they “broke up” with each other.)

I've also wondered a bit why Linda was willing/able to devote herself to Paul's needs to an unusually self-sacrificing extent, but unfortunately Linda's childhood is something I know a lot less about. Some people (especially women of older generations) are deeply reliant on the need they sense in other people to give them a feeling of value. Only by being of service, by satiating the need, can they feel like a worthwhile person themselves. So in that way they're equally dependent on their partner. 

(Okay, maybe not equally, but they're still dependent).

Obviously love was the main reason Linda focused so much of her time and energy on being what Paul needed, arguably at the detriment of her own needs, but looking at it more in the context of her personality and experiences it does make me wonder about her upbringing and to what extent she was raised to believe she achieved value or lovability by being of service to others.

I think Paul's reliance on Linda to caretake his emotions for him (and Linda's potential reliance on Paul to require caretaking) could be part of why we see such extreme devotion between them, why they literally never (voluntarily) spent a single night apart in all of their marriage. It's an expression of love, yes, and also of how deeply they both relied on one another.

(It also probably indicates anxious attachment and potentially some deep rooted concerns about being cheated on, but that's speculation for another day.)

Now, all this being said, none of this changes the fact that Paul was loyal and he did adore Linda and they did spend every single moment possible with one another. I'm not bringing any of this complicated shit up to try to devalue their relationship or any of the things we love about it -- rather, I think the fact that it does come from a place of humanity and vulnerability is part of what makes it beautiful.

It's a good chance to remember that no relationship is 100% easy and simple 100% of the time, and we're all a product of our own messy internal stuff that we try to deal with and try to find other people who are also willing to deal with. And while it’s true that every relationship has a deeper story, it’s equally true that a relationship between two people with complex personalities and needs can still be extremely happy, loving, and positive for the both of them.

[etz-ashashiyot]

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief..."

Today I am mulling over and would love input from other folks about "how much of the world's grief do we actually need to know, and how much is too much?"

Because on the one hand, traumatizing ourselves online by reading graphic accounts of people's experiences of war, of torture, of rape, of watching family members and friends be brutally killed, of seeing the gruesome aftermath, etc. - this is not activism and it doesn't undo anything that happened to those people. On the other, you really do need to know some facts to speak intelligently about any given atrocity or situation, and fact-checking (especially by reviewing publicly available evidence) is usually the best way to avoid both propaganda and losing your sensitivity to the severity of the problem to others. And on the third hand, if you do this too much you become numb to all.

So what is the right balance?

(This is a little truncated but I don't have time to write up fully my thoughts so far, but seeing as I don't have conclusive personal answers anyway, I'm curious about other people's ideas.)

[princesssarisa]

My thoughts on the teaser trailer for Disney's live action Snow White:

*It seems that Disney may have changed their approach to marketing this movie. Previously, they put so much emphasis on how this Snow White will be different, fresh, and more "progressive" than the animated classic, and they got so much negative backlash for it. But this trailer doesn't show much of anything that's different from the original film. It shows famous scenes, other scenes that might not be identical but are very similar... The new selling point seems to be "See how faithfully we've recreated the original in live action and CGI!" Maybe they've realized that "See how we're improving on the original!" has gotten more negative response than positive, so they're changing their marketing strategy.

*That said, I think the clip we see of Snow White and the dwarfs in "Whistle While You Work" strongly hints at a "feminist" rewrite. Instead of cleaning for the dwarfs, it seems Snow White will teach them to do their own cleaning instead. I can already imagine the divisiveness about this. Disney will probably promote it as progressive and empowering, and many fans will agree, "She doesn't let them use her as a housekeeper, she makes them shape up and clean for themselves," etc. But other fans will hate it and passionately defend the original film: the dwarfs do an enormous favor for Snow White by letting her live with them, at greater at risk to themselves if the Queen should find her, so the least she can do in return is take care of their house for them. Besides, when she thinks they must be orphaned children before she meets them, her choice to surprise them with a clean house and a good dinner shows her kindness and compassion. At any rate, the dwarfs and Snow White cleaning the house together isn't a brand-new idea anyway: the 1955 German film already has a sequence like that.

*I don't think Walt would care much for Snow White's costume. The animated Snow White's skirt is a pale yellow, almost ivory or cream colored, and her bodice and sleeves are subdued shades of dark and medium blue. This was part of Walt's vision of the whole movie as having elegantly subdued colors. The live action Snow White's dress is a little garish by comparison: maybe in the finished film it will work, but it looks more cartoonish than the cartoon version.

*It looks as if Gal Gadot will be a hammier Queen than the animated version: more of a Prima Donna than a Grim Sorceress.

*I'm reserving judgment on the CGI dwarfs until we see more of them in action.

*The think I'm probably the most curious about is how they'll handle the final part of the story. They're obviously not cutting the poisoned apple: the trailer includes dramatic shots of its creation and of the Queen giving it to Snow White. Yet the interviews have repeatedly said "The Prince doesn't save her in this version." Now, it seems that Snow White's new love interest, Jonathan, isn't a prince, but if he still wakes her from Sleeping Death in the end, and it's only "progressive" because he's a commoner, that would be false advertising. So what will happen? Will it take the Mirror, Mirror approach and avoid having Snow White eat the apple altogether? Or take the Snow White and the Huntsman approach and have her wake earlier than in the original film, then directly battle the Queen and defeat her at the climax? Or the Legend of Snow White approach, where in "death" her spirit helps her love interest to defeat the Queen? Or the Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs approach, where her love interest sacrifices his life to revive her, but then her kiss brings him back to life? Or will Disney shock us and do something completely original? Whatever they do, I hope they don't take the Mirror, Mirror approach. The very heart of the animated Snow White is the love that forms between Snow White and the dwarfs, culminating in the dwarfs' heartbreaking grief at her "death" and ecstasy when she revives. To cut that in the name of "empowering" Snow White, as Mirror, Mirror did back in 2012, would be the biggest insult to the original film's legacy.

We'll just have to wait and see what the movie is like. I'm not expecting greatness, but we'll see.

[saintsenara]

your voldemort is 10/10 perfection. are there any characterizations, common interpretations, etc that you find implausible or just plain dislike? or that you really love and have drawn from? :)

thank you so much for this ask anon :)

i received a similar ask from @sarafina-sincerity, and so they are answered here together, as part of a flurry of asks about my main boy, lord voldemort, which form a neat triad.

this is part two of a three part meta on him:

1. what is interesting about voldemort's role in the series? [here] 2. how do i write voldemort in my own work, and why? 3. what does dumbledore get wrong about voldemort? [here]

so let's get into it...

how do i write voldemort, and why?

in we go under the cut:

influences on my voldemort

the author whose voldemort has had the greatest influence on mine is, without a doubt, eldritcher.

while i have no hope of replicating the majesty of their prose, i've never been able to shake their depiction of voldemort as someone profoundly lonely and deeply affected by grief - something most prominent in their transcendentally good almagest - and a reading of voldemort which i bring not only to my writing, but to my engagement with the canon text.

i'm also very struck by their depiction of voldemort as a creature of sensation - instead of the rather austere version we tend to find in fanfiction - particularly in their catullus 16 and their writing of tombraxas.

while i diverge from their portrayal of voldemort as lazy - i think he’s sustained by a current of nervous energy [and, indeed, that both he and harry have poorly-managed adhd, but that’s personal projection] - i find myself always writing voldemort as someone who likes being warm, loathes the outdoors, and is fond of expensive, sensory fabrics.

that voldemort is a creature of sensation also affects how i read many of his relationships. as i've pointed out in my prior writing about bellamort, he tolerates an enormous amount of physical closeness from bellatrix in canon, and i'm quite taken with the idea that he’s a surprisingly tactile person.

another influence i've found significant recently is @phantomato’s excellent series of meta on voldemort and gender identity, in particular because they have helped me work through a discomfort i've always had with this quote from half-blood prince:

He raised his glass as though toasting Voldemort, whose face remained expressionless. Nevertheless, Harry felt the atmosphere in the room change subtly: Dumbledore’s refusal to use Voldemort’s chosen name was a refusal to allow Voldemort to dictate the terms of the meeting, and Harry could tell that Voldemort took it as such.

voldemort and gender identity is something which i'd love to see explored more in the fandom. i'm as guilty as anyone of writing a cheerfully cisgender dark lord, and - in particular - of not engaging enough with the fact that the canonical voldemort considers tom his deadname. i find myself returning again and again to these meta each time i sit down to begin a new voldemort-centric wip, and i think that my own writing of voldemort has been nuanced considerably by them. certainly, voldemort’s gender plays a far bigger part in scylla and charybdis than in my previous long-fics

there are, of course, portrayals of voldemort which have influenced me to write in the opposite direction. i’m not going to mention, even obliquely, the names of these authors or their stories, but i am going to mention one version of voldemort which i loathe and which i never intend to replicate in my writing: the voldemort of the films.

as i said in the previous meta in this series, film!voldemort is the source of countless fanon which undermines the statement of the canonical seven-book series, above all the idea that voldemort is not terrifying, that he is completely deranged and incompetent, and that he doesn’t very nearly win.

character traits my voldemort always has

as i said in the previous meta in this series, i prefer a voldemort who isn’t a sociopath, largely because i think it’s quite lazy writing to have a villain whose evil is caused by just not getting human emotion [after all, there are plenty of people who find it difficult to parse other people’s emotions, and it doesn’t automatically make them bad]. it's considerably more challenging - as both a writer and a reader - to have to confront the idea that the villain has complicated and multifaceted motivations behind their actions, and that we're called as humans to accept that it’s possible to be simultaneously horrified by and sympathetic to people who cause harm. above all, i loathe the implication of the text that voldemort was born bad and was always irredeemable, not least because it completely undermines the series’ central thesis on the value of choice.

i accept, of course, that this isn't what the doylist text thinks. jkr has been very clear that she thinks voldemort is sociopathic and that he has no concept of humanity. fortunately, i take her opinion as infallible in very little [trans rights are human rights], and i much prefer a watsonian approach to the text which views dumbledore’s conviction of voldemort’s sociopathy as… just incorrect.

separate to this, i like a voldemort who is emotionally demonstrative. it seems to have become standard to write him as preternaturally controlled [maybe breaking down when under extreme pressure, but almost exclusively doing so in private], but the voldemort of canon is, and there’s no other word for it, feral. he's one of the male characters whose emotional range is described in the most detail, and he's also described as registering his emotions very obviously on his face. i’m always tickled by harry’s complaint in order of the phoenix that he picks up "lurches of annoyance or cheerfulness" via the scarcrux, and i love thinking about the little joys in voldemort’s day.

