#this is dudley being a decent human being

[this-isajokerjoke]

pt 2 of dudley and his attempt at redemption

he goes to therapy after he moves out. he comes to the realization that he was part of the problem

he didn't talk to harry potter for years

he didn't talk much to his parents either

but he still talked to them

he got a girlfriend, broke up, got a girlfriend, broke up

he missed the way that sweet sweet girl made him feel

but that time in his life is over, even if that wonderful girl will always hold a place in his heart

but he meets someone through a friend

she's beautiful. she has short black hair and grayish brown eyes, she has a square frame and a long hooked nose

dudley’s stomach flips pleasantly

she is kind and funny, she loves hiking and moths and can't draw to save her life, she hates tea and coffee and fizzing drinks but loves water and milk and tomato juice, she likes dark chocolate and is allergic to bees, she has four sisters and a little brother who is in junior high, she is 5’10” and wears heels everywhere, making her even taller 

it took a while for him to ask her out, but he does, and she says yes (dudley is shocked, but his friend tells him he's selling himself short)

they go on one date, then another, and another 

the woman, asks him to make things offical. of course, he says yes

they get married after 4 years of dating

they have two little girls

and the first has unexplained disasters. she's wild and once dudley could have sworn he saw her flying. he has a funny feeling about that. 

when she was eleven, a letter came along with an old woman who explains that his daughter was a witch (dudley isn't surprised)

it took a lot of digging to find harry, but he was determined and even if it took him three months

his wife took it well, or as well as she could. she just started laughing when dudley admitted to being cousins with one of the most famous wizards of their century

meeting harry is weird. he's grown and has a beard and a leaner body, but he's the same height and still has scars littering his hands and arms. 

but harry is kind, and he helps him 

he explains things to dudley, gives him recommendations on books and tells him that he was apart of a war and the wizarding world is still healing, so to be careful

so when his eldest daughter is sent to hogwarts with harry’s children, she is ready

his youngest never receives a letter

but he makes sure to not favor either. he doesn't call anyone a freak or stupid or evil or unworthy of magic. he makes sure they're both included in everything. 

and his daughters grow up happy

dudley dursley is 37 when he apologizes to harry potter.

dudley dursley is 37 when harry potter tells him that even if it's not excusable, he’s willing to give him another chance

[thingsisayinmyhead]

Yes, I agree with your quibble for real life situations.

Also in the Harry Potter books, Dudley turned into a decent human being once he got out from under his parents thumb and there are lots of retelling of the Cinderella story where one or both of the stepsisters turned out to be good.

But people who interpret those stories as “child abuse build character” or whatever I mean 🤮.

“You’re coddling your baby by giving them too much love and attention”. NOPE

“I became a good person because my dad beat me with a garden hose!” NOPE (actual thing one of my colleagues said once)

You know a good fictional example of what you’re talking about about exposure to the maltreatment of others as a form of abuse is Gamora and Nebula in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Gamora’s trauma comes from exposure to Thanos’s mistreatment of Nebula and others.

Okay, I’m probably reading too much into fictional characters (on the reading too much into fictional characters website).

All the people saying Crowley's trauma has "made him a better person" need to read this

@peculiar-persephone

[threeopennames]

HP1C1

For the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (because I'm American so I have the more EXCITING title because philosophers are clearly terrible) we get a point of view story from the nasty old Uncle's life. We are essentially told that the Dursley's are ugly and unlikable. We're also told a bunch of weirdos in cloaks were running around the streets all day. We're introduced to the totally not a slur word Muggles, and some other associated vaguely supernatural stuff that we're meant to look back on and go 'oh, THAT'S what that was!'

Overall, none of this is bad. From a child's perspective (or maybe just my own childhood memories) you might not retain everything you read and recognize it being reincorporated later. If you do pay attention, you get some tiny little payoffs, and if you don't, you get a payoff when you re-read the story. The author does this a lot throughout, actually, and it's honestly a neat trick that I love seeing every single time. I like being rewarded for paying attention, but also not necessarily left confused if I missed something important. Background fluff that both provides flavor to the text AND alludes to future events lets you double dip in your story, saving on precious word count. I like this.

In addition we get maybe the most normal interpretation of the Dursley's in the whole series (though this might not be true, I'm relying on my memory of the other books here). Vernon, the uncle, is clearly an annoying jerk, but he does his best to try and not upset his wife by bringing up painful family issues. This actually comes up later! Mrs. Dursley, or Petunia, is shown as being very uptight and rude and bears some ill will towards her sister and her sister's family. An adult might expect that to mean there's a reason for it, while a child will probably just think 'oh she's the mean one' and move on. It's a decent bit of setup, and makes us expect a good payoff later. Standard, but cleanly executed stuff.

Not so great are what I can only describe as the baby hating scenes. The son of Vernon and Petunia is Dudley, who is portrayed as a right proper asshole even though he's like, a year old in the story so far. This seems like a weird choice to me. Nobody has any real control over themselves as a baby, you can't hold someone accountable for stuff they did before they even had object permanence. Yet we're being primed here to hate on Dudley, because of things he did as a literal baby. Very strange!

In addition, despite the not very subtle attempts to paint the Dursleys as really awful people, we're shown that Petunia is a devoted and doting mother. Which, is like, a good thing, right? We're shown and mostly told that Vernon loves Petunia, that Petunia loves Vernon, and they both love their son, and even their intense bitter insular nastiness revolves around protecting one another. Like, that's not ideal behavior obviously, but they aren't (yet) irredeemable. Petunia says she had a lovely day, and enjoyed talking with the neighbors, and Vernon hesitates to give her bad news because he cares about his wife's well being. It sounds like a fairly healthy relationship! It's weird to have these warm domestic scenes in between the bitterly cynical ones, because I'm being primed to hate the Dursleys as an example of a horrible family, but also being shown they're still very human and affectionate. It's a weird mix.

Now I spent a bunch of time on the Dursleys, because they obviously dominate the early chapters, but not so much on the two and a half wizards that show up in this chapter. We have Dumbledoor, who shows up to be the lovable slightly crazy Merlin type. We're introduced to McGonagall, the woman, so she's the one who will be crying later. And on the tail end we're introduced to Hagrid, who is effectively one of the two real main characters of the story. Hagrid also cries, to the author's credit.

The actual story isn't very complicated here. We get characterization of the Dursley's, so you can start hating them. The good guy wizards meet up, and drop a baby on their doorstep while also dropping some lore about a bad guy named Voldemort who killed Harry's parents. Sirius Black gets named dropped as the guy who gave Hagrid his motorcycle, Dumbledoor says it's good to scar children, McGonagall says 'yo this family is hella garbo, you sure about this', and since Dumbledoor is an omniscient god he's totally cool with it. We end with probably a very unintentionally funny line about Harry Potter being 'the boy who lived'. Because he's only major positive contribution to the story from here on out is going to be being a warm body. How exciting!

[prosemoon]

“You can’t blame Snape for the way he treated Harry ‘cause he reminded him of his bully”

FUUUUCK OOOFF OH MY GOD HARRY WAS BULLIED HIS WHOLE LIFE BY DUDLEY AND HIS FRIENDS AND WAS CONSTANTLY TOLD HE WAS WORTH NOTHING BY HIS ONLY PARENTAL FIGURES UP UNTIL HE WAS ELEVEN AND HE STILL MANAGED TO BE A DECENT FUCKING HUMAN BEING!!!! HE FORGAVE THE PEOPLE WHO HATED HIM WHEN THE PRESS TOLD LIES ABOUT HIM AND DIDN’T GO AROUND HARASSING LITTLE KIDS!!! EVEN IF SNAPE WAS STILL ANGRY WITH JAMES FOR WHAT HE DID IT DOESN’T EXCUSE HIS BEHAVIOR TOWARDS LITERAL CHILDREN!!! HE ABUSED HIS POSITION OF POWER CONSTANTLY AND BULLIED CHILDREN TO THE POINT HE WAS THEIR GREATEST FEAR!! SNAPE IS A PIECE OF SHIT AND DIDN’T DESERVE A REDEMPTION

[hopeymchope]

Anon finally figured out The Definitive Answer for why so many people worship Bakugo, because there's a blog post by lovecrafts-iranon where, refreshingly, he actually comes right out and SAYS the reason why fandoms worship assholes: he thinks Dudley should have been Harry Potter's protagonist instead of Potter himself, because "good people doing good things are a boring snooze, while cruel and vicious people are entertaining." So he, and others like him, judge morality by "what entertains me".

