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lucyandthepen · 7 months

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last young renegade | jjh

summary: your valentine’s day plans with jaehyun may have gone down the drain just a little. (okay — a lot.)

pairing: jaehyun x reader verse: canon, idol!verse rating: t warnings&tags: reader & jaehyun are in an established relationship, quite frankly there is nothing too out of the ordinary in this fic which is a shocker, it’s a rewritten fic so pls excuse any errors I may not have caught! word count: 5.02k

a/n: happy 2024 friends and family !!!!!! and advanced happy birthday to the man who created valentine’s day, he who is perhaps my first love in nct, jaehyun! this is actually just a fic I’ve been hoping to re-write a bit from before, and since it’s valentine’s themed, what better time to post it!! Enjoy enjoy, and may this year bring more fun, laughs, love (and debauchery) to this blog!

Yᴏᴜ sᴀɪᴅ ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ sɪᴄᴋ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛɪʀᴇᴅ ᴏғ ɪᴛ, ʙᴜᴛ ɪ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴏʀɴɪɴɢ, ɴɪɢʜᴛ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴀʏ.

♡ jaehyunnie ♡ I know I said birthday dinner but practice is running so late ㅠㅠ ♡ jaehyunnie ♡ Can we meet after? I’m sorry ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ How about I call you when we’re done? Maybe 11:30?

At times like this, you often wonder if it’s all worth it.

You know thinking that way is counterproductive, not to mention a little unfair. You knew exactly what to expect, getting into an under-wraps relationship with an idol, and so far, it’s lived up to most of your assumptions, and then some. It doesn’t help that Jaehyun, even just by name, tends to attract an unbelievable amount of attention. You know you can’t blame him; it’s not like he wants to be high on the radar every time, either. For some reason, though, you seem to be looking for something or someone to blame, which you also know is a dead end. You have no one to pin the blame onto apart from yourself by frequently generating doubts that keep your mind running around in circles.

It’s not even the sneaking around that gets tiring; it’s the waiting — waiting on calls, waiting on free time, waiting on a good opportunity to do something that doesn’t involve him suddenly getting pulled out to attend to one of many of his celebrity responsibilities. Over the last few years that you’ve dated, NCT has only ever gotten more popular; with that popularity came the fact that the public eye was trained on them, focusing on every microscopic detail of their lives. Jaehyun hates that more than anything, which is why he’s given up on trying to avoid it by practically escaping it altogether, locking himself up in the dorm with you when he has his precious few days off.

While it’s true that you definitely don’t miss having to play espionage when going out for a cup of coffee with him, you’ve also managed to memorize every single inch of Jaehyun’s room, which isn’t good for your mentality, you’re pretty sure. You have to keep reminding him to open the window whenever the both of you are in there, because all you do is stay in and watch English movies without subtitles to see who can understand the most without asking questions (obviously, he always wins) while eating food he runs up and down the stairs to get every other hour. And while him trying to imitate the British accents on these shows is genuinely funny, you’re starting to suspect even he’s starting to get tired of watching Harry Potter over and over again. Twenty hours sounds like a long time unless you spend every twenty-hour period you have together marathoning the exact same films. Much to both of your disappointment, your suggestion to watch it totally out of order did not make it cooler.

Still, you suppose it’s not all bad. Jaehyun also taught you how to play Fortnite on a couple of his days off back to back, and while you hadn’t been as good a player as you both had hoped, he’d still patiently waited for you every time you got lost on the map. He’d even given you his account’s password with the sentiment that this was him ‘taking things to the next level with you,’ and you get to log into his account and play whenever you want; he doesn’t even get mad when you’ve wasted all the stuff he’s farmed on your subpar gaming skills. And, well, the bigger picture was that you loved him. Based on how much effort he put into the relationship, plus the bonus of his trust in you when it came to his Fortnite account, you could at least be confident in that he returned the sentiment.

Except, sometimes, you still wonder if it would be easier for the both of you if he flew solo and didn’t have a girlfriend that tanked all of his player’s ammo and health kits and generally made a fool out of his cute little avatar while he was out breaking his back onstage.

You aren’t sure if Jaehyun’s been noticing the turmoil in you; you’re not that good at hiding how you feel, anyway, but if he has, he hasn’t said anything thus far. You do observe how much more he texts you when he has free time, which makes you feel doubly bad, because you know that he’s spending precious minutes he could be resting with on talking to you instead, which isn’t the best trade-off for someone who’s constantly busy — and thereby constantly tired — like him.

♡ jaehyunnie♡ ___________ I’m going to practice again, okay? Wait for my call ㅠㅠ You I’ll wait for your call ♡ ♡ jaehyunnie♡ I love you ㅠㅠㅠㅠ ♡ jaehyunnie♡ You love me too — a lot, right? I’ll keep my phone now, but I’ll make sure to check that you said so. ㅋㅋㅋ You Right! ㅎ I love you a lot! ♡

When the clock hits 12:01, and your phone is silent, your mind starts working on overtime again. It’s only when the special ringtone you’ve set for him comes to life at half-past midnight that you break your train of thought and put on your socks so you can meet Jaehyun at your front door.

You’ve made a rule — sort of like a deal — between the two of you that apologies aren’t necessary when work holds you up. You’ve cashed in on that deal a couple of times, but you’re both aware that it’s more for Jaehyun’s sake than anything else, and he keeps to his word on that much when you open the door and duck into his car. All he does is smile at you, and you smile back, and for the rest of the car ride, everything seems okay.

He always asks you about your day — unfailingly, at any chance he can. It’s never an off-handed question, either; Jaehyun takes great pride in his memory, and the sweetest thing about him is that he’s dedicated a good deal of it to knowing almost everything about you. Right now is no different. He asks you about your team manager, what you had for lunch; he grills you on if you took your vitamins today and if you got to break in the new shoes you bought online — the ones you’d been pining over for the last three months. He even asks you about the guy from the neighboring department who keeps asking you out for after-work drinks.

“He wanted to go to Hongdae tonight,” you tell him as he slows for a red light. “There’s some new pub of his friend’s doing a soft opening there tonight.”

“You could have gone.” He keeps his eyes on the road. “I wouldn’t have minded.”

“I didn’t want to.”

“Good.” He glances at you, a grin slowly spreading on his lips. “Because I lied. I might have minded a little. Or, you know, a lot.”

“Don’t tell me after all these years, you’ve turned into the kind of boyfriend that doesn’t let his girlfriend go out without him.”

“That’s impossible for me, and you know that,” he chuckles. “You can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Just not with that guy from the other department.”

“Don’t worry.” You tinker with the little charm dangling on your phone — half of a flat, metal heart dangling from a gold chain that Jaehyun had given you two years back on your birthday. He keeps the other half, but since he can’t freely attach it to any of his belongings, he keeps it wedged between the back of his phone and its case. You like watching him change the backing because he does it so carefully, like he’s worried the other half of the heart is going to break if he rips off the case willy nilly. “I told him my boyfriend and I were going out on a date tonight, so he backed off. Although he did wonder why I keep talking about a boyfriend he’s never seen.”

“And? What did you say?”

“I said it was none of his damn business.”

Jaehyun laughs loudly, and you go along with him, but you don’t miss how tired he looks when he sobers down, the green light illuminating all the shadows on his face as he steps on the gas again.

Nothing good is open this late at night — that is, nothing you haven’t seen before. You hadn’t even expected to go out at all, but since it was the day before Valentine’s Day as well as his birthday (or it would have been, if you hadn’t waited until midnight), Jaehyun had wanted to do something special without having to run into a huge crowd of couples on the day itself. Your only option is this from-out-of-town carnival that’s set up in tents and even has a medium-sized ferris wheel by the edge of the metal barricade. The parking lot is practically empty when Jaehyun pulls into a slot; you joke that he should break one rule and park in two slots, which he smugly replies to by saying he couldn’t park badly even if he tried.

He tucks your hair back behind your ears as he loops the strings of a face mask around them, using another one for himself. Between that and the brim of his cap, you can barely see his eyes. The only knowledge that you have that you’re walking next to the man you love is that he takes your hand in his, slender fingers finding their way between yours.

The carnival is half-closed when you get to the middle of it; there are still a few stragglers, but half the kiosks have their lights off already. There’s a woman dressed in flashy clothes standing on a patch of dead grass a few feet away, and she’s holding a hoop that a ginger cat is jumping through. Jaehyun steers you to them, and you stand there for a good five minute watching the cat roll on the ground and stand on its hind legs, but you can tell it’s been going it at for most of the day because at one point, it just ignores the lady, opting to weave its way between Jaehyun’s and your legs instead. You do have a pretty good time when he picks it up and cradles it in his arms so you can pet it for a second, but it just hisses when its owner approaches and jumps out of his hold, disappearing behind a row of trash bins.

Jaehyun doesn’t have anything in his wallet apart from his credit cards and 50,000 won, and the coin machine operator says he only has enough coins left to break down 5,000 won for the games, so you end up having to jog back to his car so you can fish out some coins from inside his glove compartment. You come up with a grand total of 1,500 won, and you have to sheepishly go back to the coin machine operator to change four 100 coins and a couple of 50s just to get the last 500. Jaehyun tells you to hold onto the three coins so he doesn’t run off with them entirely and leave you destitute.

You learn you can only do three things at most — you dedicate 500 won for the Ferris wheel entry tickets, which leaves you with 500 won each. The both of you agree on choosing one kiosk to play in, and with only about five left that are open, you don’t really have that many options. You end up dragging Jaehyun over to a stall with a pond filled with those magnetic toy fish, but 500 won only gets you one fishing rod. Since it’s your choice, Jaehyun lets you play, but you feel kind of stupid doing it on your own with him just watching you. In the end, he decides to stand behind you, his arms around your waist like he thinks closer contact isn’t even more distracting. You do manage to fish out 10 fish and win a small bear on a keychain. It doesn’t even pass through your hands as Jaehyun takes it from the stall operator immediately.