i also see him as someone who's often fretful and unmoored - indeed he basically says as much in goblet of fire:

"I will not pretend to you that I didn’t then fear that I might never regain my powers... Yes, that was perhaps my darkest hour... I could not hope that I would be sent another wizard to possess... and I had given up hope, now, that any of my Death Eaters cared what had become of me."

certainly, the canonical voldemort has a sense of purpose when focused on the wars which doesn’t seem to be a permanent presence in his everyday life, and he - like dumbledore - seems to spend a lot of time in stasis until pushed to change course, the clearest example of this being that he stays in customer service for ten years and would undoubtedly have continued at borgin and burkes if hepzibah smith had just kept her treasures in the safe...

this is not, of course, to say that voldemort is not ambitious - he absolutely is - but that, as with harry, that ambition is accompanied by a certain need for pressure. indeed, voldemort is one of the more adrenaline-chasing slytherins we meet in the series, and i'm convinced that this is the trigger for his often-expressed [and, let’s be real, pretty gryffindor-ish] view that courage and daring are valuable, seen most clearly in his simping for james potter dying "like a man, straight-backed and proud" and his determination to duel harry in the graveyard rather than just off him - as well as in his frequent statements that he loathes cowardice, his cruelty to minions [especially peter pettigrew and lucius malfoy] he regards as insufficiently daring, and his taunting of harry and dumbledore with the idea that they allow others to hide them or fight their battles for them.

that dumbledore fails to understand this about voldemort is addressed in the next meta in this series. so, too, is the fact that dumbledore fails to appreciate voldemort’s clearly quite profound sense of honour. this is seen most clearly in his relationship with pettigrew, whose inherent lack of honourable conduct - not only to him, but to the marauders - evidently disgusts him:

"Wormtail, I need somebody with brains, somebody whose loyalty has never wavered, and you, unfortunately, fulfill neither requirement."

"You returned to me, not out of loyalty, but out of fear of your old friends. You deserve this pain, Wormtail. You know that, don’t you?"

his canonical detestation of liars seems to be genuine - and he's actually very rarely shown lying in canon [although the implication that he lies frequently off-page is obvious].

i like the canonical description of voldemort as highly independent, self-motivated, and self-sufficient - although i think there's room for more nuance in whether he actually likes the death eaters than canon gives us.

i also like the fact that the canonical voldemort is incredibly pragmatic [even if this is undermined on several occasions by his flair for the dramatic] and i think that this aspect of his character is all too often overlooked by authors who want to make him inflexible and obsessive. voldemort openly admits to having changed his mind on several occasions in the books, or to have modified his approach on the basis of new information - that this information is often partial, or given to him falsely by snape, does not change this.

he seems - like ron and harry - to have good gut instincts, to be an excellent judge of character, and to be reasonably self-aware [although he uses this almost exclusively for nefarious ends]. i love the chameleon-like aspect of his charisma - the being-the-centre-of-attention at the slug club which morphs into him having negative charm in the hepzibah smith scene, as he sits offering her all the rope she needs to hang herself - and i love writing, especially in tomarry, the ways in which his customer service mask cracks.

now, the more controversial aspects of my characterisation of voldemort…

the canonical voldemort is very, very funny, and far too few fics engage with his [malicious] sense of humour. tomarry works as a ship entirely because they'd have a great time bickering with each other, and snapemort works because they're both comically petty and extremely dramatic.

i adore the magpieishness to voldemort’s character, not only in the idea that he likes shiny things, but also in that his love-language is gift-giving [he rewards his followers for acts of service, absolutely, but the language with which he describes this is always focused on the idea of gift-giving, and, especially, reciprocal gift-exchange]. i always write him as a collector not only of impressive magical objects but of things full stop, whether we’re doing the cheerful fluff of him filling grimmauld place with interestingly shaped rocks he finds on walks, or the more canon-compliant helping himself to trinkets he sees in his friends’ magnificent houses. i'm committed to the idea that he genuinely likes working in the antiques trade and i never write him going into teaching or politics - if i find myself in a situation where he has to get a job beyond being a terrorist, he stays at borgin and burkes.

i view voldemort as someone whose great longing is to be perceived and understood. both the child we meet in dumbledore’s memories and the adult who rises in the graveyard share a tendency to reveal far too much about themselves when they're given the opportunity, and i always write voldemort - especially the voldemort of one year in every ten - as never mastering a habit of letting things slip when he gets excited. tomarry again works because harry is happy to do this perceiving. 

i also - and this is definitely the controversial one - view him as someone capable of great and stalwart faithfulness, whose ability to express this aspect of his character is constrained by the trust issues caused by his childhood trauma. he's extraordinarily devoted to both snape and bellatrix throughout the canon series - obviously, this is because he thinks his read on them as loyal servants is right, but i don’t think we necessarily have to see this as a negative, most of us trust and like people because we think their motivations are trustworthy and likeable, and most of us maintain at least some relationships which have a degree of transactionality to them, but are no less sincere for that.

whether he's someone who loves is another question. i vary it by story, although i always frame his rejection of love as a deliberate choice, rather than - as the text does - something innate.

my voldemort always has several much more frivolous traits which i like to put into stories entirely to amuse myself…

i notice a tendency for voldemort to be written as pretty culturally sophisticated, and i think this is generally correct. certainly, the way that class functions in britain is that toleration within a class which is not one’s own can be achieved through simply knowing the right references, and i absolutely believe that voldemort is someone who learned what books to say he’d read and which knife to use at dinner with dizzying speed when he arrived at hogwarts.

however, one thing i can never get on board with is the idea that he’s a good cook. i prefer my voldemort to have a touch of the ration book to him - and for his plebeian tastes in food to confuse and annoy the posher death eaters. i like him refusing to eat at fancy dinner parties, before sneaking into the kitchens for a stack of toast and margarine, and being a connoisseur of all the finest bits of british cuisine - a fry up, beans on toast, a good roast dinner, potatoes in any form, kippers and kedgeree, fish and chips, mysterious pies, and tea with everything. this is not to say, of course, that i think he’s into bland food [the only mischaracterisation of the brits i, as an irishwoman, am prepared to go into bat against]. this is a man who loves a curry, without a doubt, and i am incredibly fond of the idea that he develops a serious taste for many of the world’s most delicious cuisines on his travels.

i also always write him with an incredibly sweet tooth - he takes his tea with milk and six sugars, hermione is dismayed. i do this entirely because i think it’s funny.

[fans of the asenora cinematic universe will have noticed a repeated motif that voldemort loves marzipan. this is because i love marzipan, and everyone else i know thinks that this is a great moral failing equivalent to being a mass-murderer.]

i like a voldemort who has some muggle skills. i write him as being able to drive, use a telephone, fire a gun [another eldritcher influence], take the tube, and correctly handle muggle money - to the shock of many of the death eaters. i prefer him to be absolutely terrible at anything which could be termed muggle manual labour, though - the man cannot do diy, garden, lift heavy objects without magic, play any sport, or swim - although i imagine him as extremely fastidious and perfectly happy to be put to work on household chores. i have him keep a diary into adulthood.

i also like him to have some appreciation of muggle culture, very much despite himself. again, this is because i think the fact that he's exactly the right age for the fashions of his youth to have been distinctly un-voldemort-ish - think tiki cocktails, p.g. wodehouse, golden age detective fiction, film musicals, swing music, and the lindy hop - is hilarious. this manifests across my works in the idea that he's incredibly fond of fred astaire - the only muggle he's prepared to accept has some sort of residual magical talent. the only reason i write this is because my late grandfather, a man whose only personality trait otherwise was "fenian", was born in the same year as lord v and absolutely adored old fred, and i will get teary-eyed listening to cheek-to-cheek for the rest of my life as a result.

voldemort’s physical appearance

the narrative importance of the young voldemort’s appearance is often overlooked, i think.

it's a comment on his broader purpose within the series - he wants to be perceived as striking and special, and his unusual physical attractiveness as a young man and horrifying eldritch features as an adult contribute to that, while harry, the modest, everyman hero, is neither obviously beautiful nor obviously ugly [and the series, more generally, treats those who are very poorly].

voldemort’s attractiveness - as with snape’s ugliness - is also an inversion of one of the series-as-children’s-literature’s main characterisation choices: that good people are nice, kind, and good-looking, and bad people are ugly, rude, or unpleasant. i also always love the little nod to the picture of dorian gray in the way the sin voldemort inflicts upon his soul changes his face.

however, beyond being told that voldemort is hot-then-not, the text also gives us some hints at voldemort’s appearance and mannerisms which i would like to see more in fanfic, especially the fact that he's described in quite a few feminine-coded ways - his voice is high; he usually speaks softly; he moves in a way which suggests elegance [he’s always described as "gliding" in canon]; and, by his late twenties, he has hair long enough for harry to comment on it [particularly interesting, since this comment comes in the course of voldemort’s most feminine-coded action in the series - the murder, in a domestic context using poison, the classic "woman’s weapon", of hepzibah smith, and the framing of her servant, hokey, for the crime]; the text refers to him as "finely-carved", which can be read as meaning that he has quite delicate features; the repeated emphasis on how pale he is - even pre-horcruxes - makes us think of the consumptive, effeminate artist of victorian literature who never leaves the house; and the text’s constant highlighting of how thin he is - and, especially, his long, elegant fingers - again calls to mind effeminate stereotypes who lack proper male brawn. voldemort’s only uncomplicatedly masculine characteristic in canon is that he's very tall.

this is to say, i much prefer a voldemort - whether he looks as he does aged sixteen or aged sixty - who doesn’t look stereotypically masculine. the text refers to him as "handsome", of course, but i choose to believe that this is just harry’s own binary understanding of how men should talk about men, and that the more appropriate word for voldemort is "beautiful". i've discussed some references for how I picture him here.