Wow. I found that Dudley post, and it has SO MANY notes, and NOT EVEN ONE OF THEM IS SOMEONE DISAGREEING. How is that possible?

But I'd like to take a moment to look at this post in more (i.e. WAY TOO MUCH) depth. With pull quotes!

There is so much potential for growth, and at a nice slow pace because he would need to be dragged kicking and screaming every step of the way and have several reversions.

I guess it's true that he'd have to go through a lot more radical change than Harry did. And that would definitely be interesting to see unfurl, in a fashion. But Harry has to learn self-confidence, learn to cope with death (in the sense that he has to process it for the first time), learn to accept the things he can't change... all the things that people in the targeted demographic age of the readership are simultaneously dealing with. Dudley, on the other hand, doesn't have any reason to learn most of that stuff. He's only relatable to readers who are also massive assholes. Dudley's already overconfident - he's full of himself, and him being told that he's basically the Chosen One will only make it much worse. Will he have to cope with death? I mean, maybe someday. But we start with him only caring about himself, so it's unlikely he'd be too terribly affected if someone died in front of him. That would require him to care about someone else. And learning to accept that he can't change everything is something he'd probably struggle with in a semi-interesting fashion, but do you want to watch a spoiled brat who believes he can scream until he gets his way FINALLY start to learn that maybe he should stop screaming and start facing facts? Shit, that just sounds like modern politics. And coping with people who can't face reality is intolerable and infuriating.

Magic, aside from being not real, is a special kind of repulsive evil [to him]. Merely mentioning magic is the only thing that can temporarily revoke his Specialest Boy status.

I think the author is stating that this is a thing that's true of Dudley in the existing novels? Maybe I'm misunderstanding, and this is something that the author of the post wants to introduce into their AU fanfic. If it's the former, however, then I want to point out that there's no evidence that Dudley held any opinions at all on magic before Harry was declared a wizard. His parents sure did, but they never spoke of magic and refused to acknowledge it, so they naturally never said a word to Dudley about it.

So Dudley actually has no reason to be repulsed by the notion of being a wizard. In all likelihood, he'd be overjoyed to be told that he's a super-powered being of importance who everyone in the magical world has heard about. He'd probably want everybody to genuflect when he entered every room from then on. (I am assuming that Dudley must still be the one who has to eventually defeat Voldemort according to prophecy, but I guess he wouldn't be "The Boy Who Lived." His parents were obviously never killed; the fact that they raised him a certain way is what defines his character. He'd need some other kind of legend to cause his fame.)

Harry would never cause problems on purpose, while Dudley would never stop doing so at Hogwarts!

A character who is actively the source of all the trouble they're in isn't remotely sympathetic; I root AGAINST that kind of character. I want LESS of them. I want them to lose.

That's actually part of why I hated the new Snake Eyes movie — every bad thing that happens can logically be laid at Henry "Snake Eyes" Golding's own [probably gorgeous] feet. I'm not rooting for someone like that.

Harry gets to experience friendship and acceptance for the first time, snooze, while Dudley would have to face lack of friendship and rejection for the first time (there is nobody who wouldn't be put off by 'hates magic' even if they were fine with the rest of his personality)! Now that's fascinating!

I still think seeing a lonely boy with no sense of self-worth make his first friends is interesting. But I admit that Dudley facing rejection and lack of friendship for the first time DOES sound fascinating. The author has got me there.

And imagine him going home for Christmas break loudly announcing how happy he is to get away from all those awful wizards only to find out his parents treat him much differently now, their love having been completely conditional all along.

Would it be, though? I guess this is up to the perception of the author, but I kind of imagine Vernon and Petunia taking it as a personal victory if their own spawn is declared the special Chosen One. Their kid being a powerful wizard known around the world, and Lily's kid being no one in particular? They'd visit Lily's grave for the first time ever just so they could dance on it.

I could go on and on. I remember looking to see if there was any Dudley goes to Hogwarts fic as a kid and there was one popular one, but it let Harry go too (boo, the realization there might be something wrong with how his adopted brother is being treated back at home should be a shocking revelation to him), let Dudley become too nice too fast (it should be a long, drawn out process where he never gives an inch he doesn't absolutely have to!) and was too easy on him (characters suffering is good).

Author is assuming that Dudley - now christened a mighty wizard of destiny, the literal Chosen One - would actually perceive of there being something wrong with how his lowly muggle cousin was treated. I'd say: Highly doubtful. He'd just continue to be an asshole about it.

And the longer you drag out an asshole getting redeemed, the more I'm going to feel like "Well I don't fucking care if they get redeemed by this point; they've had every possible chance and every possible piece of evidence thrown at them, and they chose to remain an asshole, so fuck them. They deserve nothing."

At least the author wants Dudley to suffer. Not that I agree with the notion that characters suffering is automatically good, but asshole characters DO often deserve that shit.

BOTTOM LINE: I... just... I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people would actually WANT to focus on horrible assholes? That people want those fuckers to be the heroes instead of actually decent human beings? Because there are so many awful people in the world, so I guess it must be relatable enough for them. But dammit, I'm still surprised.

No, no, no. FUCK no. Being an asshole does not inherently make someone interesting; it just makes them an asshole. They deserve to be punished, not celebrated. They might still be interesting as an antagonist, but I'm sure as hell not going to root for them. And if you're going to insist on spending valuable focus time on these characters, you'd better at least be acknowledging that they are the VILLAIN of the story.

Which is honestly a more logical role for Dudley anyway. If Voldemort told Dudley that he's an exceptional being and that the inferior muggles else should be made to serve at his feet? Dudley would totally go for that. He'd become the whiniest, brattiest Death Eater.

Besides, Dudley is a particularly weird choice for their post, because he's NOT interesting! Not even as an antagonist! Dudley only exists as a one-note plot device. He deserves no attention.

[wooshofficial]

Sorry y’all I’ve been enabled

[clears throat. This takes several minutes and some very distressing sounds]

Okay

Okay so Wesley Dudley and Stijn Strongbody, for….I think a decent chunk of time, were next to each other in the hall. Both of them have lore related to being 1) body builders and 2) incredibly smart in a specific field. What if we were neighbors in the afterlife…….and we were both boys…….jkjk. Unless….?😳😳😳

There’s something so….so about Stijn and Wes being Pals But More because they’re very nearly opposites, almost. I’ve always seen Wes as a very introverted, nearly cryptic player, meanwhile Stijn is outgoing, team captain, friendly. Stijn “I am freshly dead and still know how to be anything other than a ghost” befriending “I have been dead for nearly 20 years maybe more and I don’t remember what being human feels like other than living in a meat prison” Wes. There’s totally something there and yeah maybe it’s a bit toxic but they can work it out later it’s fineeeeee (it’s not fine)

Also the concept of Stijn being a team captain, still being able to wear his team colors, still able to remember who he belongs to versus Wesley Dudley of the Null Team just absolutely fuels the angst need in me so there’s that

I have more but it’s late and I don’t feel like copypasting a conversation I had literally a month ago onto here

Okay my inbox is FINALLY clear. Does anyone want to hear my one really dumb obscure ship that is based on literally one minor detail that happened in the Hall of Flame leaderboard for all of two minutes

[solvskrift]

What do you think Harry's relationship with the Dursleys is like as an adult. I know a lot of people like to think that Harry and Dudley have a civil relationship, but what do you think?

oh i think his relationship with vernon and petunia is totally non-existent. but i do tend to lean towards harry and dudley getting along to a certain extent. i’m not sure harry will ever get over everything dudley put him through as a kid, but harry is by nature incredibly forgiving, and the fact that dudley was not only a kid himself but also showed remorse probably goes a long way towards repairing their relationship.

i can’t see them being the absolute best of friends (or maybe i can, now i’m Thinking) but an occasional family dinner to catch up or invitation to the weasleys’ is pretty realistic in my opinion. i still, still cannot get the image of dudley leaving a cup of tea for harry at his closed door in deathly hallows out of my head. that was a huge step for someone who used to make harry’s life a living hell. to go ‘harry hasn’t been out of his room and hasn’t eaten, maybe i should bring him something’ when his parents’ attitudes have always been and will always be the-less-we-see-of-harry-the-better? for dudley to live with that ingrained in him his whole life and then turn around and see harry as someone he cares about? that’s hella interesting to me, and i think harry and dudley’s relationship post-war is one of the great untapped gold mines of fanfic. i would love to watch them fix what they have, to see harry actually experience a positive relationship within his ‘real’ family and get to have a blood relative who gives a shit about him. it would help dudley enormously, too, in challenging him to shed a lot of his harmful views, to have a role model in harry and the weasleys for how families and decent human beings are supposed to behave.

