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scamanderishredmayniac · 2 years ago

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Oh thanks for answering, your answer did not disappoint. I wasn’t actually sure you’d answer it right now, I wasn’t expecting a response til much later. I’m presuming your based in US, so it’s like your midnight, while it’s our early morning. I’m supposed to be asleep, but since I’ve eaten a big meal right now, I’m sitting here waiting for food to digest. Lol! So the opposite to you, although I’ll be heading off in a bit to try sleep since it’s somewhat after 5 in the morning here. So my answer is going to be a little rushed. Anyway I kind of had a feeling Rowan would be angry and disappointed with Newt, but wasn’t sure in your headcannon how Helious would deal with it, since so far we’ve only ever seen him deal with most of Newt’s problems with kids gloves since he’s so young in the fics I’ve seen so far. But I wondered where that would stop, and would Helious take this much seriously, because that was my thought as well, that Newt’s not a child anymore, he’s 16/17 by this point, and I imagine Newt is now near enough an adult by wizard standard. So it interested me how you’d deal with that and handle it in your writing.

It’s interesting that you say that this is the point where Theseus and Newt’s relationship gets messy, I imagined myself that it would have been at this point or there about at least. But in my mind it’s because Theseus still sees Newt as a baby, as a little kid, but also gets frustrated with Newt at the same time. But Newt doesn’t really like him fussing or lecturing him, because I imagine Theseus doing both. I don’t know. With his parents though in my headcannon his parents are kind of stricter and so they’re not happy about him getting expelled at all. His mother in the headcannon I’m writing at the moment convinces the headmaster to allow Newt to have lessons at home, and be home schooled by one of the professors, and Dumbledore volunteers. She’s not happy but there’s nothing she can do.

But if we’re looking at cannon, I think in theory his parents would be very very cross with him. I can’t imagine them taking it lightly. I do think that Newt ends up being home schooled in cannon and then goes back to take his tests at the end of the year, because it’s been stated he graduated. Which is why my own headcannon kind of follows that in a way. My fic though will have extra things added, because their family dynamic is slightly changed. Let’s say there’s an addition in the family. Lol1 But that’s just me. I don’t think that fic in particular will see the light of day. I’m just writing it to explore the expulsion. But with my OC just dumped in for fun.

Anyway I’m rambling, and I don’t even know if I’ve rambled about the right sort of thing when you said you would be interested in my thoughts. Because I wasn’t sure if you meant my thoughts on your headcannon and your fics universe, or just my thought on cannon and my own headcannon fic. Ouch so I dumped all three in there for good measure, just to be on the safe side. The thought to ask you the questions came about while I was thinking about my own fic. Lol! And I thought what would things be like in your fic if you were to write that scene? Lol!

Oh my gosh! You’re actually going to eventually write it! Yay! I literally can’t wait, but of course I shall wait patiently till you are ready. Just know that I am very much looking forward to seeing and reading it. :D!!!! Now I can go to bed happy knowing that.

I hope you don’t mind me asking, but as you know I really enjoy reading some of your fanfic and love the way Newt’s family are written in your universe. I love how Newt’s parents are supportive, especially his dad. I think his dad and Theseus are my favourites.

Anyway I wanted to ask, in your world how would Helious and Rowan react to Newt’s expulsion from Hogwarts? What happened when Newt came home? Or when they were called in after the incident?

Did they treat him with kid gloves? Like go about it delicately like they did with the incident with his uncle in the ministry? Or maybe this time he’s gone too far (as far as they know), so they’re more disappointed and bit more firmer? He’s not a kid anymore so how would that go? Now that’s something interesting I think to explore.

Hello! Good to hear from you! I’m answering this from bed half asleep so forgive me for not going into a ton of detail. But if I put it off I’ll just never reply. Very happy you like how I write the Scamander family

And great question — because their reaction is different from how they treat him after the situation with Hesiod in “The Riot Act”. While still cognitively immature, there’s still a big difference between barely 11 and 16/17…. ‘Kid gloves’ are appropriate when dealing with certain issues at certain ages, but realistic conversation would probably be a better fit for the expulsion at 16.

That being said..

So I actually I have a few versions of their reaction to Newt’s expulsion I’ve been playing around with. But all of them involve Newt going back to live with Rowan eventually, but spending the first month avoiding home, living solely with his dad in London. I write him specifically requesting his father be contacted to pick him up, after which he informs his mother himself, while at Helios’. Newt knows she’ll be disappointed. And he ultimately chooses to figure the first few weeks after expulsion out with Helios precisely because Rowan is struggling to be supportive (and he likely feels ashamed). Rowan, meanwhile, feels she’s tried everything and still she’s ended up with her youngest son, expelled from school, just come of age with absolutely nothing going for him. She’s worried, and frustrated, and angry, and that can be hard for someone like Newt to figure out how to handle, especially bc I don’t headcanon he tells his parents about the entire Leta situation. Which makes him come across as far less sympathetic.