even when writing him as cisgender, i always find myself leaning towards him being quite camp, and there being an effete edge to his otherwise sinister vibe. i go back and forth on whether i imagine him as vain - the tom riddle of bookbinding spends hours each morning on his elaborately-pomaded hair, the one of scylla and charybdis keeps wearing cologne even as his face his whittled away by dark magic, but the canonical voldemort of the second war clearly isn’t doing either of those things…

i'm also interested in the idea that voldemort is physically quite fragile. i write him as having been quite a sickly child, and i think this provides an interesting jumping-off point into thinking about why he's so obsessed with magic. i like the idea that he wasn’t top dog at all at the orphanage, because he was easy to physically subdue, until he learned to use his magic to protect himself, and i like to imagine that he always knows that, should dumbledore or harry decide to throw away their wands and just deck him, he is absolutely losing that fight.

of his individual physical features, i am completely wedded to the idea that voldemort has his mother’s eyes.

voldemort’s childhood

i love an au as much as the next girl, but only very rarely one which alters voldemort’s childhood and expects him to turn out largely unchanged.

indeed, i don’t think there’s any way to write a voldemort which nods to canon if he’s not an orphan, not raised in an institution, and not poor - he can have some similarities with his canon version [i’m always struck by the comment in goblet of fire that nobody likes the riddles, and i always write tom sr. as being the source of many of voldemort’s less pleasant traits and mannerisms] but voldemort’s purpose within the series depends on his relationship to his class-background, and especially:

that he's the most "aristocratic" wizard we meet in canon - he's the only person in the seven book series to be directly descended from one of hogwarts’ founders, and the only one [horcrux!harry doesn’t count] to possess a unique magical talent connected to his lineage - but is unable to reap the benefits of this in the wizarding world because he has a muggle name and a muggle face [it’s notable in canon that pureblood families all tend to look very alike within their family units - think the weasleys, the malfoys, the blacks, and the longbottoms - that voldemort doesn’t look like a gaunt confers him benefits in that he’s hot, but it undermines the "immediately being identifiable as one of slytherin’s descendants" vibe which he might otherwise have].

that he's the most aristocratic muggle we meet in canon - he's the only person in the seven book series to have a member of the landed gentry in his immediate family - but is unable to reap the benefits of this in the muggle world because his father doesn’t acknowledge his existence and he's raised as working-class.

that neither of these two halves of his class background can ever intersect, and he's a half-blood character whose sense of belonging in either world is tenuous [snape is another; harry - who has a pureblood name and resembles his pureblood father - is much less so]. voldemort’s dislike of the common and ordinary, the fact that he's absolutely shameless about money, the fact he takes a muggle title for his wizarding alias etc. can all be read as attempts to seek meaning in a world in which he's otherwise pretty liminal. whether he actually supports the class system is discussed below…

all of which is to say, i never write a voldemort whose childhood circumstances alter from canon.

and there are no two ways about it: voldemort’s childhood is spectacularly grim, and the trauma it causes [while different from the trauma fanon often ascribes to it - above all, and i’ll die on this hill, the fact that he doesn’t give a fuck about dumbledore setting his wardrobe on fire] drives far more of voldemort’s actions than the watsonian narrative seems aware of - it is, for example, clearly the trigger for his hoarding, for his lack of trust in authority [which is exactly the same as harry’s, but treated very differently by the books], for his obsession with being the best, and for his tendency to show off. the adult voldemort loathes reminders of childhood neglect - especially babies crying - and, while dumbledore mocks him for this, his ignorance of fairytales is a neat way of saying that he didn’t have a real or carefree childhood. i'm flexible on the headcanon of him suffering specific physical or sexual abuse in the orphanage [i always wonder if his canonical fear of doctors is meant to imply something along those lines], although frankly i think the childhood we see in canon is miserable enough.

the most significant bit of voldemort’s childhood trauma, though, is his grief over the death of his mother [and, it’s worth noting, his grief over the presumed death of his father - whom he doesn’t know for certain is alive until morfin tells him]. i’ll go into this - and especially dumbledore’s spectacular mishandling of it - in more detail in the third meta in this series, but i want to emphasise two important merope-related things which the narrative highlights: that voldemort murders both his father and hepzibah smith to avenge her, and that the locket is the only horcrux for which he constructs an elaborate defence in a place meaningful to him from childhood. i expand on this in my writing with the headcanon that voldemort believes he killed his mother and that, therefore, his destiny to be a killer was set from birth; that he doesn’t know her actual name; and that he believes he looks like her and is devastated to discover this isn’t the case. i'm certain that he gets his conviction that tom riddle sr. abandoned his mother due to magic from his father directly, and that his implication in goblet of fire that he thinks he was a wanted baby until his mother revealed her powers is a deliberate, self-comforting misinterpretation of tom sr. not being able to fully articulate what happened to him at merope’s hands beyond "she was a witch".

i have two worldbuilding headcanons when it comes to voldemort’s childhood. the implication of canon is that the orphanage is in vauxhall in south london, but i always locate it on dorset street in spitalfields - this is the site of one of jack the ripper’s most brutal murders, and i like the idea of the long shadow of that horror hanging around the place. naturally, i see him having a cockney accent he goes to great lengths to disguise as an adult. 

i also always write the orphanage as a catholic institution and voldemort raised - although he has no genuine conviction [which doesn’t mean he escapes lots of catholic-y quirks] - in the church. this really can’t be justified by canon - the orphanage appears to be state run, which would mean it was church of england, if anything - but i do it because, as someone from ireland, the appalling history of the laundries is the first thing which comes to mind when thinking about poor pregnant merope staggering into an institution to give birth and promptly dying.

voldemort’s school years

as i’ve said above, i don’t think you can write a good voldemort if his childhood poverty isn’t acknowledged. however, where i might deviate from other authors is that i don’t think his isolation in the muggle world [clearly the rest of the orphans go out of their way to avoid spending any time with him] continued once he was at hogwarts.

it seems to have become standard fanon that voldemort was bullied in slytherin over his secondhand possessions and either the assumption that he was muggleborn or the knowledge that he was half-blood. i understand this - particularly because i’m a snapemort defender, and its parallel with snape’s canonical experience at school is nice - but i think that it fails to note two key things about voldemort’s character:

firstly, as said above, class in britain depends as much on performance as background. while snape clearly remains identifiably working-class into his late teens at least, voldemort is chameleon-like enough to ape his roommates’ accents, mannerisms, and references immediately, and to pass as someone from a wizarding background with comparative ease. the fact that he has shabby possessions wouldn’t count against his ability to claim that he was a pureblood or half-blood - after all, we see plenty of poor purebloods in canon, and it doesn’t stop their blood status from giving them a social cachet - if he was able to give the impression of passing as someone who wasn’t raised as a muggle.

secondly, voldemort is shameless, a show-off, and - crucially - has proof of his claim to be from, to borrow slughorn’s phrase, "good wizarding stock". i'm sure that dumbledore is inadvertently right when he speculates in half-blood prince that voldemort discovers slytherin was a parselmouth almost immediately, and uses this to establish among his fellows the fact that they’re related. voldemort implies in chamber of secrets that he learned of this connection early in his first year, since he claims to have spent five full years planning to open the chamber - although dumbledore’s implication in half-blood prince is that, initially at least, he believes his father is the descendant. all of which is to say, it is clear that voldemort could undercut any negative rumours about his heritage - and any bullying which might result - very easily and very quickly after arriving at hogwarts.

indeed, i always write voldemort as - while perhaps not being popular - having a group of "dedicated friends" [dumbledore’s term - voldemort himself refers to them as "intimate friends"] whose affection for him is genuine. i think it’s impossible to write the knights of walpurgis/the original death eaters as not really liking him - voldemort’s very charismatic, yes, but it takes more than charisma for people to agree to become terrorists under your command, and one of the things it takes is genuine sympathy and admiration for you and your aims - not least because the fact that voldemort’s shamelessness about money must mean that he happily freeloads off them would still require their assent at first [he might be able to squat at malfoy manor in the second war on the basis of nothing more than being terrifying, but that isn’t going to cut it at eleven].

more controversially, i am of the opinion that he genuinely likes them - as noted above, voldemort tends to tell the truth in his canon appearances, and while this is a narrative necessity [it often falls to him to provide exposition harry and the reader otherwise don’t have, especially because both dumbledore and snape need to keep information to themselves] i like the reading that his claim in the job interview scene in half-blood prince that dumbledore is "mistaken" to dispute that he considers the earliest death eaters friends is sincere.

and also i just like the idea of them having normal teenage fun while at school. as well as all the crime. 

intellectually, while it’s clear that voldemort’s canonical favourite subject is defence against the dark arts, as a snapemort girly i always love writing him as an extremely good experimental potioneer - which he does imply of himself in goblet of fire. like everyone else, he hates history of magic, and he's definitely not someone who particularly enjoys subjects like herbology or care of magical creatures - all of which sound a bit too much like hard work in the outdoors. his least favourite part of being at hogwarts is, of course, quidditch, and i'm absolutely on board with the idea that he learns unaided flight because riding a broom is the one thing he’s not good at.

what do i think is going on with voldemort between 1945 and 1970?

as i’ve said, i think that working at borgin and burkes suits voldemort - and it’s my preferred non-dark-lord career for him. i love lots of fics which show him being a good teacher [especially this] or which examine how he trains his minions, but i just don’t see him doing well at the job within the confines of hogwarts. there’s a certain rejection of the ivory tower baked into voldemort’s character - not least in the fact that all the "pushing the boundaries of magic" stuff requires a rejection of academic gatekeeping around systems of knowledge - and i can’t imagine him happily settling into an existence for the hogwarts teachers which is pretty removed from the realities of everyday life.