[distractedhistotech]

They talk about stuff

“You don’t have a lot in the way of food,” commented Lewis as he looked around the van.

“Ugh, I know! The usual space is being taken up by arms and tools!” complained Vivi.

“It was mostly junk food,” admitted Arthur.  “Neither of us are good enough cooks to make decent meals on the go.”

“I could cook for you,” offered Lewis.

“Oh, right, you mentioned that you were a chef,” recalled Vivi.

Lewis nodded. “Yeah, I really enjoyed it.  I haven’t really cooked anything since I died so I’d love to be able to cook for you guys.”

“If you do, I should warn you that Vivi and Mystery eat obscene amounts of food,” warned Arthur.

“Eh, I’m used to cooking large amounts of food,” pointed out Lewis.  “I just need supplies.”

“Oof, we might need to rework the budget for that,” commented Vivi.

“I dunno, it’d probably be cheaper than eating out all the time,” pointed out Arthur.

“Healthier too,” added Lewis.  “I might need a couple of tries to get the hang of it again though, especially if I cook using my ghost fire, which I’d really like to try.”

“I would literally pay to see that,” said Vivi.

“Uh, what if there are weird side effects from cooking with ghost fire?” asked Arthur.

“We still have that campfire stove, right?” asked Vivi.  “Dunno why.  It’s not like we ever use it.”

Lewis suddenly felt very concerned about his lovers’ nutritional health.  “I know how to use a camping stove so I can use that instead if you’d be more comfortable that way,” he offered.

“I’d still like to see you cook with your ghost fire,” commented Vivi.  “It’s just energy transfer so it’d probably be safe.”

“Maybe I could try making popcorn,” suggested Lewis.  “It won’t actually use fire, but there will be heat.”

Arthur thought for a moment.  “I guess it would work to see if anything odd might happen.”

“We do have a couple of bags of popcorn somewhere,” said Vivi.  “Wanna give it a try now?”

“Sure.”  Lewis started looking through the supplies. “So where are we going?  The Techno Con?”

“That’s not for a few days,” said Arthur.  “We’re gonna stop at a couple of other places on the way.”

“We’re gonna go to a Ripley’s museum today,” said Vivi.  “We might be cutting it a bit close, but we’ll definitely be able to make the ghost tour.  We have a couple of free days just in case, so we can explore the museum tomorrow if we don’t have time today.”

“We’ll probably get to Techno Con at least a day early,” continued Arthur.  “We figured we’d relax a little and go on a date…” Arthur glanced back at Lewis.

“Don’t worry. I’ll give you two some privacy if you need it,” said Lewis.  “Just leave me a book or something, and I’ll be happy.”  He groaned.  “You wouldn’t believe how boring it was without books…or TV…or music…or generally any sort of entertainment.”

Arthur physically recoiled.  “Ugh, yeah, that sounds awful.  Hold on, I have some audible books.  Or some really old cassettes of books.  Could you hand me my laptop?”

Lewis grabbed Arthur’s familiar laptop.  “Sure, here. Got any romance?  They’re my favorite.”

“Huh.  I would not have guessed that looking at you,” commented Vivi.

“I get that a lot for some reason.”

“I like sci-fi and action,” said Arthur.  “They’re might be one that’s more romantic than usual.”  He frowned.  “Actually, maybe you should look through them, but I’m not sure how that would work. Most ghosts seem to have a weird effect on electronics.”

“I haven’t really had a chance to try,” admitted Lewis.  “I have been curious though.”

Arthur handed his laptop back to Lewis.  “Why don’t we find out?  Don’t worry about the files.  I backed everything up on flash drives before we left.”

Lewis examined the laptop in confusion.  The wallpaper was a picture Vivi had taken of all of them heading into a dark house, except Lewis had somehow been removed from the picture.  Had someone photoshopped him out or something?  Or was this part of whatever was keeping him from telling Vivi and Arthur who he was?

It disturbing whatever it was.

Lewis decided to ignore it for a moment and just see what he could do.  “So…I don’t think the touch screen is working.”

“Makes sense. Those work by picking up on the tiny electrical signals at the tips of your fingers,” explained Arthur.

“I wonder if a ghost with electrical powers could use a touch screen,” wondered Vivi.

“Oh, the mousepad isn’t working either,” said Lewis.  “I think I can still type, but I don’t think I can use a computer without a mouse.”

“Oof, yeah, that’s difficult,” agreed Arthur.  “I guess we could see if a physical mouse would work, preferably one with a cable. Until then, I guess you’ll have to direct one of us from over our shoulders.”

“That’s fine. I’ve managed to survive…uh, exist this long without electronics.”

“Now, let’s see what we’ve got.”  Arthur scrolled through his list, reading a quick summary of the books he had on his computer.

Turns out he had the first Harry Potter book.  They figured it would last most of the day, and everyone liked it, so that’s what they went with.

“You know, I was adopted when my parents found me on their porch,” commented Lewis.

“Heh, seriously?” asked Vivi.

“Yeah, although I was, like, five at the time, and they tried to find my birth parents first,” continued Lewis.  “I could never remember anything from before that though.  Made figuring out where I came from kind of difficult.”

“I never really understood why stories use the cliché of leaving a baby on the front steps of a house for the owners to raise,” commented Arthur.  “It seems like most people would either call the police to report child abandonment and possibly endangerment or just take the kid to a nearby orphanage.”

“Plus it might be really cold,” added Vivi.  “I mean, this takes place during Halloween!  In Britain!  Given, I’ve never been there, but I think it would be pretty cold.”

Arthur nodded. “That too, plus unless you know the people really well, you have no idea how they’ll be treated.”

“Yeah, I was a lot luckier than Harry,” admitted Lewis.  “He probably would’ve been better off in an orphanage.”

“How come no doctors ever wondered about why Dudley had a pig tail?” questioned Arthur.  “I mean, humans do sometimes have tails, but they’re usually removed pretty early on, and they aren’t curly.”

“They probably did talk about it,” said Vivi.  “Remember, the books are told from Harry’s point of view, and he really doesn’t want anything to do with the Dursley’s.”

“Maybe Vernon bribed someone?” suggested Lewis.

“I dunno.  I can’t remember his position in the company he works for, but how much money could you make making drills?” questioned Arthur.

“Hey, some drills are pretty big,” pointed out Vivi.  “They gotta cost a lot.”

“Yeah, but a lot of that will be in materials and other resources used to make the drills,” argued Arthur.

“Maybe he’s embezzling from the drill company,” suggested Lewis.

That got laughs from Vivi and Arthur so he counted it as a win.

“Why wasn’t Peeves in any of the movies?” questioned Vivi.  “I mean he was in the videogames, so why not the movies?”

“Budget,” Arthur said simply.

“I’m pretty sure time was a problem too,” said Lewis.  “The movie was made before 2 hour movies were considered normal, so they didn’t want to make it too long.”

“Annoying, but it makes sense,” muttered Vivi.

It was surprisingly not awkward at all.

[marmalademagik]

Petunia's Boys

(first draft)

Summary/Why I wrote this: I love reading redhead Harry stories and I think there can honestly never be enough fics where Petunia is a decent human being so here it is. I've renamed Dudley because no matter how much of a prat he is in canon nobody deserves to be named Dudley.

Characters: Harry Potter, Petunia Dursley (ooc), Dudley Dursley (mentioned), Vernon Dursley (mentioned), Lily Potter(mentioned)

Disclaimer: I own absolutely no part of the Harry Potter ip and make no profit from this story, any and all recognizable characters are property of JK Rowling. Feedback and critiques are welcome. Friendly reminder that I am not English and thus am not intimately familiar with many of the -isms used in England, if you feel any part of the story is lacking due to the use of American terminology feel free to tell me.

