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poppletonink · 5 months

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The Marauders Fandom and How It Has Changed The State of Fandom Culture

The Marauders Fandom defies the natural state of fandom culture. Within the realm of the spiderweb of links, clicks and likes, fandoms have been born, have been nurtured and have been destroyed. Typically these fandoms follow a particular mould: by focusing on canon events, characters, and relationships between said characters, more art, writing and wonder is born. However, the Marauders fandom is unlike any of its predecessors or any fandoms being born today. Though its characters were once residents of the world of Harry Potter, in the eyes of the fans they are no longer bound to the confines of their original character archetypes (and their minimal development) as provided by writer J.K. Rowling. The internet has created a fandom renaissance - a rebirth of the characters who were originally solely there as ancestors and side characters to the so-called Golden Trio.

With this rebirth comes a subversion of what people think they know. James Potter (the father of Harry Potter) and his friends are no longer the distant memories of a forlorn, mistreated young boy. Through headcanons, fanfiction, edits, and fanart, and the "fanon" versions of these characters, they are given substance, personalities and backstories much richer than those that were scrawled into the pages of the Harry Potter series. From All The Young Dudes by MsKingBean89 (the most-read fanfiction on Archive Of Our Own) to Crimson Rivers by bizarrestars, formerly known as zeppazariel, these characters are given new life.

A queer utopia - perhaps that is the best way to describe and define this fandom. As it has settled into its cozy corner of the web, the fandom has become more bold and outlandish in their ideas. Debates have run riot over romantic pairings and sexual orientations projected onto any and all characters clawed into the cast that is beloved by this ever-growing group of people. Is Remus Lupin "as gay as the day is long" (as he was described in the original print of Casey McQuiston's Red White and Royal Blue) or is he a bisexual man (as unfortunately rare as they are in the literary world)? That is just one of the many questions thrown around from tongue to tongue, from text to text, in this fandom. The importance of queer representation has been established again and again in our modern world, but it has existed and prevailed within the world of the Marauders Fandom.

The pairings in this fandom range from canon, sensible and strongly backed up with evidence from the original books (like James Potter and Lily Evans), to wild, wacky and completely obscure (like James Potter and Regulus Black). However, the fandom has decided to take their own route, no longer caring what words the creator Rowling has to say about her characters. On numerous occasions, J.K. Rowling has stated that Sirius Black and Remus Lupin do not have romantic feelings for each other, and yet 'Wolfstar', as they are so-lovingly nicknamed, is one of the biggest ships in fandom history. Alongside this, after the proclamations of Rowling's transphobic views mid-2020, the fandom took a stand declaring many of the characters (especially Regulus Black) to be transgender in their eyes. Through this, the Marauders Fandom has made these characters even more relatable for those who read about them. Even more notably, they have used these characters to take a political stand - to make it clear that we must stand up for those in our society who are shoved aside and discriminated against.

Fandom culture is taking art and making it into something even more beautiful, making it something that people relate to and adore even more than they did before. While the art originally belongs to the person who creates it, once it is put out into the world it becomes open to interpretation. People project onto songs, onto books, onto art and it helps them to escape the trials and tribulations they face within their realities. After all, isn't that what entertainment is truly made as - an escape? As a result of the Marauders Fandom, we can look towards a future where fandom is no longer defined by its canon, where it becomes a group of people who love something and share creative ideas together. As a result of the Marauders Fandom, fans have the ability and the opportunity to have a sense of more artistic expression, which ultimately leads to more media and literature for us to enjoy. The Marauders Fandom is a fundamental and quintessential part of fandom history - it is a story of its own, born and bred of minuscule threads and mere sentences about interweaving characters. It shows just how we as people are powerhouses of creativity and that, as is said in Dead Poet's Society (1989): "poetry, beauty, romance, love - these are what we stay alive for".

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musicloverxoxo7 · 8 months

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Professor Kim’s Teaching assistant

Professor!Namjoon x fem!reader

Summary: You feel drawn to the new professor like to nobody else. Does he reciprocate that feeling? How far will you take it?

Themes/warnings: smut with a bit of plot at the beginning, age difference (reader is Master student, so ca 5 years), hand job, oral (m receiving), fingering, unprotected sex, y/n has mild dom tendencies, tied up hands, nipple play

Wordcount: ca. 3300 words

Disclaimer: 18+, DO NOT INTERACT IF YOU ARE UNDER 18

I do not own BTS. They merely inspire me. None of this is related to their persons in real life.

“I want to use the last 5 minutes to discuss the topic that will occupy next lesson. Greek mythology in Harry Potter.”

When this new course opened the previous semester, you’d been dying to get a space. Which you finally did the second time around. But now that you’re sitting in Professor Kim’s course, you are bored. Either you know too much about literature or your minds are too alike. You already know almost all the stuff he talks about, while everyone else is in awe at his creative angles.

You raise your hand. Professor Kim looks around. Since none of the other 15 students want to say anything, he gets back to you with a sigh.

“Go ahead, Ms y/l/n.”

It’s almost always a conversation between just the two of you. It has been like that the entire semester.

“For one, there are all the beasts and magical creatures that J.K. Rowling involved in her magical universe. Things like the chimera, centaurs, Cerberus. Aside from that we also have characters in the book named after actual mythological beings, not just Greek, but also Roman.”

“That is correct. Could you give an example? Greek or Roman.”

“Take Remus Lupin for example. Roman legends say that Romulus and Remus were twins that were tasked with building a city. The short version is that Romulus got to build it and named it after himself, of course. Mythology says that they were raised by a she-wolf. I consider this fact of importance, since Remus Lupin is a werewolf.”

“Accurate. Everyone, until next week, if you haven’t done so yet, please read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone. Ms y/l/n, my office, please.”

You file out of the classroom with the other students and head to Professor Kim’s office. You have no idea why he’d want to talk to you. He’s never asked you to his office before.

Professor Kim appears a minute after you, his glasses askew and his hair a slight mess. Same as usual.

You smile just a tiny bit. You’d definitely straighten out those glasses. But you’d definitely leave the messy hair be.

“Please, Ms y/l/n, come in. Would you like something to drink? I have tea, coffee or water.”

You sit down at the corner of his desk as he makes himself a cup of coffee.

“I’m good, thank you. Why am I here?”

He waits until the coffee machine is done, then leans against the cupboard on which it stands. His pecks are on display like that, and you give yourself a second to admire them.

“I want to discuss your future. You are exceptional in the field I teach.”

“I just like reading a lot and finding out what could have been behind it.”

You shrug your shoulders.

“Have you considered doing a PhD and becoming a professor?”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t have to share with me, y/n, if you don’t want to. I merely wanted to offer you my assistance, in case you’d like it.”

Maybe it is because he’s trying so hard. Maybe because this is the first time he has called you by your first name.

“I did consider it for a while. But I had a professor last semester who said they’d do whatever it takes so I don’t get in anywhere as a PhD student.”

“What?”

Professor Kim moves so abruptly that he spills coffee all over his chest. Thanks to your long talk it’s only warm anymore, but he still curses. He puts the cup aside. It gives you a full frontal of his chest, including dark nipples that strain against the fabric.

You jump into action helping him clean up, because otherwise you might do something stupid. Something stupid like burying your face in his chest.

“Take it off.”

“It’s beyond saving. I never get coffee out.”

“Take it off. I’ll do it.”

He doesn’t even turn away to unbutton the shirt. When he tugs the rest of the shirt out of his pants to get the last 2 buttons, you have to cling to your composure very tightly. He hands you the shirt and you put it in the tiny sink in his office.

With the cold water and the immediacy of your reaction, the stain is out in next to no time.

“Et voila.”

You hold up the dripping shirt. No stain left on the light blue fabric. Your smile wavers when you see that Professor Kim is still standing there shirtless. His caramel skin looks like it is supposed to be savored slowly and explored extensively.

“Was it Lim?”

“Huh?”

“Did Professor Lim tell you those terrible things?”

“Oh, well…”

“Y/n!”

“Okay, yes, he did.”

Professor Kim sighs deeply. He straightens out his glasses and walks over to his desk.

“He hates women that are smarter than him. Especially if they are also beautiful. He’s an insecure pig. Time for some measures.”

“What? No!”

You are at the desk with 2 quick steps, your hand on Professor Kim’s upper arm. He looks up slowly from what he was writing, his eyes not focused on your hand but on your eyes.

“Y/n, if you want to go to university for a PhD, I will help you.”

“Okay, then help me. But please, let’s try to keep Professor Lim out of this for as long as possible. He won’t be able to do anything if he finds out last minute.”

Professor Kim straightens up and you finally let go of his arm. You’re a little sad, because it felt very nice. Strong and warm.

“How about you become my TA in the meantime, for your last semester here? That way we would have a valid excuse for spending some time together. Time we will mostly spend on prepping you for that PhD and the application process.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Professor Kim looks at his shirt in your arm and then his naked torso.

“I forgot I wasn’t wearing a shirt. Sorry about that.”

He grabs a jacket from a stand in the corner and buttons it up. This way, he is mostly covered up again. What a shame. You’d grown used to seeing him shirtless by now.

“And one more thing, y/n.”

“What?”

“Please call me Namjoon. Teaching assistants and their professors are almost always on first name terms.”

You hand him back the moist shirt.

“Got it. The shirt should be fine now. But please give it a wash in the washing machine as well.”

“Thank you for your help. I’ll remember that for next time.”