“That’s mine!” You whine, reaching out in vain to take it from him; he just holds it high over his head. His eyes are twinkling under the shadow his cap casts over his face. “I worked hard for that.”

“Let me keep this one,” he mimics the pleading lilt in your voice. “I’ll put it on my bag.”

“You know you can’t! Give it back.”

“I’ll win you a bigger one,” he promises. “Let me keep this one. It’s cute. It reminds me of you. I’ll kiss it goodnight before I sleep.” He starts to laugh softly. “And then you’ll feel this weird spirit kissing you at like two in the morning, and you’ll know it’s me.”

Your arms aren’t long enough to retrieve it, and you don’t really want to, so you settle with twisting his ear. He takes it in stride even if he over-acts, making pained noises while leading you to the kiosk he wants to go to. It’s a shooting range stall, and he pays his own precious 500 won for a dart gun. He’s barely paying attention when the guy starts explaining how many points are assigned to each balloon color, more concerned with talking to the bear keychain in his hand and pretending like he’s cooing at you. You have to hit him across the shoulder to get him to focus.

“You need to start picking out what prize you want,” he tells you — the actual you, not the animal keychain version — as he lifts the dart gun.

“I’ll wait for you to finish first.”

“No way.” He tilts his head, closing one eye to steady his line of sight. “Pick already. Or just go for the biggest one.”

“You know that Fortnite and dart guns aren’t the same thing, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m well-motivated.” He grins at you, one eye still shut. He looks like a baby pirate. “Go ahead. Pick the biggest one.”

“Why don’t you just shoot, and we’ll see.”

“Pick it,” he insists. “Tell me you have faith in me. Tell me you love me.”

“Okay, I love you,” you agree. “But I have no faith in you when it comes to this.”

“One out of two is fine,” he concedes, taking aim.

All three of you, including the stall operator, let out a disappointed groan when he misses his first shot. His comes with a sheepish laugh as he reloads, suddenly telling you to pick the second biggest prize instead. You can’t even watch him miss over and over, so you pretend to be interested in a bunch of teenage boys playing a game of cups one stall over, trying not to giggle when you hear him get increasingly more frustrated at himself. When you turn back around, you notice he’s holding two small pieces of gummy candy, offering one to you like a kindergartener. He helps you tug your face mask down so you can eat it.

There’s a food stall nearby that, thankfully, accepts credit and debit; Jaehyun fishes out his card to get you a corndog — only one because he’s watching his weight for the upcoming concert, apparently. This is information you hate hearing but have no say in, and he knows this; you know he does because he says ‘don’t worry about me’ totally out of the blue, like five minutes after the conversation ceases to be relevant.

His phone starts ringing when the food comes out, and he takes a tiny bite of it — more bread than hotdog — before he answers. You know it’s Taeyong by the way he answers.

“Hyung, sorry — can we talk later? I’m out with ____________.”

Taeyong says something loud but indiscernible on the other end. You piece together that it’s about tomorrow’s schedule when Jaehyun speaks again.

“I know. I’ll be home in a bit; don’t worry about it. I haven’t forgotten.”

There’s more garbled speech on the other line; Jaehyun gestures for you to keep eating, and you do, but you more concerned with the morphing expressions on his face than you are with the act of chewing. He’s making noncommittal noises in response to what seem to be commands and reminders. You’re pretty much done with the corndog by the time he says ‘Okay, hyung. Hyung — I’ll see you later, okay?’

“Taeyong hyung says hi,” he tells you once he’s hung up the phone. “He says you still need to give back that book you borrowed from him last year.”

“Oh yeah,” you finish off the last of the food. “I’ll drop it off within the week.”

“Don’t worry about it. He doesn’t actually mean it.”

Jaehyun watches you snap the stick in half and toss it in the trash bag.

“We can go home,” you say finally. His eyebrows shoot up. “You’re busy tomorrow. I forgot.”

“I didn’t forget, and it’s fine.”

“It’s almost two in the morning.” You check your phone to verify. “You probably have to be up in a few hours. You need to sleep, or you’ll die, Jaehyun. I’m too young to be a grieving widow.”

“Let’s at least ride the Ferris wheel,” he suggests. Before you can protest, he tugs you towards the rickety contraption, digging the 500 won out of your pocket and handing it to the bemused operator. He lets you choose what carriage you want because literally no one is on it anymore, and Jaehyun asks for the best carriage. You’re not sure how it differs from the rest, but he makes a show out of guiding you into it, and you don’t miss the corny ‘my lady,’ he mutters under his breath.

It’s small, clearly meant for either a tiny group of children or couples who want to be as close together as possible. It’s also not air-conditioned, and only one of the windows is open, so you end up sticking to Jaehyun’s arm on the way up. The view is still great, though, and you feel his hand settle on your knee as the carriage makes it slow ascent.

The ride up is quiet, and you press your face as close to the glass of the carriage as you dare, but Jaehyun doesn’t move an inch. His hand is still heavy on your thigh, but it doesn’t do anything but lay there. When you’re close to the top, you’re hit with the urge to do something romantic — kiss, maybe, tell him happy birthday, or say ‘I love you’ to him in the most sickening way possible — but when you turn to look at him, you have to hold your tongue.

Jaehyun is asleep, leaning against the corner of the carriage, head tilted down a little. His shoulders are rising and falling slowly, and he’s pulled down his face mask a little so he can breathe better; his lips are slightly parted by the slackening of his jaw. His left hand is shoved in his pocket, like he’d passed out halfway through reaching for something in there.

He doesn’t wake even when you move slightly so you can lean back next to him, rocking the carriage a little — not even when you reach up and adjust his head so he can rest on your shoulder. He breathes deeply, evenly, and you wonder if his ear against your shoulder allows him to hear your heart plummet unfairly to the bottom of your stomach.

You have to shake him to rouse him when the ride comes to an end; when he opens his eyes and realizes what happened, he looks mortified. Instinctively, he opens his mouth, but you fling the carriage door open and step out before he can apologize.

You have a deal, and he knows what he shouldn’t be doing.

His grip on your hand is much tighter as you walk back to the parking lot, and he doesn’t let go, even on the road. The trip back is quieter, maybe because it’s late, or maybe because there are a ton of things the both of you want to say but can’t.

He slows down when he gets to your street, but when he stops in front of your building, he doesn’t immediately unlock the doors to let you out. Instead, he turns to you, licking his lips a little nervously.

“Can you…” he clears his throat because his voice cracks a little on the first attempt. “Can you come back with me? To the dorm?”

“I have work tomorrow, Jaehyun.”

“It’s still at eleven, isn’t it? I can bring you home before that. You still have some stuff in my room. You can get ready there.”

“Won’t you be too busy?”

“Just—” he sighs softly. “Can you? Please?”

You don’t know how to say no to Jaehyun, and tonight isn’t a night you’re willing to try. It’s why fifteen minutes later, you’re walking through the front door of his dorm. Donghyuck, sitting at his computer in his room with the door ajar, greets you sleepily as you pass by.

Jaehyun steps in the shower with you; you don’t talk, maybe because you’re worried you might wake the others up if you start a full-blown conversation in a bathroom surrounded by other bedrooms. He just passes you what you need, and you do the same for him, and somewhere in between, he kisses you under the spray of the water.

Later, he falls asleep with a face mask on, and you have to peel it off for him and toss it into the trash. The tip of his nose is shiny, and you want to kiss it, but you know it’ll wake him, and you noticed he’d set his alarm to go off two hours from now. He’s set out a couple of earplugs for you so that you don’t hear it, but you don’t put them in. You want to see him before he leaves, even if it’s in the deadest hours of morning, so you just crawl into bed with him. A minute before you doze off, you feel his damp skin press against your neck, his form curled up against your back.

The alarm never wakes you; the sun is out when you open your eyes, and when you check your phone, you see that it’s already half-past nine. You also notice that there’s nothing from Jaehyun on your screen, but you try not to dwell on that, considering that you’d been expecting to wake up to an empty bed. His side of the mattress is cold, which means that he’s been gone for some time.

You don’t know if it’s just because you’re groggy, but your insides still feel like lead when you sit up. The part of you that nags about this relationship is back at full force when you start thinking about Jaehyun going to a pre-recording two hours after spending the last of his energy on you. You start wondering if you’re doing the right thing if it feels like you’re just dragging him down. Your heart clenches tightly when the worst thought hits — maybe, just maybe, he’s tired of you, too.

But you won’t let him go. More to the point — you can’t. He’s the best part of your life; it’d be a cold day in hell if you decided to leave him.

Even the thought of it makes you feel like dying.

Then again, this isn’t all up to you.

You’re rubbing the sleep out of your eyes — and maybe a couple of frustrated tears — when the door creaks open. You see two mugs and his hands before you see the rest of him come through the doorway. Jaehyun whispers a careful good morning as he sets the coffee down on his table, making sure to push his keyboard away to avoid accidents, before sitting down next to you. You notice that there’s an envelope next to one of the mugs; the flap is slightly open, and from under it, a flash of red peeks out.

His hand finds its way back to your knee — it’s his favorite resting place, he’s told you once. Your lap feels like home, he’d joked. Maybe he touches it every so often because it’s like a reset button for him.

He doesn’t ask if you slept well, or if you want to get ready before having your coffee, or if you’re okay. He just squeezes your knee a little tighter. It’s you that has to start the conversation this time.

“How did it go?”

“It went great. You’ll see it on TV later tonight,” he starts rubbing your thigh idly. “You’ll watch it later, right?”

“Of course. I’ll call you and tell you how cool you look.”

He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. When you lapse into silence again, it’s because you’re expecting him to say something, but he doesn’t come out with it directly. You try not to let it show that you’re worried, that you’re skeptical, that you’re wondering if he thinks he’s too tired, too busy for this, too.

You’re expecting him to start how most break-ups start. You know I love you, right? And then the telltale but… would come, and you would have to hold back your tears and smile for him, and tell him you know, and that you understand it isn’t the right time, but maybe one day, someday, when he isn’t everyone’s Jung Jaehyun anymore — only yours.

“You love me, right?”