Bright eyes were the first thing Petunia Dursley noticed when she looked down from her open door to pick up the milk from her from doorstep. And how could she not notice them? They seemed to glitter with a warmth that she had only ever seen in one other person. She'd already swept him into her arms and begun to coo at him gently when she noticed a letter tucked in between the folds of his quite worryingly thin blanket.

The door was gently shut behind her as she hurried to sit down in the living room so she could read the letter. She lay the child on her lap, slipping the letter free from it's confines and reading through it quickly. Mrs. Dursley's eyes widened with every new sentence and her heart filled with dread until it sank down to the pit of her stomach. Her sister... was dead. Lily was gone and all she had left behind was her baby boy. Petunia looked down at little Harry with this new information and saw what she had been too hasty to notice before, the small tufts of lightly colored hair that she was sure would darken with time to resemble his mother's firey locks, those delicate round features that had garnered her sister endless praise from relatives and strangers alike, and damning hazel eyes. Those eyes shook her more than anything else for the last time they had gazed upon her they were filled with contempt and a sharp distaste. Now they shone up at her with so much trust that her heart broke.

Petunia hadn't hated Lily, not truely, but in her youth she had been jealous at a perceived favoritism and later on she was a naive little thing willing to do anything to keep her first and only boyfriend, now husband, from leaving her, even if it meant estranging herself from her sister. Vernon had always hated magic of any kind, from the kind performed by cheap stage magicians to the animated magic of children's movies. He thought it all crackpot pandering to the idiotic, insane, and foolish people of the world and had no trouble expressing his opinions. So when he was informed during a family dinner that not only was magic real but that there was an entire hidden community of individuals who could perform it he cycled through several shades of livid before loudly exclaiming he wanted nothing to do with freaks or those associated with them.

The young panicked girl she she had been at the time rushed after him as he stormed out pleading for him to stay, promising to do anything so long as he did not break off their relationship. And so started the rift that would see to it that neither sister would attend the others wedding or even be aware of the birth of a baby boy only some months apart from their own son.

A thump from upstairs broke Petunia out of her reverie and she once again locked her eyes onto the small figure in her arms. She despaired the thought that Lily had died thinking that her only sister hated her but despaired even more at the thought of what Vernon might do if he found out where Harry had come from. Harry most likely had inherited his parents magic and she was not oblivious to the fact that her own young son, Daniel, could very well be a muggleborn like her sister was.

It was with this thought in mind that one Petunia Dursley nee Evans steeled her nerves and walked upstairs to settle a now peacefully sleeping Harry into the crib alongside her Danny before hurrying downstairs to go through her morning routine, making sure to prepare an extra bottle. She realized now that had been walked upon by Vernon Dursley for far too long in her life and was truly ashamed of herself for letting it happen. What had happened to the strong young woman her parents had raised? Why was she just now seeing her mistakes? How could one baby and a single letter change her mind so thoroughly? She didn't know the answers to these questions. Not yet. But she was determined now more than ever to do right by her son... no, sons. She had two sons now for if she was to honor her sister's memory than she would treat Harry as nothing less than her own. And if Vernon had a problem with it he could damn well sod off because Petunia Dursley was going to be the mother her boys deserved and they deserved only the best.

[the-desolated-quill]

BBC’s The War Of The Worlds blog - Episode 2

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Never before have I witnessed something this god awful. I’m actually gobsmacked. I knew Peter Harness was a terrible writer, but I didn’t think even he could fuck up this badly. I was utterly dumbfounded by the end of the second episode. I couldn’t believe what I just watched. Not only does this fail as an adaptation of War Of The Worlds, it fails as a story in and of itself.

The problems with Episode 2 surface almost immediately within the first few minutes. A flash forward to a post apocalyptic Earth where we see Amy taking care of her son as humanity struggles to survive because of the red weed (which doesn’t look terribly convincing sadly, but that’s the least of this series’ problems). From there the episode continuously switches back and forth to the invasion and the aftermath throughout, which completely ruins the pacing, but it’s actually even worse than that. These flash forwards also giveaway the ending of the story. That the Martians end up losing. Harness tries to act all clever-clever with it by having British propaganda claim that the army defeated them, but the damage has already done. Thanks to this reveal, Harness has successfully managed to completely suck all tension from the story completely. The Martians no longer pose a threat because we, the audience, know they eventually lose, and we know that Amy at least survives, so at no point do we ever worry about her safety. I was absolutely flabbergasted when I saw this. I couldn’t believe any writer could be this stupid as to sabotage their own story by completely defanging their villains. As for the red weed slowly killing the planet, not only do I feel this unnecessarily complicates a perfectly simple narrative, it also opens the door for humanity to overcome their Martian oppressors when the whole point of the original story was that we only survived by the skin of our teeth. Our human ingenuity had nothing to do with it. We’ll have to wait and see what Episode 3 brings, but I’m not optimistic.

Meanwhile the invasion itself is still just as stilted and lacking in focus as it was before. Certain scenes stand out, like the black smoke enveloping London and the Tripods attacking the ferries, but because we know the Martians ultimately lose and that Amy survives, there’s absolutely zero suspense. (And yes, I know War Of The Worlds is a hundred year old story and everyone knows how it ends, but that doesn’t mean you can’t build tension). Also because of Harness wilfully reducing the Martians to incompetent fools, he has to resort to cheap shock tactics in the desperate hopes of scaring the audience, like when we see one of the Tripods kill a baby. Or how about the bit where Amy almost gets raped in the post invasion scenes? After all that performative feminist posturing last week, it’s quite galling to see such a sexist trope be used here for a cheap bit of drama. It’s fucking pathetic.

And once again the focus is in all the wrong areas. Instead of depicting the horrifying events of the Martian invasion, Harness is more preoccupied with Amy and Rupert Graves’ character (I’m sure he has a name, but I can’t be bothered to remember it at this point) squabbling every five minutes. Guys! Humanity is being destroyed by fucking aliens! Can this not wait?!

I’m assuming the whole baby killing thing was an attempt to show us the selfish nature of man or something, but George and the Artilleryman barely make the effort to actually look for the baby and the scene doesn’t go on nearly long enough to get us invested in the search and their eventual failure. The baby is practically thrown away just so Harness can have a moment where social media will go ‘OMG, they killed a baby in War Of The Worlds! How edgy!’ And the annoying thing is the book does actually have morally grey and shocking moments that Harness could have adapted if he wasn’t too busy trying to second-guess the audience and show what a dark and edgy writer he is. There are two important characters in the source material that the narrator encounters who offer different points of view on the events of the novel. There’s the priest who we see slowly lose faith in God and become more and more panicked and erratic, and there’s the Artilleryman, who represents British colonial attitudes, believing that humanity will ultimately triumph when the evidence clearly doesn’t support this. Here the Artilleryman is played by Dudley Dursley himself Harry Melling, who does a decent job with the material he has been given, but unfortunately the character he’s being forced to play is just utterly inadequate.

Continuing with his trend of writing allegories to things that have nothing to do with War Of The Worlds, Peter Harness takes the opportunity to comment on military conscription, even though conscription wasn’t introduced to the UK until 1916. So now the Artilleryman isn’t some impressionable nationalist that has willingly bought into imperial dogma, but rather he’s a scared little bunny rabbit forced to fight a war against an enemy beyond his comprehension. Worse still, George gets conscripted into the military for literally no fucking reason. He doesn’t get given a gun or anything and despite the fact that he knows more about the Martians than the soldiers do, none of them fucking listen to him when he tries to explain the heat pulse thing or why it might not be a good idea to shout at a Tripod. Then, when they think they won the battle, the captain points his gun at George and forces him to wade into the marshes and investigate. Again I must stress that George doesn’t have a gun! It’s just utterly contrived!

