#similar to regulus who is also a character i very much like but fanon regulus is literally murdering my entire family & destroying my crops

[seriousbrat]

I'm extremely unfair to Remus on this blog, the truth is fanon remus is personally offensive to me on many levels so I'm loath to give him protagonism of any kind lol. But that's not fair at all to a character that actually, when all's said and done, I do love. perhaps the marauder I'm least interested in (lol) but he still rates high on my list of fave hp characters and I honestly find him a very pleasant perspective to write from. he's just like some guy. his big crime is negligence/avoidance and I love that for him. to be honest I think his position is a difficult one to fully understand, he is a character that I'm able to muster up a lot of empathy for because of that. like can any of us irl understand what it's like to turn into a literal monster every month since childhood, the point-blank rejection and hatred from society, and what effect that might have on someone's psyche? it's interesting!!!

moony's worst hits, lets go:

remus tolerating the marauders' bullying: obv this was wrong. he was the only one who recognised it was wrong, and he tolerated it. he 'made them feel ashamed of themselves' sometimes per sirius, but honestly I can understand why he never spoke up. I don't think we should underestimate how rare the marauders' tolerance, not only tolerance but the lengths they went to to help remus with his condition was. for a teenager? I can only imagine how that must have felt tbh. he likely thought that he barely deserved their friendship and loyalty and that he was lucky to have it so why would he do anything to ruin that

remus not telling anyone about sirius being an animagus: bad lol, his worst moment probably. again, though, I can understand it even though I don't justify it. the trust dumbledore had placed in him, first to accept him at hogwarts and then again as a professor (we know how difficult it is for werewolves to find employment of any kind) and he just couldn't face betraying that trust. Luckily for Remus it turned out ok but it is kind of insane that he didn't tell dumbledore tbh.

remus not writing to harry: idc about this personally lol but to me it ties into remus's inferiority complex. he doesnt, and will never, see himself as anything like a father figure to harry the way sirius does. he barely sees himself as a worthy father to his own kid let alone the complex case that is harry. is that unfair to harry and unempathetic? yeah probs but also it makes sense to me even beyond the reason Remus gives in canon for not writing. He put Harry in terrible danger in PoA and given Remus's self-hatred he probably feels guilty about that lol.

walking out on Tonks: his other worst hit. But I can understand him, even though I think Harry was 100% right to tell him off. Again we've got this man's crippling inferiority complex, from what he says he thinks he's a burden and a curse to both Tonks and Teddy-- and you know what, society isn't exactly contradicting this belief. Obviously Tonks doesn't agree and that should be all that matters, but sometimes it doesn't seem that way. There's avoidance here (Remus's big flaw) and I legit think he thought he was doing Tonks a favour by disappearing on some quest with Harry and likely dying in the process. Interesting stuff but also very sad.

all this to say, I don't believe in "defending" characters, just understanding them, and even though I barely post about him I do find Remus very interesting, worthy of empathy in many ways. I'll admit the werewolf thing leads me to give him more of a pass than other characters just because I find that so horrible lol and feel so sorry for him but anyway. a good character in my opinion.

[maxdibert]

can i vent here?

i wanna scream every time marauders stans pulling snape-creepy-obsessive-stalker narrative (ugh but he’s not the one with a tracking map and invisible cloak, is he?)

or

when regulus stans(that are also anti snape) listing reasons why they like his character in canon discussions, and they just…describing canon snape???(i guess fanon too impactful for them huh)

istg they were not this bad before, i have a theory that the shift on the behaviour of these stans is marked by the existence of ⏰app and *redacted* fic

This obsession with Regulus has really caught me by surprise because I’ve been out of the fandom for a few years, and when I first got into it back in the days of Fanfiction.net and LiveJournal, he wasn’t a character anyone really paid attention to, or at least if they did, they portrayed him as a sort of 70s Draco Malfoy and that was about it. The fact that he’s now being treated as a victim of abuse and mistreatment who had no choice but to join the Death Eaters is laughable to me because it’s well-established in canon (Sirius himself says it) that his brother always followed the family’s rules and was actually Walburga’s favorite because of it. (Though I’ve always thought that if Walburga had so much contempt for her eldest son, it wasn’t just about politics, but because Sirius and she had very similar personalities: both were uncontrollable and insufferable, and she couldn’t stand seeing herself reflected in someone who despised everything she valued. And that Regulus probably had a calmer, more malleable, less confrontational character like his father. But anyway.)

Regulus is no martyr. Regulus was a young aristocrat completely aligned with his social class and its prevailing ideas, just like Draco or many of the Slytherins who were Death Eater children during Harry’s time. I’ve always seen Regulus as similar to Narcissa (in contrast to Sirius, who’s like Bellatrix) with pride in his surname and bloodline, with the belief that being who they are makes them superior to others, and with the firm conviction that those beneath them are worth much less or nothing at all. And, like Narcissa, I don’t see him as sadistic, just someone who joined what he joined feeling quite sure of himself but then got scared when things got out of hand. It’s something that happens to many people who join far-right groups, completely convinced of what they’re seeking, but then back down when they come face-to-face with extreme violence. But to project him as some poor victim… Please. Not only is it incoherent and a betrayal of canon, but it also takes away all the character’s depth. You’re stripping away the tragedy of his regret. You’re robbing him of the chance to become disillusioned with what happened and rebel against it. It’s a mess.

I’m convinced that the new Marauders fans simply hate Snape because: 1) he’s the living, canonical representation that their favorite characters were bullies and abusers, and it completely destroys the narrative they’ve created of the idyllic, super-progressive group of friends; 2) because they’re classist jerks who prefer to fangirl over the cool rich kids with money and status who are on the dark side, essentially turning it into some kind of magical Gossip Girl; and 3) because he’s not canonically attractive, and therefore they can’t make aesthetic TikTok videos with him. It’s such a superficial and absurd perspective, much like treating as canon a bunch of characters whose personalities, relationships, and stories don’t exist in the books because for most of them, we only know their names. But hey, fans like this have just enough brain cells to not crap themselves, so…

[sunnysaystuff]

My stance on the Jegulus-Jily-"All Death Eaters suck because canon says so" dispute (or whatever):

TLDR AT THE BOTTOM!!!!!!!!!!!

After receiving MULTIPLE hate asks (wtf I'm literally nobody why do you care so much) guess I have to put this out here!!

first up - stuff I think is important:

Wolfstar isn't canon and it's the backbone of the fandom, so why do we suddenly decide canon is the shit when people write Jegulus/Jegulily fics? "James would've never liked a Death Eater" fanfiction means you can make stuff up, regardless of what canon James would've liked or wanted.

"Canon-compliant Jegulus fics don't make sense" did James explicitly tell you to your face that he would never date Regulus :0 canon-compliant is a very loose term. a lot of the time it just means that canonical deaths and plot-related events occurred, moreso than relationship-related events.