By this point, I write their dad as being somewhat “checked out”. He’s largely given up on parenting by now (I mean, Theseus is well into adulthood, but newt’s still young), as he’s been rather burned out by his own life and some particularly poor coping mechanisms. You can imagine the unspoken strain that puts on a family unit. Helios is of course upset with the situation but he’s not disappointed in Newt in the same way as Rowan (probably for obvious reasons, as he and Newt share a lot of personality traits in addition to some overlapping neurodivergence), so his reaction is pretty tempered. So it’s easier for Newt to hide there, with his dad.

Luckily for both Rowan & Helios, though, Newt immediately gets work at DRCMC and an apothecary in Diagon Alley, so he keeps himself busy, and largely out of trouble. He strikes me as the kind of person who does much better—in many ways—in the world than he does in school (I say, heavily projecting), so I imagine over the course of a few months, he and his mum come back around to understanding one another better. There’s a point at which one just has to accept that (a) this is the unfortunate way of the world and it’s necessary to survival to sometimes just accept it [Newt], and (b) this is just the way some people are — you can cry and scream about it but good luck trying to change something that perhaps just can’t be changed [Rowan]. Neither of them is entirely in the right, and I think they both probably know it, a little bit.

I do headcanon the expulsion as one of the first real cracks in N & T’s relationship, though. Theseus doesn’t abandon him and remains an anchor in an otherwise somewhat unstable family during this time period, but he doesn’t understand him, and it starts to get messy.

One of the reasons I love writing about Theseus and Newt is because neither of them is perfect. They both have canon flaws in how they deal with commitment and conflict. And I’m trying to figure out how to write the expulsion reaction for all of them, so I’ve just been poking at it for a few months, and waiting for it to shape itself out.

So that’s some rambling. Certainly it’s not all my thoughts because I’m in bed but. Would love to know your thoughts too.

#ok that was slightly rushed reply #must go sleep or try sleep now #thank goodness no work for a week #oh forgot I agree think newt deals with real world better than school #I also noticed I keep writing hesiod wrong #but because i’m on ipad the writing too small and i’ll have to kiss the screen to find all the mistakes i’m too tired. to do that #plus its late or early however you look at it and I need to put ipad away #lol #i just hope my husband insomnia stays away and my best friend sleep comes #doubt it #uefb #newt scamander #scamander family #answered asks #fantastic beasts #fanfic questions and thoughts

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aaaaaaaaagenloser · 1 year ago

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(Tw: kinda transphobia? Use of it/its for a character who hasn’t declared what their pronouns are yet. Arguments over whether a character is a person or not; that ties into the pronoun thing here. Bonus points for descriptions of canon-typical gore yipeeee)

An update from after writing this: oh this. Got. This one got away from me?? I think I started this at 4 minutes past the hour. It is now 43 minutes past the hour. shitt.

Update; it is now 17 minutes after the NEXT hour. 26 minutes after th last update. I have seen god in the past hour and she shook in fear of both my power and audacity. I have lunch with my family scheduled in like 6 hours and I have not yet slept. This wasn’t meant to be as long as it is but I was possessed and this is the result. I may edit it and make it smoother later but I’ll make that a separate post, I want this sleep-deprived chunk of words to be here as like a monument to the fact that I could have been playing stardew valley during this time but I chose to do this instead

TLDR: long ass story ahead written by a sleep-deprived and hyperfixation-driven author. Who is now going the fuck to BED

“We can’t just keep it! What if it has a tracking device? It won’t let us fucking touch it so there’s no way of knowing it has one unless it leads them right to us!”

“Ok, I hear you but think. That hasn’t happened yet. It’s been about what, three days? and that hasn’t happened, and they haven’t been violent towards any of us at all. They haven’t tried to go back either, so there’s no risk of them telling or leading Showfall where we are.”

“Why do you keep calling it ‘they’?”

“Well they can’t be an “it” now can it? …wait.”

“Ok can we figure out the gender of the thing in the other room after we figure out if it’s a threat to us or not. It’s not even a fucking person, you remember what those things did to you back there, don’t you?”

“Those people were not themselves, they were just doing what he wanted them to do—“

“They’re not fucking people! Those things are all part of Showfall, just like Hetch was! It’s just waiting for the right time to turn us in, or pull some shit on one of us like they did before.”

“They weren’t… they weren’t in control.”

