whinlatter

[whinlatter]

“come along, ginny, dear!”

[whinlatter]

R.A.B.

[whinlatter]

a new week and more @hprecfest!

day nine: a work in progress

beasts by @whinlatter harry potter/ginny weasley teen 

why i recommend it:

because it's the only post-war hinny fic i've ever encountered which actually feels plausible.

it's rare to find a canon ship fic which examines its endgame couple so critically and deeply. one of the reasons i don't otherwise read a lot - or, really, any - hinny is because i find the standard race towards all was well quite trite, and often involving a fairly dismissive approach to ginny's character, which flattens her into somebody whose only goal in life is to be harry's bang maid. but i also think there can be a fair amount of overcorrection in the opposite direction, turning these two into something toxic and unsatisfactory.

beasts actually thinks about the tension which their massively divergent experiences of the war and its aftermath, and the attendant differences in how they'd think about things like justice, resistance, and grief, would cause in harry and ginny's relationship - and it does so by showing two fundamentally imperfect and human people doing their best to deal with that fact.

it's also - because molly weasley bashing is something i must say i have complete contempt for - one of the best manifestos for why she deserves much more respect from the fandom than she gets.

[whinlatter]

What is your favourite hinny fict of all time?

ooh this is a great question!!! several come to mind, because there are some really incredible writers out there who i think capture harry and ginny perfectly in their writing. and i can’t pick one so here goes:

Orchards by @whinlatter

this oneshot is incredible, building up hinny’s relationship over the summer that we see so little of in the books. it’s just so in character, funny and beautiful. you really see their easy dynamic and how perfect they are for each other. i’ve reread it several times and i will do it again it’s THAT good. also her other work Beasts about post-dh ginny and everything that follows the war with lots of flashbacks and added details. it’s really honest and gritty portrayal of grief & recovering from the trauma of a war

The Path From You by @takeariskao3

i am obsessed with this fic. it’s wonderful bc it has all the canon elements but it’s set a few years after the war, and the main plot is completely fresh and new. it’s like a harry x ginny second chance romance, harry is super protective and they’re both like still so in love with each other it’s ughhh *chefs kiss*! it’s so well-written too. i LOVE it.

quick-fire and warm front by @jiilys

these are two oneshots that i think perfectly capture hinny’s relationship after the war. the writing is just beautiful.

Come Stay for The Summer by @ashotofogdensoldfirewhiskey

this is such a fun and hilarious text-fic. i’m such a fan of hinny in a different universe, like regular high school / soccer fics. just another fun exploration of their relationship. also basically any of the oneshots by this author are so good.

Bewitched by @brightlybound

i loved this fic so much. such an orignal concept — it’s mainly a non-magical storyline but with a twist. loved the characterisations and the non-linear format. so cute and fun and the ending is perfect.! also this author has lots of other wonderful works.

FloreatCastellum on ao3 is also wonderful - their missing moments works are so on point.

i also might take this opportunity to self-rec my fic too (lmao sorry) which is-

but i’m a fire, and i’ll keep your brittle heart warm by me hehe

it’s a fic about the beginning and blossoming friendship of harry & ginny during order of the phoenix. basically missing moments and build up to explore how and why these two eventually end up together !

but i am always looking for more fics to read so pls give me recs!!<3

[whinlatter]

This seems like an overcomplicated way to eat eggs and look posh while eating. Very demure, very British. I’m intrigued. I’m going to use my butter bell and try this out while working on my British accent. What else do you guys have special cups for?

and the most cursed of them all:

[whinlatter]

My dad would prank us by eating his egg, then turning it upside down so it looked like an unopened one and offering it to us

a timeless, classic dad caper if ever i heard one!

[whinlatter]

Whoa hold on… British ppl don’t peel the shells before eating the egg hard boiled eggs?? DO YOU GUYS EAT THE EGG SHELLS?? Or do you eat around the shell? Do you wash the shells before you put it in the cup since your bread might touch the shell??… I have so many questions 😑

hard boiled, we peel! soft boiled, we just scalp the fucker. rest assured that we do not, in any instance, eat the shell. also i have never in my life washed the shell and think the bacteria has only made me more powerful

[whinlatter]

I really need to know… what in the world are egg cups?? I don’t think we have them in my country or it’s called something else lol

you mean to tell me your soft-boiled eggs are not lovingly cocooned in little clay/porcelain/stone pots ready to be beheaded and scooped out with a lovely slice of hot-buttered toast atop the breakfast table…

and then you can have dippy eggs and toasted soldiers (toast cut into strips), which is a time-honoured way of getting little children excited about eating an objectively quite boring breakfast item, like so:

[whinlatter]

To me it sounds gay as hell

[whinlatter]

i think harry’s egg cups and kitchenware is so cute :(

i agree

[whinlatter]

silver and gold!