Jegulus haters often say that Jegulus fans constantly villainize Lily, but the fact of the matter is that they don't. You see more Jily fans villainizing Regulus for originally being a Death Eater than you see Jegulus fans villainizing Lily. "Regulus deserves the villainization and Lily hasn't done anything wrong" - reminder that you can hate on canon Regulus all you want (despite the fact that he eventually changed) but you should know that fanfiction might present him differently. Random fanfic Regulus is not the canon Regulus you despise.

Jegulus fans who despise Snape for his actions in canon aren't being very fair. He joined the Death Eaters and then he ended up working against the Dark Lord, just as Regulus did. Yes, he spent years bullying Harry, but do you honestly think Regulus wouldn't have behaved similarly if he had been in a similar position? If Regulus had been in love with Lily, and James and his brother and their friends were constantly making fun of him, and then Lily died after marrying someone he hated, do you think Regulus would have treated the godson of his estranged brother who betrayed Lily, the identical-to-James son of his enemy, with fairness or kindness? Regulus was canonically also not a nice person at all - was literally a Voldemort fanboy, and Snape wasn't even confirmed to be that much - and in fanon he's often characterized as this petty little shit. So do you think Regulus wouldn't have been awful to Harry as well?

Adding on to that, people call Snape toxic and creepy for being "obsessed with Lily" (he loved her because she was a bright spot in his awful life, platonic or romantic. Obsessed? Maybe <- My hot take), but when Regulus does it with James, it's sexy?

"Stop romanticizing Death Eaters" if it's not your cup of tea, don't read. I think these characters are just that, characters, and fanon stuff means you can do whatever you want with them! You can rewrite someone's entire story and personality if you want (ex: THOSE Dark Harry fics, a number of Dramione fics).

my personal opinions:

Jily and Jegulus are both super fun ships. Love 'em equally, though I'd say currently I'm leaning toward Jily.

I love Jegulily. I think it's really fun and has a lot of potential :0

I'm alr with Snape bashing and no Snape bashing (it's not that deep gang, same for Peter 'cause honestly it's kinda silly how people try to sub-in other characters as the 4th Marauder. Peter existed y'all.)

I think the Black sisters deserve more attention :0

Yes sometimes the characters are ooc in fics!! What to do when you see this and don't like it is click the back button!!

I don't have a problem with Remadora, but I prefer Wolfstar :)

I don't believe in canon casanova of gryffindor tower; I think it's cute in fanon though<3

endnotes/tldr since I wrote a whole essay:

ship and let ship. every (non-proship) ship is valid. this is what fanon's for.

let people hc and do what they want omg pls stop throwing hands over little things

have your opinions they're valid! just don't try to force them on others!!

feel free to argue with me in notes if you want; just be respectful please! I'm down to hear others' opinions; you might change my mind on stuff!!

might add more if I missed anything! I just thought it was lowkey important to put my opinion out here.

[saintsenara]

thoughts on sirius/narcissa

thank you very much for the ask, anon! this has the potential to be an interesting and controversial one...

i've spoken here and there about how - as much as i loathe the character commonly known as fanon!sirius - i'm also not the biggest fan of a version of sirius which has emerged as a reaction to this, who we might call dark!aristocrat!sirius.

this sirius - who appears not to have realised his canon self is being sarcastic when he says his parents considered themselves "practically royal" - is, i'm sorry to say to the aristocracy fans, just as distorted a version of the character as the heavily-tattooed and tiny fanon!sirius. and that's fine, obviously - people are entitled to like and read and write what they want - but it's not going to stop a tear beading in my eye whenever i see it...

[one day i'll hit publish on my the black family are not politically important manifesto and be removed from the fandom...]

which is to say, the sirius who tends to be shipped with one or other of his cousins - although, for exactly the tedious pro-aristocracy, people-belong-with-their-own-kind reasons outlined above, the cousin in question never seems to be andromeda - is this dark aristocrat version, and he's usually written as wanting to fuck either narcissa or bellatrix because the only woman worthy to be with a male scion of the house of black is a female scion of the same house.

and i think it's out-of-character and i think it's dull!

now, if you're looking for the whole twisted-obsession-ruins-the-vibe thing, i can see that there's a plausible case for sirius/bellatrix - they're set up by the canon narrative as extraordinarily similar [and i absolutely read sirius' claim in order of the phoenix that andromeda was his favourite cousin as a lie, covering up the fact that, as a child at least, that role was taken by bellatrix]. i think there's something very interesting which can be done with both of them shattering the expectations of their families in ways which would evidently be quite shocking in a society with such restrictive mores. bellatrix massively defies gendered conventions which require a pureblood woman of her social class to be little more than a wife and mother [although that she does so without being able to leave her family, like sirius, is because - you guessed it! - of those gendered conventions themselves], while sirius shirks his expected social role as the eldest son, upsetting the "natural" order of things in his family's eyes. that can, i think give some interesting flavour to that pairing.

but sirius and narcissa never - in my view - hits in the same way. while they're closer in age than sirius and bellatrix, their personality types are sufficiently divergent [but not in an interestingly conflicting way - their major difference is largely that narcissa doesn't seem to be particularly fun] that the spark is lacking. and this, i think, is the reason why siricissa tends to hang really heavily on the idea that it is hot, glamorous, and aristocratic to have sex with your first cousin.

and look, one of the only bits of "pureblood culture" fanon i accept is the idea that blood-supremacist families practise arranged marriage [i think sirius' comment in order of the phoenix about parents "only letting" their children marry other purebloods essentially confirms it], and that first cousin marriage may well be their cultural practise as well. but arranged marriages [and, indeed, cousin marriages - which are obviously considered much less unusual in some cultures than others] aren't inherently interesting things. they're just things some people do.

but the vast, vast majority of the sirius/bellatrix or sirius/narcissa i've ever seen thinks that the blood-relation element and that alone is enough to justify the ship as hot and exciting and wicked. and it's not.

what i would like to make the case for instead is shipping narcissa with regulus.

my reading of narcissa has always been that she's somebody who - a little like petunia dursley - feels an absolutely enormous pressure to adhere to social convention, owing to the shame she perceives her family as receiving following both andromeda's desertion of them and bellatrix's refusal to conform. she's someone, i think, who really leans into the character of the perfect lady-of-the-manor, the model wife and mother, the pure ideal of wizarding womanhood - and i think you can do a lot with her experience in this gilded prison of her own, and society's, making.

regulus too is someone who canonically conforms - again, as sirius tells us, as a reaction to sirius' own defiance of the behaviour expected of him by his class and blood status. i think the two of them finding themselves in a relationship which is constantly battling against this artifice - whether they end up clinging all the more tightly to the masks they wear in public or they're able to help each other gradually become more open and real - would absolutely slap.

