For the WIP ask meme, "Percy Rebels And Shit AU; last year, nodus tollens, outline (2022)"
Ok, so;
Percy Rebels And Shit AU is a collab fic series idea between me and @vivithefolle, set in a No Boy Who Lived AU of Harry Potter, where Harry himself was never born. It's in it's early stages, mostly of planning and brainstorming. But as you can tell by the title, it focuses less on Harry, you know, not existing, and more on the ramifications of Ginny's first year at Hogwarts without him.
As in, nobody with parsletongue hanging around to open the chamber.
We open at the close; the start of the fic is set post this alternate year two, wherein Ginny succumbs, Neville and Ron are memory botched by Lockheart, and Dumbledore is scrambling with his allies to combat the fact there are now two whole voldemorts wandering around.
Our focal character is Percy Weasley, because the main actual premise of this fic outside the like, setting exposition, is that Percy gets disillusioned with the Wizarding World status quo and ends up radicalised by a group of disestablishment-minded individuals - an awkward collection of people from all sides of ww political spectrums only weakly held together by the singular goal of removing the acting government. Some of them are total anarchists, some of them are blood purists, some of them are ww liberal, some of them are statute abolitionists, etc etc.
In a sense, PRAU is a combination of standard HP AU trope ideas (no/wrong boy who lived, voldemort returns early, rebellion against the corrupt ministry, etc) and sort of... twists them 180 to the left. Squints at 'em and interrogates them. Looks at them and says, okay, but what would that actually entail?
But it's not cynical.
The problem i have with most of these AUs is not how edgy they get, though that's kind of the point - a darker take - it's how little faith they have in our protagonists. The Weasley family always gets the short end of the stick, and I don't think that's fair. Me and viv are especially sour on the treatment of Ron, as prominent and loud members of his Defense Squad, lol. The collab part comes in that i'm godawful at writing the kind of... well, almost slice-of-life-esque stuff needed for the non-percy side of things; Viv is the primary writer for Ron's side of the story, while I'm doing Percy. Ron's side of the story is more about the hope, the humanity - sure, Harry might not be here, but he's not the be-all end-all. He's just one guy. There's a whole society of people who wouldn't put up with Voldemort's shit knocking around to lob his head of, you know? Vive la révolution, and all. Just 'cause Harry never existed doesn't mean all hope is lost. Just because Percy starts down a bad path doesn't mean he has to end that way. Just because Lockheart fucked over Ron and Neville doesn't mean they're useless now they've got memory problems - they're people. And where there's people, there's always hope. I don't know. I just don't like how.... pessimistic a lot of WBL/NBL AUs are. It seems antithetical to the point of the whole thing.
obviously the entire outline is unshareable for spoiler reasons, but as for 'last year' and 'nodus tollens';
last year - currently the only actually written part. It contains what will probably end up being the summary on ao3, if/when we get this finished enough to post it;
'Last year, Voldemort returned, in the form of Percy's defence professor. This year, Voldemort returned, in the form of his little sister. And yet, the Ministry does nothing.'
When family members die, it can start you down a path there’s no returning from. Percy Weasley knows this better than most.
As for Nodus Tollens....
Nodus Tollens:
“The feeling that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense any more.”
In your life, there are many choices you can make. These choices range from what you’ll eat for breakfast that morning, whether you’ll wear black or teal-tinged black or maybe even silver-tinged black that day, whether you’ll re-read your favourite book or find a new one in the library, whether you’ll talk with Mother or go on a mission or, as it stands right now, whether you will live, or whether you will die. Regulus has this choice, and he must make it.
>;).
(As you can probably tell, there's A Lot going on here - and a lot that will have to go into it before it's anywhere near ready to share. This'll be a slow one, and likely won't show up properly for a while yet.)
thank u very much for the ask!
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wbl episode 2 spoilers.
but the way shi de was angry. angry. angry when he heard shi yu is going to use him and then dump him
and his fast typing on the keyboard, his annoyance, and his twisted eyebrows and his look of disbelief, and his angry way of calling shu yi’s name. he was ready to confront shu yi, to ask him just why is he doing this. wasn’t the pain they suffered already enough? as if it wasn’t painful these last five years, as if five years isn’t a lot to begin with, why make them both suffer further?
but then he calls his name and sees his soft smile and steady eyes and he doesn’t glare at shi de with hatred for the first time since shi de came back and shi de decides it is not worth it. he would rather pretend he doesn’t know the games shu yi is playing than to have him being furious again and full of anger again. he wants shu yi’s love even if it’s fake, even if shu yi is pretending, despite of knowing shu yi is pretending.
and that’s, my friends, the moment i sobbed my eyesockets out
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