It’s not what you’d been expecting. Nor is it the playful little text he’d sent — no laughs, no jokes. His expression is somber, mouth pressed into a thin line.

“You know I do.”

“A lot, right?”

“A lot,” you confirm softly.

“Then whatever it is that you’re thinking about us,” he says quietly. “Don’t. Don’t think it. Don’t do it.”

“Jaehyun—”

“I know it’s hard,” his fingers dig into your skin a little. “I know I put you through a lot. I know you think that I’m suffering because of this relationship too. I know everything. But whatever you think I’m going to do, I won’t do it — not ever. So if you’re thinking of it too, I’m begging you. Don’t. Please.”

Maybe he had noticed all this time. A wave of guilt washes over you when you see the pained look on his face; perhaps you were even more transparent than you’d originally thought. You nod slowly to show your understanding, and he continues.

“I know yesterday wasn’t the best you could have hoped for,” he carefully avoids apologizing, although it’s written all over his features. “For me, too. I… I wanted something different. It’ll be better next time. Do you believe me?”

You hear him swallow — his nails are biting into your thigh a little, so you have to gently peel his hand off. Your fingers replace it, tightening around his palm as you nod.

“I believe you.”

“And you trust me, right?”

“With my life.”

“Then can you put your faith in me right now?” He asks. “Don’t panic. Just — just say yes.”

He pats around his pants, finally deciding to slip his hand into his left-hand pocket. Unlike on the Ferris wheel, he manages to extract something, but he keeps it closed in his fist. It’s shaking a little as he takes your hand in his other one, pressing something small and hard into your palm before he curls your fingers over it. His hold keeps your fist closed as he starts talking.

“It’s not immediate. We’ll figure it out. We’ll tell the right people, and they’ll help us tell everyone else — the public, the press. It doesn’t have to happen right now, or any time soon either— not if you don’t want it to. We can take it slow, or whatever. Anything you want — just as long as it’s with me.”

“Jaehyun,” you shake your head, a little dizzy. “What are you talking about?”

He slowly loosens his hold on your fingers, his hand dropping to the same spot on your knee. You’re free to open your fist, and when you do, you can’t help but feel a little stumped.

“I don’t mean now,” he repeats, now sounding doubly worried. “It’s not — It’s just…”

“You’ll get in trouble. We can’t.”

“I won’t. Not if we do this right. Like I said, we can do it slowly. Months — years, however long it takes to do it well. What it is — it’s just… a promise.”

“A promise,” you echo. It does have a nice ring to it.

“That I’m not leaving you. Not ever. And… if you say yes, that you won’t either.”

Your coffee has probably turned cold. Jaehyun is watching you carefully, looking like he’s trying hard not to bite his lip. You look back down at your hand, and he speaks up again.

“You know I love you, right?”

You smile slightly. “No but?”

“No but,” he agrees.

The ring fits nicely on your finger; maybe it’s well-measured from the amount of times he’s held your hand tightly in his.

“Okay, Jaehyun,” you whisper. “I promise.”

When you place your hand on his, he twists his palm, slender fingers gently twirling the ring around the base of your finger.

Minutes later, he hands you your coffee. It’s sweet and milky, the way he knows you like it best. When he settles back down on the bed, you notice his eyes travel to your finger again, a small smile playing on his lips.

Perhaps, in this moment, you finally learn to ask the right questions — not about if it’s worth it, but if he is.

And in this moment, where he sits in silence with you, the sunlight pouring in from his window hitting the tips of his hair and the end of his nose, with the knowledge that his heart is as full as yours, you come to realize that there can — and never will be — any doubt of that.

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sideprince · 9 months

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Eileen Prince

I'm relentlessly curious about how a witch from Slytherin, a house that values cunning and ambition on paper, and bloodlines/nobility in its culture, ended up living in a muggle slum.

Unfortunately for me, she's a barely mentioned character written by an author who consistently fails to portray female characters with depth or dimension. The women in Harry Potter are portrayed as either maternal or villains, or, in Ginny Weasley's case, as redeemed by their masculine traits (because Rowling's Thatcher era feminism dictates that equality for women = emulating patriarchal ideas of manhood). About as much as you can expect from an author who's as unable to acknowledge the personhood of trans women as she is to write women as actual people. This leaves a lot of room for interpreting or delving into what Eileen Prince's life may have looked like, and how that would have affected her son's development.

There are three direct mentions of Eileen in the text :

“The picture showed a skinny girl of around fifteen. She was not pretty; she looked simultaneously cross and sullen, with heavy brows and a long, pallid face. Underneath the photograph was the caption: Eileen Prince, Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team.”

HBP Ch. 25

“I was going through the rest of the old Prophets and there was a tiny announcement about Eileen Prince marrying a man called Tobias Snape, and then later an announcement saying that she’d given birth to a" “ — murderer,” spat Harry.

HBP ch. 30

“Harry looked around: he was on platform nine and three-quarters, and Snape stood beside him, slightly hunched, next to a thin, sallow-faced, sour-looking woman who greatly resembled him.”

DH Ch. 33

(Shoutout to Harry James Potter, who didn't recognize Eileen's fifth year photo despite her resemblance to Snape, the teacher whose classroom he got his used Potions book from. Shoutout also to Harry James Potter who didn't connect the dots between the Prince's handwriting and Snape's, a teacher who regularly wrote instructions on the board. "I needed to make the plot work, ok?" - JK Rowling, probably.)

Other relevant excerpts:

“Snape staggered - his wand flew upwards, away from Harry - and suddenly Harry’s mind was teeming with memories that were not his: a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner ”

OoTP Ch. 26

“Harry delved into his trunk and pulled out his copy of Advanced Potion-Making before getting into bed. There he turned its pages, searching, until he finally found, at the front of the book, the date that it had been published. It was nearly fifty years old.”

HBP Ch. 16

Supplemental material re: Gobstones from JK Rowling:

"...it remains a minority sport within the wizarding world, and does not enjoy a very ‘cool’ reputation, something its devotees tend to resent. Gobstones is most popular among very young wizards and witches, but they generally ‘grow out’ of the game, becoming more interested in Quidditch as they grow older. ... Gobstones enjoys limited popularity at Hogwarts, ranking low among recreational activities, way behind Quidditch and even Wizarding Chess." [There's an additional sentence on the Harry Potter wiki's Gobstones page: "...it is also known as 'the thinking wizard's Quidditch.'"]

A few conclusions can be drawn from what little information we're given about Eileen:

She's described as "cross and sullen" around the age of 15, and as "sallow-faced, sour-looking" when she's older.

She's captain of the Gobstones club around her fifth year, so she likely marched to the beat of her own drum - given that Gobstones isn't particularly popular - and owns it proudly enough to take, or even seek out, a leadership role.

The sport is described as "the thinking wizard's Quidditch" which would imply Eileen was more interested in intellectual challenges and was clever (and can be paralleled with a young Severus' comment about "if you'd rather be brawny than brainy" to James Potter when they first meet on the Hogwarts Express).

Her marriage and the birth of her son are both announced in the paper, which might mean the family she came from was of some importance or note, or perhaps something else... but we'll get to that.

If we assume that Severus' secondhand copy of Advanced Potion Making was originally Eileen's (reasonable, though there is no textual evidence) then its publication date is likely around the time she was a sixth year, given that this particular text was specific to students beginning to prep for N.E.W.T. exams. Harry begins his sixth year in 1996 when the book is "nearly fifty years old," so we can assume Eileen was 16 years old sometime not long after 1946. Severus was born in 1960, which would mean Eileen was in her mid-late 20s at the time.

Her marriage was dysfunctional at best, abusive at worst. As per a Pottermore post that is still up on WizardingWorld.com: "...the desperately lonely and unhappy childhood [Severus] had with a harsh father who didn’t hold back when it came to the whip." Based on this, we can assume Tobias was abusive, and given Eileen's cowering as he shouted at her, she presumably feared him.

From these bits of information emerges the image of a woman who either had a surly personality, or at the very least was guarded, though perhaps just formal. There isn't really any difference in how her face is set when she's in an everyday setting like King's Cross, or when she's having her picture taken for the Gobstones Club. It's possible she was a stern, unsmiling person, but it's also possible - given that her wedding and child were announced in the paper - that she came from a family of some standing and was raised to conduct herself with hallmarks of British class, such as dignity and unaffectedness. After all, there are several wizarding families - such as the Potters - who are wealthy purebloods with social standing but are not part of the Sacred 28. Additionally, the Gobstones Club portrait would have been taken around the mid-1940s, when portraits were formal and their subjects did not often smile, and given that we see only a snippet of Eileen, we don't have enough information that she was unhappy or sour. It's also important to remember that we see her portrait and Snape's memory of her through Harry's perspective and, like his perception of Snape himself, this may convey Harry's biases.

We also know from the text that Snape had a house in a deserted part of Cokeworth, a fictional Midlands town that presumably had a collapsed milling industry, at the end of a street called Spinner's End. There's a great thread that goes into details about the kind of 2 up 2 down house it would have been, and we can assume that this is Snape's family home given that we know he and Lily grew up in Cokeworth. For all intents and purposes, the conclusion we can draw from this being the Snape family's home in the 60s is that they were working class and cripplingly poor. Most estates like this had been cleared by the 60s, and no longer exist today.

This begs the question: how did a witch from a possibly well-off family end up in an abusive marriage in an irrelevant slum?

Buckle up kids, we're leaving the world of textual references and veering into deep meta territory now. I won't label any of this as head canon because I'm not set on these interpretations, and am just drawing conclusions from the text, but some of it may be a bit loose even for meta.

If Eileen was 16 years old not long after 1946, then she would have finished school in the late 40s, possibly even 1950. While some people (including past me) posit the theory that Tobias may have been injured in WWII and his injuries debilitated him, forcing him to go on the dole and affecting his mental health, I'm increasingly skeptical of this theory. It would make more sense if Eileen had known him before he was drafted/enlisted and had committed to a relationship with him, which would then have changed when he came back from the war and was altered. If we assume Eileen's age based on the idea that it was her own copy of Advanced Potion Making Severus used, then she would still have been at school during WWII (which makes an interesting parallel with Severus' own experience of spending the bulk of the first wizarding war against Voldemort as a student at school).