[starving-marauder-lover]

youre a disgusting fucking misogynist for replacing lily (canonically marginalised character) with regulus (canonically fascist character) get the fuck out of this fandom and take your disgusting fetish "ship" with you.

fuck you and all jegulus freaks

omg, ya'll, my first hate message!

unfortunately, they did it anonymously so people can't be aware of person who is going around harassing people. I'm sorry to anyone who also had this message sent to you, reach out if you need to.

First of all, I did not "replace" Lily. I still ship Jily, but it's not a ship that I will specifically search for as a main ship. Side ship, hell yeah! A main ship in a fic with a plot I really like, double hell yeah!

Now because you can't have an actual conversation without hiding behind the anonymous switch, I'm assuming you may not know anything about jegulus and its headcaons.

There is this thing you may have never heard about called "fanon" It's a fan's version of canon! I follow the fanon that Reg did not actually follow his families views and was actually hoping Sirius would take him when running away.

This fandom is built off of breaking away from canon. Who would want to abide by a LITTERAL TERF that aligns with fascist views? Not me. Jegulus is a ship I love because I love the dynamic they have, it's sunshine vs grumpy, not sunshine vs fascist. I would not read fics if Regulus had kept up to his canon views.

Jegulus is loved because of how wildly different they are. It's similar to Drarry if you think about it, a spin on enemies to lovers.

We also don't know much about Regulus, given that he was barely mentioned. There's not much to go off of, he could have been like Sirius, but just not had the guts to. It's very easy to separate "canon" and "fanon"

Now, circling back to you're replacing Lily because you're "a disgusting, fucking, misogynist" I believe everyone is equal. I have fought for equal rights at my school because of their misogynistic dress code, and have done school projects raising and donating money to organizations that empower women to give them equal rights when it comes to their right to get an abortion.

I am not a fascist, I have to deal with people with right-wing views and people who are against me being who I am every day. I don't need to explain myself to you.

Considering your lack of punctuation, you may not know what the obvious flag is in my profile. That means I am transgender. I was born a female and started my transition in 6th grade. That is another reason why I love Regulus, many people headcanon him as transgender, and I love that idea. If that is not more proof that I separate canon Regulus and his terrible views from fanon Regulus, I don't know what else will.

This is not how you treat a fandom, going around and bullying people because they don't agree with a idea that you have. Fandom etiquette is very important, and you are very clearly not following it. No one can "win" at ship wars. No one is better than anyone, no ship is better than any other ship. Don't attack people you don't know and don't go around attacking people in general. You can't force someone out of a fandom because they don't agree with you. These are not real people, we do not know their actual ideas. Fuck whatever JK says about them, her ideals are horrible.

To summarize, all ships are amazing and don't attack people based on their ideas about FICTIONAL PEOPLE.

[shivstar]

Good morning/afternoon/evening, I'm very curious: Did Sirius appreciate/love Regulus? Someone mentioned that he appreciated him and that's why he left Regulus' room intact. Is that canon or fanon? I'd like to know more about their dynamics (if you don't want to answer this question, that's fine)

Hello Anon!!!!!

SIrius and Regulus's dynamic is a complex one. I don't think that anyone in the fandom has that strong sense of writing proweress to write their dynamic. Because the author would be either siding with Sirius or with Regulus. No one decides to sit and write them down as a neutral guy. This is similar as to most snape and marauders stories. Either Snape is the bad guy or marauders are the bad guy. Writing nucanced characters is not upto the capabilities of rooky writers writing fanfics. JKR, for all the reasons she gives us to hate her, has gone very above and beyond to add layers to her characrters. Harry the primary protagonist to voldemort, the main antagonist and everyone in between them has so many aspects to them. I wish to create characters like hers someday. She is really great in terms of character study and i would appreciate her on that. Credit should be given where it is due.

About Sirius's views on Regulus. Listen every elder sibling, sometime in their life experience this feeling of not being loved after the second kid came along. Every kid. It then falls upon the parents to guide them out of those dark thoughts.

THis is where i think Walburga and Orion failed. I imagine that if his parents really were loving, Sirius would have felt too conflicted to leave, especially, at 16! He MUST have no reason to stay whatsoever. And that includes Regulus.

I hc that Sirius, like every elder siibling at that age, wanted to explore life without his not so baby brother tagging along. So, in school he wanted Regulus to maintain distance. NOT because he was so opposed to Regulus's still forming beliefs or Regulus being slytherin. THat was all given to Sirius. He expected as much of Regulus. But he didn't want Regulus near his freind group becasue he had no time to babysit Regulus in front of his cool friends he is trying to impress as every kid at that age does.

Regulus was pissed at this. His elder brother not wanting to involve him. But that is not extreme. A healthy amount of aversion to being treated less important in comparision to these blod traitors and mudbloods. But he knew that at home he wins. He knew his mother and father loved him more than Sirius.

I hate abusive Black Parent HC. Walburga and Orion were results of years of generational unheathy parenting ways passed on among Blacks. But it didn't include hitting their kids in abnormally cruel ways.

They were decent parents.

Wolfstar and Jegulus guys treat Regulus's joining Voldy's as a result of parenting. And yes it was, to some ways. But it wasn't what they aimed for. Sirius clears that in OOTP.

Regulus being super close to Walburga made Sirius question his mother's love for him. THen he thought who wants to be loved by the woman who has so wrong beliefs. THis is the constant cycle of thoughts circulating in his head all his life. Even in adulthood, after running away.

I really like the idea of him grieving the absence of love from his parents. SOmewhat aimining that hurt at Regulus. And that causing conflict in the house of Black.

But he loved that little bugger too. His mother told him to take care of his little brother. He regretted not being that guiding force in Regulus's life but he also acknowledges that the bond between Regulus and Walburga was so strong that he couldn't have done anything different.

Sirius lived life with this duality. Picturing Regulus as the little kid he spent 11 years of his life with but also seeing him as this teenage boy who had voldy's moodboard in his bedroom. Reminising all the pranks he pulled and the couple of sweet memories he shared. But also resenting Regulus for loving Kreacher more than he did Sirius.

THem being typical sibling is very important to me. The antagonism between them was not becasue of war. Again i think that Sirius would have forgiven Regulus for being a death eater if he had shared a deep bond with him. We see him being okay with James's brand of cruelty. Sirius (except the shack incident) is never SHOWN to be actually physically hurting anyone But we are told and see that James was often engaging in act of mindless cruelty. I am not saying that he was saint towards snape but i believe it was more of standing by James, like he did in SWM, rather than actaully participating in senseless act of cruelty.

Sirius's brand of cruelty was in his words. He had a way just like his mother. Even in shack incident, he used his words to make Snape teach Snape a lesson for snooping around.

So all this makes me think that even if one single person in his family shown him love and understanding as James did. He would have not belittled them on their moral beliefs. Like you know how we often forgive our loved ones for whatever crimes they did becasue we love them.