“Yeah like fuck they weren’t, I saw it fucking happen!”

“You can’t just… Ok. Sneeg. Stop. You don’t speak for me, the one who, oh I don’t know, was the one that shit happened to? They were being controlled just like us—“

“No, no, not like us. We were wandering around and not knowing what the fuck was happening. None of us knew what was happening. We just went along blindly. Those things—on purpose—dragged you to that stupid wall and sewed wires into your hands—“

“Shut up, Sneeg—“

“No you shut up! You didn’t see it fucking happen! I saw them and Bitchface literally hold you down until you passed out! They were fucking choking you, they fucking—they nearly fucking killed you with just their hands, that’s not a little suggestion in the back of your brain, that’s on purpose! That is fucking deliberate, that is a thing those machines chose to do! You don’t remember, you weren’t conscious when they fucking stapled you to the wall and strapped your head in—“

Sneeg glanced at Ranboo for a moment in-between pacing as he ranted, and the far away look in their sibling’s eyes shut them up immediately. Ranboo was still present, thank fuck, but they were looking at their brother like he was holding up a knife to their throat.

“Fuck, Ran, okay, okay—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… shit. Do you need Charlie?”

“You don’t know when to shut the fuck up.”

“…okay. Okay. I’m sorry. Do you need me to get Charlie?”

“No, I’m fucking fine.” It did not sound like he meant that at all. His voice was less steady than before. “I don’t want him to worry about our… hitchhiker. He’s worrying enough about… well, everything.”

“The fact that it’s here, so close to us is the reason I’m trying to get you to see, Ran. What if it turns on him? What if it does that shit to him when we aren’t there?”

“We will be there.”

“And when it tries anything, we can kill it?”

“Sneeg!”

“You wouldn’t kill it, even if it hurt our fucking brother?”

“Of course we wouldn’t keep them around if they did that, could we at least just… just leave it behind? …wait, no, they couldn’t take care of themselves. If we had to leave it behind, maybe we should…”

Silence lingered for a bit too long.

“We should what, Ran?”

“…Sneeg, I was about to say that killing it would be a mercy.” The Hero laughed. “Doesn’t that sound familiar?”

The Taken didn’t reply.

“We have to help them. I don’t… I don’t want to be on the other end of a mercy killing. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.”

“Okay. I’m—are you okay?”

“…m fine. It’s fine. Just. Can you stop acting like they’re any different from us? Please.”

“What do you want me to think then?” His voice was softer than it had been a few minutes before.

“Just assume that they… that they were someone. Just like we were before. And they didn’t… they didn’t do anything on their own, it was all Showfall.”

“Okay. Fine. Let’s assume they were controlled, they didn’t mean to, so on and so forth. Why haven’t they talked yet.”

“I don’t think any of the drones even could talk. Wait, should we really be calling them a drone—“

“Shut the fuck up, Ranboo, we have got to figure out what to do with it. It probably doesn’t even know what is happening, what the fuck does it matter what we call it.”

“It matters to me! Do you want me to call you by your title? Do you want to call me by mine? …No? Then why are we treating them like all they are is what Showfall made them? We had lives before, we were someone, so they must have been too. They might not realize it, or… or act like it, but they used to be someone. They are a whole person, Sneeg. We have to help them, we can’t just leave them behind because that would mean we are giving up on someone just like us, and we cannot give up on each other. They… they would have hurt us by now if they were going to. And Showfall hasn’t found us since… you know, which means there aren’t any more trackers.

…okay, Sneeg?”

“…okay. If it,” he sighed at the look Ran gave them, “if they try anything, we have to leave them behind. I’m not letting a dumbass puppet be the reason we get taken back.”

“If they—ok, whatever, you’re not understanding. You can’t say one of us somehow wanted to be controlled, and they’re a ‘puppet’ but those rules don’t apply to the rest of us—“

“There is not an ‘us,’ Ran! That thing isn’t like us!”

“Guys?”

A sleepy voice shut the two of them up instantly. They had a split-second conversation with their eyes before looking to their brother. ‘We aren’t done talking about this’ ‘You’e absolutely right, so later?’ ‘Later.’ ‘We’re telling Charlie nothing happened?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Ok good plan.’

“Why are you two fighting? I’m tired, can we please go back to sleep?”

“We weren’t fighting, we were…”

“…talking about plans for tomorrow. And you can go back to sleep.”

“I don’t want to be by myself.” Charlie looked at Sneeg pointedly, who sighed to Ranboo with a playfully annoyed expression.

“Well I guess I gotta go be a teddy bear again.”

“Have fun”

“Absolutely not.”