I do think, however, that there's merit in the theory that Tobias suffered some kind of altering injury and that he wasn't necessarily abusive before Eileen committed herself to him. It makes little sense for a Slytherin graduate who was confident and self-posessed enough to be the face of an unpopular club to be drawn to a partner so abusive his shouts caused her to cower and who whipped his child freely. If, however, he was a charming, happy man when they met who suffered a life-altering injury, the trauma of which left him a shell of his former self, then someone like Eileen might stick around for the sake of the parts of his old self she can still see in him.

It's interesting that she didn't seem to use her magic to protect herself or her son, or even to dress her son in clothing that fit, but we know from the text that depression can cause a wizard's powers to wane:

“...it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen”

HBP Ch. 13 (Dumbledore talking about Merope Gaunt)

The fact that the Snapes retained the house in Spinner's End seems to indicate that they continued to live there even when the local industry dried up and the slum was cleared as workers were moved to other parts of the country where they were needed (presumably what happened given *gestures at British history*). The most likely explanation for this would be that Tobias wasn't able to work, and perhaps did suffer an injury, only it was at work, and not during the war. This would mean the family lived on the dole (ie. welfare) and also that he would have spent a lot more time at home. It would also explain his anger and frustration that led to abusive behavior (which isn't to say that disabled people are abusive by any means, but it would have been emasculating for a man who considered himself the breadwinner in the 60s, and chronic pain coupled with limited abilities would give anyone a short fuse).

Moreover, this living situation seems to indicate that there is no additional support coming from anywhere. Where is Eileen's family? Why were they not helping? There's no indication in the text that there is any connection with them at all. We can infer from Snape's memories that, as a child, he learned what he knew about the magical world from his mother. This implies that she talked to him about it a fair amount, and his conviction that he and Lily were going to Hogwarts well before they got their letters also implies that Eileen expected him to go there and was set on her son having a magical education, despite how little she seemed to use her own powers.

Severus knows a lot about the wizarding world as a child, including that prisoners are sent to Azkaban and that it's guarded by Dementors, Hogwarts' house structure and what to expect when he and Lily get there, and about the Statute of Secrecy and the laws around it. When Lily asks him if it makes a difference being Muggleborn, Severus hesitates before replying no, presumably because he's aware of pureblood bias being a part of wizarding culture.

Perhaps that's the reason Eileen's family doesn't seem to be in the picture. My own theory is that Eileen hadn't planned to commit herself to Tobias long-term, and Severus was an accidental outcome of an innocent tryst in which a young Eileen, an educated witch from a well to do pureblood family, was having fun slumming it with a working class muggle and ended up pregnant. While we don't know the wizarding world's attitude around pregnancy and abortion, we do know it's a conservative and classist society that parallels muggle British culture fairly closely, and that the late 50s/early 60s were a time when an out of wedlock baby would have been considered a disgrace.

Add to that the anti-muggle bias of a pureblood family and it sounds like Eileen was disowned her for her mistake (and don't @ me, but even though I know that not all Slytherins are purebloods, it does seem to be a persistent cultural value of the house reaching back to Salazar Slytherin himself, so Eileen's being sorted into it can reasonably be taken as an indication of her blood status). Perhaps the marriage and birth announcements in the Daily Prophet were put in by Eileen herself, if she was a woman from a family where this was customary. It may have been her way of letting her family know of the events, or even of asserting herself and even deliberately defying them, announcing to the whole wizarding world that a Prince married and had a child with a muggle. It makes sense that the girl who wasn't just in the Gobstones club, but became captain, would also say to herself, why shouldn't I have my marriage announced in the paper like everyone else in the family?

It's worth noting that mid-late 20s is pretty young to have a baby in the wizarding world, where the life expectancy and child bearing years are much longer than they are for a muggle. According to the Harry Potter wiki:

"Wizard life expectancy in Britain reached an average 137¾ years in the mid-1990s, according to the Ministry of Divine Health ... Wizards in general have a much longer life expectancy than Muggles, usually living two or three times as long as their non magical counterparts, some living even longer than that depending on circumstances. In addition, seeing as James Potter's parents had him "late in life,” witches likely have significantly longer childbearing years than Muggle women."

Although we see several characters in Severus' generation getting married and having kids not long after leaving school, there's a mention in the text that a lot of people were doing this during Voldemort's reign, as the fear he inspired made people more eager to get a move on with life since they thought they might die any day (I think Mrs. Weasley says this but I can't find the quote, @ me if you do). It's clear this wasn't the norm in the wizarding world. Eileen was a Slytherin, a house that values cunning, ambition, and strong wizarding heritage. Something must have gone very wrong in Eileen's life for her to end up having a child so young and living in a muggle slum.

And so it's possible Eileen Prince found herself pregnant and alone, having been disowned by her family to save face in light of her disgrace, and dependent on the only person she was still close to, the father of her child. It's the kind of storyline that Rowling would write, and it would parallel fairly closely the story of Voldemort's mother, thus adding another to the long list of similarities between Voldemort and Snape.

Lorrie Kim makes an interesting point when she talks about how Snape has a strong reaction to other people having a love life or romantic experiences (the context being Rowling's intention of his love for Lily being romantic and unrequited), but doesn't react particularly strongly to mothers sacrificing themselves for their children, whereas Voldemort does. Her insight, and I think it's a reasonable one, is that Severus accepts the idea of mothers making sacrifices for their children, whether it's Lily giving her life for Harry or Narcissa risking all she did to ask for his help in protecting Draco, because his own mother protected him from his father as much as she could.

There's a lot of room for interpretation on what Eileen's relationship with her son looked like, and what it says about her own state. She may have prioritized not angering Tobias to protect Severus, who as a child might have perceived her actions as a form of rejection. At the same time, she seems to have prepared him thoroughly for life in the magical world, perhaps in the hope that he would find his place in it and escape home. Perhaps she missed it and told him so much about it so she could live through her own memories.

The only time we see her argue with Tobias, in Severus' memory, she's cowering as he shouts. We know from JK Rowling that Tobias used corporal punishment liberally, which implies Eileen didn't stop him despite her magical abilities. We also see in the text, however, that while at school Severus stood up for himself against bullies and fought back, and that he was an exceptionally clever and powerful wizard. As an adult he was brave enough to face Dumbledore when he betrayed Voldemort, and later fought against Voldemort right under his nose (or lack thereof). So it stands to reason that at some point Severus began to stand up against Tobias too.

How much of that was Eileen's influence, or the result of Severus seeing her acceptance of her fate and rejecting it for himself, is hard to say. As for what happened to Tobias and Eileen that their house was Severus' by the mid-90s and they were nowhere in sight, I don't think there's enough information in the text to infer.

#meta #long post #eileen prince

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theliteraryarchitect · 8 months

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You can burn your story slower than you think.

There's a lot of noise online about getting your reader's attention immediately, starting in medias res (in the middle of things), and the slippery science of "hooks." But readers are a lot more patient than we give them credit for.

Recently I've been re-reading the Harry Potter books. The Goblet of Fire is 734 pages long. When would you guess that Harry discovers his name has been entered into the goblet, and that he will have to participate in the tri-wizard tournament?

Based on the usual writing advice, I'd guess no more than a few chapters into the book, say, page 100? But Harry doesn't have his name called until page 271. And he doesn't start the first task until page 337. That's halfway through the book!

What happens in the meantime?

First, Rowling works in the background information we'll need to understand the ending. She shows us Wormtail's reunion with Voldemort, introduces Bagman and Crouch, lets us know how a Portkey works, and explains the unforgivable curses.

Second, she introduces a few mysteries--Harry's painful scar, the mystery of who set off the dark mark at the Quidditch World Cup, and, of course, repeated references to an unknown event that will be taking place at Hogwart's this year. These unanswered questions keep the reader curious as she takes her time in the first half of the book.

So she's not leaving us adrift in those first 300 pages. But she's also not hitting us over the head with some incredible event right away. The lesson? If you leave a trail of breadcrumbs, no matter how faint, readers will follow them to the end, and your story can burn delightfully slowly--no forced drama required.

Hope this helps!

#writeblr #writing advice #op #fiction #slow burn

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thatdeadaquarius · 9 months

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Harry Potter/Genshin Impact Crossover Fun🎉

for @kiraisastay my beta reader for the big fat Eldritch AU awhile back! :)

“…a genshin/Harry Potter crossover where reader (still fem) comes from genshin (so she has a vision) and tries to fit in at Hogwarts (would love for it to be set around the Goblet Of Fire so the hp characters in that age start maturing and actually understand what happens around them and aren't little kids , plus, y'know, YULE BALL), would also like for the reader to have a more stoic/emotionless personality with tragic past (so like having scars y'knowww) cuz it makes character building a lot more juicy ahah, but you can write it however you want tho!! (this can be funnier to write if you're feeling a lot creative)”

UGH sorry i took forever! im rlly bad at estimating time...

I hope this is a fun read at least, and thanks for much for taking on that eldritch monster fic awhile back lol

☆

Orbit: Long Headcanon/fic-thing (~2k words) - Harry Potter x Genshin Impact Crossover (4th Year)

Sun: Feminine Reader (she/her), Slytherin Reader, Reader is 15-16 year old.

Stars: Harry, Ron, Hermione, McGonagall, Dumbledore, Snape, Viktor Krum, mentions of others.

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: Reader has rough past, & Trigger Warnings: vague mentions of scars, Reader has bad relationship with parents.

☆

You’re so fucking happy your Cryo Vision came with you.