[incidentally, if you’re writing a muggle au, an excellent basis for voldemort-at-university would be something like engleby - a working-class kid yeeted into an elite academic institution which hates him and which he hates in return. with deadly consequences.]

so he becomes a shop assistant and is, as dumbledore tells us, extremely good at his job. so good, in fact, that he stays at borgin and burkes for a decade and seems to commit only the most minor crimes while he’s there.

and this seems quite strange, for someone who - aged sixteen - tells harry that his plans for world domination were well established before he had even left school, particularly because most of the knights of walpurgis/death eaters must settle down into family life over the course of voldemort having a 9-5 [we don’t canonically know that abraxas malfoy is one, of course - although i consider it more feasible that he's given the diary than the explanation we get in canon - but lucius malfoy is born while voldemort is still in england; my belief is that the lestrange mentioned in half-blood prince is rodolphus and rabastan’s father, and so they’re also born in the late 1940s or 1950s]. it would undoubtedly have made more sense for him to have struck immediately after school, before his followers got tied up in the messy obligations of adult life.

i’ve seen some very fun explanations of what causes voldemort to stay in his job for so long [especially this], but - as i said above - i think the main reason is that he’s someone who gets held in stasis quite easily, until a push comes along which causes him to dramatically alter his course.

and that push is hepzibah smith, and the opportunity she gives him to avenge his mother, take back his birthright, and continue in his quest to conquer death [which is, of course, evidence - contrary to the spree-killing voldemort of the films - that he is methodical in his violence, more on which below].

after which he toddles off to the continent. the implication of canon seems to be that he spends most of this time in albania - and why that country seems to have such a chokehold on the magical world, i don’t know [i presume jkr just thought it sounded suitably far-flung] - looking for ravenclaw’s diadem and performing ever darker feats of magic, but i like to think that he also travels widely across eurasia.

that he seems to spend much of his travels in communist europe [he must, for example, meet karkaroff - and perhaps dolohov - in one of europe’s socialist republics] is something the series doesn’t address, since it’s irrelevant to the canonical narrative, but it’s something that i think is incredibly interesting to explore in fanfiction. my headcanon is that voldemort must be able to speak some level of russian, as well as albanian [and also that, like any teen edgelord in the 1940s, he has a certain appreciation for the aesthetics - and maybe the iron state control - of communism].

as an aside here, something else i see a lot in fics is the idea that voldemort is incredibly traumatised by the second world war - and this could very well be the case. however, i think it’s worth just being clear about the timeline of some events which are often taken to have triggered this trauma:

voldemort is at school during the blitz - and therefore never touched by it - and he's also at school during the main waves of evacuations. it's possible that he returns following his second year to find the orphanage has been emptied, but evacuations weren't permanent and children were often sent away only temporarily - it's equally feasible that the orphans are back in july and august 1940 and then evacuated again when the blitz begins in september.

he's similarly at school during other major bombing campaigns in 1942 and 1944. during the bombing campaigns of summer 1944, he may very well be in london - although dumbledore’s implication in half-blood prince is that he leaves the orphanage permanently in 1943, and he could be staying with a pureblood friend instead.

voldemort doesn’t have anyone in london he’s likely to be worried about, and i imagine that he watches the muggle war with professional disdain for how distinctly unmagical it all is.

i do, however, think he’s probably quite concerned by the atomic bomb - dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki when he’s 19 - and its potential to wipe out muggles and wizards alike unless muggles are brought under magical control. i think one political belief he can be easily written as holding is that wizards [stuck thinking of muggles as they were in the age of cannon and musket] underestimate the depths of, as he sees it, muggle stupidity, brutality, and covetousness and are unprepared for what might happen if these are turned against them.

by the time he returns to england - which appears to be in 1965 or 1966 - he has made at least four horcruxes [the diary, the ring, the cup, and the diadem - my reading of canon is that he turns the locket into a horcrux shortly before he places it in the cave, as dumbledore tells us in half-blood prince that he tends not to carry them around with him once he makes them, much as i love the image of him always wearing the ring, which would also be much more sensible…].

we are told in philosopher’s stone that the first war begins in earnest in 1970, so there are four or five years which need to be accounted for. the reason for this is almost certainly that jkr can’t count, but i am committed to the belief that voldemort’s request to come back to hogwarts in half-blood-prince is completely genuine and that he has factored a few years of teaching into his plans. dumbledore’s reaction to this is discussed in the next meta in this series.

his main reason for coming back, though, seems to be to begin the campaign of political infiltration he will dedicate his forces to for the next thirty years. according to jkr’s list of ministers, voldemort returns to britain during the tenure of the only muggleborn minister in history [prior to hermione, if you accept that idea], who is forced out of office two years later when abraxas malfoy poisons him and is then replaced by a minister who also supports social causes [above all the squibs' rights riots - one of jkr’s recent heavy-handed analogies for real civil rights movements across the world in the 1960s] which don't align with the pureblood population’s views. halfway through this minister’s tenure, voldemort moves to open terror.

the wizarding world is evidently not a democracy - no matter jkr’s insistence in the linked articles above that it is - but it's implied in canon that multiple candidates are considered for the position of minister, and that the wizengamot [which canonically isn't a council of aristocrats, although if an author wants to have it mirror the house of lords, with hereditary seats alongside appointed ones, i can deal with it] serves as a sort of council of electors. my preferred outline of events is that voldemort’s aim in the later sixties is to trigger the election of a puppet minister [maybe even himself, although i prefer to view him as someone without any genuine ambition for political office - he’s more of a constitutional monarch] who would bring in the programme of sweeping changes to the world he desires.

obviously, he doesn’t get that… 

voldemort and the first war

working out how to write the first war is complicated - the form the war took, the death toll, who was targeted, and what the political justification was are hugely inconsistent in canon. fanon doesn’t stand a chance…

let’s try anyway.

if you follow this blog, you may have noticed that i keep using the term "sectarian terrorism" when describing voldemort's operation.

you may also have noticed that i have referred to myself as irish.

i am, to be more specific, northern irish - i come from derry, i’m from a catholic background, and i was born well before the signing of the good friday agreement. in other words, i grew up with the troubles right on my doorstep - i've experienced discrimination in the place i live for having an obviously irish and catholic name, i live in a community which could probably be described as segregated, and i still conceal my religious background in certain areas of my everyday life. i've met a number of people who spent the seventies and eighties as - by any reasonable definition - terrorists. 

all of which is to say, when i first read the first six books of the series, and saw the description of voldemort and his organisation as having had a reign of terror in the 1970s, seeming to operate mainly in terms of highly-organised political assassinations with occasional attacks upon civilians, seeming to issue pre-warnings for atrocities [he tells fudge that he’s going to attack the bridge he brings down in the first chapter of half-blood prince in advance], not being allowed to use his real name on the airwaves, the fact that so many of the death eaters have not only anglo-norman but hiberno-norman names, and the fact that voldemort is clearly regarded by the wizarding world at large as "a bastard, but he’s our bastard"... well, i know who i thought he was supposed to be a pastiche of. 

and i maintain this was intentional, even if jkr [who is an english protestant living in mainland britain, which would naturally have influenced her own perception of the troubles] later pivoted to drawing on the nazis to write the death eaters - a much better analogy if we’re thinking of them as unambiguous, genocidal villains, since the causes of the troubles are incredibly complex and multifaceted and the good old protestant-coded brits of the ministry and the order of the phoenix would absolutely not be seen as the uncritical heroes of the piece if she kept to the death-eaters-are-the-ira analogy.

[of course, she now claims the death eaters are like trans people - which is fucking abhorrent.]

the brutality of azkaban immediately brings to mind prisons like the maze and portlaoise; the death eater trials in the first war mirror operation demetrius; a year after the canonical quidditch world cup, there was a sectarian riot at an england-ireland football match; and - oh yeah - the fucking story ends with voldemort’s defeat in the same year as the gfa was signed. jkr does not have a light touch with historical analogy, after all.

which is to say, i think the voldemort of the first war is not a genocidaire dictator-in-waiting, but an anti-state terrorist whose goal is the weakening of the ministry and its institutions in pursuit of sectarian goals, specifically the removal of the muggle-aligned’s rights to intervene in the social and political affairs of the magic-aligned population, and their relegation to a secondary influence in public life. his views can probably be more accurately described as magic-supremacist rather than blood-supremacist - he’s not exactly a meritocrat, but he clearly does reject the patronage- and lineage-based structures which define wizarding society, and there's certainly a real suggestion in the way the teen snape is written that the death eaters provided one of the only avenues for talented people from non-pureblood backgrounds to escape the crush of the class system [as i’ve said elsewhere, i think this justifies snape’s evident belief that the death eaters would be interested in helping lily, which otherwise seems deranged].

voldemort clearly believes that a system of government which keeps itself in thrall to the statute of secrecy can’t achieve the full power of its magic [his views on non-human magical creatures - such as giants and werewolves - which often seem more progressive than the views expressed by the heroes of the series - come under this umbrella: he thinks that giants should have the chance to roam free and that it is anti-magic to constrain them].

he evidently believes that muggleborns can never fully appreciate this view and will always stand against it - although he's presumably willing to view as legitimately magical muggleborns who completely reject the world of their birth [snape cannot be the only muggle-raised death eater, and voldemort clearly likes him because of his commitment to leaving the muggle world behind him - and i'm sure that there are a couple of self-hating muggleborns somewhere in voldemort’s ranks] - and that a properly magic-supremacist order couldn’t exist until the muggle world [which he thinks inherently fears and hates magic, like his father, and will never let it achieve its true, free purpose] was subjugated and, therefore, couldn’t try to resist or appropriate magic for itself.

it is, of course, absolutely reasonable to not read the first war through this lens - i do so is because of the parallels to my own personal experience which stand out when reading the text. the first war can absolutely also be read as racist, or anti-semitic, or inspired by islamist and/or far-right terrorism. i just, as someone who has grown up under the shadow of sectarian discrimination and violence, see that as its best real-world parallel.

now, while it might be clear which way my sympathies lie in the real troubles... i'm certainly not saying that terrorism and discrimination is a good thing, nor that i think the canonical voldemort is a good or noble person, nor that i think the death eaters are right. i only bring this up because it's an explanation for why i think the war takes the form it takes in canon, and also because it introduces a complexity to voldemort’s motivations which is flattened by turning him into a one-dimensional villain bent on wiping out a minority group for fun.

which is to say, these are the things which appear most consistently in my writing of the first war:

voldemort’s operation seems to be divided into several distinct strands: ministry infiltration; the surveillance of other key figures [snape, for example, is clearly the detail assigned to dumbledore, even before he starts working at hogwarts; barty crouch jr. could be feasibly recruited as a teen to inform on his own father]; propaganda and recruitment both at home and abroad; political assassinations; and random attacks on civilians. presumably the death eaters are also conducting some sort of illicit business to finance themselves underneath this [in the second war, aberforth dumbledore complains about the trade in illegal potions going on in the hog’s head] and i tend to write voldemort as having a substantial money-laundering campaign going on in the background. i also tend to write him as having infiltrators within the muggle system - since the ministry has the same.