Charlie punched Sneeg in the shoulder lightly for that, who just giggled in response and led his little brother back to their room.

Which left Ran by themselves.

Some nights, he would join them, but some nights Charlie couldn’t stand to be anywhere near Ran, and the three of them had made a silent mutual agreement that Charlie trusted Sneeg more than he did Ranboo.

…Ranboo was okay with this. He wasn’t hurt by it. He didn’t cry on the nights he slept by himself.

He didn’t wish he could be the one Sneeg comforted sometimes. They were just fine.

They were fine, which is why they went to the living room where their… well. Their hitchhiker? They weren’t exactly a brother, or a sibling, more like a fourth wheel on a tricycle. Or a flyaway hair. Okay, maybe Ranboo needed to get tbr fuck to sleep, alone or not.

But he found himself in the living room, where their hitchhiker slept. Or, didn’t sleep, as they seemed to not need to. They would sit on the couch and stare idly at the tv. That was what had started the whole conversation with Sneeg in the first place; Ran wanted to leave some kind of entertainment for the fourth person so they wouldn’t be made to sit in the dark for hours. Sneeg took this remark as a perfect opportunity to explain all the reasons why the former drone should be abandoned, but Ranboo would have fucking none of it. Maybe the couch potato (shit, he really needed to come up with a name for them—) didn’t seem to sleep, barely ate, and stayed still unless actually verbally told to move, but they were still a person. Ranboo was sure of it.

Their hand wandered up to the fresh scabs where their mask had been. The fourth person had a mask, one that hadn’t been touched. Despite usually staying still, the person—(Ranboo thinks they might just call this person Couch for now. Maybe it’s not accurate, and they’re tired, but it’s something. C, for short.)

C would back away any time the others would try to get near them. And they did in fact try, but despite how creative or sneaky they got, C always ducked away. It reminded Ranboo of the drone who had followed them with a camera, always one step away and never letting the Hero get too close.

The mask turned to Ranboo, who stared back quietly. C hadn’t talked at all, so Ranboo didn’t expect them to suddenly start now. He wasn’t even sure if they understood what was said to them, but Ranboo wanted to try anyways. Better to be polite.

“Do you like the show that’s on? I think it’s called Lucy, or something. I don’t know, Sneeg said it was funny. And it didn’t seem, uh- scary or anything.”

The mask didn’t speak.

“If you want to change it, the remote’s right there, um, I showed you how to use it before. And there’s like, instructions drawn on there. You can thank Charlie for that one.”

…

“I think I’m going to head to bed.”

…

“Fuck it, can I stay here?”

The mask still didn’t speak, but the head hidden behind it tilted a bit at the sudden change in tone. Ranboo took this as an absolute win.

“So I just. I don’t want to be by myself. And I don’t think you sleep, I mean if you just sleep when everyone else is asleep that’s cool, but also if so how do you even? function? on that much sleep? It really isn’t that much but to be fair you don’t do much so maybe you don’t need it. …do you sleep sitting up? And just somehow wake up when we get close? I know, um. Sorry about that, again, we were just worried your mask had a tracker like mine used to.”

Ran laughed nervously. “I think I did convince them that it doesn’t, so that should stop now. If um. If we make you uncomfortable you still don’t have to be touched, it’s, it’s fine.”

Other than the head tilt before, there wasn’t a reply.

“Okay, since. You can’t talk, I’m just gonna… I’ll sit down beside you. On the couch. And if you don’t want me to be that close you can uh- you can leave. Or like, get up, and then I’ll leave. This is the only room with a tv, so I’ll let you stay here, but I can’t tell if you want me to be here or not, so. Okay, sorry, I’m rambling. Just… move if you want me to leave, okay?”

Ranboo waited for a response that didn’t come, then sighed. “Okay.” He kept his hands up and open while sitting down, waiting for a few moments before tucking his feet under himself to get more comfortable. “I’m just gonna stay here, okay? Like I said, just move if you want me to leave.”

The mask had tracked them to where they sat now, but the person—C—didn’t make a move to leave. Ranboo turned their attention to the tv, keeping an eye on their couch partner in their peripheral vision. During a moment of audience laughter in the show—I Love Lucy, they remembered—C turned their head back to the television as they had been before Ranboo walked in.

Seeing as how C (they needed a better name than that—) didn’t speak, this was the closest Ranboo could get to being told “you can stay here.” So they did. A few episodes later, his head was on the arm of the couch and his eyes were closed.

Five turned its attention to the Hero, who was now asleep. He had said it was a person, which was almost hilarious. And the Taken and the Hero seemed to think it couldn’t talk? They had to know it needed to be given permission first: any handler of a Drone or Prop knew that basic rule. It would wait until permission was given: it knew how to obey. It wasn’t meant to speak to a superior unless it was told it was allowed. It would wait.