You knew you were in a different country, one you definitely had never been to before, but you couldn’t figure out for the life of you where it was at first

Your first guess was Fontaine, but the robes and strange overuse of catalyst weapons (actually, only catalyst weapons??) began to convince you otherwise real quick,

Fontaine was just the closest country you could compare it to

yeah so obviously by the time u realized you shouldn't be waving a sword around, it was too late lmao, u scared the shit out of the potions shopkeeper and had to make a hasty exit

bc for some reason any other weapon than a catalyst is shamed here?? which makes no sense to you, as it seems like their “magic” here could just as easily be channeled into different weapons/items??

u guess not having monsters to randomly fight everytime u just wanna take a walk outside makes for a pretty peaceful world, and specifically this country ”England” or the “United Kingdom”

u had taken a week or so to re-orient yourself to this new world, how only a certain society knew about their magic, how there were no gods here, at least not any u could easily interact with, and that most people your age would be in school still???

while u could choose to pursue higher education or specialize in Sumeru’s Akademiya, basic schooling was still provided in every country in Teyvat up until about 15 years old

but at this point u were willing to do what it took to blend into this world, and u didnt want anyone to be asking how old u were/why u werent in school when you wandered around, so u went to Hogwarts

It also proved to be a good way to acquaint urself with the world/its magic and give u a place to better excuse any social or magical mistakes

But needless to say, u struggled, u had to constantly find some workaround for “magic” from the wands/catalysts in classes

and luckily they took u being a transfer student pretty smoothly, as u were just in time for the “Triwizard Tournament” to be announced and other schools were coming to participate, u easily got accepted in

and the only one who batted an eye at it was the weird old Headmaster, who u already suspected knew more abt u than he was letting on (Dumbledore seemed to have eyes everywhere the more u learned, which made u more suspicious of him too)

you'd been sorted into Slytherin, along with the Russian magical students, (Durmstrang?)

of which you had absolutely no frame of reference for how bad that was, other than being accused of literally being from the Abyss 💀

while the rest of the student body treated u with the basic contempt u learned all Slytherins just seemed to kind of get all the time, ur own house was a little more confusing when it came to you

some were curious abt all the scars, the strange glowing snowflake gem that u concealed on ur hip, what ur country was like and what the magic school over there was like (thank fuck for ur poker face and insane lying skills that made it believable)

(there was absolutely a rumor abt u pulling a sword on Filch at some point, u neither denied nor supported it)

the other half of the slytherins were all uptight about u possibly being a “Muggleborn” and sneered at u every chance they got (some weird blond kid a year or 2 below you??)

or they outright ignored u

tbh u didn't really get much genuine favor between Slytherins just being Slytherins and ur own reputation/cold disposition until Professor Snape saw how good u were at potions a month into this insanity

(it was just basic alchemy? nearly everyone, especially Vision-users, knew how to do it back home? why was it so special here?? u had this kind of question a lot in this world over most things, like the “muggles dont know abt magic” thing, it seem like more trouble than its worth.)

U both got along in the same way a cold-demeanor father bonds with his carbon copy cold-demeanor daughter lol

in which he invited u for tea sometimes out of polite extra teaching for “ur future plans of being a potion master, like myself”

which okay?? u were better than most ur age at potions bc of alchemy (which u learned is taught at higher levels of potion mastery) and its not like you've figured out how to get back to ur world anytime soon

so u just roll with that being ur “future career” for now, it makes the old emo professor happy so u figure why not

And its the first scrap of favor you’ve found here so it works

Tho u did complain at Snape for picking on Gryffindors, saying “ur rlly not helping that Slytherin reputation for tall dark and evil here”

He proceeded to make u clean and reorganize his potion stores for that lol

(Tho he did start to lighten up the more u picked on him abt it, the poor kid with huge round glasses followed you with his huge green eyes for weeks, he seems to be the only one who's really realized ur the one convincing Snape to mellow out)

U begin researching information (thanks to Snape) in the forbidden part of the library abt different worlds/time travel, anything thatd put u close to possibly getting back home

Or, to be honest, a portal would be better, bc youd like to come back here sometimes,

Its not like u have family back home (not any who you'd want to visit), mostly just a few good friends who'd be worried abt u (Childe misses his sparring partner for sure)

Which then leads u to noticing that boy with the black hair and big round glasses (was it smth like,,, harold sculptor? Atp that seems like a feasible name to you bc in this world parents rlly were cruel abt naming their kid “feathery” or smth wild)

Harold and two others, one with fluffy long hair, and the other a redhead,

Were attempting to “spy” on u from behind bookshelves or at tables seated near the forbidden section

U saw them learn the times u came there and how they made sure to match them (tho it seems the redhead got bored easily and begged to eat instead)

You'd actually managed to make friends with some Durmstrang friends in the meantime too

And by that u mean Viktor Krum mostly

Ppl were constantly obsessed with him and he'd managed to escape up the astronomy tower to get some peace and quiet,

Only to run into u reading away, and he'd heard abt ur reputation, and wanted to befriend u

U two got along rlly well, lots of peaceful silences, and chill convos, esp since u guys had some stuff in common

Mostly how ur both foreign to Hogwarts/this country and adjusting still

Anyway that is to say, Viktor teased u abt the ducklings following u around everywhere thinking they were sneaky

And this was a routine u got used to, until it was time for the tournament

You hadnt bothered to put ur name in, u didnt feel like risking ur life for no reason afterall

So needless to say u were pissed when rumors went around abt u putting Harol- Harry's name in the goblet

(u finally learned his name, apparently he's famous for not dying? As a baby?? A powerful tyrant evil wizard wanted to kill him as a baby??? Just,, why)

Not only that but then he was obligated to be in the tournament???

U knew there was smth insane abt this school, bringing back this crazy tournament in the first place, somehow getting Harry's name in the goblet,

but u didn't think they were batshit crazy.

(Dumbledore is not helping his case in your eyes, esp as u suspect he’s got Snape involved in his BS too somehow…)

So needless to say you were going to fix this mess since these seasoned “wizard adults” weren't 😒

You snuck into the Great Hall using a high level alchemy invisibility amulet, and used ur Cryo vision to extinguish the Goblet of Fire 💀

It reset the game, and luckily they were able to resubmit the champions to the Triwizard Tournament and hide away the Goblet before it got tampered with again

Lol u got Harry out of it, and it wasnt until later in the library that u get cornered by the Gryffindor fourth year himself

He admits to seeing u under his invisibilty cloak that night and thanks you for getting him out of that hell, poor kid looks so grateful 😭

But regardless of that, he insists u tell him abt the ice spell u used, how u used it wandless, with no incantation, etc.

You just gave him a small smile (his big green eyes look even more shocked behind the glasses, what, was that old professor right? do u rlly not smile that much?) and tell him he owes u one

He agrees and u go on ur way to the forbidden section

(U dont explain the ice, afterall, who would believe him? You werent even that much older, and only “master wizards” could do what u did)

After that, Harry starts to follow u around a lot more,

much to the annoyance of his redhead friend (Rodrick? Rocky? smth with a R-) and the absolute admiration of the younger girl with big hair

the champions start the first trial, and u help Viktor out with a plan to defeat the dragon and get the egg in one piece (u had lots of experience with monsters after all, and Viktor and Snape, who couldn't keep his big nose out of your business, were simultaneously disturbed and yet not surprised by this information)

it works flawlessly, and that's when you notice the new DA teacher acting suspicious

as the champions gear up for the 2nd trial, u help Viktor try to figure out the egg’s secrets,

Both Harry and Hermione have taken to interrupting ur library research time (u finally learned her name, but not the redhead, he seemed a bit rude tbh so u don't care to know)

after brainstorming (well more like talking at the brick wall that was Snape) with the old potions professor over tea gossip time again, u finally figure out how to get the egg open without screaming, and tell Viktor

Who thanks u by taking u to the Yule Ball, but u only manage the first dance before u get absorbed in the food and the cool decor, and u also convince him to gossip with u in the corner too

(u do appreciate having a reason to dress up at least, as you attempt to imitate the Tsaritsa herself with this dress)

U notice further on into the night that Hermione ran out looking upset, and ur “girl’s girl” instinct kicks in, (regardless of ur neutrality for her, u lie to urself) and follow her outside to comfort her

u talk, and tho ur cold demanour did intimidate her a little, after she realized u were genuinely trying to help her, she took u up on the offer, and asked if u two could be friends since she’s “surrounded by stupid Gryffindor boys all the time”

u agreed amused, and convinced her to join Viktor and u in ur gossip session, which Harry (after humiliating himself on the dance floor), joined in later as well

(You may or may not have iced the floor secretly under the redhead’s and the equally annoying prissy Slytherin blonde’s feet, sending them sprawling on top of each other, so neither would come bother u four)

Over the next week you hear from Hermione’s researching/studying sessions with you that Ron did apologize to her, of which u advised her to get revenge on him anyway lmao

Harry at one point came groaning and complaining to you abt Cedric bothering him abt the egg problem, and u went ahead and gave it to him

Finally the next task was here, something abt rescuing smth underwater that mattered to each of the champions

u were immediately on ur guard when Dumbledore called u and 3 other seemingly random ppl to ur office (but u began to connect the dots after realizing one of them was the little sister of the Fontai- French Champion)

only to deflect the spell that would've knocked u out, and instead pretend to be knocked out

u obv kept ur Vision on u at all times, as always, and realized what was happening as the teachers levitated u all out to the lake

Snape snapped about being the one in charge of you, (and lowkey told u he knew u were awake, did he sound a little,, proud?? no, not Snape surely of all ppl)

Viktor did end up fishing you out, which he said u “looked like a very unhappy drenched old tom cat” while swimming to shore, (u awkwardly pat him on the back for thinking ur the best part of Hogwarts, and then smacked him for getting u kidnapped to go into a freezing lake)

and u also ended up helping Viktor rescue the other girl left behind, and froze some of the mermaids’ tails in the water for their trouble

Fleur was so grateful that she came to hunt you (and Viktor too at the time) for helping her and her sister that she came to thank u two again while at the library

which then led to her sometimes hanging around ur table at the library (everyone avoids it like the plague initially bc of you, but now youve got a gaggle of wizards rotating out all the time, like the younger years Harry/Hermione/Ron, Viktor, and now Fleur)

by the time the third trial rolls around, youve taken to bullying the prissy blonde brat a year below you to keep him from not only bothering Harry and Hermione, but also ur own peace and quiet

The other Slytherins are beginning to warm up to you, or at least not actively ignore you, since you’ve been hanging around Viktor Krum, along with gaining favor from Snape more obviously (he’d plopped a singular towel in ur lap after getting out of the lake, and u might as well have “Snape’s Favorite” written across ur forehead for all that means)

(also some of them may or may not find u roasting the annoying blonde bully kid amusing too)

it isn't until u see the creepy retired Aura (or whatever they call their knights) DA professor milling about the castle more, nearer the Gryffindor tower, that you begin to warn Harry to spread the word among his little lion club to not travel alone, esp in the evenings

(u don't like how his weird rolling blue eye looks thru you, it reminds u of Dumbledore)

by the time the third trial is finally announced, you have ur sights set on that weird old man, and end up following him to his classroom at one point,

in which he cracks open a rattling trunk, tosses some food in, and seems to have definitely stolen what you assume to be the Triwizard trophy

he casts a spell on it, and you put on that same invisibiltiy amulet from alchemy to better follow him, and watch him sneak into Dumbledore’s office to return the trophy

(You break the “portkey” spell you find on it)

(you also leave a note behind on the headmaster’s desk to look into a trunk in the new DA professor’s classroom storage, and to be more careful hiring the next one.)