Oh but don’t worry. Harness finally addresses what the source material is actually about. British imperialism and colonialism. Unfortunately he does it with the subtlety and nuance of a giant steamroller driven by Marilyn Manson. Now admittedly the book isn’t very subtle about it either as the narrator comes right out with the comparisons between the British and the Martians, but the thing is the book gets away with it because it’s told from the perspective of a journalist writing about his own experiences after the fact. H.G. Wells has the licence to draw direct parallels because the narrative form he has chosen allows him to. A TV series however - a visual medium - cannot get away with this. Harness, not having the faintest idea how to address the themes of the source material organically in the visuals or the plot, resorts to sledgehammer tactics to get the point across. In the flash forwards to post apocalyptic Britain, we see Amy’s son reading a book that details how the British defeated the Martians as part of some propaganda initiative. A speech is made about how powerful and unstoppable the British Empire is, whilst intercut with soldiers having their arses handed to them by the Tripods. We see several characters maintain a stereotypical ‘stiff upper lip’ attitude as though the Martian invasion was a minor inconvenience instead of a shocking tragedy. There’s even a moment where the Minister of War is babbling on about how much more powerful the Empire can become if they can use Martian technology before succumbing to the Martian’s black smoke and we see literal bile foam from his mouth. It’s all so painfully on the nose and doesn’t offer any intelligent points or topics for discussion other than ‘empires are bad.’

And that’s not to mention all the other contrivances and annoyances in this episode. Despite Eleanor Tomlinson giving it her all, I still couldn’t give two shits about her character. Rafe Spall’s performance as George is still utterly atrocious, running around with a gormless expression on his face as though he’s just lost his wallet. Rupert Graves is utterly wasted as George’s brother and has no good material to work with. We also have a little girl join the group in a desperate bid to draw some sort of emotional reaction from the audience (it doesn’t work) and we have a sick older woman who serves no purpose whatsoever as far as I can see. In fact she really pissed me off due to the way in which she gets poisoned. It’s clearly meant to be there to establish the Martians terraforming Earth, but good God it’s stupid. How does she get poisoned? By drinking a random cup of water someone had just happened to leave lying around in the middle of a field.

I... I... Harness.... Harness, does your brain work?! How the flying fuck did you ever manage to get a career as a writer?!?!

BBC, I beg of you, please stop using our TV licence fees to fund hack screenwriters’ poorly thought out and unentertaining fanfiction!

PLEASE!

[smore-fables]

Harry Potter and the Loving Dursleys

This started off with my best friend telling me about all the Harry Potter fics she was reading. And after hearing how horrible some au’s made the Dursleys, I deiced to try and make one where they turn into decent human beings, and Harry is raised by a caring family.  Also this is not proof read.

It all started with a knock on the door. A knock that would forever change the lives of the Dursley’s. 

The small baby was fast asleep in a crib after being brought in, bundled in a blanket. A note was attached to him. Handwriting that she remembered seeing when she was a child, handwriting that had informed her that unfortunately, she could not attend the same magical school as her sister. She could feel the same rage that she felt back then build back up. 

Dear Petunia Evans, I regret to inform you of the passing of your sister Lily Evans and her husband James Potter. They died in a war against a most grievous wizard that would have seen the end of non-magical humans, along with those born of non-magical humans. Due to Ms. Evans and her bravery, and motherly love, the dark lord was defeated. However, she left behind a son, your nephew,  Harry James Potter. He is only a year old, about the same age as the child you have. 

He will be known in the wizarding world as the boy who lived, as thanks to the spell your sister had placed on him, he was able to defeat the dark lord Voldemort. 

Petunia had to pause from reading the letter. She remembered hearing about a horrible wizard from her sister, the very same one that had apparently caused the demise of her sister. 

She looked at her husband, Vernon. He had a worried expression on his face, and he quickly pulled his wife into a tight hug. “What does the letter say, darling?” He asked while stroking Petunia’s hair.

“Lily... She...” Petunia sobbed it took her a few beats before she could properly answer. “She has died.” It stung to say that out loud. 

Sure. Petunia and Lily had not been on even decent terms, Petunia had grown to very much dislike her sister. But she didn’t want her dead. She had always thought maybe one day.. Maybe one day they would make up and be sisters again. 

It was funny how one thought they had all the time in the world, only to discover its fleeting nature.

“I’m sorry to hear that dear.” Vernon tried to soothe his wife, but this wasn’t his strong suit. 

Petunia sniffed a bit, wiping her face. She forced herself to continue reading the letter.

The boy needs to be raised away from a world that would celebrate him as a hero, he needs to be raised by family. 

The dark lord may one day return, even if others doubt he will. We need to be prepared. 

Protection will be placed upon Harry and your family, if you adopt him into your home, and allow him to live there. He must live there until he is Seventeen for the spell to be effective, it can only be done with someone that is of his blood. 

Petunia Dursley, née Evans, I Albus Dumbledore, ask you to take Harry James Potter, born on July 31, 1980, into your home and raise him as your own. Care for him, and love him as if he were your own son. 

You are the only kin he has left.

Please remember this promise to protect him, and keep him safe.

Sincerely, 

Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Order of Merlin (First Class), Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot

Petunia read the letter. And then she read it again, and again. She felt a mixture of emotions after reading the letter in its entirety. 

She felt sorrow. Anger. How dare this man invade the home she had made for herself and drop off another mouth to feed, without any source of income! How dare her sister go and get herself killed leaving the baby (and her) behind!

Then she felt regret.

And once more she felt anger.

“Petunia dear, what are we going to do about the baby? Should we take him to an orphanage?” Vernon asked, unsure of the situation. He wasn’t too keen on the idea of raising another baby boy after all the one they had was already perfect enough. 

Petunia looked at the baby boy that had been dropped on their doorsteps. Dark hair and a lightning-shaped scar. He looked like a younger version of the man Lily had married in the photos she had been sent. 

Petunia stared at the sleeping face of the baby, he looked peaceful, unaware of the awful events that had transpired.

“Petunia, what had the letter said about the child?” “We need to keep him. For the protection of him and our family.” 

“That no-good sister of yours causing trouble with that magic nonsense and ruining our lives.” He grumbled. “Our peaceful home will be ruined, the neighbors will talk! We’ll struggle to afford two children along with ourselves! Are you sure you want to take him in?” Petunia had thought what he said over. And he was right, the neighbors would gossip, and they would struggle financially. But every time she thought about not keeping her nephew, she remembered the words in the letter. Looking from her husband to the infant, she let out a deep sigh. He was her blood, even if she hadn’t liked her sister, this boy was the child of that sister, and was related to herself, and her son. 

“We will find a way, your job pays pretty well still, we’ll just have to make a few cutbacks.. It will be like Dudley got a new little brother, the neighbors will probably think us very generous opening up our home.” She reasoned, watching the expression on her husband change. He seemed to process all this, before finally seeming to accept it.

“He won’t be- I mean there’s a chance he might not be- funny like your sister right?”

“There is a chance he won’t be- but if he is.” Oh, that was a thought, what if she had to deal with magic coming from that boy. That was not something she was ready for, she would quickly find a way to maybe squash out the magic from the boy. “We’ll find a way to stop it when the time comes.” Vernon nodded, seeming to approve of that answer. With all that figured out and decided, the two of them decided to leave the baby asleep in the crib, and turn in for the night.

Although, Petunia couldn’t seem to sleep at all through the night. She had such trouble sleeping, meanwhile her husband had no such trouble, snoring away right beside her. 

The woman got up from her bed, and traveled into the living room, seeing the baby was still fast asleep. 

She sat in the chair closest to the crib, watching the baby sleep. 

“You better not cause a lot of trouble, and you better be good for my son.” She tried to imagine the boy older along with her son, and the idea of two normal boys playing and getting along was a nice thought. 

They could go to school together, be the best of friends… It was a nice thought. And finally, with all that, sleep took her.

A/N: Okay, I promise they will get better, but I had to start with them still kind of bad. I swear this isn’t false advertisement. They will get better. 

This will also be posted on my AO3.  

[jes12321]

I cried reading this.

What if, when Petunia Dursley found a little boy on her front doorstep, she took him in? Not into the cupboard under the stairs, not into a twisted childhood of tarnished worth and neglect–what if she took him in?

Petunia was jealous, selfish and vicious. We will not pretend she wasn’t. She looked at that boy on her doorstep and thought about her Dudders, barely a month older than this boy. She looked at his eyes and her stomach turned over and over. (Severus Snape saved Harry’s life for his eyes. Let’s have Petunia save it despite them).