I am sure he wouldn't even blink an eye if James asked him to hide a dead body.

But no one, including Regulus, could ever tap on that unlimited well of loyalty that Sirius gives to his chosen people. James won the lottery in this case.

So, I picture the Black brothers loving each other deep down but otherwise remaining mostly indifferent towards each other.

Chosing their own respective pathways without concern for the other.

Regulus's decision to become a death eater chalked upto Sirius's runaway stunt is wrong. Regulus believed fully on the bigotry. He wanted to be a death eater. Anything else is fanon....

[iamnmbr3]

For the unpopular opinion edition: ❤️💚💙💜

I don't see a red heart so I'm going to take a guess on which one you meant.

❤: Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

I'm tempted to say Regulus, but I'm going to go with Sirius because there's a lot more canon content for Sirius and it just...all seems to go out the window in some corners of fandom. I mean, to each their own. I'm not the fun police here to say what people should and should not make. But I personally find fanon!Sirius to have nothing in common with canon!Sirius other than his name and to be vastly less interesting than his canon counterpart. I like Sirius flawed with sharp edges.

Also to me personally it feels a little uncomfortable when that fanon interpretation makes him queer and then reduces him to a bunch of queer stereotypes. It's not that a man can't be effeminate or present in a way that is traditionally hyper feminine and be super pretty and short and slight and physically weak and empty headed and also happen to be queer. It's just that Sirius was none of those things.

And so seeing him get turned into that just so that he can be the "girl" in a queer relationship feels heteronormative and uncomfortably reductive and stereotypical in a harmful way to me personally. But again. What is validating for some people is not validating for others. No one size fits all. Everyone is free to create and consume the content they like.

But I'll be over here in my corner with the version of Sirius that is brilliant and vicious and hypocritical and contradictory and deeply, deeply flawed and capable of great warmth and kindness to those he likes but also capable of tremendous callousness and outright cruelty not just in anger but for sport, a man with a true and terrible dark side, and someone who can be both reckless and emotional but also very perceptive and cold and calculating. He's deeply flawed and deeply complex and deeply interesting. I'll take content that expands on that over the shallow fanon version any day. But that's just me.

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

I have so many faves and I've been picking a different one every time I get this. This time I'll go with my take that Tom understands love more than Dumbledore might think. Maybe on the one hands it's something he finds hard to conceptualize since it's not something he's had much experience with. But he certainly understands that hurting Draco is an effective way to punish Lucius and Narcissa for example and that Harry will come running to save Sirius if he believes that he's in danger or even that Billy Stubbs would be hurt by the death of his rabbit etc. He uses love against people on several occasions.

💙: Which character is not as hot as everyone else seems to think?

Attractiveness is entirely subjective so that's really impossible to answer. I will say that Regulus is canonically not as attractive as Sirius though (at least according to Harry).

💜: Which character is way hotter than everyone else seems to think?

This is more of an in-universe thing. But I'll go with Harry Potter. I think Harry is a lot more attractive than he thinks but he doesn't realize due to his low self esteem. The Dursleys constantly made him feel bad about his physical appearance. It's why he always flattens his hair when he's nervous. James on the other hand tries to ruffle it up and seems to be pretty popular and to think that makes him look cooler. And Harry looks very similar to James. Tom Riddle is also canonically extremely attractive and Diary!Tom notes that he and Harry look something alike. Plus we know by book 6 Harry is pretty fit and strong given that he can pin Mundungus to a wall with one hand - something many people find attractive. So I think while he may not be as good looking as Cedric or Tom Riddle or young Sirius, he's a lot more attractive than he realizes and it's not just his fame that draws girls to him as he matures.

[starrylayle]

what are your opinions on Severus snape and lily evans, as individual characters and as friends?

oooh thanks for asking!! i love talking abt hp characters and their relationships with each other ajhkasgfi. warning tho, this is very looooooong.

ok let's start with severus first because i feel like my relationship with him has been the most... turbulent lol.

SEVERUS SNAPE

i was pretty neutral on snape's character when i was first reading the series, perhaps leaning more to dislike. It wasn't until DH where it was revealed that snape was in love with lily the whole time 13 year old me was SHOOK. i became the biggest snape stan and snily shipper. I hated both James and sirius (still loved remus tho lol). and i remember watching so many snape youtubers and yeah i would write praragraphs defending this man and how lily should have chosen him. lmao now u all know abt my snapie past.

However, during my next reading, in about 2018, i began to see snape's flaws more. I was also very active on the wattpad hp fandom (yes shhh ik) and a lot of my friends loved the marauders as characters (they were not in the marauders fandoms, they just liked the characters) and a lot of them hated snape. And then i began to hate snape too lol. However, i really enjoyed reading and watching videos that dissected his character. and i still watched videos from snape stans

i then joined the marauders and atyd fandom in 2021 and now was a pro snape hater. like mans was now the definition of pure evil. Made hating snape a personality trait lol. Though he was the worst of the worst.

it wasn't until late 2023/early 2024 when i became fed up with mauraders fandom and how they fanonise everything. especially considering so many of them stan regulus (which the way they characterise him in fanon is how canon kid snape was depicted anyway) and barty and evan and all those fucking death eaters who were wayyyy worse than snape ever was -- but no, snape is sill for some reason the No.1 evil.

now, i feel like snape is a much more interesting character than people give him credit for, and especially as a kid, was not as bad as marauders fans depict him to be. However, I don't really interact with the snape fandom so much because i feel like they either ignore excuse the shittier things he did as an older teen/adult. I am also of the opinion that James and sev were rivals, and it wasn't a bullying situation but yeah. i wish there were more people who enjoyed both the marauders and severus who didn't make either or both to be saints lol

LILY EVANS

Ok, I'll be honest, Lily's character did not really interest me until I read atyd. To be fair, jkr spent a a lot of time characterising harry's dad and his friends, but we were not given too much info on Lily, and almost no info on if she had any other friends besides severus.

I loved Lily's friendship with Mary and Marlene in atyd, and of course with Remus. and i loved how her personality in that fic to. I don't consider that fic to be canon compliant now and don't agree with a lot of the characterisations but it was still pretty good.

Lily was a bit too sensible in atyd, and whenever we're given descriptions about her from slughorn for instance, or her personality in SWM, she's presented as 'vivacious' and cheeky' so i like to think that she wasn't really a hermione 2.0 but rather more similar to snarky and sassy harry, tho perhaps more popular and well-loved. Her and James were totally academic rivals to lovers omg.

SEVERUS SNAPE & LILY EVANS

ok now onto what i think u really wanted me to address - sev and lily's relationship.

No, i don't think sev was 'obssessed' with Lily, i think he truly loved her but he was also a selfish person. (however tho, how would sev convince voldy to spare harry,, like that was literally all voldy was after like....)

anyways, as kids, they were very close -- maybe a little codependant. I imagine Lily was always facinated with Sev his talk about magic, and to sev, Lily was an escape from his abusive homelife. I think they both may have had a little crush on each other pre-hogwarts.