the vast majority of deaths associated with the war are clinical assassinations of political targets and/or their families or pro-ministry fighters killed in combat, the death eaters are tightly controlled and there are no dark revels [it’s worth emphasising that, canonically, voldemort isn't particularly impressed by the violence at the quidditch world cup, and i think it can be reasonably argued that quidditch hooliganism etc. was typically the result of groups of young death eaters getting drunk and going off message, rather than something which was ordered by the top brass]. when voldemort enters the fray himself he does so to attack high-profile figures connected to state institutions [in the first war, we hear of only one person murdered directly by voldemort before the potters - dorcas meadowes, who, despite her fanon persona, has never been stated to have been at school with the marauders, she may very well be a senior politician or auror targeted both for that and because she’s in the order. in the second war, prior to the outbreak of open combat after dumbledore’s death, the only person definitely assassinated by voldemort himself is amelia bones, who is killed because she's the head of the department of magical law enforcement].

there are, nonetheless, periodic attacks on both wizard and muggle civilians, which must have targeted pubs, shops, and other busy areas, and which are designed to keep the population afraid. voldemort is, nonetheless, clearly prepared to leave wizarding civilians - including muggleborns - who keep their heads down free from specific, targeted attacks.

the potters are targeted not only due to the prophecy, but because voldemort believes that their deaths - and the removal of harry as a potential figurehead for the resistance - will destroy the order’s morale to a sufficient extent that they and the ministry will come to the table. he acts similarly in canon, when he tries to use harry’s apparent death during the battle of hogwarts to force a surrender.

voldemort’s army of inferi are the apparent exception to this moderation in violence - although i think we can justify the idea that they're deaths he considers collateral [i.e. executed hostages, murdered family members of targets, deaths in attacks on civilians] rather than that he’s roaming the streets as a serial killer.

there is an escalation of violence against both civilian targets and political targets who are seen as sympathetic in the later 1970s - for example, in scylla and charybdis we find voldemort murdering the pre-teen daughter of a ministry official, to widespread outcry, when her father won’t do what he wants - and it is this which triggers the unease felt by people such as orion and walburga black about whether voldemort’s violence is justified.

i occasionally write the voldemort of the first war as a technocrat. whether the wizarding world is more advanced than the muggle one is a frequently debated point - obviously magic is infinitely more sophisticated than most technology, and the series clearly considers muggles to be behind wizards, but i think it’s interesting to explore the idea that the social advances of the muggle post-war era don’t touch the magical world. the population is so small, for example, that there's no wizarding baby boom, and there doesn’t seem to be any significant immigration in the magical world [so no wizarding windrush]. the changes in social mobility which muggles enjoyed in the 1950s onwards - such as the expansion of funded higher education places; changing attitudes to marriage, divorce, and family planning; changing attitudes to living apart from the family; the emergence of more spaces where young people living alone would interact; and the collapse of the domestic service industry and the emergence of affordable labour-saving devices - are clearly not part of the wizarding world. all of which is to say, magical society could be made even more advanced than the muggle, even as muggle technology improves, if only it had a leader willing to take the reins...

to reiterate, i'm not expecting the above to be an interpretation of the war and its causes which resonates with every reader and author, but it’s something which has spoken to me since childhood - and, indeed, was one of the things which really sucked me into being a harry potter fan as i walked home from school and got shouted at for being a taig. that it led me to having voldemort as my favourite character may not have been jkr’s intention, but there we are…

voldemort and the second war

after harry blasts him into non-existence [just because he tried to be nice to snape, smh] voldemort obviously slithers off to albania to live in a tree for fourteen years - with a little trip to britain on the back of quirrell’s head to break the monotony.

his return to his body in goblet of fire does several things - it completes the tonal shift of the books from children’s literature to something darker; it triggers the overtly folkloric narrative of the second half of the series and its focus on prophecies and horcruxes, through voldemort establishing a mystical connection between himself and harry through his use of harry’s blood in his resurrection ritual; and it begins the second war.

it also causes one of my least favourite bits of fanon - the idea that the post-resurrection voldemort is completely insane.

in my view this is mainly due to the films - ralph does a great job of running around that graveyard shrieking, i’ll give him that - and their omission of many of 90s!voldemort’s successes, which makes it look like all that happens in three years is the death eaters fucking up getting the prophecy, downing a bridge by swooping, and then - somehow - taking over the government. it's also, however, due to a fandom failure to pay attention to something dumbledore says in half-blood prince:

Without his Horcruxes, Voldemort will be a mortal man with a maimed and diminished soul. Never forget, though, that while his soul may be damaged beyond repair, his brain and his magical powers remain intact.

one of the common arguments in favour of insane!voldemort is that - seven horcruxes in - his mind has been totally destabilised by dark magic. but this misses the point of how the series understands the soul and, specifically, how it understands the soul as something which exists independently from the will. that is, the soul cannot influence the will - since, otherwise, nobody would do anything which damaged their souls, but wizards evidently have the free choice to do that - and, therefore, the status of one’s soul has nothing to do with one’s cognition.

the canonical voldemort of the second war is perfectly lucid in all his appearances, and behaviours which seem to have been triggered by his resurrection can be shown to just be personality traits he’s always possessed - for example, the pacing around monologuing he does after stepping out of the cauldron reflects a tendency shared by the eleven-year-old tom riddle to give away too much about himself when he’s excited [and you would be excited, if you’d just freed yourself of a year having to depend on wormtail]. he remains largely methodical in his use of violence, he doesn’t cackle wildly while planning his schemes [he laughs derisively when harry is literally about to kill him and that’s it], and he's emphasised by the text as being absolutely terrifying and having the upper hand throughout the period 1995-1998, with the order scrambling to keep up with him.

this is not to say that he comes back from the almost-dead unchanged...

it’s clear that the voldemort of the second war is more paranoid and secretive than before, that he's less willing to take advice [both bellatrix and yaxley’s resentment of the fact he listens to snape suggests that there was once an impression among the death eaters that voldemort was happy to solicit their opinions, which vanishes once he comes back], that he’s quicker to anger and treats the death eaters more poorly than before [indeed, i'm certain that the implication of canon is that the majority of the death eaters don’t have physical violence or public humiliation - like the malfoys experience - used regularly against them until the second war, and that this is what drives their obviously wavering loyalty to their leader], and that his obsessive focus on harry [and, in particular, on mystical phenomena which will help him kill harry] is met with some scepticism by the more revolutionarily-inclined of his followers.

he also seems to only attain his horrifying eldritch form after his resurrection, which must be a bit of a shock for the lads.

[the vision harry has in order of the phoenix of voldemort with augustus rookwood - in which rookwood is clearly thinking what the fuck is this the whole way through - is a particularly good illustration of this.]

in order of the phoenix and half-blood prince, nonetheless, the course of the second war follows that of the first - voldemort concentrates on espionage, ministry infiltration, politically-motivated assassinations, sporadic attacks on civilian targets, and a propaganda campaign [lucius malfoy is undoubtedly the source of the anti-harry and anti-dumbledore press of order of the phoenix; greyback spends half-blood prince recruiting werewolves].

things change in deathly hallows, after the death eaters execute one of history’s better coups - even lupin’s impressed - and take over the ministry.

at this point there’s no doubt about it: voldemort’s government is an analogy for the nazis, as jkr has widely stated. obviously we don’t have to take her word for it - the author is dead - but it cannot be ignored that voldemort’s ministry is nakedly racist and is perpetuating a genocide of muggleborns.

voldemort becomes, then, per jkr’s intention, an analogy for hitler - which requires the text to gloss over pretty inelegantly the fact that grindelwald [defeated by dumbledore in 1945, which any british child reading philospher’s stone, even in primary school, would know was the year the second world war ended in europe] was clearly the magical world’s hitler equivalent.

and, sure, the analogy functions perfectly well within the final book - voldemort is a transparently evil man, his views can certainly be read as mirroring racist and anti-semitic prejudice in our world, his ultimate aim can certainly be claimed as outright genocide even in the first war, and i think it's impossible to justify an argument that he doesn’t know what his death eaters are up to in the ministry [he’s a megalomaniac, everything happens at his command even if he isn’t sitting behind the minister’s desk].

but i think that it’s not inappropriate to suggest that this analogy requires quite a shift in voldemort’s canonical modus operandi from the previous six books. and, indeed, that this is why he spends much of deathly hallows being… kind of useless, wandering around central europe on his hunt for the elder wand, narratively removed from much of the horror being done in his name, reduced from the terrorist kingpin with a network of agents of the previous books to someone whose only concern is harry. i don’t think this is because jkr wished to spare him from the suggestion that he’s the person directing the genocide, i think she simply couldn’t fit the characterisation of him already established into that plotline, and so she just didn’t try.

which i have some sympathy with. i find writing the voldemort of deathly hallows the most difficult - and i generally don’t do it - for this reason. as i’ve said in the previous meta in this series, i find voldemort particularly interesting as a character for what he says about the wizarding world and its social structure - above all, how his existence and the ministry’s resistance to him demonstrates the genteel corruption of the wizarding world - and how that reflects corruption in british society and state institutions. the immediate familiarity to me as an irish [and, legally, british] reader of the way the previous books in the series reflect class and how institutions gatekeep and discriminate based on it, how poverty drives resentment and radicalisation, how one becomes othered in a sectarian conflict, and so on is less palpable in deathly hallows [which is not to say that experience is universal among readers, and i'm not claiming it is] and i find engaging sincerely with the fictional genocide of the last book less interesting than i find thinking about the way the text presents the first war [and, of course, less horrifying and confronting and worthy of my time than i find thinking about real genocides in our world].

how to square the circle of making the voldemort of deathly hallows feel more in character, while also not handwaving away the canonical events of the final book isn’t something i’ve managed to get a grip on yet. i suspect i’m not the only one.

and after?

what i am more confident of is saying that i hate the imagery of voldemort’s little baby soul in train station limbo - the only person in canon denied access to some sort of non-liminal afterlife [clearly heaven exists for wizards, but does hell?].

is it his own fault? absolutely [although i’m always raging at dumbledore stopping harry offering the soul-piece some comfort at king’s cross].

am i surprised that he doesn’t have a road to damascus moment in the final confrontation and collapse to the floor shaking and crying? not a bit.

do i think he could ever feel remorse for his actions? yes.

one of my least favourite fandom debates is whether x or y character is incapable of redemption [rip snape, it’s always you]. a principle i hold is that there is nobody on earth incapable of being redeemed - and i don’t mean redeemed in a religious sense or a heavenly context, i mean redeemed in their human actions and in their human form.

and redemption absolutely doesn’t mean getting away with it, and it doesn’t mean that remorse absolves you of having to experience punishment or work to undo the harm that you’ve done, and it doesn’t mean your victims being expected to forgive you. but it does have to be possible for all of us - even those who commit incomprehensible evil - because if not then it is possible for none.

so maybe voldemort sits in the nether zone and starts glueing his soul back together and eventually makes it to an afterlife where he can hang out with his mam. maybe he doesn’t, because remorse is a choice and we all have the option to keep being bad people. 

but i’m a hopeless optimist.