[whinlatter]

me when u come on here to talk about beasts again 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 we don’t deserve you dr whinlatter. i reread the whole thing again a few weeks ago cause it’s so so so good and ur metas are always such beautiful and inspiring analysis. bless you for sharing your brain and ideas. hope you’re doing well!!

[whinlatter]

Hello! Hope you're doing well. Just reread Beasts for the umpteenth time and now my stomach's in a knot thinking about the next chapter and the revelations which await. If you dont mind, can you post a lil snippet to quench our thirst? No pressure ofc. ❤

thank you so much for the beasts love anon (and other kind souls asking)! i love that you are re reading and remain extremely sorry for the wait. things are in motion and we’re aiming for christmas. that’s my story and i am sticking to it 💪

[whinlatter]

In Beasts the idea of Harry buying all of these items for the house he would live in with Ginny is on one hand super sweet because it shows he takes the relationship seriously and on the other hand super irritating because why does he assume he gets to choose all that shit himself without even asking Ginny or without even asking her if she wants to move in?? It's the fact that Harry is making decisions for them by himself and assuming she'd be cool with it. I don't like that tbh. It's like when Harry realizes he has feelings for her in HBP and instead of wondering if she's moved on or if she would even still like him, he worries instead about Ron's reaction. ????? I lowkey feel like Harry should have felt really miserable that Ginny had moved on and liked Dean more than him. But it's like he is arrogant about her feelings for him or something. He doesn't even question it. I can't decide if that's cute or annoying lmao. Like I am not sure if this is Harry truly understanding Ginny and knowing her tastes ("Yes she'd love these egg cups!" "Dean doesn't make her laugh like that! She must still like me we get on so well!") or if its just Harry being a self-absorbed dumbass (SHOULDN'T HE THINK ABOUT HER FEELINGS IN BOTH SITUATIONS!!!!). Like I am over here as a staunch Hinny shipper thinking... "What if Ginny wanted different egg cups, Harry?!" Now she has to pretend she likes your ugly egg cups because if she wants different egg cups it might cause a fight cuz you'd act like a little bitch about it? Am I thinking about this too much?? TL:DR can Harry be normal about something for two seconds or is that not possible. I want Ginny to have a wonderful, caring boyfriend that thinks about WHAT SHE WANTS.

ahh i see where you’re coming from, anon, but i will defend harry and his egg cups a bit here.

there’s no denying that harry is a bit selfish in his relationship and asks of ginny in canon. there’s arguably some necessity to this - the plot demands it - and it reflects something of who harry is and the coping/survival mechanisms he’s developed by the series end. it’s the reason i’ve written his arc in beasts as him having to face up to what he’s asked of ginny, as he discusses this in his letter to her in the next chapter. his arc is him grappling with a loss of identity after the war, trying to look towards building a future he never thought he’d have, and finding out that a big part of that is learning to be on a team with ginny after a long time demonstrating some understandable, but not excusable trauma response behaviours where he hasn’t always treated her as an equal.

which is where the egg cups come in. they (and other assorted crockery) represent harry, at a particular lost moment after the war unclear what he’s for, trying to self soothe by imagining the familial domestic stability he has always craved and buying a little token of that aspiration he can have by him to keep him going. it’s supposed to be a sad sweet (slightly pathetic) image. but there’s no malice in it, just a very lost lad who has gone through a lot doing his best to try and have things to look forward to that might make him happy, like having some dippy eggs and toast with our girl.

i will also reassure you that, should ginny dislike the egg cups, i have no doubt that hjp would bend over backwards/drop serious galleons to source her the egg cups of her dreams.

[whinlatter]

Do you think there is parallel between Peter and ron.

Fandom does Peter wrong. That is a fact. He is either absent or is present just for comic relief or is pure evil. But all those characterisation are simply cartoonish. As if written by a person who is living in la la land...

Peter, just like Lupin, we only know major things about him. But like not many people see lupin as a gray shade character only a kind fluffy guy, Peter is polarised to the bad one....