Let’s tell a story where Petunia Dursley found a baby boy on her doorstep and hated his eyes–she hated them. She took him in and fed him and changed him and got him his shots, and she hated his eyes up until the day she looked at the boy and saw her nephew, not her sister’s shadow. When Harry was two and Vernon Dursley bought Dudley a toy car and Harry a fast food meal with a toy with parts he could choke on Petunia packed her things and got a divorce.

Harry grew up small and skinny, with knobbly knees and the unruly hair he got from his father. He got cornered behind the dumpsters and in the restrooms, got blood on the jumpers Petunia had found, half-price, at the hand-me-down store. He was still chosen last for sports. But Dudley got blood on his sweaters, too, the ones Petunia had found at the hand-me-down store, half price, because that was all a single mother working two secretary jobs could afford for her two boys, even with Vernon’s grudging child support.

They beat Harry for being small and they laughed at Dudley for being big, and slow, and dumb. Students jeered at him and teachers called Dudley out in class, smirked over his backwards letters.

Harry helped him with his homework, snapped out razored wit in classrooms when bullies decided to make Dudley the butt of anything; Harry cornered Dudley in their tiny cramped kitchen and called him smart, and clever, and ‘better ‘n all those jerks anyway’ on the days Dudley believed it least.

Dudley walked Harry to school and back, to his advanced classes and past the dumpsters, and grinned, big and slow and not dumb at all, at anyone who tried to mess with them.

But was that how Petunia got the news? Her husband complained about owls and staring cats all day long and in the morning Petunia found a little tyke on her doorsep. This was how the wizarding world chose to give the awful news to Lily Potter’s big sister: a letter, tucked in beside a baby boy with her sister’s eyes.

There were no Potters left. Petunia was the one who had to arrange the funeral. She had them both buried in Godric’s Hollow. Lily had chosen her world and Petunia wouldn’t steal her from it, not even in death. The wizarding world had gotten her sister killed; they could stand in that cold little wizard town and mourn by the old stone.

(Petunia would curl up with a big mug of hot tea and a little bit of vodka, when her boys were safely asleep, and toast her sister’s vanished ghost. Her nephew called her ‘Tune’ not 'Tuney,’ and it only broke her heart some days.

Before Harry was even three, she would look at his green eyes tracking a flight of geese or blinking mischieviously back at her and she would not think 'you have your mother’s eyes.’

A wise old man had left a little boy on her doorstep with her sister’s eyes. Petunia raised a young man who had eyes of his very own).

Petunia snapped and burnt the eggs at breakfast. She worked too hard and knew all the neighbors’ worst secrets. Her bedtime stories didn’t quite teach the morals growing boys ought to learn: be suspicious, be wary; someone is probably out to get you. You owe no one your kindness. Knowledge is power and let no one know you have it. If you get can get away with it, then the rule is probably meant for breaking.

Harry grew up loved. Petunia still ran when the letters came. This was her nephew, and this world, this letter, these eyes, had killed her sister. When Hagrid came and knocked down the door of some poor roadside motel, Petunia stood in front of both her boys, shaking. When Hagrid offered Harry a squashed birthday cake with big, kind, clumsy hands, he reminded Harry more than anything of his cousin.

His aunt was still shaking but Harry, eleven years and eight minutes old, decided that any world that had people like his big cousin in it couldn’t be all bad. “I want to go,” Harry told his aunt and he promised to come home.

Keep reading

[meta-shadowsong]

On Moral Ambiguity in Fiction

And where it works and where it doesn’t (at least for me), using Star Wars and Harry Potter as sort of examples/case studies/what have you.

Couple sort of definition things to get out of the way--first, when I say ‘moral ambiguity,’ I’m talking specifically about characters and character arcs/dynamics, rather than overall situations/plotlines. Because the two universes, as a whole, are pretty firmly “there is Real Evil and we are going to Defeat It” type of stories. And both verses also have clear and obvious Evil Bad Guys Who Ruin Everything (Palpatine and Voldemort).

I should also say, as a sort of disclaimer before we get started, that I really like nuance, especially when it comes to characters and character alignments. I have a thing for double agents; for people who were once good but now evil, or were once evil but now good, or who are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, and exactly where they end up depends on the weather/time of day/what have you. Which is not to say that I don’t enjoy the Obviously Evil villains, or the True Good heroes. Honestly, I think that a universe that has variety going for it tends to work the best.

Last definition - there’s a few different ways to do a Morally Ambiguous/Grey Area character. There are the fallen heroes, of course, and the redeemed villains. There are also “technically on our side in the bigger fight against Evil but also really shitty people” or “Your Allies Can Be Assholes”; and “clearly our enemy but also in some ways a decent person with whom we can Empathize” or “Your Enemies Can Be Decent People.”

(Also, while I’m not really going to focus on them here, I should mention that there are also sympathetic villains, who are never redeemed or switch sides or anything, and remain entirely Villains throughout, but have enough character development/humanizing characteristics that you can at least somewhat empathize with them even as they’re Horrible People who do Horrible Things. I’m leaving them out primarily because characters in that category tend to need way more in-depth discussion/their own essays about where they fall on the good vs. bad line; and besides I’d rather focus on different kinds of Morally Ambiguous/Grey Area characters for the purposes of this essay. Also, while I think there are examples in both verses, characters in this category tend to be very much YMMV. Basically, there’s a sliding scale from “Pure Evil” up to “Your Enemies Can Be Decent People,” and I’m trying to pick my examples that sit further on the lighter end of the greyscale here.)

Right. On to the actual discussion. Star Wars, on the surface, bills itself as straightforward good-vs-evil/Fairy Tale Logic/“once you start down the dark path” etc., etc. Harry Potter, on the other hand, has that great line: “the world isn’t divided into Good People and Death Eaters.”

Of course, once you actually start digging into it, Star Wars is absolutely not what it claims to be, and Harry Potter, while not technically wrong, fails to deliver on everything that statement implies.

When I look at Harry Potter, there are certainly a lot of Morally Ambiguous characters involved. We have Dumbledore, who fits into “Your Allies Can Be Assholes;” Barty Crouch, Sr. fits into this category as well. You have Fallen Heroes, with Pettigrew being the primary example. You have people who are maybe not technically actively working for/with the Big Bad, but are still Truly Awful People; i.e., Vernon Dursley. And you have people who are maybe on your side and maybe not assholes, per se, but have their heads so far up their asses with their preconceptions/have so many blinders on that they move past useless into actively obstructionist; i.e., Fudge.

But what you don’t find is the flipside of that. I can’t think of a single person who falls under “Your Enemies Can Be Decent People.” And while I can think of a few “redeemed” villains, they’re either so badly handled they become Your Allies Can Be Assholes (Snape), exist entirely in Backstoryland and thus don’t really have personalities or anything to latch on to (Regulus Black), or are barely present in the narrative by the time they have their Heel Realization (Dudley).

And that’s...like...leaving aside all the other issues with Harry Potter that have been cropping up in hindsight over the past few years...I think that’s a large part of why I fell out of love with the franchise. Like I said, I have a thing for double agents and grey-area/ambiguous characters, and I think a lot of it comes from the way I read this series when I was younger. I mean, it comes from some other places, too, but HP was a big one (probably because HP was such a big Thing for a long time overall, in my life and in pop culture in general). But looking back, it’s...really not what I thought it was. And it’s such a bleak, crapsack worldview, you know? “The bad guys are Bad Guys, but gueeeeess what! So are a good chunk of the nominal Good Guys!”

So, no, the world isn’t divided into Good People and Death Eaters. Technically. But it’s divided into Death Eaters, Other Bad People, and A Few Trustworthy Friends.

When I look at Star Wars, on the other hand--yeah, there are definitely Your Allies Can Be Assholes characters running around. Saw Gerrera, at least in Rebels and Rogue One, is of course the primary example. But there’s also--like, Borsk Fey’lya in Legends. And, depending on the reader/writer/narrator, various characters could fall into the “so many blinders on that they move past useless into actively obstructionist” categories. Plus, characters like Hondo, and others from the seedier side of the galaxy who are Not Good and Only Occasionally Nice, but they’re reasonable allies against the True Evils out there. And of course we have our Fallen Heroes--even if we exclude Anakin from this conversation, we have at the very least Barriss, to say nothing of Dooku and Pong Krell (we don’t really see either of them in their not-fallen hero state, but we know it existed at some point).