--------

As it turns out, Professor Kim – no, Namjoon – spills something quite regularly. No matter how elegant he looks, he can be quite clumsy. The following week you end up washing coke out of his shirt. The week after hot cocoa. You end up almost getting too comfortable with seeing him shirtless.

Being a TA is turning out to be quite fun and not all that much work, since Namjoon does not hold that many courses this semester.

The day comes when you get accepted into 3 different PhD programs at very prestigious universities. They are out of Professor Lim’s league, so he doesn’t dare mess with you. And finally, your graduation day arrives.

After a beautiful graduation ceremony, you have dinner with your mom and granny. Granny urges you to get married and mom wants you to finally start working full-time. They both talk way too much about your brother and sister and their little families.

Afterwards, you are in dire need of a drink. You end up in a poorly lit bar two houses down from the restaurant. Surprisingly, it smells like peppermint and lime in there. You sit down at the bar and order your favorite drink.

“Long day?”

Namjoon turns to you. You sat down on his right side without even noticing him there. You notice that the top 3 buttons of his shirt are open, and the sleeves pushed upwards. Your mind wants to go in some dirty directions, but you don’t let it.

Thankfully, the bartender puts down the drink in front of you right that moment.

“Kind of. Beautiful, but also laden. Like a landmine.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Sounds like family.”

Namjoon snorts into his drink.

“No matter how much I love my family, I understand what you mean. What did they say to you getting into the 3 best universities in the country?”

“Haven’t told them. They’d be livid that I haven’t gotten married or taken a full time, highly paid positions somewhere yet.”

“You’ll probably have to tell them sometime.”

“Yeah, sometime. I only see them once or twice a year and that’s soon enough for me.”

You let out a long, heavy sigh.

“You want to sit down in an alcove?”

“Sure.”

You move to an empty one with your drinks. The lighting is different here. Warmer, sexier. Namjoon’s dimples look like they want to pull you closer to him. You have a hard time resisting.

“Now that I’m no longer your professor, I’d still like to at least stay friends with you.”

“Of course. It’s thanks to you that I got to this point.”

“Not really. I only guided you a little. But thanks to you I now know how to clean almost all stains out of my shirts.”

You smile. That is true.

“I didn’t mind.”

You don’t because you find his clumsiness endearing. And also, because you got to see him shirtless on a weekly basis. Which was worth the effort.

Namjoon smiles. And something in that smile tells you that he knows.

You fidget a little. Since the nook is small and the bench short, your arm touches his in the process. You withdraw your arm and sit still again.

“I will miss having you around nearly every day. Of course, you were a great help, but mostly your presence is very stimulating to my mind.”

“Well, you wanted to be friends, so we will still get to see each other.”

“Of course. But that won’t be the same, will it?”

“I suppose not.”

Namjoon takes another sip of beer. When he leans back again, his cheeks are a faint strawberry color. You keep your eyes on him. He doesn’t look at you, though, but far into the distance.

“I am a very clumsy person. Which you know.”

“Yes.”

“I do spill drinks on myself quite regularly.”

“I know.”

“But maybe not quite so often. More like once or twice a month.”

“What are you saying?”

You’re still looking at him and he finally meets your eyes.

“I wanted to be close to you. The way you looked at my chest whenever I took of my shirt... I hoped you’d make a move on me someday.”

“Wait what?”

“Ridiculous, I know. You have marvelous self-restraint. And perhaps you only enjoy pecks in general, not specifically me as a person.”

His eyes are honest, with a hint of vulnerability. You hold his gaze for a few moments, then your eyes move down to his pecks. His shirt today is just the right amount of tight. But the fabric is midnight blue, so you cannot see through it.

You bite your bottom lip. You do like Namjoon as a person.

“I do like pecks. But yours are particularly… delectable.”

You slowly look up at him again. His dimples are showing. You move your hand up and gently poke one of his dimples with your finger. When you withdraw your hand again, Namjoon catches it and blows a kiss on your fingertip.

Butterflies flutter through your stomach. You move a little closer and put your hand on his thigh. He does not object. When you stroke up and down his thigh, his breathing becomes a little labored.

Encouraged by your bold movements, Namjoon leans forward and touches his lips to yours. You deepen the kiss. He tastes like peppermint and beer.

You break apart after what could have been seconds or hours.

“Would you like to disappear from here? My apartment is just down the road. If you aren’t ready, though, we can postpone that.”

You take him by the hand and pull him out of the alcove. Thank goodness the drinks are already paid for.

The warm summer air outside caresses your legs and arms. Namjoon takes your hand and guides you to his place. On the way you talk about books, as usual.

Only once the door to his apartment closes behind him do things change again. You’ve barely taken off your shoes when Namjoon grabs your waist and pulls you against him. This kiss is much less restrained and civil than the one in the bar.

You melt into him, your hands on his firm pecks. You run your hands over them, making sure to also caress his nipples gently. Every time you give them a twist, his breath catches. Finally, you can’t take it anymore and unbutton his shirt. He does not stop you.

Once you have peeled the shirt off him, you let your hands roam over his entire upper body. He gives you time to explore while keeping his hands at your waist.

When you break apart for a breather, Namjoon smiles.

“This kind of curiosity will bring you far anywhere, y/n.”

You giggle. Even in a situation like this, he can’t help but think of work and books.

“I hope it can also bring me as far as your bedroom.”

“If that is where you want to be, definitely.”

He walks to the bedroom door and pushes it open. You walk inside past him and turn on the light. There are beautiful paintings on the wall. The bed isn’t made, but overall, the room is very clean and organized.

You turn back to Namjoon.

“I love the interior design. I want a painting tour later on.”

“Whatever you wish, y/n.”

You put your hands on his belt buckle and open it.

“IF there is anything you don’t like, tell me to stop. Ditto for if it’s too much.”

“Who is the teacher here?”

You smirk up at him.

“Tonight, I think it’s me. But I’m always willing to switch roles.”

You pull the belt out of his pants.

“Lie down.”

He does.

“Put up your hands.”

He follows your instructions again. You tie his hands to the head of the bed with his belt.

“I’ll untie you whenever you want. Just say the word.”

“Got it. But I’m feeling pretty comfortable right now.”

You unzip your dress and drop it on the floor before crawling on the bed. Namjoon lies stretched out, the muscles in his arms and torso prominent. You sit down on his lower belly and give him a kiss.

“This could take a while.”

And it does. You start with feathery kisses on his dimples and then move down his neck. You are very tempted to leave marks there, but that wouldn’t be good for a professor who has to teach his students tomorrow.

So instead, you suck a mark into his bulging upper arm. You gently scratch your teeth over the inside of his forearm. That has goosebumps running over his arms. You bite down on the inside of his palm.

By then you’ve teased enough and move down to his chest. His gorgeous chest. Finally, you get to touch and savor. You place sloppy kisses all over his pecks. Namjoon watches you with hooded eyes. When you run your lips over his nipples, his eyes cross. You do it again and add a little tongue. He huffs out a breath.

You keep up the ministrations for another minute or two until you move down his stomach. You leave tiny bites there, which has his stomach muscles contracting like crazy.

You unzip his slacks.

“Hips up.”

He does and you pull the slacks and underwear down. As you already felt earlier, he is fully erected. You run your hand up the shaft and pay special attention to the frenulum. Namjoon takes a shuddering breath. Your thumb draws a circle around his slit.

“Baby, stop torturing me.”

“Are you in pain?”

“No.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

Namjoon sighs.

“Goodness, no.”

“Then stop complaining or I’ll gag you next.”

You smile up at him.

Then you lower your head and repeat the circular motion around his slit with your tongue. His moan is a true turn on. You ditch your panties, slip your hand between your legs and start playing with your clit, while you keep working him with your tongue and mouth.

It doesn’t take long until you have him at the brink of desperation. And ecstasy.

You raise your head and let go of him. His eyes linger on your other hand, which is between your legs.

“May I do that too, tonight?”

“Definitely. But later.”

You crawl back up to the headboard and untie him. He lowers his arms and presses you against his body. The close body contact feels heavenly.

Namjoon undoes your bra. You sit up and throw it aside. Then you lay down on him again, rubbing your nipples against his chest. It feels like heaven. Until you’re so sensitive you have to stop.

You kiss the tip of his nose.

“Your turn now, professor. I want to feel you in me.”

He rolls you around until you are lying on your back and he is hovering over you. With one hand he grabs your hands and pins them against the pillows above you. You find that very, very hot.

You arch your body towards him.

“Please.”

“How could I say no to that.”

You feel his tip push against your entrance. It’s a nice stretch once he finally pushes into you, slowly, so you can adjust. Except that you are so turned on that you don’t really need time to adjust.

Namjoon is breathing heavily by the time he bottoms out.

“Give me just a second like this, okay? I don’t want to cum right away.”

He smiles down at you and the dimples appear in all their glory. You pucker your lips. He gets the message and leans down for a kiss. A very deep, slightly messy kiss.

Once you break apart and he finally starts moving, your eyes meet. His are dark, almost black, with lust.

His moves are slow and steady at first. He lets go of one of your hands, so you can play with your nipple. It doesn’t take long until his moves become sloppier, harsher. With a few more twists or your nipple your high burns its way through you.

Namjoon’s breathing gets shallower while you moan into his ear. He lets go of your other hand and you sling both around his torso.

“I can’t… much longer…”

“It’s okay. We have all night for more.”