As they went to hogwarts, they grew apart as they were placed in different houses. Snape was surroundd by pureblood facists which slowly radicalised him, and Lily began making friends in Gryffindor. A war tensions grew, i can imagine snape and Lily's relationship became more tense and strained, and no one knew why they stuck together. But they knew things about each other that no one else did and understood each other in ways no one else could. However, after SWP, it was clear that they were heading down different paths so lily cut him and that was that.

Lily always felt hurt after their break up, but she had supportive friends to keep her afloat. Snape however, was filled with guilt, bitterness and regret and thus became deeply radicalised. I don't think tho that Snape was very high in the death eater rank until the search for harry/prophecy was on.

anyways still mulling things over but yeah, i think they're both facinating and i'd love to see their relationship explored in complexity in more fics!

[midnightstargazer]

❤️🤍 !!

thanks @slitheringghost!

unpopular opinion ask game

Took me a while to find the red heart, I think it's the one that's showing as plain solid-colored black for me, but please let me know if you meant something different.

❤: Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

Barty Crouch Jr.

I like the idea that he had a tense relationship with his father going back several years before he got caught as a Death Eater. And I like the idea that he was close to Regulus Black and Evan Rosier, whether romantically or just as friends - although that's purely headcanon that I think could make sense, not actually something with canon evidence to back it up.

But that's about where fanon Barty and I part ways.

Canon Barty is, first of all, incredibly intelligent. Both in terms of book smarts (twelve O.W.L.s!) and in terms of cunning and manipulation (see: literally everything he does in GoF). Fanon Barty often seems like he doesn't have a coherent thought in his head.

In canon, he comes across as someone who nobody - Crouch Sr. included - would have suspected, so I doubt he was openly rebellious. More likely he was sneaking away to meetings and hanging out with bad influences at school while still toeing the line at home.

He was right up there with Bellatrix as one of Voldemort's most loyal followers. He definitely wasn't in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was caught, and he absolutely did join of his own free will.

I'm not a big fan of making Frank and Alice involved with Evan Rosier's death and framing what Barty did to them as revenge.

And I'm going to be petty here: he has straw-colored hair, i.e., dirty blond or light brown, and there's no indication he had tattoos or piercings.

🤍: Which character is not as morally bad as everyone else seems to think?

The difficult thing about this question is that in such a huge fandom, there are so many conflicting opinions, and morally ambiguous characters tend to be polarizing rather than overwhelmingly hated or loved.

But I think criticisms of Kreacher in OotP often fail to take into account his circumstances. I'm not talking about his role in Sirius's death so much as just his attitude in general. Sometimes, I think people tend to forget he's a house-elf, or forget what that means.

Like, yes, he calls people mudbloods and blood traitors and is generally very unpleasant. But he's probably never interacted with a Muggle-born before, or anyone who wasn't a bigot, except for Sirius and maybe Andromeda before they were disowned. He's repeating what he's always heard, and he's certainly never been encouraged to think for himself. He's loyal to the Blacks because that's how house-elves generally are, and also possibly because they treated him better than comparable families like the Malfoys would have. He's been completely alone for about ten years, interacting with no one but Walburga's portrait. And he's reacting to a situation where his whole world has been turned upside down overnight, not to mention suddenly belonging to someone who clearly hates him.

He has no power over his own life, he's probably frightened and upset, he's very indoctrinated, and he comes around eventually. While it's not good, I think something gets lost when people act like there's no context, as if he's just awful for no reason or as if he's coming from the same sort of position of power that a pure-blood wizard would be when they act in similar ways.

[jegulus4444]

About this old post I want to give y’all my opinion.

First of, I love him in fanon. I always love the character and see soo much potential. He is one of the marauders after all, without him there’s no marauders.

I think he indeed loves herbology and I headcanon him as a bisexual short king. I like to think of him and James as childhood friends, and maybe Pete has a little tinny crush on James. He’s a great friend to the group and he is always there for them, as they are for him.

Someone commented about his dynamic with Remus being similar to James and Sirius, and I think I like that. I think Sirius would talk about Remus and his feeling with James and Remus would talk about Sirius and feelings with Peter. I think he is a very sweet boy overall. Snarky and funny as well. And also smart.

NOWWWW about the Peter from the OG saga, of course I dislike him. He is a traitor. Of course fear makes people do insane things. The thing that bothers me he most is that he wasn’t smart enough to talk to his friends about it, and he ends up dying like a coward.

Even in this universe, I like to think pete was a good kid, after ll he was James´ best friend and part of the marauders still. There is no universe were I don’t love and devote myself to James Potter, so I hate the fact that Peter was responsable for his dead.

NOOOW HERES MY HC ABOUT THAT:

I like to think that besides the fear and stuff, Peter have other motives. I think Peter had the biggest crush on James Potter, no, HE WAS IN LOVE WITH THE MAN. Ever since they were kids James was he’s whole world. He then had a hard time sharing him with Sirius and Remus. Specially with Sirius. I Evan it was Peter who grew up with him, so why was he calling Sirius his brother? Then he thought it was okay because he didn’t want to be James´brother, he wanted to be his everything, his boyfriend, his husband, the love of his life. But James Potter was in love with perfect Lily Evans. It was always that way, but it was okay, Peter understood James wasn’t Ito boys and he tried very hard not to hate blind Lily who couldn’t see what was right in front of her, perfection.

But then something horrible happened. One night James confessed to him he liked boys, and Peter let his hopes up for a second, but soon after James was telling him how in love he was with Regulus Black. Ever since then Peter started hating he black brothers it’s his life. James dated Regulus for 2 long years and Peter had to hear everything about him, because James told him everything, specially since he couldn’t tell Sirius, eventually they broke up and Regulus went missing. Finally it was his chance with James, they would get through this war together and James would protect him, after all Peter view James as a God.

But it didn’t take James a year to marry Lily Evans, and Peter was donde for; why? Why her again? Why couldn’t ever be him. So he turn to the dark lord. His heart was now full of darkness and he wanted revenge on Lily, on the Regulus boy (soon he found out he was maybe taken care of) on bloody Sirius (who then he send to Azkaban as revenge) and even his sweet James, if he couldn’t have him, nobody would. It wasn’t until he saw James laying on the floor that he regret it . Why couldn’t the dark lord just kill lily and the kid? Maybe then James would have chosen him.