But you know what Star Wars also has?

The other side of this coin.

Again, even if we exclude Anakin and Vader from this conversation. Redeemed villains and “Your Enemies Can Be Decent People” are all over the place. I mean, there’s obviously my best beloved Alexsandr Kallus, but there’s also Bodhi Rook and Galen Erso; there’s General Madine (another super-prominent defector); going to Legends there’s Mara Jade and Gilad Pellaeon; there’s Ventress, who was a good person and then fell and then slowly starts finding her way back; there’s my girl Bo-Katan, who joined Death Watch and probably murdered A Lot of people, and then realized Just How Awful things were and tried to fix it. (...side note, I kinda ship Ventress and Bo-Katan, anyone with me? XD). I’m still catching up on some of the canon novels/haven’t really played the video games, but I know through Tumblr/fandom osmosis there are examples there, too.

Plus, something that came up quite a few times in the Clone Wars was that, apart from Palpatine and Dooku and their inner circles, the majority of people on both sides of the conflict genuinely believed they were fighting on the side of Right; and the Separatists actually did have some legit points about the way the Republic government was messed up. (Which is one of the bits I had a slight issue with in Queen’s Shadow, that they seemed to be taking that away from Mina Bonteri a little bit by having her in contact with someone who seemed to be either Sidious or Tyranus, but I digress.) But the PT era in general is where ambiguity and complicated politics lives, and this also starts getting into some YMMV territory, similar to Sympathetic Villains, so I’ll leave it at that.

I think that what it comes down to, really, is that HP, for all it makes its moral ambiguity explicit/centers it/talks about it, leans hard into the Your Allies Can Be Assholes aspect, while Star Wars leans more towards the Your Enemies Can Be Decent People side of things. And, again, this is not saying that there isn’t a range of quality in how these things can be handled. Like, Your Allies Can Be Assholes, when handled well, can be really engaging/amazing. And Your Enemies Can Be Decent People can quickly go in all kinds of bad directions if it’s not handled well.

But overall, a story that leans more towards the second is more hopeful. One of the main arc words in SW is hope, and I think that’s why the grey-area characters work so much better there, because they support that thesis, so to speak.

I also think that Star Wars has a much more balanced greyscale than HP does. Like, the Your Enemies Can Be Decent People is more prominent because, again, the series’ watchword is Hope, but there's still quite a few Not Nice people on the side of Good, which adds its own layer of nuance/interest, at least for me. ...and, you know, the fact that Star Wars has both Pure Evil and more nuanced villains/antagonists probably contributes to that. It might be that this kind of Moral Ambiguity works best when there is a clearly defined Evil to compare it against. Both in terms of the greyscale good guys and the greyscale bad guys.

In the end, I think there’s probably a lot of things that go into it, but overall the ambiguity in SW works so much better for me than HP. And I think the distribution along that sliding scale is a huge part of it. Because HP’s version kind of boils down to ‘Life Sucks; sure there are a few Good People who try to make it suck less, but most of the people, even on your side, are kind of awful’ and SW’s version boils down to ‘there is hope, even if it doesn’t always pan out; yes there is evil in this world and there are some, even on your side, who might choose it and refuse to change--but there are at least as many people who turn their back on it, even if it takes them a while.’ Both acknowledge that there is Evil in the world, and that dealing with it isn’t always simple or clear-cut, but SW takes a broader, more nuanced look at that question. Even if it doesn’t outright say that’s what it’s doing.

(And, sure, the fact that HP promised things it didn’t/couldn’t deliver and handled a few of the examples it tried to provide really badly doesn’t help, but...yeah.)

So, there it is. A lot of Personal Opinion, obviously, but...I feel like I might be on to something here? What are your thoughts?

((Also, I’m aware that I didn’t talk about the ST like at all, but that’s because, at least IMO, the ST has fewer morally ambiguous characters in general, at least in the sense I’m talking about. That being said, there’s at least the one guy from the Phasma frame story who falls into Your Enemies Can Be Decent People; and I guess I technically could have mentioned Kylo Ren when talking about fallen heroes, on the same justification I included Dooku/Pong Krell, even though I personally find him much less interesting than Dooku, in particular...Anyway, what I’ve noticed in the ST is that, when people are working at cross-purposes, they tend to still be firmly on one side or the other, just with differently-aligned priorities. And/or are Hondo, who marches to the beat of his own drum and always will. I love that he’s still around XD.))

[ao3feed-dabihawks]

by TheRedAssassin

It begins at the end of 5th year; the spiraling depression, the strange looks, and bizarre actions. Harry’s not sure he can take it. It’s only by the help of his godfather’s strange friend, Blue Flame, that things begin to change.

Featuring the Paranormal Liberation Front in London duking it out with the Death Eaters for reasons only known to the inner circle of the League of Villains, Geten and Dabi competing on who’s best God Parent, Hawks attempting to be a good double agent, Endeavor getting his ass handed to him, Dudley and Petunia being decent human beings, Shigaraki... being Shigaraki, the golden trio trying to figure out who Tenko Shimura is, a spy in Hogwarts, and Voldemort running with his tail between his legs.

RIP magical community of England.

Words: 12259, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/F, F/M, M/M

Characters: Dabi (My Hero Academia), Harry Potter, Hawks (My Hero Academia), Toga Himiko, Geten (My Hero Academia), Draco Malfoy, Todoroki Enji | Endeavor, Dudley Dursley, Dursley Family (Harry Potter), Petunia Evans Dursley, Sirius Black, League of Villains (My Hero Academia), Paranormal Liberation Front (My Hero Academia), Bubaigawara Jin | Twice, Shigaraki Tomura | Shimura Tenko

Relationships: Dabi/Hawks (My Hero Academia), Toga Himiko/Geten (My Hero Academia)

Additional Tags: Depression, Family Drama, Abuse, Found Family, Family Secrets, Dumbledore being a cuck, Protective Dabi (My Hero Academia), Protective Hawks (My Hero Academia), Protective Toga Himiko, Protective Geten (My Hero Academia), I’ll add more tags later

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

I feel like Dudley Goes To Hogwarts would actually be more interesting if Harry went along as well, because Dudley is canonically the reason why Harry had no real friends before going to Hogwarts.

I mean, wearing exclusively ill-fitting castoffs and never having any cool toys/sweets to share can't have helped, but the main reason we're given is that Dudley and his gang threatened to beat up anybody who got too friendly with Harry, and the whole school was too scared of them to do anything other than shun him.

(Just in general, while I love Dudley redemption arcs, I feel like a lot of people forget that Dudley's crimes weren't actually limited to 'passively watching his parents abusing Harry'.

Dudley is a violent bully. He's the main one physically abusing Harry in their early childhood, and by the time he's fourteen/fifteen he's trained as a boxer and going around with his gang hunting down neighbourhood children— many as young as nine or ten— and getting his friend Piers to hold their arms behind their backs while he pummels them for 'disrespecting him'.

Like, if it weren't for the Dementer-enforced character development, the series could well have ended with Dudley being jailed for GBH. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve redemption, but you kind of need to acknowledge all the genuinely shitty stuff he did for that redemption to work.)

Okay, so now imagine Dudley and Harry going to Hogwarts, and their usual dynamic being rather dramatically reversed.

Imagine Dudley trying to beat up or even just insult Harry on the first day, and immediately drawing the direct ire of the entire fucking school because "that kid just tried to hurt The Boy Who Lived!" Like who's going to be friends with Dudley after that?

Yeah, there are people at Hogwarts who hate Harry, but most of those people would actually hate Dudley more (at least in the first few books).

At least Harry is a half-blood from an Old Family who might conceivably be drawn over to their side, whereas Dudley is muggleborn scum whose violence and open hatred of magic would probably confirm all their worst beliefs about Those People.

And Harry? Harry certainly isn't going to be helping Dudley through this. If anything he's going to be sitting back and laughing while the twins play increasingly cruel practical jokes on him. Harry is a nice kid, on the whole, but he's not the type at eleven to do the Noble Thing and ask his shunned abusive cousin to play with him.