A few more sloppy thrusts, then Namjoon cums. He buries his face in your shoulder, and you hold him once his body ceases to move.

It takes a bit for both your breathing to normalize and for heartbeats to slow down again. Until that happens, you stroke Namjoon’s hair.

You don’t know how long you lay there like that, but you enjoy it.

Eventually, Namjoon raises his head and looks down at you. His eyes have cleared up to their normal dark brown. You see something in them that looks surprisingly like love. You’re even more surprised that you don’t mind that at all. Maybe it is time to trust another person and give them your love.

“Would you like to go and take a hot shower with me, y/n.”

“Gladly.”

He pulls out of you and helps you up.

“About that paintings tour of your apartment?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s postpone that until tomorrow. I think we’re busy for the rest of the night.”

Namjoon guides you into the bathroom, where he turns on the shower. There is easily enough space for two people in there.

“As you prefer, honey.”

When you look at him his eyes are crinkled in a smile.

Please do not copy, translate, or repost my work (reblogging is fine though). Doing so will make you legally liable for stealing intellectual property.

#bts smut #bts imagines #bts x reader #bts fanfic #female y/n #namjoon x reader #namjoon x you #namjoon smut #namjoon #female reader

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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 8 months

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QTA: Queer Teacher Alliance | New Student

Feel free to ignore this if you're not feeling up to writing, but homophobia feat. a 2 hour math test and homophobia feat. queer teacher alliance both literally had me in tears (god I need teachers like that) soooo.... possibly something else within that realm? Pretty please? Maybe there's a new kid (remy? idk i think he's the only character not accounted for aside from the orange side and thomas at this point) that's struggling? Homophobia shit happens again, Virgil has a panic attack, and Remy or whoever tries to help? Cept they're highschoolers and not very good at helping so they just kind of make it worse and now both of them are panicking and one of the teachers finds them. And I think you can figure out where it goes from here haha – anon

Read on Ao3 Masterlist

Warnings: homophobia, transphobia, panic attacks

Pairings: none!

Word Count: 3479

You know, for once in his life, Virgil would really appreciate it if people just shut the fuck up about things they don't know. Seriously, whoever decided that it was every person with a platform's responsibility to use said platform to speak about something, even when the person doesn't know anything about whatever they're talking about, Virgil would like a word. Several words, in fact, many of them four letters, and then to acquaint their face with several different heavy objects. Repeatedly.

Point is, he's been forced to listen to some of his classmates discuss some celebrity's opinion of Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling for the past way-too-many minutes and he's about ready to rip his fucking ears off.

"I'm just saying, there has to be a way to—"

"There isn't! There literally isn't! She's come out and said publicly that she takes anyone who still engages with Harry Potter to mean that they secretly agree with her horrible transphobic views."

"But it's like he pointed out! Harry Potter is such big childhood nostalgia for so many people, what if it means something to them? I mean, obviously we don't endorse what the author's saying—"

"Did you not just listen to a fucking word I said?"

No, they didn't, they won't start to, and you need to shut the fuck up, Virgil thinks to himself as the other student sighs.

"Look, what about, you know, death to the author and all that?"

"I mean I'll kill that TERF without hesitating, yeah."

I don't think that's what death to the author means. I also think it's not actually called that.

"But like—are the books and movies really that bad?"

Nope. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, Virgil is not going to be here for this. He starts trying to put his stuff into his bag as subtly as he can, even hiding his pencil case under the table so he can ease the zipper open as quietly as possible. Pencil case, laptop, textbook, notebook, he's almost got everything in when suddenly he hears:

"Virgil! Virgil, come help me."

Absolutely the fuck not.

"Virgil," they call again even as he tries to shove his headphones in to surreptitiously indicate that he doesn't want to be talking about this right now, "Virgil! Hey, Virgil!"

"What?"

Fuck. Shouldn't have done that.

The first student sighs, leaning back in their chair. "Can you help me explain all the awful shit in Harry Potter?"

No, because I've got class in half an hour and there won't be enough time. "Uh—"

The other one snorts. "Look, I'm just saying that if you can't do it yourself, then maybe it's not really as bad as you're saying it is."

"Shut up, my inability to articulate doesn't make you right."

This is, in fact, an excellent point, and Virgil's going to use it to seamlessly segue his way out of this conversation, watch: "I, um, I—uh—"

See? Nailed it.

"Maybe Virgil's on my side," the other one says, "you don't know."

"I don't even know what you're talking about," Virgil says hastily, fighting every instinct to throw his backpack at their smug-ass face, "so—"

"What the fuck do you mean, don't know what we're talking about?"

No, no, no, not like that, abort, abort, abort—

The first student glares at him. "Have you been living under a rock or some shit? All the bullshit that J.K. Rowling keeps spewing about trans women not being real women and that they're dangerous and predatory, that stuff, do you really not know about that?"

"No, I do, but—"

"Then come on and help me convince this fucking idiot that her books are full of shit too!"

Virgil's hand tightens on the strap to his backpack and he starts edging toward the door. "I, um, I don't—I don't really have time for that, I need to go to class—"

"Period isn't over for another—" they glance at their phone— "twenty-seven minutes, dude, it's fine."

"I need to use the bathroom—"

"To do what," the other one snorts, "you have like, a mammoth shit you need to drop or something?"

"It's actually none of your business what I have to do in the bathroom," he spits, hunching protectively over himself.

"Whoa, man, easy." They raise their hands. "Calm down."

He takes a deep breath to try and calm himself before steeling his jaw. "Look, the internet is literally right at your fingertips. Google some shit or something."

"Yeah, 'cause people on the internet are so unbiased."

"Why don't—look," the first one says, "why don't you just give us one example, how about that?"

"Why are you so invested in me giving you an example?" Virgil asks in frustration, forgetting to get closer to the door—and his freedom. "Literally how am I involved in this conversation at all?"

"Because you're gay."

There's a faint ringing in his ears, he realizes after a moment. The entire room seems to slow down, moving in bullet time, and there's that whine in the back of his head almost like microphone feedback. His pulse thuds loudly in his ears, which is weird, because he was so sure he could only hear the whining but now he can hear this thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud. He can also hear some sort of really raspy thing, and there's a burning sensation near the base of his throat, which is strange, what could that be?

Oh, he realizes after their voices start to fade back in, I'm panicking.

Of course, realizing that he's panicking doesn't do anything other than slam every single big red button in his brain that says Hello! Time to have a Bad Time! In an instant his hands start sweating. His hoodie starts to itch. His chest keeps burning—that's what that was. His eyes widen and his mouth stops mouthing and he needs to go.

He barely even registers the run through the halls to get to the bathroom, doesn't even remember if there were people or if there are people currently in here or anything other than chucking his bag into the corner of the stall and slamming the door and huddling against the cold linoleum.

Stop it, he screams at himself, stop it, stop it, stop it!

He should be fine. None of this should be happening. He should be fine because nothing actually happened to him and he doesn't want to have to deal with the consequences of visibly having a panic attack in front of those two assholes and he doesn't want to deal with their stupid attempts at placating him afterwards.

Especially not their stupid attempts to placate him afterwards.

He can see it now, the way they'll stand in that weird and awkward way where they're trying to be sincere but they're high school kids so they only know how to do that weird handclasp thing that makes everything look like it's awkward picture day and they'll stumble their way over saying some stupid shit like we accept you the way you are and it's not a problem but something to be embraced or even just I see you, I hear you, I'm here for you, and he'll want to rip their fucking stupid vocal chords out before they can burble their way through some fucking platitude that doesn't mean shit and fuck this really isn't helping him stop panicking.

The door swings open.

"Uh, hey," the first student's voice rings out and Virgil curls up as tight as he can, "I, um, don't really know what happened, but you seem kinda upset, so I'm, uh, here to check on you?"

Go the fuck away. Go the fuck away right now and leave me the fuck alone.

"Look, I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot," they say as they come closer, in fact, and do not leave, "I, uh, didn't mean to just volley you in like that."

A shadow lengthens under the stall door.

"We, uh, I mean, I just wanted to make sure that you knew I wasn't trying to be homophobic or anything. I just meant that—you know, you're, uh…you might have more of a stake in it than we did, so I thought it would be good to…get your side of things."

I'm not trans. I'm not trans. We're not—queer people aren't some fucking hive mind.

A very good point he would like to make out loud. Now if only his lungs would stop trying to flee through his esophagus.

"But, uh, are you—oh, you're in there." Two shoes appear under the stall door. "Can I come in?"

"No!" He sniffs and gasps. "Get out!"

"Are you—you're having a panic attack, right?"

"Get out," he yells again, voice cracking, "leave me alone!"

"I'm not gonna leave you alone if you're having a panic attack, dude, that's not what you're supposed to do."

What you're supposed to do is listen to the fucking person who's having the fucking panic attack in the first goddamn place so that you don't make it fucking worse, which is what you're fucking doing right fucking now!

But of course, his body won't fucking cooperate with him long enough to make all of those words come out of his mouth, and so he just screams again.

"Get out!"

"Okay, okay, you're upset—" yeah, no fucking shit, Sherlock— "so I'm gonna—I'm gonna go get someone for you, okay? Just stay right there."

Where in the fuck am I gonna go, asshole?

But actually, the tiny remaining rational part of him thinks as the shoes disappear and the door swings open and closed again, that might not be such a bad idea, to go somewhere else. Then he might not actually have to deal with the consequences right now and he can ride out the rest of this stupid panic attack in peace and not have to explain himself to whoever the fuck that asshole went to go get—

"No, he's in there, I swear."