Harry somehow gets sucked into the maze you find out, and you end up sneaking in to save him, using your sword and Cryo Vision to battle him out

(finally, Archons, you didnt realize how much you'd miss fighting monsters)

Aurors descend upon Hogwarts, only just after the trial ends, and Viktor wins (you trained him too well for him to not, and may or may not have viciously sparred with him a little too much for him to not be a little afraid of the consequences of losing after you helped him so much lol)

Just as Harry is taken in by Dumbledore for questioning of how he got trapped in the maze, he runs back to nearly squeeze the life out of you in a hug, he tells you thanks for helping him again (and forced u to promise to teach him sword fighting or “ice magic”)

Then, surprisingly, the entirety of Durmstrang (and some Slytherins??) haul you up into the air with Viktor to celebrate his victory

(You can see Snape snickering at ur misery in the air)

Viktor and Fleur stay penpals, and the “golden trio” (more like “gryffindor triplets”) sticks around your library table

and you think you could start to get used to this, and Harry, Hermione, and Snape had gotten you a Yule/winter gift

(what’s Christmas. and why is everyone obsessed with decorating trees??)

…that is until Hermione looks over your shoulder one day at your usual reading table, and points to a book you’ve chosen for research,

saying “if you need to make a portal somewhere, that’s the book you should be looking in.”

☆

i hope you liked it!! and that it wasn't too much of a clusterfuck/chaos that was barely readable 😅

again, thanks for being patient with me, and here's finally ur payment for dealing with my ass lmao

Happy late new year!!

Safe Travels Kirarisastay,

💀♒

If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"

(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657 / @esthelily / @justinsomniachild / @nanithefuck

If your tag didnt work, idk why!!

Maybe make sure your a "searchable blog", or make sure u didnt give me a side blog?

(Tumblr is against tagging/DMing side blogs, only main blogs usually can)

#genshin impact crossover #harry potter crossover #Genshin x Harry Potter crossover #Genshin x HP AU #genshin harry potter crossover #genshin isekai #genshin imagines #harry potter imagines #hp imagines #platonic #fem reader #happy late new year kiraisastay!! :)

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choccy-milky · 11 months

Note

hey! They already asked you but I don't know if you forgot hehe, what are the mbti of Clora and Sebastian? 😸

OK, I FINALLY HAVE AN ANSWER!! took me a hot minute to figure out sebs, but after reading all the pages and comparing, i do think entp fits him the best. also i saw this picture on pinterest about a relationship between isfj and entp and its so true, esp the "do not listen to each other's advice, still get each other out of trouble" LMFAO. also the 'protecting isfj at all costs' 🥺🥺🥺im soft. (ALSO DONT COME AT ME I KNOW I SPELLED KNOWLEDGEABLE WRONG IM TOO LAZY TO FIX IT😭) OKAY!! and its been a while so i'll be using this ask to reply to a buncha others🙏🙏

my fanfic does follow the plot of the game, but with sebastian added to every sidequest/story mission. and then from around the third (niamh's) trial, it starts to branch more into (mostly all) original stuff!^^

yes actually LMAO, clora's lawley-slap wasn't even planned. but as i was writing it i started to get so offended on her behalf i was like GIRL, SLAP THIS BITCH🤬 so she did😇😇 id say its normal, yeah! even tho i stick to my outlines, a lot of what happens just kinda happens without my prior planning as i begin to write bahaha, especially dialogue scenes.

aw, im glad u like my blog so much and that it can help u even in the smallest of ways 😭thank u!!💖💖

BAHAHA AWW TYY IM GLAD U LIKE IT SO MUCH!! i saw u re-reading it recently on wattpad and ur comments always have me dying. also im just gonna address your other ask here in this one, but as u know seb has now met mr.clemons, and you 10000% nailed the dynamic between seb and clora's dad LMFAOO, they will absolutely bond over disagreeing with how careless she is and wanting to protect her/stressing over her LOOL. ty again for all ur messages, i love seeing how much u love my art/fic😭💖

OMG u are so right i need to draw this

also god idk....following the sebinis example, i guess they'd be...sebora?? reminds me of sephora LMAO. ive also had someone call them "alliteration shipping" which i think is so cute BAHAHA. HONESTLY PPL CAN JUST SAY WHATEVER THEY WANT, i aint picky.

oh god its been too long since ive read the books (tho i do really wanna re-read them esp in the winter) but my fav movie is half blood prince, just because i love all the ron/hermione moments and the highschool drama BAHAHA. what do u mean harry potter isnt a romcom??? ok and last but DEFS not least

THE UNHINGED ENERGY OF THIS ASK CRACKED ME UP SO MUCH WHEN U SENT IT BAHAHAH, couldnt even fit the whole thing in my screenshot. IM GLAD U LIKED/HATED THE CHAP, and also your pfp just makes everything you say funnier, i love it LMAOOO. ty🙏🙏

#ask #ALSO SEB AND CLORA BEING DEFENDER AND DEBATOR IS AN ALLITERATION it was meant to be......#i go from drawing filthy smut to a wholesome mbti pic of the two of them awww #the duality of man #choccyart

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jmagnabo92 · 8 months

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So I saw a post on Instagram, and it said:

‘Isn't it funny how James Potter decided to bully and harass a malnourished little boy from an abusive family just for existing, and years later, James' son became a malnourished little boy from an abusive family that bullies him just for existing’

And all the comments were agreeing and saying things like, ‘Karma’, ‘Glad I’m a James Potter hater’, ‘Don’t understand how he has even one fan’

And I was like… what??? Was so tempted to write a whole thing about it but decided the hate I’d get wasn’t worth it. What are your opinions about this?

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK??!!!

That's my initial reaction.

Don't these people know that the sins of the father shall not be visited upon the son?

It's not karma for Harry to suffer for James' mistakes. It's bullshit and I hope that no one that believes that has ever done anything wrong in their lives or their kids shall suffer. AND THERE"S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT THIS BS.

Now, let's point out how else they're wrong.

First of all, I had to re-read the Prince's Tale - and mind you, I did skim it so I could've missed things, but there is NO WHERE that says he was 'malnourished' as a boy. Not a single description said anything was physically wrong with Snape like malnourishment. It talks about his mismatched clothes, and his parents arguing. There's a line about James having an 'air of well-cared for - ness that Snape lacked' but there's NOTHING that he states he was malnourished or even abused.

So that's utter BS. I won't argue about the abuse, but there was no evidence that he was malnourished.

As for the about "just for existing" - I think a lot of people forget that SWM canonically happens *after* James saves Snape's life from Werewolf Remus. The reason that it's easy to figure that out is there is a scene with Snape/Lily arguing about the MM thing and she literally mentions James saving him the other night.

The next scene is SWM.

Now, before get into that importance - I want to point out that in the scene about MM & the saving of Snape, Lily asks, "Why are you so obsessed with them?" and if it was a relentlessly unfair bullying situation there's two obvious answers:

A) he's been bullying me for years

B) I have to obsess so I can get one over on them.

He doesn't say either of those things - you know what he *does* say - he says "Potter fancies you"... and more about 'how great he thinks he is'.... isn't that rather suspicious?

You know what's also suspicious? If Snape's being relentlessly bullied than WHY DOESN"T HIS BEST FRIEND KNOW THE OBVIOUS? Maybe because it wasn't a situation of bully/victim - maybe it was a rivalry like Dumbledore suggested in the first book.

Now, back to the timeline:

So James saves his life and yet says "it's the fact that he exists" - which sounds terrible, right?

Of course it does, but here's the thing - Snape had literally as recently possibly two weeks previously (we don't know *exactly* when but sometime between Nov of 5th year and OWLs) had attempted to (at best) OUT Remus (at worst) KILL Remus - who is ONE of James' BFFs. Now - on top of that - we know that Snape has been obsessed with a theory for ages about Remus. We see this in the MM & Saving conversation - Lily says "I know your theory" with the air of someone that has heard his theories before. Given that he only found out *for sure* within a few days of that conversation that suggests that he has been going after Remus for a while.

So, here we have Snape's attempt to get Remus out or killed and James has every reason to hate him - he's a loyal guy. He believes in his friendships so much it cost his life and literally learned something that could put him behind bars *just to help his friend*. Whatever happened, however it happened, that doesn't matter to James.

What *does* matter is that Snape tried to detrimentally hurt his friend. So he has a reason, but in SWM, he literally *can't* say that. He would be outing Remus and he's not going to do that.

Which means he NEVER did anything *just because he exists* - he had a reason, he just couldn't say it.

Now, why does James have fans?

Because he's a good man. This is the man that did stupid shit when he was a teen, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, but nothing he did was ever on par with the things that Snape was doing - I've got a while post on that.