So that’s that, let me know what you think :)

Hey! I need to know your honest opinion about Peter, like in general, fanon, canon, or whatever is going on in your head

[felixantares]

here's an ask :D

who's your favorite maraudeur character to write about?

who's the maraudeur you like reading about?

who's the maraudeur whose fanon characterization doesn't match your headcanon (stirring drama!!! :D )

answering this like 4 days late, because I’ve once again found my time monopolized by Baldur’s Gate (oops)

1. hmmmm I think of the marauders specifically, Sirius is my favourite to write. I love writing about him and his relationship to Regulus and how he views his brother (and vice versa), sibling relationships are some of the most interesting to me because they’re often so complicated and you can squeeze so many conflicting emotions into them. Also the whole family is so messed up and exploring his relationship to the rest of them is very good. (unspeakable3 does some very good sirius fics that I love, and they’re my number one author for the brothers, I was recently re-reading some of their sirius-centric fics so I’m in a bit of a black brothers mood at the moment)

2. All of them?????? How am I supposed to pick? Some of my favourite fics are of all four of them just exploring their friendship. Sirius for similar reasons as above, but also Remus. I think he’s such a complicated character and he made a lot of mistakes, especially after the first war, and I really like reading fics where authors explore his grief and the decisions he made because of them. (or fix-it fics, i do love a good fix it! I read one where Remus went and kidnapped Harry from Petunia when he was still a toddler and that was very very good).

3. I mean, I think this one heavily depends on what corners of fandom you’re inhabiting. I heavily curate my own experience so I don’t really interact with a whole lot of fics that have characterizations that I don’t like or people who talk about them much, and also I’m pretty flexible with my own headcanons so if something gets changed I’m not that thrown off. That being said — I’ve seen recently this shift with Remus and Sirius where their personalities seem swapped? and it’s very off putting to read Remus as this tall, buff, super competent casanova type, like i’m sorry that’s so wrong — he’s a wet, damp, chronically ill, closeted noodle of a man who made a lot of mistakes and that’s what makes him interesting. And in a similar fashion, this fanon view of Sirius as an irresponsible, impulsive godfather who puts Harry in danger is so weird. Like one of these two men ran away and ignored Harry for 12 years and it was not Sirius Black. I love Remus don’t get me wrong, but because he’s interesting, not because he’s perfect. Then also just like fandom’s way of boiling Peter down to a villain who betrayed his friends without a thought and acting like he was never really friends with the others in the first place is frustrating to me, or turning James into this always happy, sunshine character who doesn’t yell or get angry ever and erasing all of his mistakes and bad traits. Basically just whenever they get made into there perfect characters and have all their flaws taken away is when they don’t match my headcanons. But I have this handy red X button for when I stumble upon that kind of thing out in the wild lmao

the surprise ask was very fun, so thank you very much and I’m sorry I didn’t get to it sooner! 💚

[jacksallys]

Re: your Regulus as Draco rip-off post.. agree one thousand percent. Regulus is given so many traits that are outright stolen from other Slytherins in the story. And the thing is, I wouldn't even care so much if 1) the situations and traits they are ripping off weren't cheapened, flattened, and done poorly for the sake of babygirlifying Regulus and 2) they didn't look down on fans of the characters they are ripping off.

Fanon Regulus being "forced into being a Death Eater" Pfft OKAY. Fanon Regulus being a sarcastic mildly antagonistic Slytherin interested in a Gryffindor Potter. Do they not see that they're describing Drarry? Or fanon Regulus being an antisocial potions prodigy who spies on Voldemort to protect someone he loves and dies fighting for the light. Yeah no that's not Regulus's story.

Fanon Regulus is endowed with all of these compelling traits and arcs from other canon characters, with none of the nuance present in their originators, because idk they can't seem to handle it or something. And yet they dare to look down on fans of Draco, Drarry, or Snape? It's so brazenly hypocritical.

no bc i get what ur saying and ur right!! like. in canon we know absolutely fucking nothing about regulus black ok. like. we know his name. we know he started hogwarts in 72. he was a slytherin, he became a death eater at sixteen, he had a collage of death eater propaganda on his bedroom wall, sirius described him as quite naive and said he was reminded by his parents that regulus was a better son, and then he had his plot w/ voldemort and died at 17/18 and thats it!! obv our two sources on regulus's personality come from regulus and kreacher but they are both two VERY biased sources. we don't really know much about his personality other than that he was raised believing his parents bigotry unlike sirius, that he was pretty smart and what we can infer from him being sorted into slytherin. other than that literally allllll of it is pulled straight from draco malfoy, mainly draco in drarry fics. i haven't read many other fics ft. different draco ships, i don't love dramione but i'm assuming he is similarly characterised - maybe just more "oh feel sorry for me i am so tortured and mysterious - in them. and don't get me wrong, draco and regulus ARE similar. one of my favourite parts abt the golden trio vs. marauders eras is that characters seem to intentionally mirror each other? and also, they correct the 'mistakes' of the past gen's lives. like. sirius and harry are so fucking similar, but harry actually. survived? and hermione and lily are clear mirrors. even snape and luna, i admit i really don't like snape, but luna is so similar except the fact that... despite her getting teased and bullied she never became cruel? and neville, just like peter he lived in the shadow of ron, hermione and harry but he never resented them for it. however it's one thing to draw parallels between the characters and another to kinda just. blatantly rip off someone's entire personality but also??? try and make them a good person. like regulus black fans will do ANYTHING to insist he is not a bad person bc he's babygirl and he can do no wrong. which. babe. its fine if you're joking but like some of them are serious about it!!!

and like. the real infuriating part is that the average jegulus fan will shit on draco malfoy and drarry as a concept like. babe. you are sat there reading a DRARRY fic, basically. if you downloaded a jegulus fic or a drarry fic and reversed the names, ignored the chronological fuck ups and such, they would read exactly the same!!!!!

(i put it under the cut because i know i have a lot more to say!)

don't get me wrong, even if we strip away alllll of both of draco and regulus's fanon elements, they still have parallels. jkr probably created reg for the plot elements but also to mirror draco. she compared them in an interview one time, she said that they both got into the death eaters too deeply, they were attracted to it at first but that the reality of what it meant to be a death eater was way too much to handle. yeah. however even if regulus was freaked out by the concept of ritual sacrifices and brutal massacres and voldemort killing his house elf, he still hated muggleborns and believed in blood purity - which. is a thing that regulus fans commonly just cut out of fics? i've never read a drarry fic where draco didn't believe his parents were correct. but also their situations are a little different because whilst draco genuinely didn't have anyone in his life who didn't believe in blood purity, regulus did. sirius 100% tried to explain to him that their parents were liars and there wasn't anything wrong or different about muggleborns however he didn't listen. which jegulus fans seem to always coincidentally forget? and yeah okay, it's a fic. embellesh a little. break canon if you'd like. but the second you obsess over and love a character who is literally the wizard equivalent of a nazi and a canon blood purist despite having multiple opportunities for an out, you completely lose the ability to shit on any other character for doing the same thing. you can't shit on bellatrix for murder or evan and barty for being death eaters or anything. and it's insane to me because they dont!!!!!!! they dont shit on bellatrix OR evan and barty and its not even in the sense of like.... enjoying a morally grey nuanced character? the average regulus/jegulus stan strips away every single morally grey and. awful thing about reg and the slytherin skittles just to??? idk. validate it in their own mind. that it is ok to like and enjoy a bad person.