Fuck, how are they back already?

The door swings open again and Virgil scrunches himself as small as he can go, huddled in the corner, as a set of footsteps moves along the length of the bathroom.

"Hello? Is someone in here?"

Mr. DeLuca.

Two different instincts war in Virgil's chest. On the one side, Mr. DeLuca has been nothing but patient with him whenever he's upset. He's been kind and gentle, Virgil dares to say, and he's not made a secret of the fact that he'll be on Virgil's side if shit goes down about queer people.

The other side, though, knows that Mr. DeLuca is fucking scary.

"I see a closed stall door," Mr. DeLuca says, his voice still quiet and soft, "so I'm going to guess that's where you are. I'm not going to get closer, I'm still over by the sinks."

Virgil sniffs and it rings in the empty bathroom.

"You've picked the perfect place," he continues, "I'm sure there's no shortage of tissues to blow your nose with."

Despite himself, he sobs out a laugh and after a moment he hears Mr. DeLuca chuckle too.

"Though I can't say the smell will be pleasant once you do, this is still a bathroom."

The part of Virgil that wants the soft and kind Mr. DeLuca is slowly winning the fight as his back and shoulders start to protest being curled up like this for so long. With a shaking hand, he reaches out and undoes the lock, letting the stall swing open.

"I see you've opened the door," Mr. DeLuca says, "is that permission to come over?"

"Y-yeah."

"Alright, thank you. I'm going to stand up and start walking over. If at any point you decide to change your mind, that's perfectly alright, just tell me." Footsteps and another shadow and a noise escapes Virgil's throat before he can stop it. "Was that to stop?"

"N-no."

"Alright, just checking."

He keeps coming, all the way over, and Virgil can't help but cower a little when his shadow blocks out the light. Still, he tries to peer up and see him as he comes around the edge of the door.

"I'm here now, let's—Virgil?"

At the obvious concern that suddenly floods his voice, Virgil can't hold back the sob.

"Oh, sweetie," Mr. DeLuca murmurs, crouching down and reaching for him, "what happened?"

Virgil just shakes his head and claps a hand over his mouth. Mr. DeLuca tuts.

"Don't muffle yourself, it's alright, there's no one else here. It's alright, cry it out if you need to, I won't go anywhere unless you want me to."

And fuck it, he's out again. He buries his face in his hands and hoodie sleeves and just starts bawling like a child. Mr. DeLuca's hand comes to rest gently on his shoulder, sliding around to rub circles into his back. It's so careful but it's clearly done on purpose to make him feel better and he takes it back, that kid wasn't an asshole because they did actually get someone who could help.

It just…takes a moment.

When Virgil's finally got a hold on himself and half a roll of tissue to blow his nose on, Mr. DeLuca smiles at him.

"Hello, sweetie," he says quietly, "do you want to tell me what happened?"

"Not really."

"Will you tell me anyway?"

Virgil sighs. "Some students—the one who got you, I'm guessing—"

"Remy?"

"Yeah, I guess, them and another student started talking about how awful J.K. Rowling is—" Mr. DeLuca makes a noise of agreement— "well, they were arguing, really, and then Remy—Remy asked me to weigh in and I tried to leave but they wouldn't let me and then they said—"

"What did they say," he prompts when Virgil chokes off, "what did they say, sweetie?"

"They said they were asking me 'cause I'm g-gay."

Mr. DeLuca's hand stills and Virgil flinches. He's quick to soothe it away, though: "Shh, sweetie, I'm sorry, I'm not mad at you."

"But this is stupid."

"What," he asks dryly, "having a response to your trauma when it gets triggered?"

"…yeah."

He chuckles. "I hate to break it to you, Virgil, but that's how it works, I'm afraid."

"That's stupid too."

"Yes, it is very stupid." He gives his shoulder a gentle shake. "Can I convince you to come up out of the bathroom? Not to deny you your space but I'm sure other students will soon want a chance to use it."

"Yeah."

"Come," Mr. DeLuca coaxes, helping him to his feet, "I think Mr. Prince has a free period now as well, can we have you go sit with him while I deal with this?"

"Y-you don't—" Mr. DeLuca raises an eyebrow and Virgil cows— "okay."

"Do you want to rinse your face off first?"

"Uh-huh."

He splashes cold water and scrubs at his face until everything's roughly the same amount of red. He pats himself dry with the shitty paper towels and runs his hoodie sleeve over his face to get the rest. Mr. DeLuca just waits patiently with his backpack until he's ready to go.

"Thanks."

"Of course. Come on, now, it's not far."

He decides to pay negative attention to the surrounding halls as Mr. DeLuca guides him around to Mr. Prince's classroom, only looking up when the door swings open and he hears the familiar sound of Mr. Prince humming to himself as he works.

"Janus! What a lovely surprise," Mr. Prince calls, "and—oh, you've brought someone with you."

"Mr. Prince." Virgil can't help but smile at the familiar sound of Mr. DeLuca being exasperated. "I have a favor to ask you."

"Oh?"

"Do you mind if Virgil spends the rest of the period with you?"

"Oh, is that who that is? Look up for me—oh," Mr. Prince murmurs, everything else vanishing as he takes in Virgil's still-swollen eyes, "hey, Virgil, yeah, you can stay, that's fine."

"…thanks."

Mr. Prince looks up at Mr. DeLuca and they exchange a nod like Mr. Prince is giving him permission to go off on some mission to—oh, wait, that's exactly what's happening. Mr. DeLuca pats his shoulder one more time before leaving through the door.

"Come sit," Mr. Prince encourages, gesturing towards any of the open tables, "do you want to talk about it, do you want me to distract you, or do you want to be left alone?"

"Uh—" Virgil glances at the table nearest him, currently spread with all manner of papers, "what's all that?"

"Oh, just stuff for the other class, you guys didn't need it." He waves dismissively at the scissors. "It's an exercise to help remember some of the quotes from the readings to use in your essays."

Virgil snorts. "Ah, yes, the quotes that are definitely words that we would normally use in academic papers."

"Exactly, see?" He perches on the edge of his desk and Virgil deliberately looks at the desk in front of him, sitting down and putting his chin on his crossed arms. "Are you okay? Do you need some water or something?"

"Nah."

There are a few minutes of quiet as Mr. Prince goes back to shuffling the papers around before he sighs and looks over. "Alright, I know I asked if you wanted to talk about it and you didn't say you did, but I'm nosy and I want to know what happened."

Virgil sighs. "J.K. Rowling happened."

Mr. Prince makes such an expression of disgust that he snorts again. "What the hell was a TERF doing in your free period?"

"Two students were watching someone explain that they still like Harry Potter but don't support her perspectives on things like…that," he says, "and then they, uh, argued about it."

Mr. Prince winces. "I'm hesitant to ask what happened next."

"No, you're not."

"No, I'm not."

"One of them basically volunteered me because I think they have the all-queer-people-think-alike thing, and I, uh, wasn't prepared for someone to just loudly declare my queerness, so…"

"Well, I was right, that sucks a whole lot and I'm sorry that happened." He nods toward the door. "I would guess that our fearless math teacher is on the warpath?"

"When isn't he on the warpath?"

"You make an excellent point."

Virgil lays his cheek against his arm. "Also, they started talking about 'death to the author,' and I don't—that's not what it's called, right?"

"No, it's 'death of the author.'" Mr. Prince glances over at him with a smile. "Do you remember what it means?"

"Yeah, it's when it doesn't matter what the author intended or didn't intend to put into the text, right? We prioritize reader interpretation instead of author intention?"

"That's exactly right, well done, Virgil."

Not now, gay panic, oh my fucking god, not now. But it's too late, he's already got a giddy smile forming on his face and Mr. Prince has seen it.

"Don't hide, you're allowed to be proud you're right." He laughs in surprise when Virgil buries his face in his arms. "You're never this shy in class, what's going on?"

"I've just had a panic attack!"

"Fair enough, fair enough," he chuckles and yeah, it's probably a better idea if Virgil just hides his face for a little longer.

Still, he can't resist the urge to peek out for too long, and he raises his head just enough to glimpse Mr. Prince working with the pieces of paper over the edge of his hoodie. Mr. Prince glances over at the slight rustle and waves.

"Hi, there."

"Hi."

"You feeling better?"

"A little."

"That's good. Do you feel up to helping me cut out some of these things?"

"Sure."

This is fine, he thinks as he actually gets to laugh a few more times and talk about the ridiculousness of some of the quotes, this is totally fine.

And to his surprise, it actually is.

(He thinks Remy was right about them getting off on the wrong foot, though. Maybe he'll go find him later and they can actually have a conversation. Not about Harry Potter, though.)