After he grows up, he joins the Order - to do good for people that he doesn't have to care about, yet does. He does so much good, he becomes a target. In that, he then goes on to give his life for wife and son. And they think this man doesn't deserve fans? What Bullshit is this??

***

ANYWAY, my longass point here is that: They're idiots, and I kind of wish that some people had more thought into the situation. James deserves better.

#james potter #Pro James Potter #Anti Severus Snape #Anti Snape #Meta

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getawayfox · 4 months

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Happy birthday, darling @wolfpants! I’m bringing you a banner with Draco on it since you share a birthday with him, what a fun coincidence! When deciding how to celebrate you and your writing, I knew I wanted to do an author’s reclist but wasn’t entirely sure how to go about it because every single fic in your catalogue is worth a rec of its own. So I took inspiration from an ask game - a list of categories I could fill with my rambling. I hope you have a wonderful birthday full of nice things! ILY! 🤍

🤍 A fic I want to read again for the first time: Under Giant Mountains (Drarry, E, 34k)

I thought about it for a long time because I would give anything to experience all of them for the first time again but eventually, I landed on Under Giant Mountains. It feels a bit sacred to me and I think it’s because I relate to this Harry a lot; because it’s a gentle story about healing; because it made me cry but in that really good, cathartic way. I think it will do the same regardless of how many times I read it.

🤍 A fic I reread the most times: Pages of You (Drarry, E, 102k)

According to AO3 the fic I have visited the most is Pages of You, which is no surprise. Do I share how many times I clicked on that fic? Is it embarrassing? Probably. Oh well, here it is:

Look, it’s my comfort fic, okay? What can I say - an 80s coming-of-age story? Sign me the hell up. In all honesty, I don’t really have words to describe how this fic makes me feel - it’s like a safety net for my inner child maybe, or something similarly, horribly cheesy. It’s a book I want to own, have on my bookshelf, and return to it over and over again. Maybe one day it will be.

🤍 A fic that made me (re)consider a ship: Spellbound (Draco/Albus, E, 2k)

So here is the thing - I’m pretty faithful to my favourite ships and don’t often read outside of them, except when it’s a rarepair that catches my eye and then I’m happy to be persuaded. And Wolf is brilliant at that, honestly, they could talk me into anything. And so even when it comes to a ship I didn’t know I needed, like Draco/Albus for instance, I just know that in their hands, it’s gonna be layered and thought-provoking and just so, so delicious. Here is the proof: Spellbound, a Dead Dove fic that is just the perfect flavour of dirtyhotwrong. Yum.

🤍 A favourite rarepair fic: Galvanize (Scorpius/Ron, M, 1k)

Speaking of rarepairs. Wolf has a whole collection of kinkuary fics, which is a rarepair heaven, go forth and pick your poison. I’m gonna go with Galvanize, in support of Hot Ron Agenda ™. It’s an M-rated Scorpius/Ron fic and the dynamic here is unmatched - so innocent and yet. Gah!

🤍 A line from a fic that’s haunted me: Waiting for the Moon to Rise (Drarry with a hint of Bill, E, 9k)

This is hard because I can think of many (see QQR) but if I had to choose just one, it would have to be this masterpiece:

—his voice had been thick, Draco remembers that, because he’d been eating an apple stolen from the kitchens on their way outside. He kept trying to get Draco to eat it too, playfully pressing the bitten edges to his mouth, damp like a kiss, until Draco had pushed him off him with a laugh— “stop that, Potter, or I’ll shove it someplace where it’ll hurt ”—and all the while, his lips had tingled with sweetness, a phantom caress he would take to his bed later that night and think about with his hands while the rest of the Eighth Year boys would sleep and snore, none the wiser—

Which is of course from Waiting for the Moon to Rise, featuring an intimate friendship, lots of UST and Bill the matchmaker 😏

🤍 A fic that ripped my heart out (but it hurt so good): The Hollow (Remus/Draco, E, 12.5k)

Oh boy. We’ve all read The Hollow, right? Right. It’s one of those fics I think about so often it can’t be healthy and yet I can’t go anywhere near it again because I don’t think I would survive a second read. It’s so, so, so good. It’s so painful. It’s everything I want from the pairing. I never want to see it again. It carved itself into my heart and will stay there forever.

🤍 A fic that made me laugh: Romp and Circumstance (Drarry, E, 33k)

So. Many. Wolf’s banter in fics is unmatched but for the sake of this game I have to say one, so I’ll go with Romp and Circumstance - and as much as this fic is hilarious, it’s also so full of love and longing and romance. It’s so vibrant! A perfectly executed AU with characterizations that are just chef’s kiss!

🤍 A song I now associate with a fic: Everybody Hates a Tourist (Drarry, E, 52k)

I will always associate Common People by Pulp with Everybody Hates a Tourist. I remember sitting in a beach cafe last year and the song started playing and immediately transferred me into the holiday vibes of the fic. I’m obsessed with both Harry and Draco in this story: with who they are, separately, and eventually together. Their characters are written so brilliantly here; they’re both given space to grow into themselves, into what they want out of life and their getting together feels like the most natural thing in the world.

🤍 A fic that’s between me and my AO3 history: Seat You Higher than the Stars (Ron/Harry, E, 1,8k)

Ha! I have no secrets or shame. Nothing is just between me and AO3, I’m an open book and will shout about it, and especially about this fic I thought was fitting (pun intended) for this category - just look at the tags: emotional vulnerability and fisting (elmo fire emoji). This is Seat you Higher than the Stars, a Ronarry fic that has got to be one of my favourite things ever written. It’s so tender and beautiful!

🤍 A fic that feels like a warm blanket: Thickets (Drarry, E, 17k)

That is *exactly* how reading Thickets feels. Oh, this fic. So gentle and mature, full of soft, quiet pining and second chances. It’s so atmospheric and nostalgic. Layered with complicated grief and vowed with humor and warmth, this fic is simply stunning. It’s a getting back together story that feels like a deep exhale. It’s melancholic and hopeful and it has one of my favourite characters of all time - a portrait of Young Draco to perfectly illustrate just how far current Draco has come.

🤍 A fic I want to be made into a film: Led by Light of a Star Sweetly Gleaming (Sirius/Remus, E, 53k)

My Wolfstar-loving heart could not forget this story - in a way a prequel to Pages of You but also a standalone fic set in the '60s. Wolf’s worldbuilding and attention to detail really shine here - it would make such a stunning film! But it’s not just that, it’s the characters, too, where the magic lies: completely in awe of each other and unbearably lovely. “You’ve no idea how much I want to worship you.” will be forever my favourite thing Sirius has ever said.

#wolfpants #reclist #drarry #wolfstar #rarepairs

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once-upon-an-imagine · 9 months

Note

Hey!

It would be lovely if you could write a Remus x fem reader, who sleeptalks and confesses after a long night studying in the commonroom.

this was sooooo sweet! 🥰 I am so happy Remus is my first 2024 story cause I loved how this turned out Warnings: none, this is pure fluff; reader talks in her sleep Disclaimer: I don’t own Harry Potter 😁 gif isn’t mine 😊

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Sleep-Talking

"Oh, come on! Just tell us already!" Sirius kept pestering you.

"Sirius, just drop it!" you repeated.

Sirius was currently lying upside down on the sofa behind you as you and Remus tried to study in the Common Room. James and Peter were sitting by the window, James playing with the Snitch as he laughed softly. They all knew that you talked in your sleep and Lily had recently told them that you mentioned one of them a few nights ago but she didn't tell them who. Although James had a pretty good idea and it wasn't Sirius.

"C'mon, love" he said, smirking at you. "We all know it was me, so just, admit it already" he said.

"You got me. Yes, Sirius. I had a dream that I you kept asking me stupid questions, so I punched you" you smirked back at him, making the other three laugh and Sirius' smirk drop.

"You're not funny when you do that" he glared at you.

"And you're not funny when you do that" you said, going back to your book.

"Was it about Prongs?"

"Sirius!"

"Pads, just drop it" Remus added, sighing as he tried to concentrate on his Transfiguration book.

"I just find it weird that she won't tell us? I mean, what's with all the secrets, love? What's the harm in letting us know you had a dream about one of us?" he asked, turning around before realization hit him. He slid off the sofa and was now fully sitting on the floor, next to you his arm behind you as his smirk was back on. "Hold on a second" he said, moving closer to you. "What was your dream about?"

Your eyes widen a little and you could feel your cheeks burning. You hoped Sirius didn't notice the smudge you made on your book while writing. But Remus did.

"Uh-"

"Oh, Merlin" Sirius laughed as James and Peter suddenly found the conversation very interesting. "I knew it! That's why you don't want us to know, isn't it? It wasn't a very innocent dream, was it, love?"

"Alright, Sirius, that's enough" Remus said, glaring at his friend. "We are trying to study here. If you three aren't even going to pretend to care then, please leave us be!"

"Oh, come off, Moony!" Sirius mocked him as James was already pulling him up by his arm.

"Let's go, Pads" he laughed.

"Is not like he's not dying to know if it's him!" you still heard Sirius as James was pulling him upstairs to their dorm with Peter following them and finally leaving you and Remus alone.

"Um, I'm really sorry about them" Remus chuckled, nervously. "You know they can be-"

"It's alright, Rem" you smiled sweetly. "I know they're idiots" you chuckled. You've known them for a very long time.

A few hours had passed, and the Common Room was empty by now, except for the two of you and the dying fire on the fireplace.

"Okay, I think we've covered everything" Remus said, looking at his book. "Except the Fruitcakes to Fairy tales" he said, re-reading the content again. "Wait, that can't be right" he chuckled, rubbing his tired eyes with his hands. "Right, Fairy Cakes to Fairies" he corrected. "I think we can leave that for to-" he turned around to see you and stopped when he noticed you were resting your head in your arms and had fallen asleep. He looked at the time and realized it was a lot later than he had thought.

He felt himself smiling as he saw how peaceful you looked in your sleep. He would never admit this out loud but, Sirius was right. He would eventually have to find the courage to finally ask you out. He slowly got up and quietly started cleaning his and your things before he would gently wake you up so the two of you could go to bed.