…in the meantime, it studied its handler, the Hero. The other Actors, their two other handlers, called him ‘Ranboo’ but Five knew that wasn’t his actual label. The Hero was his character in the last show, and so that is who he was. Five didn’t know if Actors had a number, but he had been called the Hero in the script, and so the Hero he will be until the script changes.

It hoped to get new instructions, a new script for itself, something, soon. It was tired of simply watching the Actors go about their incredibly off-script show. It was sometimes told to participate, and since no other superiors were nearby, it had to obey its current handlers. But it was told to participate, to stir eggs, to help clean the kitchen, to attack small webs in corners with a stick with soft spikes on the end. Those sorts of things weren’t it’s usual directive, and so it found itself…

It didn’t resent its handlers. They were doing their best, and they at least knew that they were meant to give it orders. It simply wished they were familiar orders. It wished the Hero had told it to play dead, or play chase, or play camera, or caught, or prop. It would even listen if it was told to power down until needed. At least then it wouldn’t have to be conscious in this boring and unfamiliar set.

Y EA I know they probably don’t like tvs. Shhhhhh. I didn’t think about that until like. I had already written the tv part. At this moment it is 55 minutes past th hour and I want these characters to go the fuck to sleep so I can go thr fuck to sleep /lh

And yeah Five only uses “he” for glran. That is intentional. It’ll be talked about and shit later. Something about being put into a role, something about showfall being transphobic, something something I want to go to bed

Powering down = “sleeping” for a drone. Different but similar. I’ll explain how it works later?, anyway The others hav e told Five to “sleep” but it doesn’t understand because it is only ever told to “power down” so it’s like error.sleep_not_found and it stares at them like “bitch you said the wrong. Thing. You’re supposed to know how to control me so you don’t want me to power down I fucking guess” and it’s gonna be really funny after that miscommunication is taken care of.

If you remember the Five Gets A Cold And Wants To Throw Hands With Everyone post, this is wayyy before that. These motherfuckers are fresh out of showfall. Don’t ask how they got a house. I’ll figure it out

I am! Tired! I’m not proofreading this!! Goodnight please give me your thoughts if you have them. I need to know I didn’t sacrifice tbis much sleep in vain /nf /lh (I appreciate words but you are Not required to give them. Love you have a good nigt/p)

#five the genloss blorbo #let’s not talk about how many tries it took me to spell unobserved. let’s simplynot #update like 5 years into me writing this: i also cannot spell the word peepohe it would seem #that. that was meant to be the word People. you can see m #h my point stands #it is late as fuck yet I Have to make this. it has to exist so I must make it exist #I’m hamilton writing like I’m running out of time but I’m writing g #writing 51 essays in which assorted characters get the physical and/or emotional shit beaten out of them #and me running out of time is running out of sleepy. I am a sleep y man #take a break and get away says my pillow. I am Hamilton my pillow is upstate and this goddam mess of a short story I am trying to write is M #this story is Mariah Reyndolds leading me to her bed .#I haven’t slept in a while and I’m hyperfixationed on Hamilton so that metaphor makes. 0 sense #if you’re reading this far I’m so sorry. have a cookie! and fun fact an old lady held my hand and s #she said my (Very Androgynous!!) haircut is perfect. she used those words #i almost cried right then and there. genuine compliments from people make my fucking day . ok I need to go back to editing thisthing now #I wrote it. changed a plot point. started to rewrite it. changed ANOTHER plot point #so now I’ve got several s #several layers of Oh Shit I have to untangle #im. making my own goddam escape au apparently????? it won’t make any fucking sense but I will explain it later.#and! feel free to ask questions!’ and tell me if it make’s absolutely 0 sense #I do in fact want to be able to tell the story in a way you will understand. so ask questions! give a feedback! /gen /pos #I accidentally. deleted a tag so whatever I was going to say is fucking gone now. oh I think I memerbr #they are out of character ye. I’m sleepy and I’m making their escape au up as I go.#so far I have 1) the box scene was somehow Worse #2) they kidnapped Five (yippee!)#3) Charlie is the most traumatized out of the three. I don’t. I don’t know why.#I think that’s mostly because I didn’t feel like writing a conversation between Three characters. so my brain was like this :#why isn’t Charlie here? sleeping. why are these two not including him in conversation? protectiveness.#why protectiveness? he is the most upset out of the three of them and the other two have basically taken up the caretaker role. great plan #great plan hit the showers. I have reached. max tags. shit oh well back to writing tumblr says so!

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