General Taglist: @frxgprince@potereregina@gattonero17@iamhereforthegayshit@thefingergunsgirl@awkwardandanxiousfander@creative-lampd-liberties@djpurple3@winterswrandomness@sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes@iminyourfandom@bullet-tothefeels@full-of-roman-angst-trash @ask-elsalvador @ramdomthingsfrommymind@demoniccheese83@pattonsandershugs @el-does-photography @princeanxious@firefinch-ember@fandomssaremysoul@im-an-anxious-wreck@crazy-multifandomfangirl @punk-academian-witch@enby-ralsei@unicornssunflowersandstuff@wildhorsewolf @thetruthaboutthesun @stubbornness-and-spite @princedarkandstormv @your-local-fookin-deadmeme @angels-and-dreams@averykedavra @a-ghostlight-for-roman @treasurechestininterweb @cricketanne @queerly-fluid-fan @compactdiscdraws@cecil-but-gayer@i-am-overly-complicated@annytheseal@alias290@tranquil-space-ninja @arxticandy @mychemically-imbalanced-romance@whyiask@crows-ace @emilythezeldafan@frida0043 @ieatspinalcords @snowyfires@cyanide-violence@oonagh2@xxpanic-at-the-everywherexx@rabbitsartcorner @percy-07734@triflingassailantofmyemotions @virgil-sanders-the-gay-emo@cerulean-watermelon@puffed-up-bees@meltheromanstan@joyrose-fandomer@insanitori@mavenmush@justablah65@10paradox10@uhhh-hi-there-i-am-nervous@cutebisexualmess@bella-bugatti-frogetti-baguetti@ultrageekygirl

#dragonbabbles #sanders sides #fic #roman sanders #virgil sanders #janus sanders #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit #remy sanders

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rabbitcruiser · 4 months

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National Serpent Day

National Serpent Day is observed annually on February 1. It’s a tradition that has been in practice for at least five years, as a way to encourage everyone to widen their understanding of snakes to overcome their fear of serpents.

History of National Serpent Day

National Serpent Day is observed every year to appreciate snakes. They have been known to humans for centuries and have evolved over an even greater period in history.

Snakes are perceived as the symbol of medicine, good, evil, fertility and have been seen as sacred since ancient times because of their venom. The venom is said to have healing properties that modern studies have proven can produce painkillers, drugs for hypertension, and even treatments for strokes, heart disease, and possibly even cancer.

The precise origin and history of National Serpent Day are not clear; however, the day has been set aside for at least five years as a way to encourage everyone to widen their understanding of snakes and to overcome their fear of serpents.

Historically, the origin of snakes being ‘evil’ as it is today is seen from the rhetoric of Adam and Eve and the role snakes played throughout biblical literature. It is as such for cunning Eve to consume from a tree forbidden by God. Eve’s act of obeying the snake instead of God’s instruction is assumed to be linked with the beginning of the bad things that happen presently according to Christianity. National Serpent Day is to rewrite the negative stories around snakes and inspire humans to reflect and come to grips with their fears for it. Most snakes are known to animal scientists as shy and retreating. None will attack a person unmolested.

Studies show snakes go as far as to coil up and rattle to warn approaching humans of their intention to be left alone and striking only as a last resort when they feel trapped or cornered.

National Serpent Day timeline

1869 — 1897 Edward Drinker Cope’s Findings

His contributions include extinct reptile fossils leading to an understanding of snakes.

1969 “Biology of the Reptilia” is First Published

It serves as a reference to topics on the evolution of amphibians and reptiles.

2001 Modern Research on Snakes Starts

The University of Texas publishes a survey on the ossification in neonatal squamates.

2015 The Oldest Snake Fossil Ever Is Found

A 113 million-year-old fossil of a four-legged snake is discovered in Brazil.

National Serpent Day FAQs

What do serpents symbolize?

Snakes are believed to represent power, good, evil, fertility and have healing powers. They can shed their skins and emerge reborn, thus they are also identified with the symbol of regeneration or rebirth and immortality.

What do snakes represent in tattoos?

Snakes are an ancient symbol of rebirth, temptation, fertility, and power that is often depicted in tattoo arts with those things in mind.

Can a snake love you?

Snakes may become tolerant toward their owners but in general, they aren’t affectionate toward humans.

How to Observe National Serpent Day

Visit a nearby zoo

Learn about them

Celebrate on social media

Spend the day at a nearby zoo seeing the different snakes learning their distinct characteristics to observe National Serpent Day. Go as far as understanding how and why they react to a human invasion. You might even invite friends on your trip to uncover which one has the greater fear for the serpent and conquer your herpetophobia together!

Take National Serpent Day as a time to research snakes native to your area. Understand which ones are deadly and ways to recognize them. You might also read about ancient stories of how they are used in medicine or dive into modern literature to see the role they portray in them: Like Kaa in “The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling, or Nagini in J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series.

If you’re a snake lover, there’s no better way to observe National Serpent Day than posting selfies of yourself and your snake friend on social media to help everyone else overcome their fear of it. You can use #SerpentDay or #NationalSerpentDay to track discussion.

5 Things You Should Know About Snakes

Snakes have remedial properties

There are thousands of snake species

Snakes eat their prey whole

They are mostly non-venomous

They sometimes give live birth

Snakes have been sacred since ancient times because their venom is thought to have healing properties and studies show it's used to produce painkillers and drugs for hypertension and might even help with treatments for strokes, heart disease, and maybe even cancer.

Researchers have identified roughly 3,000 species of snakes existing around the world.

Snakes are known for their ability to swallow as a whole, prey up to three times larger than the diameter of their head due to their upper and lower jaws being separate.

According to scientists, only one out of eight of the known snake species are venomous.

Snakes are mostly known to lay eggs; others give live birth too.

Why National Serpent Day is Important

It encourages overcoming our fear of serpents

It helps us appreciate their existence

It promotes our understanding of snakes

National Serpent Day’s purpose is to help us overcome our fears of snakes. It serves as a day to especially help us to form a friendly bond with the ancient animal.

Snakes are a symbol of power, good, evil, fertility, and have been known to have remedial properties useful to humans for ages. National Serpent Day serves as a day to appreciate their existence on earth for these reasons.

The reason for National Serpent Day is to help give awareness of snakes with the hope that it would lead us to conquer our fears. On this day everyone is encouraged to take their time to research and learn about snakes native to their area.

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braveclementine · 1 month

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Chapter 1

Warnings: None, Readers under 18 can read this book. It is solely fluff- nothing sexual

Copyright: I do not own any Wizarding World characters that J.K. Rowling wrote. I do however own Elizabeth Kane (main character) and Trang Nyguen (best friend). There should be no use of these two names without my permission. I also do not condone any copying of this.

.💚💚.

Dear Harry, Answer your letters damnit Love, Elizabeth

I attached the note to Sadie's leg and sent her off out the window. He wouldn't answer, I knew that. I just kept sending letters, hoping that eventually he'd see Sadie outside his window, and get the hint. I knew Hedwig was locked up in her cage and he couldn't write back. I also knew that someone was stealing his letters. But if he at least saw my owl, then maybe he would remember that he did have friends.

Once Sadie was gone, I wrote a much longer letter to Hermione, the only one who knew, how I knew, why Harry wasn't writing back.

Dear Hermione, Harry still can't answer his letters. For one thing, his Uncle padlocked Hedwig in her cage. I feel bad for both of them. For another thing, someone keeps taking his letters so he doesn't even know we're writing to him. I'm not sure if it's one of his relatives, or something/someone else. I feel terrible. He thinks we're not his friends! But, I suspect Ron will go and get him eventually. By the way, Ron asked me to go and stay with him, I imagine he also invited you and Harry? Are you going? I suspect you're not- at least I'm not seeing you going- but I suppose that could change. I'll keep you updated when I see something- or if I see something interesting for that matter. Love, Elizabeth

I sighed, setting that aside to dry. I pulled over Ron's letter which had arrived earlier that day.

Elizabeth, I said I'd invite you, Hermione, and Harry to stay at my house. I can't get through to Harry at all though! You had any luck? Oh and you can come to my house if you want! Just send a letter my way. Ron

I pulled out a blank piece of parchment, not sure of what to say. It'd be great to go and spend time with the Weasley family, but without Hermione there, I wasn't sure I wanted to go. Ron wasn't really my friend as much as Harry and Hermione were. . . Although, there was the plus side of seeing Fred. . .

The doorbell rang and I set aside my ink and quill. I preferred pens, but when corresponding with wizards and witches, I used my magical items. I ran down the stairs and opened the door.

"Hey Elizabeth!" Trang said, standing there. "Can I come in?"

"Sure." I said, opening the door and letting her through. I led her to the tiny kitchen of the house. "How are you doing?"

"Great!" She said happily.

"How was France?"

She launched into all the details of France and everything she had done there. I listened, a little envious though I tried to push that emotion away.

Hi. My name is Elizabeth Kane Potter. I'm the twin sister of Harry Potter. No one knows I exist, my parents kept me a secret. While this is the case, my adopted father- werewolf Remus Lupin- knows my true identity and also the only person alive to know. (Besides Sirius Black). I don't look much like my brother, I look more like my mum (so Lupin says. Personally, I think I look more like Lupin). I also receive visions of the future that sometimes- always- come true, depending on the actions of other people.

But anyways. . .

"So what about you?" Trang asked, catching her breath after recounting a tale about the ocean shores in France. "Have you done anything exciting? And how was school?"

Trang was my Muggle friend, meaning that she wasn't a witch. And of course, she had no idea where I had gone to school or that I wasn't learning maths or science. That didn't stop me though. Summer and Christmas breaks I would set aside my wizarding studies and start on my Muggle ones.

Trang was incredibly bright- like me if I may be so humble. She had long black hair that she dyed ombre in either gold or silver-blue colors. It suited her, though I usually preferred the gold. She wore glasses most of the time, giving her face a round image. She had bright brown eyes and dressed rather stylishly. She was taller than me by a few inches and beautiful.