Ron similarly is often given the last place if how much of a good friend each person in golden trio was to be questioned. And that is a tragedy in itself because atleast for Ron we have so much material...

Infact for me, Ron will always be a person who has bigger heart than jkr's favorite mary sue-Lily Evans. She did what any good mother should do. But fandom never stops going on and on about it Or even Harry's sacrifice at the end is so much singed about...but then we have Ron, an 11 year kid who for the sake of defeating voldy, told his new Friends to leave him. He sacrificed himself at 11. Everyone was sure that he is risking his life...but no one i see ever gushes about that act of bravery. It is always about one Potter Or the other.

Peter too. I mean he won't have been friends with the other three for 10 years if they just tolerated him and vice versa. But making him evil kr stupid kr dumb Or hideous to look at in his childhood or teen years is like taking all his personality away and giving us just a shell of a person...

He did become animagi at 15 and that is quite a commendable magic. He is cunning to pull up his stunt as a spy....

Like war as sirius describes in gof is so dark and scary. And people forgot that big things make a person change.

Ron on the other hand had done quite a lot in his life time but often he is found to be judged for leaving his friends.

I believe that the only difference between them is that ron recognised his faults and made correction. Meanwhile pettigrew simply kept on walking on the wrong path he chose....

What do you think on this..?

thank you very much for the ask, pal!

i don't think this entirely works. ron gets cast by the fandom as a gluttonous moron who's also a bad friend primarily on account of the films - and as a bad person by people who want to ship hermione with other people but don't have the nerve to do this in a complex or interesting way - but the text never suggests that either harry or hermione think of him as being in last place in the trio.

indeed, when harry does think of himself as better than ron - when ron gets made a prefect over him in order of the phoenix - he feels horrible for his brief flash of jealousy and soon gets over it. on other occasions when he notes something about himself which could be seen as superior to ron - when he notes that ron got no outstandings at owl, for example - harry doesn't actually force a comparison which is designed to position ron below him. they end up doing the same newts, which is what harry - who sees ron as his partner in crime - cares about.

ron is also demonstrably harry's best friend, and harry tends to enable him and automatically side with him in conflict - it's an example of great self-growth that he doesn't cut hermione off in half-blood prince when ron does, since he's perfectly happy to do so in prisoner of azkaban. but he's also demonstrably hermione's best friend too. harry's relationship with her is, as he says, sibling-like, which doesn't just mean that it's not romantic, but that it contains a "you can't choose your family" vibe - he loves her fiercely, but he also finds her exasperating in a way ron doesn't, doesn't make any real effort to learn about her interests or include her in his, and is often quite harsh to her. ron - in contrast - does see his relationship with her as one of active choice.

this is why i never really like the idea that the trio and the marauders are meant to be parallels. on the surface, ron and harry should be the equivalent of james and sirius and hermione should be remus...

but they're not, because the clear dynamic of the marauders in canon is that they were a group centred around james. all three of sirius, remus, and peter clearly understood james as their best friend, and their relationships among themselves primarily depend on their understanding of their and the others' relationship to james. there is - i think - a credible case to be made that, if james was removed from the picture entirely, but not in a way that caused the profound trauma of the canon timeline [if he just moved away with lily, for example], the remaining three would drift apart.

james - of course - only understood sirius as his equal, his brother. peter is obviously someone he considered inferior to the two of them - albeit in a fond way, rather than a cruel one. he clearly thinks of him the way a teenager might think of their pre-teen sibling - someone you love and are happy to include in your social life if they do what you want, someone you also don't want to embarrass you in front of your cool teenage friends by letting them do what they want instead of following your instructions. remus is clearly someone he didn't think of as quite so socially inferior to him, but he also still seems to have understood him as peripheral to his and sirius' rampant codependence.

the trio doesn't have anything like this dynamic. even though harry is narratively unequal to ron and hermione - he is their leader, they are his disciples - the relationships across the three of them [harry's active choice to be friends with ron, harry's feeling that hermione is his sister; ron's active choice to be friends with hermione, his pseudo-familial relationship with harry] are much more equal than those among the marauders.

what i have been convinced by, however, is @whinlatter's belief that the best parallel for peter in the series is ginny:

[whinlatter]

"Yeah, it's not really 'quitting' if I have you in checkmate, though."

"As if I care!"

[whinlatter]

THIS IS US BTW :3 IF U EVEN CARE ^_^!!