(on the topic of snape - i don't get how regulus fans can dump on him either? like. okay. i hate snape. however my reasons for hating snape are more so to do with the fact that his incel behaviour and obsession with lily genuinely freaks me out so fucking much, and there is absolutely no way you can defend a man who vindictively bullied an eleven year old just because that boy could have been the chosen one, and if he had been then maybe lily wouldn't have died, to the extent where when neville was thirteen snape was his BIGGEST fear. this boy was dropped out of a window by his own uncle, spent years terrified that he would be a squib, WHOSE OWN PARENTS WERE TORTURED TO THE POINT OF INSANITY BY BELLATRIX LESTRANGE and his TEACHER was his biggest fear. that's my issue with him. however. the average regulus fan doesn't give a shit about lily evans, the majority of them villainise her because james loves her - and god forbid that man loves a woman and ur no longer interested in fetishising his relationship!!!!!!!!! either that or they make her a lesbian and pair her off with usually either mary or pandora because they have to physically make her unattracted to men so she won't threaten jegulus. like. i like marylily. i like jegulus. i like jily. i lOVE pandora/lily. one of my favourite lily ships is her and marlene, i'm a sucker for the jock x nerd dynamic! but. you don't have to make her not romantic and sexually interested in MEN just so she isn't a threat to jegulus. that's misogynistic. it is actually possible to not want to fuck a certain man even if you like their general species! lily went six years not wanting to date that man, she can continue to do so in your fic whilst still being attracted to men. it's. odd? why not just make her bisexual?? ah, yeah, because you don't want james to be an option at ALL. anyway sorry i got distracted however my point stands.)

idk man i say all of this whilst Enjoying jegulus and regulus. i hate fics that write him as some sort of completely innocent in no way bad person, but the fics where he genuinely is... self serving and morally grey and only really cares about himself and the people he loves and values? yeah. theyre enjoyable. however that entire personality is just stolen from fucking draco. you can tell bc it came about in 2019/2020 when jegulus got super popular and im 99% sure it was just because all the draco malfoy/drarry stans got pissed off with dracotok and HIS morally grey personality and general... dickish cruel horrible behaviour being ripped away? and even jegulus's dynamic - it's JUST drarry. there is no other way around it. and it's so fucking frustrating when reg stans actively dump on drarry and draco as a character WHEN THEIR FAVE IS HIS CHARACTER.

tdlr: i don't hate regulus, i think he's interesting. i enjoy him in a lot of fics. however it's so fucking frustrating when people that love him a. strip away every single negative part of his character in an attempt to justify themselves liking him when... he isn't that guy. regulus black is a child who believed in his parents bigotry and got in too deep and then died making a last ditch attempt to kill voldemort Not because he genuinely didn't believe in his cause but because voldemort pissed him off by trying to kill kreacher! and b. that jegulus fans regularly shit on draco malfoy when... he's the original? and they hate drarry meanwhile almost every single version of jegulus's dynamic is just blatantly them, whether the authors are aware of it or not.

[wrockingwriter]

To Be, or Not to Be: Canon

Before we dive into everything, I want to be sure that we’re all on the same page when we discuss what is and is not Canon. So, a couple definitions:

Fanon is the collection of widely agreed upon information that has little, if any, supporting evidence in the source material. Think things like Hermione’s Parents’ names, or calling Harry, Ron and Hermione the Golden Trio.

Canon is the collection of information found in the source material or from the author/scriptwriter directly. Character names, romantic pairs seen in the books/films, etc.

This panel comes from there being too many different sources of information (original books,  film adaptations, side books (Beedle the Bard, interviews (pre 2009, post 2016, etc) twitter, Pottermore, video games, the Play (which is a debate all its own), the new film franchise) where not all the information adds up. There is conflict, or a character acts in a wholly different way between mediums (Ron) and if you haven’t interacted with all of the material (or sometimes just not enough, or in the same order, as someone else) you could have an entirely different opinion of a character or situation. SOmetimes to the point that you could be having two entirely different conversations at the same time about a single subject and BOTH  be correct.

So I’m going to use a few character examples, and a couple object examples of things that vary wildly between the various pieces of the Wizarding World we all know and love; then I’ll turn the floor over to you guys!

---

I think there are two examples of film-to-book differences that make me the most angry when it comes to characters. First, easily, is Regulus Black, and through him Kreacher. These I’m counting as my first example, as you can’t have one without the other- they’re too connected. 

Regulus Black is often referred to as a more acceptable example of a Slytherin who became a Death Eater and regretted it than Severus Snape (though honestly I don’t see them as particularly similar outside of that). In the films, Regulus is barely a footnote in a conversation, but in the books (despite how similarly brief his story really is) there is so much more depth.

In the film, Kreacher says Regulus ordered ordered him to destroy the locket and he couldn’t. That’s it. I watched that scene a dozen times. What a disservice.

In the books there’s more to it than that. We get a picture painted for us. Sirius had told Harry that Regulus had joined up young, gotten cold feet, and been killed for it. We’re brought into his bedroom, still obviously done in the style of a kid- and one trying to emphasise just how much he was a ‘proper’ Black compared to Sirius. Regulus’ room is entirely done in Slytherin colours, a mural of the Black family crest and motto above his bed, a collection of Daily Prophet clippings about Voldemort… a fanatic.

Kreacher, under duress from Harry’s orders to answer everything truthfully, reveals that Regulus joined Voldemort at 16 and tells the story of the locket. 17 year old Regulus telling Kreacher that he’d volunteered him for a special task, and he was to come home after. We, as readers, know what happened in the Cave- and Kreacher told Regulus all that transpired, and Regulus’ reaction was to be worried for Kreacher, order him to stay hidden/not leave the house, and then go research. Some small time later, Regulus came to see Kreacher while ‘strange, disturbed in the mind’ and ordered him to bring him to the Cave.

Kreacher tells the trio that Regulus sacrificed himself in the Cave. He drank the potion himself, has Kreacher switch the lockets, and ordered Kreacher to leave without him and to never tell his mother what happened.

Regulus Black learned of the Horcrux, and made the choice to not only take what he thought was the ONLY Horcrux and replace it with a fake, or simply ensure (or so he thought) its destruction, or just save his elf from having to endure the potion twice, but he ensured that Voldemort would never discover what he had done via legilimency of himself or his family by dying in the act and ordering Kreacher to never tell his family what had happened.

And, because of all these actions on Regulus’ part, at the battle of Hogwarts Kreacher rallies the House Elves of Hogwarts in Regulus’ name.