"Nah, I haven't really done anything except pick my job back up." I said, twirling a pen in my hand. Not to mention I was grounded for a night escapade at school where I stopped Voldemort from stealing the Sorcerer's stone. But Trang didn't need to know about that. "School was slow but it was all easy."

Trang nodded. "Of course, school in America is a bit different than here in Britain. Their history especially. I had to study extra hard since I didn't grow up knowing any American history."

"American history is probably very fascinating." I said, continuing to twirl the pen in my fingers like a baton. "I'd love to learn it."

"Well you only have one more year of middle school and then you're going into a trade school, right?" Trang asked.

"Maybe." I said slowly deftly sweeping my long brown hair over my shoulder. "I haven't given it much thought."

"Do you know what trade schools you want to go into?" Trang asked, sounding incredulous.

"I haven't given it much thought." I repeated, amused.

Trang rolled her eyes, grabbing the pen from my hand. I glared at her. "If you had to go to a trade school or gymnasium today, which one would you go to?"

I sighed, snatching my pen back, and continuing to spin it in my hand. "Yeesh, I guess something that would help me for a medical program. I don't know. I was thinking about American college instead."

Trang's eyes lit up, "You're kidding? Maybe we could got to the same college!"

I shook my head, being legitimately serious about the subject- or as serious as I would be if magical school didn't exist. "I don't know. They certainly have a better school system." I sighed, leaning back in my chair, "And American hospitals have better pay."

Trang nodded, more serious now. "That is true. The downside of American hospitals though, is that they are open 24-7 so you may work longer hours. Here, the hospitals are only open 9-5."

I shook my head. "That's the downside of European hospitals. Imagine having a heart attack at two in the morning in American vs. Europe. Which country are you more likely to get care at? The one that's open or the one that's closed?"

"Huh, you know, I never thought of it like that" Trang answered thoughtfully, pushing her glasses up on her nose. That seemed to remind her of something because she peered at me for a second and then asked, "Where are your glasses?"

I blushed. "I don't wear them anymore unless I really have to. They were for reading anyways so I didn't have to wear them all the time before. Now, I only wear them if I have to."

Plus, I didn't like how they made my cheeks look fat. Since meeting Fred, I had a very self-conscious body image. I was only seventy-two pounds and very skinny- but still! I had to keep an image. Round glasses make a round face. Though admittedly, being only twelve years old didn't help me look any older. But maybe it would make me prettier.

Trang nodded, "Makes sense."

Our conversations were always intelligent ones, like the "hospital-hour conversation". Trang rarely showed interest in anything that wasn't politics, maths, science, or history. Though she did take out subscriptions to a few magazines, we both had particular cartoons that we fancied and liked to talk about. Sometimes music too, our tastes were very similar; though she'd branched out since she'd gone to America.

We sat in silence for a moment. I was itching to go upstairs and finish my last wizarding assignment before working on my Muggle work. It was for Potions, the subject I'd left for last, and it was about the side effects of a strengthening potion if you took to much of a dosage than recommended for your body weight. I wished I could've talked to Trang about it, but I couldn't.

"Want to go to a café and get something to eat?" Trang asked, looking around the house. "Well, just a malt anyways."

I pushed the thought of homework aside with the mention of dessert. "Absolutely, I just got to go and get some money."

"Sure, I'll wait for you outside." Trang said, standing up, putting her hands in her skirt pockets. "Be quick though. It's always better to get there at four."

I ran up the stairs, looking at how messy my bedroom had become. Wizarding and Muggle textbooks were thrown on the bed and floor. Multiple quills were in different cups on my desk. Pieces of parchment with all my homework lay on the floor under the window, drying. Being grounded hadn't given me a lot of room to roam, so I'd pretty much started living up here when I wasn't a work.

Luckily, my sentence had ended two weeks ago. Also, now that I'd unlocked my Gingotts vault, I actually had my own allowance, which meant I didn't have to feel bad about asking Dad for money or having to pay Trang back for a simple malt or shake.

I quickly grabbed my leather purse, checking to make sure there was money in it. Muggle money, at least. I was in luck, I had about £25. I also put in my wand, under an eye cloth in case of emergency. It was a rule since becoming a student at Hogwarts- don't go anywhere without your wand.

I checked myself in the mirror. I was wearing a blue blouse, a large blue ribbon decorating the front of it by my neck, and a white skirt that ended at my knees. I pulled my hair back into a long ponytail, adding a blue ribbon in it. Then I slung my purse across my body and ran back downstairs.

I locked the door behind me, joining Trang on the sidewalk.

We rode our bikes into town, stopping at a pop shop. It was freezing inside, even for the summer. It was the kind of malt shop that hadn't exited the old days yet. The waitresses still wore poodle skirts, the floor was checkered black and white, the counters were metal, red barstools, red booths to sit in, low-hanging white lights above the plastic tables, large glass windows. We ordered two vanilla shakes, red licorice, and chocolate.

We sat outside a table, drinking our shakes. The candy we were eating now got us talking about the candy we sent each other for Christmas the past year.

"I was shocked that the sugar quills were actually for eating." Trang said, unwrapping a chocolate with Carmel filling. "They looked so realistic."

"Did you try writing with it?" I asked, amused, before taking a bite from the red licorice string.

"No, I didn't want to ruin the chocolate nub with ink!" Trang exclaimed, laughing. "What about you?"

I thought about all the candy she'd sent me. There was a lot to sort through. "I loved the pop rocks." I finally said. "I think they were my favorite along with the warheads. Although, it should be noted that one should only eat a warhead at a time because more than one makes a hole in your tongue. I'm also speaking from experience."

Trang giggled, looking delighted. "When I first had a pop rock, I thought I was going to be electrocuted!"

"Yes!" I exclaimed, also laughing. "That's what I thought too!"

We headed home around dinner time, Trang coming with me.

I made mac and cheese. We waited for dad to come home before we ate. Meanwhile, Trang boiled water for tea. She sorted through the assortment of tea boxes we had in the cupboard. "You do have proper English breakfast tea, don't you?"

I grinned, "Sure. But why not try the Watermelon Lime tea first? Taste better cold, especially as it's summer."

Trang raised a skeptical eyebrow.

I put down the spoon and told her to move aside. I sorted through the tea flavors: Cranberry Apple, Lemon, Raspberry, Red Zinger, Tangerine Orange, Watermelon Lime, Sangaria Zinger, Wild Berry, Sleepytime Honey, Sleepytime Mint, Chamomile, Green Tea, Mandarin Orange Spice, Cinnamon Apple Spice, Caramel Apple Dream, Honey Vanilla Chamomile, Black Tea, White tea, Herbal tea-

"Ah, here it is. English Breakfast tea." I said, finally finding the box in the back of the cupboard. Unlike the other boxes made by Celestial Seasonings, the box was bland looking (to me). The box was gray with a small cottage with dull green bushes. The other boxes were usually much more colourful, in bright reds, yellows, greens, and purples. But I suppose to some, gray is a relaxing colour, and English breakfast tea was fairly calming.

"Why do you have so many different types of tea?" Trang asked, looking overwhelmed at the boxes that had stacked up around our heads.

"Because I haven't tried all of them yet to find out which ones are my favorite." I said with a nonchalant shrug. "Besides, we're British and Dad loves tea. And I'm weird and don't like normal flavors."

Suddenly, before my eyes there was a strange creature with large green eyes, wearing a pillowcase. A house-elf. I blinked, and it was gone. Strange. Perhaps it had been a vision. Of course it had, what else could it have been?

The front door opened, announcing dad's arrival, and I started scooping mac and cheese out into bowls as quickly as possible.

Dad exchanged a tired look with me when he came in the room before greeting Trang. He hugged me, kissed my cheek, and said, "I'm gonna take this up to my room with me, okay sweetheart?"

"Are you okay?" I asked urgently under my breath so that Trang didn't hear my next sentence. "It's not even close to full moon."

"I know. I just need to think about some things, okay?" Dad said, picking up his bowl of mac and cheese.

I nodded and let him go. We had no secrets. If he was having to think about something, he'd probably been let go again. I gritted my teeth. Stupid bias.

Dad turned and stopped, looking at the boxes stacked up, "Tea party?" He asked with a bit of a smile.

I blushed. "Er- something like that."

He chuckled half-heartedly before leaving the room.

"Where's your dad going?" Trang asked in concern. Trang had grown up around him almost as much as I had grown up around her mother (her Dad was usually at work) so she could read him almost as easily as I could. Same with her mother- I could read her fairly easily.

"Sick. He's going to stay in his room." I said dully.

"Oh." Trang said. She looked at the wolf calendar we kept in the room. It was a joke between Dad and I; the wolves decorating the calendar.

I think she was distracting herself from the situation. Then, looking strangely puzzled, she went into the small dining room. We talked a bit while we ate, but we kept our voices down in case dad was trying to sleep. She left around eight and as I had nothing else to do, I washed the dishes, dried them, put them away, and then checked on my rabbit- Sushi.

He was the most adorable bunny you've ever seen. He had gray and white colouring, one ear pointed upwards, one laying flat. He was a lionlop which is a lionhead, English lop mix. Just pure adorableness in other words. He was so soft and fluffy. He also had complete run of the house, jumping up on the kitchen table when we were eating, trying to steal bits of our fruit or whatever we were eating. He liked peppermint tea- if it was cold- and would stick his nose into our tea if we weren't keeping a careful enough eye on him.