[voldemort’s version of king’s cross is, of course, the orphanage.]

up next, what does dumbledore get wrong about voldemort?

[kroosluvr]

Any thoughts on Haru? I feel like like she is similar to Sumire in the sense that she is a very underrated character by the fandom. Both girlies have inmense amounts of depth and deal with a lot of grief. And while they dealt with it in different ways, at the end of the day both of them show enormous strenght by choosing to be kind and gentle to everyone around them despite their pain.

I feel like they would be besties if they ever get the chance to hang out more regularly.

YES!!! omg... im ashamed to say i dont have TONS of thoughts abt her since its been a while since ive reviewed her story and confidant etc but i do care her deeply ;-; <33333 UR LITERALLY SPITTING THO she is so strong and caring and kind despite her circumstances and augh augh (EXPLODES MY BRAIN)

I ALSO AGREE THEY WLD BE BESTIES!!! another anon requested s/umi/har/u from me so lets justr say i have a sketch on the rocks hehehe......... i think she'd def be a point of admiration for sumire in particular ;w;

here are some snippets of sketches i did of her a while back.... not that good bc i think i did these at 5am one time. SDKJFKASJKA but i will def try to complete these at some point..!!!!!

[hiveworks]

OBELISK - Interview with Ashley McCammon

September 2023

The year is 1908. Evelyn Reuter is dealing with the affairs of her deceased father in her hometown of Manhattan. While she takes solace in the homes of her queer friends, grief presses in around her until one day... the mysterious Margot appears in her life.

Obelisk is a 16+ gothic horror/romance comic about vampires and lesbianism. In celebration of Obelisk's return from hiatus, we asked author Ashley McCammon @draculings for an interview.

What was the spark behind making Obelisk? Why a webcomic versus another style of publishing (print, self pub, etc.)?

My original inspiration for Obelisk was in my frustration with lesbian vampire movies - there are so many of them, and none made for a lesbian audience, let alone involving butch women! I wanted to tell that story, and celebrate that point of view. It’s similar to why I chose to set the comic in 1908 - the early 1900s are something of a transitional period, something not explored often when we aren’t talking WWI or the Titanic. I wanted to tell a story about the radical change happening in just a few, unusual people’s lives, in this transitory period. As for it being a webcomic - as a young artist, I always wanted to make one! It’s such an accessible, experimental way to tell a story, where even the website can be part of the atmosphere. Making a deeply atmospheric, spooky comic, that feels the most fitting.

For new readers, how would you describe your two lead women?

Evelyn is muscling through her day to day when we meet her - she’s putting on a brave face, or one that she hopes exudes confidence - but really feels like she has no idea what she’s doing. (The impostor syndrome is incredibly strong - something I think a lot of people can understand!) She’s been left with this enormous responsibility on top of the grief of losing her dad, and having that job and security is pressed on her as something she should be grateful for. She’s absorbed that idea and really hasn’t taken a moment to breathe - or to consider what she really wants for herself. Margot is quite the opposite - she’s a vampire who lives only for her own desires, a hedonist who’s been floating through existence that way for as long as she can remember. For all of her self indulgence though, she’s never connected much with anyone. She holds herself far above people, only ever showing them this facade of a regular person. It’s very arrogant - but it must also be very lonely! (Not that she has anyone to admit that to… yet ;)   )

What can you tell us about what's lurking for Evelyn in the upcoming chapter?

Evelyn makes a very bold choice at the end of chapter two, one that scares her - putting her own desires first, impulsively, in a way that will change everything and surprise even Margot herself. (Patrons read way ahead and will get to see this very soon, and the time she spends with Margot throughout chapter 3 as a result!)

Obelisk is a traditionally inked piece, with some digital final touches. What guided your decision to make this a traditional comic versus a digital one?

It really wasn’t a choice, to be honest - traditional media is where all my passion for making art lives! Obelisk is drawn and inked traditionally, and finished with Copic markers and the occasional paint pen or colored pencil for that killer red highlight ;)

What are some of the challenges in working this way? What do you find rewarding?

It can be tedious to scan, piece together and clean up my pages, but ultimately I have a fairly streamlined process for it and I don’t mind. I love having a physical final product to look at and hold when I’m done with it, it gives me a sense of accomplishment and connection to my work!

Do you have any tips for other comic artists on resuming a series after an extended hiatus?

Put your health first, and spend time reconnecting to your story before diving back in. It’s easy to feel obligated by the hamster wheel of social media and garnering attention, but your own connection to your work in the long-term is what matters most. Obelisk wouldn’t be the same story if I hadn’t had that downtime, and it’s off better for it!

What are some comics that inspire you? Do you have any reading recommendations for fans of Obelisk?

As far as webcomics go, I’m a big fan of Tiger Tiger, Hemlock, Barbarous, and Heirs of the Veil!

What is the best way for fans of Obelisk to support you?

The very best way is through my Patreon! Patrons have immediate access to the next six months of Obelisk pages (that’s my whole buffer!) as well as tons of behind the scenes work as I develop the next chapter and share work-in-progress shots right from my drawing table.

Obelisk updates Wednesdays and can be read for free at obeliskcomic.com 🩸Be sure to white list the site on your ad blocker and follow @draculings for more info and updates!

[kingarthurflourofficial]

January + Feb Book Roundup

since i'm not using goodreads any more and also my memory is shit these days gonna try keeping track here this year!

A Memory Called Empire 4/5 (sci fi, great worldbuilding, very interesting MC)

Hearts of Oak 4/5 (sci fi, lovely creepy worldbuilding and vibes)

A Wizard's Guide To Defensive Baking 4/5 (such a fun and thoughtful take on many tropes; lays the seeds for her later more detailed books)

A Rulebook for Desperate Rogues ? DNF; too many anachronisms in the first two chapters

Three Cases for Mr. Campion ? DNF; weirdly gross way of speaking about women

The Dangers of Smoking In Bed 3/5 (very good bordering on horror)

Some Desperate Glory 5/5 (everyone who told me to read this was right etc run don't walk etc!)

Murder in Williamston 2/5 (not half as fun as I remember them being - a little too formulaic and suffers from not allowing the characters to grow/develop)

Grave Expectations 4/5 (VERY fun romp of a book! unexpectedly made me tear up at the end)

The September House 4/5 (horror but the kind of horror i can take where the narrator really holds and carries you through it)

The Ballad of Sir Dinadin 4/5 (i missed these books! i love arthuriana and these are such good classics. sidenote this was the first ace rep i ever read as a kid and i'll always bless it for that)

The Princess the Crone and the Dung-Cart Knight 4.5/5 (LOVE the difficult subjects being navigated here and the interweaving of different source materials. especially enjoyed the heavily implied throuple at the end.)

Parsifal's Page 3.5/5 (honestly didn't really remember this one that well but went back to read it bc my love said it was their fave of the OG tales and i liked it better than i remembered! even if the whole Fisher King scenario still infuriates me just out of principle)

The Scholomance 4/5 (love a naomi novik)

The Last Graduate 4/5 (we love a naomi novik where the characters slowly start to learn to love!)

The Golden Enclaves 5/5 (okay completely forgot i hadn't read this which means this was a complete surprise and so was the CANON GAYS hell yeah naomi u got there in the end!!!!!!!!!!)

Perilous Times 2/5 (listen it was a great premise! let itself down by being far too heavy-handed and using a deus ex machina at the end)

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance 5/5 (very glad i forgot to check the warnings before i read this or else i wouldn't have but DAMN if this didn't cradle me very gently in its arms and carry me safely through the deep waters. absolutely would recommend)

10 Things That Never Happened 2/5 (thank you to Morgan @crimsonclad for listening to my rantings re: alexis hall's books in general but this, to me, was not one of his finest efforts

Gaudy Night 10/5!!!!!!!! (book of my HEART dorothy l sayers you will always be famous even if you insist on putting enormous swaths of foreign language text with no translation in your books)

Busman's Honeymoon 10/5!!!!!!!!!!! (Aupres de ma blonde!!!! ivy trailing in hair! crying over Bunter! damn said distinctly! the port wine!)

Clouds of Witness 4/5 (you do love the Duchess but Peter has not yet been Wilfred-ized and is more of a caricature than his true self)

Whose Body? 4/5 (same as above)

Detection Unlimited 3/5 (a fun Heyer detection romp!)

The Dark Lord of Derkholm 4/5 (I'd forgotten most of this one and really enjoyed re-discovering it!)

The Year of the Griffin 5/5 (stayed up until 3 ack emma reading this rip my sleep schedule but i simply love a group of misfit friends!)

System Collapse 5/5 (MURDERBOT my BELOVED)

Everything on a Waffle 5/5 (i love polly horvath SO much. she treats all her characters and their loves and griefs with so much gentle dignity.)

Lady of Quality 5/5 (this is a superb heyer. absolutely iconic)

And fic over 40k!

metagaming by esama (svsss)

after the storm by perennial (much ado about nothing)

sword in hand by Aesoleucian, leahsfiction (the untamed)

the exploration of a courageous heart (all this unexpected glory) by Stratisphyre (the untamed)

[ewanmitchellcrumbs]

This is possibly an unpopular opinion, and maybe it's just my GoT trauma resurfacing, but somehow, I'm less excited about season 2 than before watching the teaser.

I love Olivia Cooke and her performance in HotD, I do, but HBO seems to have something of an obsession with Alicent's character. The events of season 1 were based on The Princess and The Queen, which primarily focuses on the events leading up to the Dance. Hence, it makes sense that she was a main character then. But it's a Targaryen civil war. Rhaenyra and her half-brother are fighting for the throne, not Rhaenyra and Alicent, so where is the Aegon content? Why didn't we get his poster instead?

The apparent scrapping of Daeron is concerning because he plays an important role in the war, and I’m unsure how/with whom they will supplant his character.