---

In the same vein, I’m going to talk about Severus Snape. The films did a great amount of lightening of Snape’s horrid actions- and also did a great disservice to his character with their adaptation of The Prince’s Tale.

So let’s start with the ugly.

Snape is a childish, surly, bully; he took the awful things of his youth and instead of acting against them he allowed himself the awful actuality of becoming that which had so tormented his youth. Instead of refuting, or rising about the bullying, he went to the opposite extreme: make others suffer as I have suffered. He’s worse to some characters- the easiest to name are Harry, Neville, and Hermione. Harry, the (seeming) spitting image of his his bully father; Neville, the other choice for Voldemort that may have spared Lily’s life (though, as we know, the fate of the Longbottoms was no less gruesome, and in some ways more tragic); and Hermione, a brilliant muggleborn witch that likely reminds him very much of Lily.

There is no excusing the deplorable way he treats children. There are reasons, but no excuses, and certainly to forgiveness. The films took great care to not portray some of the worst actions Snape takes with these characters: telling Hermione that he ‘sees no difference’ from the effects of Draco’s curse, telling/instructing Neville to test his Shrinking Solution on Trevor while saying it would likely be poisonous if improperly made; honestly, he was a child’s BOGGART for fuck’s sake. The films made light of these things.

I’ve held lots of Snape panels about Snape’s character; how his morals and emotional maturity (or lack thereof) were shaped by his past, but that’s an entirely different talk. But what makes me most angry is how they handled The Prince’s Tale. The film pretty much erases all of his growing up with Lily, the ways he interacted with Petunia- it gave the very bare bones and then interspersed it with these bits of him cradling Lily’s dead body. Let’s ignore the moments before, of Lily telling infant Harry that he’s loved, as they literally make no sense as he wasn’t there.

Actually, the whole sequence makes no sense. But the memories they chose to keep tell a fraction of the story. They shift the viewer’s opinions from being based upon his actions with the kids/sacrifices in the wake of the Potters’ death to being about his ignoring a crying infant child to cradle the body of his dead ex-friend which didn’t actually happen.

Yes, I have some strong opinions about this.

---

We also, going by the films, know literally none of the essential information about Tom Riddle. We’re also robbed of the moment the Wizarding World sees the monster they’ve feared all this time was only a man all along. There is no explanation of the Defense Against the Dark Arts curse, or how the Horcruxes were chosen. 

By this point in the films, they assume that the viewer has read all the books and can fill in the (copious) holes they’ve left themselves. Merope who? Morfin? Mrs. Cole? Hepzibah Smith? Hokey?

The films made Voldemort into an inhuman monster, which completely derailed so much of the series’ messages about growth, humanity, choice, and change. From Dumbledore to Harry to Voldemort, we are shown all these moments that shape them and those just don’t exist in the films.

---

What about items? 

I’m skipping over the Horcruxes entirely to jump to the item whose entire existence in the films frustrates the crap out of me: the Mirror. Sirius’ mirror, the ‘small, square, old-looking mirror’ that Sirius and James would use to talk to one another while in separate detentions. The one that’s supposedly the size of a book. 

What the hell is the serving tray that’s hanging on Aberforth’s wall in the Hog’s Head?? Even more importantly, where did movie!Harry even get the Mirror shard in the first place?

Time Turners! Let’s not forget the Time Turners that were all destroyed FOR A REASON in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. If we go by Pottermore information, (which I do so lightly) the Hour-Reversal Charm that’s encased in the sand is an incredibly unstable bit of magic. Realistically, how could 19 years not only stabilise the Charm but amplify it exponentially to the point we see in The Play? We don’t know how long it took to develop the Charm in the first place, but with Croaker’s Law forming the 5-hour limit, why/how could someone have developed a device that went that much farther back without notice if the 5-hour limit is due to serious harm befalling both the traveller and time itself?

---

Though not items, the repeatedly Ghosts and House Elves are entirely ignored by the films until they were needed in a way that couldn’t just be passed on to another character (cough, Neville having all of Dobby’s important moments, cough) and Peeves is erased entirely. These characters were important and helped shape out characters into people. Dobby and Winky’s lives brought forth Hermione’s anger at perceived injustices; Harry’s talks and overall odd relationship with Nearly Headless Nick display his wanting to be as kind and helpful as he can be; Peeves’ relationship with the Weasley Twins was just… so much.

It’s understandable that things got cut, it’s natural, there is no way to tell both a complete narrative from a book-perspective in a film and have a decent film. It’s just not possible to have it all in there. But the problem is WHAT got cut- Helena Ravenclaw was important. Hokey the House Elf, Merope- they were important. Why didn’t they just ask JK more often what was important to keep??

Any gravitas and heartbreak you’re supposed to feel for Dobby when he dies just isn’t there because we don’t know him.

---

But enough on that end- let’s get to the other layers of this talk.

How many kinds of informational sources are there for the Wizarding World?

*This is MY breakdown:

Tier 1: Word of God (circa early-2009 and before), books 1-7, Quidditch Through the Ages, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them textbook, Tales of Beedle the Bard, JK site reveals (WOMBAT, family trees, etc) and the current Fantastic Beasts films.

Tier 2: HP film adaptations, Pottermore, JK interviews post-2009, video game information

Tier 3: Cursed Child, JK Twitter, deleted scenes from the films that were not in the books.

FOR ME this works, because I feel like things like interviews and such depend so much on the context and timing of being said. Is the author in that headspace, where they know all the extraneous information that never made it into print? Or are they making snap decisions without research into their own world? Even Philip Pullman (Golden Compass) needed to refer to an outside compendium of information while writing the newest books in the series.

As a writer I know that it’s hard to keep track of everything in my universe at whim, so I take timing into account. Especially when things conflict- like Minerva McGonagall in Crimes of Grindelwald but I’m hoping there’s a better explanation for her presence than JK not knowing how time works a la Prisoner of Azkaban.

---

The question, from what I can see, becomes less of a ‘what’s true’ and far more of a ‘what counts.’ Do we go by what was said, or what she’s saying? Where do we, the community that’s taken the World and made it ur own, draw the line between Canon facts and Fanon fiction? And how can we bridge the gap between people whose core Canon understandings differ hugely from our own?

In a circumstance like this, where the universe is still an ever-expanding thing, to know Canon from Fanon is incredibly difficult. Adaptations alone are both blessing and curse, but at least there one can say that there is a definitive source material- or make very clear that one is vastly different from the other (like Walking Dead, by having the series take a different choice at a crossroads).

But with a creator who continuously expands the world, and reimagines the things that we know (or assume to know) as true, there seems to e no way to say that something is 100% true- even once it’s been recorded in black and white.

It seems, to me at least, that the only real solution is for each of us to make the decision for ourselves- and that isn’t really a solution at all. But until a least the things we could consider to be common knowledge stop changing, I don’t see another solution.

But do you?