He also wasn't allowed upstairs, as Dad fretted he might fall down the stairs or one of us would trip over him one day. And for the most part, Sushi stayed on the bottom floor anyways. I put him in his cage at the moment, filling his water bowl with fresh water, and hay tray with more hay. I mixed in a few pieces of cilantro and made sure that some of his favorite chew toys were in the cage with him. I petted him a few times, feeling melancholy, then closed the cage door, and headed upstairs to my room.

I shut the door behind me. Sadie was back with a mouse. I stroked her head feathers. "Maybe Harry'll have gotten the letter this time." I said with a sigh.

I grabbed a quill and a piece of parchment and quickly wrote my last letter.

Dear Ron, I haven't heard from Harry. I think, knowing his family, he probably can't get our letters or if he is getting our letters, has no way of replying. I can't say yet on the idea of coming to your house. But I do reckon I might see you guys in Diagon Alley. Hermione said she'll send me a date. Take care and let me know if you happen to hear from Harry. Love, Elizabeth

I set that aside and tossed my books that were on my bed onto the floor. I shut off the light and crawled under the covers. "Night Sadie." I murmured. I rolled over and fell asleep.

⬅️➡️

#Braveclementineworks #BraveclementineNovels #Novel #ElizabethKane #ElizabethKaneseries #ElizabethKaneandtheChamberofSecrets #Chamber of Secrets #Harry Potter sister #Hufflepuff #Remus Lupin #TrangNyguen #pg 13 #Hogwarts #Lupin Household

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drarrydisabilityfest · 1 year

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Rules & Guidelines - Drarry Disability Fest 2024

We finally have our rules and guidelines all sorted out and ready to share with everyone! So here it is; if you notice any omitted or missing times or dates that is because those are farther in the future and we cannot predict the exact time they will happen.

We would like to reiterate that transphobia, homophobia, racism, antisemitism, ableism, and fatphobia do not have a place here in this fest; we will take down and reject prompts promoting those ideologies. We do not support J.K. Rowling's damaging views - though she is somehow the author of these books and owns the rights to them - we do not profit from or otherwise benefit from this fest based on the Harry Potter books in any way.

Prompting

Prompting opens February 29.

This is an 18+ fest.

Anyone can prompt, whether you’re planning on creating or not, and each person is allowed to submit a maximum of 10 prompts.

A person with a disability doesn’t need to be the main character, but they do need to be one of the primary characters. Along the same note, the disability(ies) don’t need to be the sole focus of the creation, but it does need to be an important part of the person's life.

No cure-all fics, please! If you choose to give your character a disability that can't be cured in real life, please don’t magically take them away in your fic; disabled people can have happily ever afters while still being disabled.

It’s fine to prompt disabled people or mentally ill people getting sick, please don’t prompt sickfics in which an able person happens to be temporarily sick—they don’t count as a disabled person.

If you have previously written a fic centering the experiences of a disabled person in a Drarry-centric fic, feel free to recommend your work for podfic. However, your fic will still be subject to the screening we put to all prompts in this fest. Because of the nature of this fest in that it’s centered on stigmatized topics, the mods will screen prompts, (and self-prompts once claiming opens) to make sure these rules are followed.

Prompting closes March 20.

Claiming & Creating

Claiming starts April 1.

Please claim one prompt at a time. You may claim another prompt only after submitting your work. As mentioned in the prompting section, we will allow self-prompting as well granted that your prompt passes our screening.

Collaborations are allowed in any shape, form, or medium aside from videos or gifs. Please sign up together once. We will ask for one main person of contact for the team, as well as emails and AO3 for all members of the group.

This is a non-anonymous fest, so feel free to chat about your prompts as much as you like!

For fics writers, we ask that you write a minimum word count of 1k words and that your fic is beta read. In addition, if you do not personally have the disability you’re writing about or don’t have experience with it, we require for you to have a sensitivity reader look over your work—please research the topic if you don’t know much about the disability you’re writing about!

For podfics, please make sure you have permission from the author of the story you’re podficcing. We will be screening the fics for podfic as well, since sensitivity to issues faced by disabled people is important to us (being three disabled people ourselves, this is kind of a 'no shit Sherlock' moment but we thought we'd say it anyway).

As mentioned in the prompting section, due to the nature of this fest, the mods will be screening works as it is important to us that we have proper representation of the disabilities portrayed, rather than romanticization or stereotyping.

Claiming ends June 15, we trust you to not claim something on the 15 that you cannot finish on the 16.

Extensions

If you need an extension or need to drop out, no worries! Just email us at [email protected] and tell us how much more time you need.

Submitting & Posting

Submissions are due June 16.

Please post to our AO3 collection drarry_disability_fest_2024 and add “drarrydisabilityfestmod” as a co-creator. Afterwards, please email us with the following information:

Title:

Author/Artist:

Rating:

Word count (if applicable):

Art medium (if applicable):

Warnings/Tags:

Summary:

Link to work:

We will contact you once we’ve finished reading it to confirm and ask any questions we might have.

Posting begins July 1.

We won’t release our posting schedule, as it is subject to change.

Further Information

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out and email us at [email protected] or contact us through our Discord server .

Sincerely, Your Drarry Disability Fest mods @basicallyahedgehog , @quackquackcey , @slytherinthelibrary

#drarry disability fest #drarry fest #fanfic fest #disability representation #disability #chronic illness #medical conditions #mental illness #awareness #rules and guidelines #drarry disability fest 2024 #drarry disability fest 2023

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theharlotofferelden · 1 year

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Noticed that one of my favorite Youtubers/streamers, CallMeKevin, did a video on Hogwarts Legacy. Went to check out one of the videos specifically to leave a comment. Not even 5 seconds into the video he admits that the video is sponsored by Warner Bros. Meaning he not only got a free copy from them, they're also paying him to specifically advertise the game.

Go down to leave a comment and he has comments turned off. This is probably the first time I've ever seen him turn off comments. From what others have said elsewhere, this is mainly due to fans of the game leaving transphobic and hateful comments on the video.

Need more information and end up finding that he wrote an entire post on reddit explaining the situation. It's long so I'm putting it under the cut:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to address the recent Harry Potter video that I posted on the channel. I've seen the feedback and first of all I'm very sorry for any hurt I've caused any and all of you. I make videos to try and give you a little entertainment and in no way want to be putting out something that causes pain or harm in any way.

Aside from apologizing for any hurt I've caused you I wanted to explain a little bit from my side why I posted the video in the first place. Just to explain how I feel a lot of us were on different pages.

I'm not sure how this whole thing was covered in other countries but as someone who does not use social media this boycott was pretty much invisible. I'm surprised that I've not heard any discussion within my recent streams or on my comment section given the scale of it but as an "offline" person who does not use social media it just wasn't a visible campaign.

I had heard in the past about Rowling making hateful comments on Twitter but aside from everyone being in mutual agreement that she seemed like a shitty person that's as far as my knowledge on this whole situation goes. I had also heard of there being a boycott of some kind on the game but honestly assumed this was not a big thing, every other day I hear of someone/something being a problem and I just don't engage with that news.

When it comes to boycotts in a general sense I would disagree that buying something is endorsing the view of everyone involved. I also had heard early in development that Rowling (much like the recent special) was not involved in this whatsoever so I didn't see the issue at all on a surface level.

I also wanted to address the comment section. First of all, to clarify I fully support you giving any feedback and opinions regarding all this.

Second of all, there are a lot of different "bubbles" in my community. There was a lot of people commenting coming from a similar place as me and I'd guess a lot have likely never even heard about this whole situation. My audience has a lot of people who are very casual internet users.

Lastly, this video brought in a lot of people from outside my audience and there is hate that comes with that. Whenever a video reaches an outside audience it brings more hate than I'd normally recieve. It could be as simple as they hate my humour, or they hate my voice but that's just how it is when your video is pushed to people that it normally is not pushed to. Unfortunately this hate was amplified by the situation, especially given people will click just because of the controversy around the game and I will be disabling comments to just shut that hate down. I've already seen people saying that a lot of comments were being made by bots or trolls with the same copy pastes. To be 100% clear, I do not support anyone attacking you for who you are as a person and I'd wager neither does 99% of this community who from my experience have been the most kind and supportive group of people.

From everything I've read after posting, I get why someone wouldn't want to give her financial support. I also get why someone would buy the game and not feel that it is supporting or endorsing Rowling directly and I can also see how people can be unaware of the situation entirely never even hearing the words Harry Potter and Boycott side by side.

Needless to say I won't be posting any more of the game, I don't want to be putting more hate and hurt out into the world when god knows there's enough of that already. I got nothing but love for all of you and just want to provide some mildly entertaining videos and a nice community for everyone to have a good time and escape for while. I'm sorry for any hurt I've caused you, I have felt terrible knowing I've hurt a group that have been nothing but nice to me.

Kevin

This is honestly a lot to take in and I really do not know how I feel about it.

What I will say is that it's unfortunate this mistake was made as I can see that someone like him, who usually spends most of his time streaming, wouldn't particularly be engaged to the boycott or the news in general. Considering he has a number of videos where he plays the old Harry Potter games (a lot of ppl were specifically introduced to him via those videos) I'm sure he just thought this would be in line with what he thought his audience would be interested in.

