#one of my pet peeves is people using irl incest genetics arguments for the WW

[padfootastic]

I live for Harry describing several of the Blacks as good-looking, when very few of the older generation get this; really feels like the Blacks are just inhumanly gorgeous, putting everyone else to shame. Sirius and Bellatrix escape Azkaban, having been imprisoned for over a decade, and Harry’s like, “I can tell they used to be super attractive, and with a shower and a haircut, some food, they’d be hot now too.” Nobody’s doing it like the Blacks, locked in Azkaban for years and still retaining some of their good looks. Plus, Regulus and Narcissa may not be as attractive as Sirius and Bellatrix, but they’re still attractive as well, so yes, the family is the hottest people around, they just have a hierarchy of gorgeousness (it goes Sirius = Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa = Regulus)

no but this is so true!!! there was absolutely no reason for their looks (ahem, sirius’ looks) to be mentioned as often as it was and yah, part of it is just that harry, my baby, was a bi disaster but also just—if it was talked about so much, it’s a fair assumption that the blacks just had really fucking good genetics ykno?

and like. there’s this whole psychosocial thing about aesthetics and how that affects people’s perceptions and stuff, particularly in relation to class and status right? i like to think that the blacks’ otherworldly good looks helped them keep themselves on top of the hierarchy regardless of all the fuckery going on inside their house.