Dudley's First Year at Hogwarts is almost certainly one of terror and isolation, followed by a summer of sudden awkwardness between him and his parents that never existed before.

Dudley's parents don't hate magic for no reason. Dudley's parents hate magic because Petunia was treated as second fiddle to a magical sister her whole childhood, and Vernon honestly just enforces his wife's beliefs. The decision to raise Dudley as the Golden Boy and Harry as an afterthought in particular feels like a rather forced recreation of Petunia's own childhood, only this time it's the 'ordinary' one who gets all the breaks.

As such, I don't think they'd reject Dudley for this, since the whole 'hates magic' thing was largely about protecting him. They might even make an effort to embrace it now.

But Vernon has never really known what this was all about, and probably sees going to Hogwarts as kind of a failure compared to going to a prestigious school like Smeltings. And Petunia probably struggles with the fact that Dudley did worse at Hogwarts than Harry (the Lily-surrogate) since that suggests that she might have been second best even if she had magic.

I think it's going to be a summer of awkward silences, punctuated by explosive rows, followed by an even more terrifying second year because, unlike Harry, Dudley the magic-hating muggleborn is an obvious target for Slytherin's Monster.

What Dudley needs, in this scenario, is somebody who sees that he really is just a kid.

That he's a little boy who's grown up in an environment where abuse was normalised and where his violent tendencies were praised as signs of his 'manly' physical strength, and his bullying is mainly just him acting out the behaviours that he got rewarded for as a child. (Also potentially, as he grows older, him dealing with a growing realisation of his own faults and glaring character flaws, which he was never really taught to deal with as The Perfect One, by doubling down on them.)

He need someone who recognises that he is capable of the character growth we see him achieve by the end of the series— which is honestly barely anything, but must have cost him so much— and supports him through it.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I can think of any students or adults at Hogwarts who would be capable of doing that. Wizarding morality tends to be pretty black and white, and so I feel like most magical adults in Dudley's life would have written him off as a bad seed back when he was eleven, leaving him to go through the journey to character development on his own.

The Harry Potter series would have been good if Dudley were the wizard protagonist

[hufflly-puffs]

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Chapter 6: The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

I really wonder why the Order thinks Voldemort is after a weapon. Is it simply one of Dumbledore’s assumptions, that usually turn out to be right? Is it the information Snape gathered? Does Voldemort himself refer to the prophecy as a weapon, because he thinks it will help him find out how to kill Harry? The whole weapon theory is such a false lead and I wonder where it has its origin.

Fred and George tell Harry that the joke shop is a mail order service so far, and that they put an advertisement in the Daily Prophet, which their mother won’t see as she stopped reading the Prophet. But you would think others still read it, even members of the Order, to keep in touch with what they write, and might tell or ask Molly about it. It is not a very fool-proof plan.

So, let’s talk about Kreacher. It’s been said that he has lived alone in the house for ten years now, ever since Mrs Black died. The only remaining member of his family, Sirius, had been in prison, and so he took instead orders of the portrait of Mrs Black. Hermione is probably right in her assumption that Kreacher thinks they can’t hear what insults he mutters. They can’t set him free because he knows too much about the Order. And his loyalty is clearly to Mrs Black and not Sirius, so he probably would have no problems telling their secrets. (Dobby however never told anyone about the Malfoys’s secrets, and I think it is because part of him is still afraid of his old master.) Kreacher’s case is quite interesting because it is so unique. After Mrs Black’s death he legally belonged to Sirius, but obviously Sirius could not use him as long as he was prison and so Kreacher was forced to stay in Grimmauld Place, waiting for either Sirius’s return or his death. And all this time alone made him mad. Only Hermione and Dumbledore seem to pity him, though Hermione’s suggestion to set him free would be too risky for obvious reasons. Dumbledore tells Sirius to be kind to Kreacher, because he is aware of the power a house-elf has and how Kreacher’s hate for Sirius can backfire (which we see at the end of the book). To Sirius though Kreacher represents everything he hated about his former home and his family, and as he is the only one left he places all his hate on Kreacher.

“‘Is it true? Is it Harry Potter? Kreacher can see the scar, it must be true, that’s the boy who stopped the Dark Lord, Kreacher wonders how he did it –’” – Are house-elves political? Obviously they are not allowed to express their opinions but that doesn’t mean they don’t have ones. Dobby disagreed a great deal with his former master and even risked severe punishment in order to warn Harry. We know that Voldemort completely underestimates house-elves (and this will part of his down-fall), that he treats them as objects, and shows no real interest in them. Kreacher is loyal to his old masters, especially Mrs Black, who supported Voldemort and his ideology. But Kreacher, unknown to everyone, has his very own history with Voldemort. And in the end he will lead the house-elves of Hogwarts in the battle against Voldemort. So his question is probably genuine, as Voldemort is also responsible for the death of Regulus.

Harry knows Sirius for a little over a year but only now learns more about his family history because he never bothered before to ask. It is possible that Ron had at least heard about the Black family, as there aren’t many pureblood families left and it is always possible Hermione has read about them. His family and their reputation might also be the reason so many people likely believed Sirius to be a mass murderer (mostly Muggle victims on top of it), and even those who knew the full story about his assumingly betrayal of the Potters might have wondered if perhaps he had never been disloyal to his family in the first place. Harry of course immediately sees the similarities between him and Sirius; both forced to grow up in a family they hate, both found a new family through their best friends who took them in like their own. And Harry of course entertains the idea to live with Sirius again, because in his eyes everything is better than the Dursleys.

I always wonder about the relationship between Sirius and Regulus. Sirius calls him an idiot, but also says he was soft, and after his release of Azkaban Sirius had tried to find out more about his death. I do think that perhaps not everything was lost between them, that a part of Sirius did love Regulus and it hurt him to see what became of him. It always saddens me that Sirius never found out what Regulus did, that he played his part in defeating Voldemort.

“‘No, no, but believe me, they thought Voldemort had the right idea, they were all for the purification of the wizarding race, getting rid of Muggle-borns and having pure-bloods in charge. They weren’t alone, either, there were quite a few people, before Voldemort showed his true colours, who thought he had the right idea about things … they got cold feet when they saw what he was prepared to do to get power, though. But I bet my parents thought Regulus was a right little hero for joining up at first.’” – I don’t know if it was actually said in this book or only the movie adaption that you just can’t divide the world into Death Eaters and Others. Because they are still people who are racist, who believe in purity and have a great dislike for everyone slightly non-human, characters like Fudge or Umbridge, who are not Death Eaters, but dangerous in their own right. The Death Eaters are the most extremist group, ready to kill and torture for their ideology, but that doesn’t mean that a lot of other wizards won’t share their ideas to some degree.

“‘No, he was murdered by Voldemort. Or on Voldemort’s orders, more likely; I doubt Regulus was ever important enough to be killed by Voldemort in person. From what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out. Well, you don’t just hand in your resignation to Voldemort. It’s a lifetime of service or death.’” – Do you see the massive parallel between Regulus and Draco? Both joining the Death Eaters on their own, both terrified by what they have to do, though obviously Regulus in the end gave his life to redeem himself. I always wonder about Draco and how different things could have been, how he perhaps at some point could have changed sides, could have interacted with Sirius and/or Tonks, members of his family who choose a different path. I always hope that after the war he got in contact with his cool aunt Andromeda though.

“‘The pure-blood families are all interrelated,’ said Sirius. ‘If you’re only going to let your sons and daughters marry pure-bloods your choice is very limited; there are hardly any of us left.” – It is fair to assume that there is a great deal of incest between the Pureblood families. I think at some point it has been said that wizardkind would have died out if they hadn’t started to marry Muggles. Which is why the American Wizard Society, that has a law that forbids marriage between Muggles and Wizards, doesn’t make a lot of sense.

“[…] a heavy locket that none of them could open;[…]” – Well, I wonder what that could be? I did re-read book 1-6 before the release of book 7 and I really didn’t notice this, so respect if you did.

You know when Mrs Weasley says she had ironed Harry’s best clothes I assumed it to be something formal, but we learn the next chapter it is just a T-Shirt and jeans, probably still Dudley’s old clothes, because Harry can’t seem to bother to buy himself some decent clothes.