"Mmm..." he heard you mumble in your sleep before he saw a smile appear on your face. Again, he may never admit this out loud, but he kind of agreed with Sirius. Ever since Lily told them that you had said one of the Marauders' name, he had been dying to know who it was. "Stop it, love" he heard you say, still fully asleep. It may not be the best idea though, as this could mean there was a 75% chance that you were in love, or at least dreaming about, one of his best friends. But at least this way, he would be done and get it over with. But then... "I love you too, Remus" he heard you chuckle, making him instantly look at you to make sure you were still sleeping, which caused him to drop the books in his hand, and you opened your eyes at the sound.

"H-hey-" Remus said, nervously as he picked up the books and he felt his cheeks blushing. "S-sorry, I uh" he stuttered. "I didn't mean to wake you up-"

"H-how um- how long have I been asleep?" you asked, feeling your heart pounding heavily.

"N-not long" he insisted, kneeling back next to you. "I was just thinking about calling it a night. I mean it's a bit later than I thought" he smiled.

"Um, sure" you smiled, nervously. "W-was I uh- was I... t-talking in my sleep?" you asked, feeling your cheeks burning as you looked away.

"Um..." Remus thought for a moment. He could see you were extremely anxious, and he didn't want this to be the way he confessed his love for you. "N-no" he said, noticing the sigh of relief you gave. "You were just... mumbling a bit but I couldn't make any of it" he assured you.

"Oh, um... okay" you smiled, feeling your heart flutter at how close Remus was from you. Not only because of that, but also because of the dream you were having, where he was much closer and his lips were very much on yours. "Um... we should... probably go to bed then" you said. "I mean, uh... separately, um... y-you know, you to your dorm and me to my dorm-" you stuttered. "I'm just going to shut up now" you chuckled nervously.

"Yeah, I think we're good for tonight" he said, smiling adorably at you as he got up and then helped you as well.

"Um, thanks again for helping me study, Rem" you smiled as you made your way to the stairs where you'll be parting ways.

"Anytime, love" Remus said, smiling at you and stopping you before you could go up the stairs. "Um-" he said, blushing a little. "I was thinking" he said, nervously. "Since it's a Hogsmeade weekend" he continued, placing his hand on the back of his neck. "And we're basically just one subject away... maybe you'd like to... go with me?" he asked, smiling sheepishly at you.

"R-really?" you asked, feeling your heart melting. "Just... y-you and me?"

"Y-yeah, if you'd like to um... go on a date... with me, that is" he assured you.

"I would really like that, Remus" you smiled.

"Really?" he asked, excitedly and you nodded happily. "Brilliant! So, maybe we could meet here and go to breakfast and then, we can go?"

"Sounds perfect" you said, leaning in to kiss his cheek.

"See you tomorrow then, love" he smiled before he turned around to leave but you stopped him.

"Are you sure I didn't say anything when I was asleep?" you asked, smiling nervously. Remus looked at you and smirked a little.

"Nope. Nothing, love" he replied but you weren't fully convinced. "At least nothing I could understand" he shrugged. "Why? Were you dreaming about something in specific?"

"Not really" you smiled back at him. Remus pulled you a little to kiss your cheek.

"Sweet dreams, love" he whispered before he went on his way.

Yes, he definitely heard you.

The End

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A/N: I hope you loves liked it! hopefully more stories are coming up this week!

#marauders #marauders imagine #remus lupin #remus lupin imagine #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin drabble

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marika-misc · 1 month

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Mental Health & fandom

tw : mentions of Neil Gaiman and JK Rowling, mentions of suicide ideation (in the past)

Note : this is my personal musing and should not be read as facts or an universal truth.

(very long post)

I was never - ever- able to casually like fictions. When I like something it becomes a safe place of sort. A refuge if you will.

As far as I remember, I have been an avid reader and a lover of fictional worlds in books, movies, tv, podcats, etc.

For me, works of fictions have always been more than just pieces of media to consume. They are a get away when things get too much and they often feel like the only thing that can comfort me in a time of need.

I love more or less every kind of fictions. I have pet peeves, yes, and things I can't/won't read or watch, but I love them anyway because I know they bring comfort to other.

I like it so much, that it became my job (I'm a librarian) and nothing makes me happier than a patron telling how they enjoyed something. Even if I don't like it and wouldn't read it/watch it myself. I love when people like things.

So, fictions can't be a casual enjoyment for me. They are part of me and of what I am. When I like something, it consumes me and spreads through every aspects of my life. And yes, sometimes it's a little bit too much maybe ? But, so what ?

For me, being alive is a choice I make every day. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not, most of the time it's neutral. Being alive is hard. Life is hard. And the world is a violent, messy and loud place. So, if fiction helps me to keep going and find joy in this life ? Hell yeah ! Who cares ?

Numerous works helped me through the years to stay alive and deal with changes.

When I was 8, it was books by Enid Blyton. When I was 10, it was books by Agatha Christie and Gaston Leroux When I was 13, it was Titanic and Celine Dion (ilu Celine) When I was 15, it was Gundam Wing for 6 months When I was 17, it was Prince of tennis for about a year But between 14 and 25, it was mostly Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Globet of fire was the first book I read in english. It took me 6 months, with a dictionary. It was also my first real foray into the world of fanfictions. I had read some before, but with HP, I binged like crazy. I read in french and in english. I printed pages and pages of fics in my highschool library. And I made arts. Lots of it, now lost in the ether.

I re-read the whole serie every time I had to go through changes. It was with me when I moved 500k away from where I grew up and helped me through 3 house moves.

At 25, I moved from HP to other fandoms, but it was still very dear to me and I kept going back to it from time to time. I was on the waiting list for Pottermore for example and still occasionnaly binged fanfictions.

When JKR started to be more vocal with her bullshit, I was chocked and disgusted. I felt betrayed. And it was also the first time that I felt like I was a traitor for enjoying a thing. I couldn't be a good ally if I admited to like HP, right ? So I gave away my books and stopped interracting with the work. I even started to judge people who still bought things HP related. Because HOW could you still give money to her ? But deep down I kind of understood how difficult it was to part with something that meant so much for so many of us. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to give her money and I don't plan to. But it's easy to judge other and forget that the real piece of shit is JKR, not the fan who buy a gryffindor pair of socks and/or write fanfiction after a grueling day at work. It's unfair to have this purity weight to bear all the time and judge people for how they chose to interract with a thing they like. And it certainly doesn't do much to tell people how to feel and how to be "good".

Also, being an ally is not just refraining to buy something HP related. But it's a whole other subject.

Anyway, after HP, I started to fall even harder in the fandoms I was a part of. A fair number of them being "problematic".

First thing first, liking a "problematic" media is ok imo. I know they are not perfect and I acknowledge it. I'm still allowed to like them. Nobody can dictate how I feel.

Second thing : some of these fandoms saved my life. Glee litteraly stopped me from jumping in front of a train and for at least two years, Merlin was the only thing bringing me a little bit of joy.

Nobody can take that away from me.

Recently, Doctor Who and Our Flag means death prompted me to go to therapy again and made me realize A LOT of things about myself.

And there is Good Omens. Good Omens is my current hyperfixation and really what kept me going these last few months. I fell and I fell HARD. Probably because I needed fiction to keep myself afloat and it was there for me. It's kind of funny, because I had read the novel more than 15 years ago (I came to it when reading a lot of Pratchett) and even if I liked it at the time, I still liked other Pratchett's works better. It all changed with the tv show. I wouldn't say it's better than the novel, but it's different and the changes made (and also the fact that DT is in it, lets be honest) spoke to me a great deal. So I became invested. And I began to create again. After years of art block and only drawing sporadically, I was drawing nearly every day and finding great joy in it. Good Omens kept me alive and gave me my creativity back. It was (and still is) so important to me, that I decided to get a tattoo of the first two sentences of the novel. It's a whole design with a book, a sword, a snake and apple blossoms. It goes from my right shoulder to my elbow. I got it done in april.

Three months later the allegations against Neil Gaiman came out.

It hit me hard. Harder than with JKR. And I wasn't even a fan of his. But what he did (because I chose to always believe the victims) horrified me and made me angry. So angry. Angry for the women who suffered first and foremost, but also angry for the fans who grew up with his words and now feel so betrayed and overwhelmed by what is happening. And I'm angry for myself. Very selfish of me, I know. I'm angry, because Good Omens is my safe place and I have now to fight to keep it that way. It still brings me joy, but it also brings me anxiety and seriously fuck you Gaiman. Fuck you. Fuck you for tainting a source of joy and creativity for me. Fuck you for dirtying Terry Pratchett's legacy. Fuck you for being an abuser and proving again and again that none is really safe in the world we live in. I hope you'll pay for what you did, even if I know you will probably not.

This is so not good for my mental health. Also, how do you cope when you have the words inked on your arm and are reminded everyday of the shitshow going on ?

I hope Terry Pratchett wrote them. Not you. But how would I know ?

I talked about it with my therapist because my anxiety was out of control (again) and we did some EMDR work on it. It helped me clear my head a little and reminded me that I was not in the wrong to love something and to find joy in it. I agreed to wait at least a year before deciding if I wanted the tattoo to be covered (not the snake, sword and apple blossom part ; the book part). I could do it now, I even have some designs in mind, but I'll wait to be certain and not take a rash decision because I'm hurting. I will not give him my money anymore, but I don't want him to take the joy and comfort I find in Good Omens away from me. I won't let him. I won't let anyone.

I don't want to do what I did with HP again. I don't want to negate something I love and which brings me joy. So I will rip this book and show from his dirty hands and keep them close to my heart where it's safe.

Maybe it's not being "good" or "moral". Maybe I shouldn't separate the art from the artist and preach for Death of the author. Maybe.

But I'll do it anyway.

My own moral compass is strong and I will not deny myself again.

#mental health #mental health tag #neil gaiman #jk rowling #fandom #good omens #harry potter

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