And lastly, if that was Laenor on the beach, then he still needs to die for Addam of Hull to claim Seasmoke. But how, when and where is that supposed to happen? Besides, if the greens discover he's still alive, wouldn't it give them further ammunition against Rhaenyra since they, heavily influenced by the Faith of the Seven, which generally doesn't approve of polygamy, would likely view her marriage to Daemon as invalid? If so, that would be quite the deviation from Fire & Blood since at least her youngest two sons' legitimacy was never questioned in the book.

(on a more positive note, the costume department seems to have stepped up their game, probably owed to a higher budget)

I think this may be slightly above my pay grade - bear with me!

I can understand the upset around Game of Thrones - the story was already there and even before they ran out of source material, the writers still deviated enormously from the established plot. It was unrecognisable by the end. The shit show it ended up becoming is part of the reason I was so hesitant to watch House of the Dragon in the first place (we were well into November last year before I watched the first episode)

With Fire and Blood, it’s not written like a traditional book, so it’s very much open to interpretation, beyond established events such as successions and battles, etc.

I think the writers have interpreted the story in a manner that HBO finds easy to market - Rhaenicent is a popular ship and it adds depth to the story to present it as this long standing lost love/lingering childhood resentment. Up to this point, Aegon has very much been presented as a character that does not want the crown, so it would be a complete 180 flip for him to suddenly go in guns blazing and ready to defend it. I actually think they’re going to spin Aegon’s actions during Rook’s Rest as him dealing with his grief and anger over his son’s death. He didn’t ask for this, and yet he’s suffering the consequences anyway. It’s incredibly tragic, but not enough to go on a poster (I expect he will get one though, all the main characters will)

I’m not really sure why the decision was made to scrap Daeron’s character, I guess we will have to wait and see how that plays out. Likewise for how they deal with Laenor’s story. I know it’s hard to have faith, as we’ve been burned before, but I am bowled over by Matt, Emma and Ewan’s performances so far, so if nothing else we’ll get some incredible acting and some stunning cinematography.

[hekateinhell]

there's a devastating trust between lesmand despite everything they've done to each other. Armand going to Lestat after Louis breaks his heart is kind of funny but also devastating after everything he did to Lestat, but also their NOLA team up and Lestat allowing Armand to drink from him. And how Lestat completely trusts Armand to keep Louis safe despite what he did to Nicki and Claudia. But Armand feels the same way! His breakdown in Blood Communion is because he gave Lestat his blessing to take Louis to court and then he didn't keep him safe!!! His screaming breaks my heart because after so many losses he still can't handle losing Louis and he trusted Lestat with him because he's sacred to both of them. That's the agreement, they keep Louis safe!!! Always wanted to know how the Loumand and OT3 reunion after that went.

Lestat and Armand have such an utterly insane dynamic, I've never come across anything like it in my life lmao WHAT IS THAT???

The thing with Nicki is that Armand genuinely did try to help him the only way he knew how at the time, and Lestat even acknowledges this in TVL. Claudia... I wouldn't get this answered in days if I started talking about Claudia. But Lestat also says in PL that he was wrong about Armand long ago — that he's not without compassion, not without a heart. And even if Lestat did think he was lacking those things once upon a time, it didn't stop him from loving him.

That scene in BC wrecks me every fucking time because you can see how devastated both Armand and Lestat are. Louis is such an enormous shared piece of their heart and Armand trusted Lestat with him because he had to and Lestat knows that! I think it has another layer for Armand, too, because he has lived and died by Lestat for so long (this is a slight exaggeration but I'm thinking about Lestat being what gave Armand the reason to want to survive following his suicide attempt, Armand doing whatever it takes to be around him when he thinks Lestat will need him, fuck everyone else, etc).

Armand's love for Lestat is perhaps one of the most consistent things (if not the most consistent) about him throughout the series, and it's a different kind of grief to lose that element of trust (though how much or how little Armand trusts Lestat is a seperate can of worms) with someone you love so deeply.

My fucking life to see Louis and Armand reunite on screen after Louis returns, and Lestat and Armand's first conversation following The Scene™️ in BC and Lestat 'sending all his love to Armand.'

[raayllum]

AU concept: King Callum

The assassination was successful for whatever reason and both Harrow and Ezran have died. That leaves Callum as the next rightful heir. How does Callum grapple with his enormous loss and also the new weight of the crown placed on his shoulders that he was in no way expecting nor prepared for? How does Viren feel about this and what might he try and do? What’s Rayla up to (is she okay?)? Claudia? etc.

- food for thought. >:)

King or regent Callum is something I usually don't engage too much in bc it feels a lil bit too much like displacing Ezran (and he's our one dark skinned character of colour in the main cast - also i Love him too much that thinking of him being dead-dead hurts my heart) however:

It would depend on where the divergence happened. Has he already met Rayla and they've found the egg, and Ezran dies to Runaan on the battlements? (In which case I don't think much would change, i.e. Callum would still leave to bring the egg home but now it's particularly heavy because it's what Ez wanted - and he and Rayla would develop a much more like, jaded but still ride or die kind of bond? Basically S4-ish Callum but with extra layers of grief and probably more anger toward her initially because it's gotta go somewhere, and then guilt because he does like her and there are moments of happiness, etc etc)

But in a world where Ez never found the egg, two alternatives:

1) Ez dies and Callum assumes the throne as the surviving heir. Not discovering the egg means he has no reason to not trust Viren. Callum refuses to have a regent outright (the throne is all he has left of his family and he desperately wants to feel in control) but it doesn't keep Viren from whispering in his ear or from growing closer to Claudia, even as the two mages are more aware than ever that if Callum ever discovers they kept the Dragon Prince alive, he'll have their heads. Thus, Callum walks a razor's edge of being furious with Xadia, probably too cautious to launch anything full scale but maybe being willing to seriously encroach on the border and send in minimal troops, just to test things out, and become a brutal strategist child king.

He never entirely loses his good heart, of course - but he's far less trusting (ironically saving him from falling to Viren's influence entirely) and far less willing to listen to said heart (again, like S4 redux but with zero support system). I think Opeli would look after him, but he'd resent that too in a way, feeling like she's treating him like a child (which he is) but very much feels like he is not, after what he's been through

Assuming Rayla is here, I think it could go a similar route as @zuppizup's excellent fic "purgatory" of her being unknowingly imprisoned before being discovered, somehow, or escaping loosely on her own. It would certainly be a stilted alliance to begin with and a lot of lingering hurt / anger on both sides, but I do think eventually they'd come to work together in an odd sort of "almost no one else is as fucked up as we are" partnership that becomes more jovial and benevolent over time

2) Ez survives but being young and reeling from grief, Callum becomes regent in an effort to shield him. This leaves Callum with one strong pillar and still the possibility of the egg being discovered (as Ez is still familiar with the tunnels) even if past the point it was found in show. This means the role of king is probably split roughly 60% (Callum) - 40% (Ezran) between the brothers and they become their own team, even if Callum may be even more over protective with no way to ensure that people wouldn't come back for Ez. Hence why he insists on being king-regent in his brother's stead, probably, and Ez is tired and unsure enough to let him (without thinking through the full consequences, maybe). This could lead to a rift as they get older as Ezran wants to acquire more power but Callum continues to be over protective. This also means Viren has significantly less influence and is constantly tempered by Ez and Callum's influence on each other, leading to more frustration and perhaps more back handed attempts to get rid of the brothers. Perhaps an imprisoned Rayla (or an older Rayla who missed out on the first mission, and has been sent to finish the job years later as repayment) could enter the story as a surprising protector? And having to put up with Callum's sharp tongue after years of learning how to handle things diplomatically, perhaps being more back handed himself in terms of getting information, etc.

Either scenario would bring Callum's snake boi tendencies out in full though, I think 👀

There's a lot of ways it could go and these are just my first thoughts, but I hope you enjoyed 'em! I always love a good canon divergence

[vickyvicarious]

Lately I'm totally stuck on the song Wax & Wane by Alana Henderson. I love it.

And the more I listen to it, the more I keep thinking of Marcille. (I feel like it'd be great for a fanvid of her, particularly when the entire series is animated.) But regardless, I can line it up so well with her story, so I just wanna ramble a bit about the lyrics now.

Under the cut for spoilers for the whole manga and length.

The song's clearly originally about a het relationship breaking up, but I don't have to interpret it that way! It gets better for her the further in the song you get, in my opinion.

I could blame our partin’ For the fact that I’m not startin’ All my mornings at the time they ought to start And I could summon up a sisterhood Cry lead me out of widowhood But that is melodrama on my part

Least fitting lines in at the beginning, but you could still sort of make them work in a fanvid at least, with slow reaction/not being ready or prepared, being caught off guard, being dramatic and then taking it back every time with food. It makes me think more of lighthearted stuff mostly, though also perhaps with Falin's original death scene maybe?

I could blame my grieving On the fact that I’ve been leaving Us behind, the ones we were when this began But I have rose-tinted us ruby And I’ve conjured up a new me Who bent freely to her newly molded man

Marcille remembering dead Falin and also her father can be the 'rose-tinted' and the newly-molded man could sorta be the life she leads now. In a sense, she's idealized both of them and their happy times with her, without being willing to linger on the negatives. Even though those drive her completely.

But we bent and we broke and I meant what I spoke And the blame game does not produce a winner We went as far as we could go, we had to go that far to know That we had nowhere left to aim And no one left to blame but The moon’s wax and wane and the turn of the tide The moon’s wax and wane and the turn of the tide

This refrain matches so well with the dungeon living pushing her (and all of them, but her especially as this is her song to me) to her limits and beyond as they go deeper. I picture this first refrain as earlier, the first effort to go back and get Falin back, and succeeding but only briefly.

And I could blame my parents For my vices so inherent That I cannot shake them much as I may try But how much have I inherited Or picked up since I was a kid? That nature versus nurture paradigm I could blame wrong turns that I take On decisions that my head makes Then trace each error right back to my heart And is it broken ‘cause you toyed with it Or was it formed with a little split That grows each year further and further apart

My favorite Marcille verse. It matches so well to her grief (often in advance) for her loved ones' shorter lifespans, and the way she never fit in growing up. Is the enormity of this desire due to her parents giving her this half-elf life, or is it her own personality focusing on it too much by dedicating herself to studying to 'fix' it? Is her heart broken because Falin died too, or is this something that's always been building, only increasing the more she pursues this path... (Stuff like the nightmare attack, or that one scene where she has to animate everyone with necromancy and it's funny up until you see her break down after and realize how terrible that would have been for Marcille in particular...) But we love and we lose and we lash-out and we bruise And the name of the game’s just the living We go as far as we can go we’ve got to go that far to know That we have everything to gain By knowing we can blame The moon’s wax and wane and the turn of the tide The moon’s wax and wane and the turn of the tide

You have to eat to live! Pushing further into the dungeon! This time around I see it as much later scenes, as they work to get monster!Falin back. Even when that means going against other people, even when it means planning on (arguable?) cannibalism, etc.

And so I look to Karma And if I try not to harm another I will not be harmed by anything

This one bit actually really makes me think of Falin, but it also in a way matches a more naive earlier mentality, before the various characters all accept that in order to live they have to eat (and thus hurt other things). Not to mention, it leads in well to Marcille becoming the dungeon master because she wants to protect her friends and also wants to extend everyone's lifespans. She doesn't want to cause any harm, at least in her eyes. But it rapidly goes wrong throughout the rest of the verse:

If I salute the magpie, knock on wood Will I be doing any good? Am I strung up or do I pull the string? Will the fact I cling too tightly To my dreams come back and bite me Am I trying to make a science of an art? And will the very fate I wish to woo Be the one that I undo By thinking I can steer this crazy cart

Dungeon master Marcille here! It's perfect for all of those parts of her story. Getting the power to control things on such a huge scale, but being manipulated and lacking control over herself. Her dreams and desires overtaking her, leading to destruction, the warped version of her father and life with her friends that are offered to her. Her efforts to try and steer it...

But I’ll live and I’ll learn And I’ll light and I’ll burn ’Til the flame simmers down to a spark I’ll go as far as I can go I’ve to go that far to know that I have everything to gain By knowing I can’t train The moon’s wax and wane and the turn of the tide The moon’s wax and wane and the turn of the tide

And then the endgame! She struggles to get it back, to undo what has begun. Her friends reaching out to her and her realizing this is as far as she can go, pushing too far was wrong. Accepting the possibility of Falin's death being permanent, accepting death in general. The lingering changes pointing out ways they didn't and couldn't achieve everything they wanted, like Falin's legs, Laios's inability to get close to monsters, Marcille's loss of the desire to do her hair. I never said it was your fault I only wanted to blame someone I never said it was your fault I only wanted to blame someone The moon’s wax and wane and the turn of the tide

And the final refrain is more of that acceptance. Marcille didn't precisely want to place 'blame' but she wanted to see it as a problem that she could fix, rather than accepting life and death (which = the moon's wax and wane and the turn of the tide).

[honeysweetcorvidae]

hey would you like to do all the prime numbers for the ask meme too. :3

i WOULD i’m gods bravest soldier and i can answer questions

i am, like mango, going to put this under a cut, because good grief this is a lot of questions.

2. Do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?

lol. I tend to have a general shape in my head for what the whole thing will look like when i do multichaps, but no, i wing it; if i allow myself to do an outline then it will be Done in my brain & therefore dead in the water

3. Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

1) go on swingset, play music on shuffle 2) put that bitch in a Situation in my brain 3) enter fugue state 4) hit post

5. Do you like constructive criticism?

ehh. i am very sensitive, but from people i trust & when i have time to brace myself it can be helpful? most of the time i am just sitting here though. love 2 have fun and indulge.

7. How do you choose which POV to write from?

fugue state.

genuinely, it’s just whatever feels best at the moment! I have a taste for outsider POVs, but what i do for things that aren’t that varies from story to story— WTA flips back and forth from chapter to chapter where playing heroes is scattershot, etc.

11. Link your three favorite fics right now

oh geez picking “favorites” is an ASTONISHINGLY difficult thing for me— i have read probably hundreds of fics in the shuake tag alone, and the things I like I like for different reasons, and my MEMORY is so terrible that the word ‘favorite’ fills me with dread— so I’ll go with ones I immediately think to recommend? for p5, @malevolentmango’s what you’ve already buried and everything or nothing at all are phenomenal (i am marking this as One because mango is sooo specialwonderfulthebest and i could just list everything on their ao3. god wait how could i not also shout out no ballad will be written)

and then there’s interminable ballistics, which rewrote my brain, first step, which is frankly ASTONISHING, killing care and grief of heart by @jortsbian, which made me want to tear down an office building with my nails(honorific), and so on and so on and so on. this is way more than three. @ceilingfan5 has some of the best taakitz fics out there, if you’re into taz.

i would also, of course, be remiss not to nod to the fic i’m most insane about of all time, my guiding light my life my joy my favorite most special little enormous incomprehensible sadomasochistic bug alien clown porn religious worldbuilding space opera epic, @birchbow’s price of forgiveness. i’m super normal about everything they’ve ever written for homestuck tbqh BUT PoF is my darling. (it’s NOT the one i wrote a whole real actual literary analysis essay about. but that’s because it’s too long.)

okay moving on. i did not answer this question correctly.

13. What’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

uh. um. uh. does “don’t misuse punctuation too badly” count as a writing tip? man i don’t know i am an insane person about writing styles

17. What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

if it sucks hit da bricks >:/. no but actually for real though, i tend to go out on my swingset, switch to a different project, or just Do Something Else for a while! i’m a big proponent of taking breaks.

19. What is the most-used tag on your ao3?

well,

23. Best writing advice for other writers?

please for the love of god punctuate your dialogue correctly

no, but sincerely— i think that the best possible thing you can do for your work is to write what you actually want to write. do the stupid self-indulgent bullshit! write tropey nonsense, write the same shit over and over in different permutations, who cares! if you love it it’ll show.

31. Do you start with the characters or the plot when writing?

the characters make the plot happen and the plot makes the characters act? so i mean i guess characters, but they’re interminably linked.

37 I already answered;

41: Do you tend to reread fics or are you a one-and-done kind of person?

ha. hahahaaaa. according to ao3 i have visited price of forgiveness one hundred and sixty-seven times. i know i have read it logged out at least twice. so, you know,

43. Do you take a sadistic joy in whumping your characters, or are you more the “If you hurt them I would kill everyone and then myself” kind of person?

i like recovery! I like to see people brought down and still swinging, and then for them to be happy again after. so i guess the latter?

47. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

that’s between me and god

53. How do you spend your time when it comes to fanfiction? Are you primarily a fic reader, writer, or a perfect 50/50 split of both?

well it took me going back ~50 pages into my ao3 history to find PoF, and the last time i read it was in june, so i’d say i read more than i write

59. Does anyone in your personal life know you write fic? if not, would you tell anyone?

everyone i know knows everything about me because I have cannot-shut-up-ever-disease, yes. my mom has been forced to hear the plot of my NG+ au.

61. Why do you continue writing fics?

I enjoy writing, and I like to have a community! when I’m not writing fic I write original stuff, and I miss the engagement when I do that, but it’s still the same compulsive joy, I think. I doubt I could ever just stop writing forever.

67. Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas?

independent ideas, generally! I am very bad at sticking to a prompt; my mind tends to wander ALL about the joint.

71. When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

[LAUGHING]

(the answer is severe autdhd and being an extremely fast reader.)

73. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

um. uh. um um uh. someone told me the other day that i am a fizzy mocktail and i don’t know what that means but i’m gonna go with that. i think my style is pretty distinctive, and i know i’m a skilled writer, so I guess. that? and i mean who else would write quite so much deeply emotionally vulnerable tentacle content. really.

[vex-verlain]

If you happened to spot the MFPE update today and wondered what the “unforeseen circumstances IRL” were:

CW: I don't even know at this point, so just tread carefully. Discussion of death, genetics, medical diagnoses, refusing treatment, etc.

My 52-year-old mother has an aneurysm lurking in her brain. We found out near the beginning of May, and it feels like I have lost an entire month.¹

My mom is only 16 years older than I am. The advantage of having a young mother was supposed to be that she would be here longer. But her father died at age 42 due to a ruptured aneurysm in his anterior cerebral artery. And we know that my mom has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic connective tissue disorder that can—among other things—weaken arterial walls.

The aneurysm will rupture. It is a genetic certainty, a dark inevitability, the final inheritance we have been quietly expecting.² The diagnosis of EDS we both share has only solidified this feeling, though we did not know until 2014 that any of our family had the disorder.

“But aren’t aneurysms usually treatable?” you may be asking. Yes, they often are. Yet even now, a month later, we do not know whether hers is treatable. Insurance has denied the follow-up scan at least twice now on a technicality, saying that the doctor’s office failed to provide all the necessary information. And usually, by now, I would have stepped in—I am an expert at dealing with insurance companies, after all—but she doesn’t want me to. Because regardless of the results, my mother is fairly certain she doesn’t want to do anything about the ticking time-bomb in her head.

Her quality of life has declined since 2018 when she suddenly could no longer work (my mother not able to work—the woman who was the textbook definition of a workaholic, the woman who was always busy and always building and always doing). She is terrified of being trapped in a body that brings her nothing but misery, and I do not blame her for it, because my own outlook is much the same.

(...But I am selfish and I don’t want her to die.)

I have been blessed with the perfect mother. She is quirky and amazing and mellow and hilarious and cute and hardworking and kind. She is sanity and stability and comfort and strength and the epitome of everything good and wonderful in this world. In my 35 years on this planet, I have been angry with her once.

I suppose I am gearing up to be angry with her a second time. Because anger is going to be the only thing that can mask the enormous grief I will feel when she is gone.

Anyway. I have made fic writing commitments through July, and those are my only fandom priority at this point. The MFPE is on the back burner, but I will try to get the postcards in the queue sent out to their recipients before the end of June. I know we didn't do our customary Mental Health Month event and I'm sad to say that Rebel and I may not have the spoons to do Holiday Cheer for 2023, either. If we do, it will be announced on on Tumblr (MFPE) and Dreamwidth (MFPE + Fandom Calendar).

FYI, I'm occasionally on Tumblr mindlessly reblogging, but I keep up better with my Dreamwidth reading page.

¹ I don’t believe I’m disassociating. But I have been reading constantly so that I do not have to think. (Fandom is saving my life once again. I read over 2.9 million words of fic in May.)

² Since I was a child, I have never really expected to live past age 60, due to my observations of my family’s longevity. But for some reason I was expecting my mom to be here until I was at least 50. (Hah—apparently I did not absorb the message of Proverbs 27:1 after all, despite the fact I recited it nearly every other Sunday [the KJV, of course] at my paternal grandfather’s cult gospel hall.)