My only question is whether that sponsorship came with a contract. He didn't take down the one video of playing the game on Youtube, so I'm assuming there were certain parameters he needed to abide by. Usually sponsorships like this require that you post a certain number of videos and keep them up for a certain amount of time (usually several months). I have no idea how this works with regards to streaming.....I guess we'll find out if he ends up streaming the game again on Twitch.

Again, I really do not know how to feel about all of this so I'm going to refrain from commenting further. I'm just here to share the info.

#callmekevin

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vroomlesbianvroom · 4 months

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Your Harry Potter posts are a bit strange. I re-read the books recently as well, and yeah, they're not as perfect as I thought they were when I was 10, go figure.

But I think it's very easy to see what made them appealing still. For all the gaps and flaws in the logistics of her worldbuilding, the atmosphere she creates is just so strong. The books are easy and fun to read, never get boring, and always have cool mysteries woven in. Nothing super unique, but still, how can you just not see those things at all anymore?

Also "it doesn't make any sense, they have one teacher per subject but not enough teachers for a whole week of classes" or whatever - I'm sorry, nobody reads books like this. Especially children's books about wizarding school. This does not matter!

I know we're all angry and maybe even heartbroken by Rowling deciding to use her remaining time, money and influence to fight against trans liberation. And I know it would be easier to reconcile our feelings about what she does these days with our memories of the books if they just turned out to magically have been terrible all along, and every human on earth was just very stupid in the late 90s and 00s I guess.

But it's just not true. And that desperate grasping at straws to paint this book series as abysmal just looks strange from the outside.

I understand that people will have completely differing views on many book series, Harry Potter being a main one.

I, personally, believe that a good children's book should be able to stand the test of time. You should be able to read them at 10 and again at 30 and still think they're just as good. To put the lack of world-building, the plot holes, and general errors down to it being a kid's book is insane. The recommended youngest age to read The Deathly Hallows is between 9-12 (depending on child development), the recommended youngest age to read The Return of the King or the Hobbit is 11. Those two books cannot be compared in terms of world building and development.

Obviously, the teachers is not a major problem and most people wouldn't notice. But, I do read books like that and it's one of those things that just irritates me. Mainly, because it had such an easy fix. She just had to offhandedly mention other teachers. Most of the plot-holes had easy fixes.

The entire plot stems on Harry Potter surviving the killing curse. The entire book series only exists because this happened. J.K. Rowling's description of how and why this happened doesn't make sense.

Her world-building isn't good. There's three (or four) magical locations (that we know of) in Great Britain. Hogwarts (and Hogsmede, I don't know if they'd count as separate places), The Ministry, and Diagon Alley. That isn't a community, it doesn't account for the amount of magical people in Great Britain.

Her character development isn't great outside of the main three and a few side characters. Her descriptions and building of the past is almost non-existent. Her character naming is shoddy at best.

There are a lot of plot-holes or magical logic that just doesn't make sense. And I can say that without it having a single thing to do with J.K Rowling's personal or political opinions. You also can't separate the art from the artist in cases like this when she still makes money from it. I have a film degree (theory and productions) and some of my favourite directors we learnt about were atrocious human beings, but, I can still talk about their work putting what they did aside.

There are good parts of her books, the story is good. It is easy to follow and fun to read. But that doesn't make up for all the issues in the books.

#harry potter #jk rowling #anti jk rowling #that ones just there so people can avoid this #if wanted

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guillotineapprehensive · 6 months

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all the "harry potter was never good, actually" posts are Actual gaslighting, in the real sense of the term, and I'm exhausted by it

I know most people saying that shit online were Potterheads, and it was a huge part of your identity from something like age 7 to age 25.

I know you're hurt that the author is hateful. I know you're embarrassed for not picking up on the Problematic Undertones in the Harry Potter world when you read the books at 10 years old. I know you get a sour feeling in your stomach when you look at your deathly hallows tattoo. And if you're a transgender former-Potterhead, I know the hurt has to feel even more personal.

but none of your current feelings or JRo's current actions undo the past 20 years. It was a GOOD story and a GOOD fandom for the most part. The Harry Potter Alliance (now Fandom Forward) is a real charity that got real young adults involved in real work for good, by connecting IRL issues to the issues in the books we loved, and it continues doing good to this day. Maybe you find it cringe, but if comparing real evil to Voldemort got young people to take action for good, that's a good thing. We got into creative writing and drawing and music by writing Drarry fanfic and doodling magical creatures and inventing the genre of Wrock. We made friends online and IRL through this fandom. It was good. It was so so good.

Even putting the community building aspect of the fandom aside - the Harry Potter series saved literature for older children. It basically created the YA genre and forced publishers to realize there is a market for tweens and teens. This is a fact, and again it is a good thing.

All of that good shit happened. And the source of it was a bad woman, who wrote flawed books. Reality resists simplicity. If you think the harm from Joanne Rowling's current outspoken transphobia and the money she's donating to transphobic causes is more than the good her Harry Potter stories did in the world, that's valid. I don't think it's possible to precisely quantify "good" and "evil" like that, and everyone weighs different good and evil acts and outcomes by their own moral standards.

I'm just so so so so so so sad for all of the 20 and 30 somethings who have ripped out pages of their personal history because they feel like they have to because they liked the "wrong" books. You can't cut out parts of your past without leaving holes in your current self.

And to be clear this isn't me saying "everyone shut up about JK Rowling's transphobia and never talk about problematic aspects of the Harry Potter series". Critically engage with the media you consume. I'm specifically angry about the flippant dismissive posts that imply you're a bad person for admitting you like HP or worse imply that it never did any good for anyone. It was a massive cultural moment that had a huge impact on millions of kids and adults. Lots of us figured out we are queer as part of the Harry Potter fandom together. It is true. I was there. Joanne can't take that truth away from us, and neither can angry terminally online people.

#not tagging this bc im not tryna start a discussion #im just so tired of being told i need to rewrite my personal history to be Unproblematic #op

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bohemian-nights · 6 months

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My favorite romantic relationship for Daemon was his relationship with Laena. They seemed to have built a healthy and loving relationship and family. Another thing I like was the fact that she was an adult. Both by their standards and by our standards. And how she died was really heartbreaking. That being said the show f*cked them up in every which way. And then they f*cked his relationship with his daughters that while not much is given for in the book you can still make a claim that he loved and cared for them. In conclusion this show is sh*t and if Netty (who unfortunately is Daemons only saving grace) isn’t included this season I will be finding a new fandom to either join/re-join. Maybe my childhood favorite(s) ATLA or Percy Jackson since they both are getting new shows. The Hunger Game franchise just came out with a new movie that is slowly but surely getting me back on the wagon. H*ll I might even trade out one toxic fandom for another, I just can’t decide if it’ll be Bridgerton (though they’re only toxic when it comes to certain characters), Star Wars (I haven’t been apart of this one in a while but if my memory serves me it was just shipping wars) and if I’m really feeling it I’ll go back to Harry Potter (which is low-key worse than HOTD cause the writer is problematic as well as some of the actors/actresses and the stans are crazy and the shipping wars alone can make you leave the fandom ). But yeah I have low hopes for this next season.

Dettles has a special place in my heart, and I believe Nettles was Daemon's person, I will admit that Daemon and Laena is his least problematic ship. Instead of the showrunners giving us a relatively normal healthy loving marriage they gave us dog sh*t and I will forever be pissed off about that🫠

I’m gone too if Nettles is cut.

However, honestly, after this whole situation, I refuse to get involved with another fandom again.

Granted HOTD is probably one of the worst fandoms out there(I feel like it’s worse than GOT fandom), but there are a lot more sh*tty fandoms than there are good ones and I wouldn't want to trade one sh*tty fandom for another.

Star Wars is the same fandom that bullied Jar Jar Binks actor to the point where the poor man was suicidal and they bullied the kid who played Anakin to the point where he quit acting. Not to mention how fans treated John Boyega, Kelly Marien Tran, and Moses Ingram. Those people are just as mentally deranged as HOTD stans. In fact, a lot of Dumbnyra stans ship Reylo💀That’s really the last fandom I’d join. They are one of the OG crazy fandoms.

Never got into the Hunger Games, but I know they had their issues(Rue). Percy Jackson same issue. People’s grievances with JK Rowling aside, the Harry Potter fandom has calmed down, but I imagine the crazy antics will pick up again with the new series. At their height though they were probably running neck and neck with HOTD(I wouldn’t say it’s worse).

I love Avatar. Never got into the fandom(and even if I do decide to write something for Zutara because of this new show that will be my extent of fandom interaction).

Speaking as someone who is in the Bridgerton fandom, while it has its kooky fans they are relatively harmless by fandom standards. (Though I did have some Kathony fans getting mad at me over a non-issue and saying I should stick to watching the incest show🤣 even though I've been watching Bridgerton since the beginning ).

I feel like the type of show it is makes it difficult for really crazy fandom drama to form(which seems to revolve around shipping).

Everyone has their favorite couple of course(Benophie aka the best ship, Kathony, Polin, Saphne, Francheal, Grucy, or hey ship them all), but there is no infighting like Zutara vs Katang or Dramione vs Romione.

There is one ship per guy and girl and you ship them. That’s it. It’s simple. It’s easy. Everyone loves it. Of course, you can fight with another couple, but everyone’s couple is a couple. You can’t deny it’s not canon, that it won’t happen, or that they don’t love each other(well Eloise and her man are iffy, but they are a couple).

I may be biased though considering it’s my favorite show, but even with some kooky stans it’s great.

#bnasks #bnask #fandoms

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wheelybard · 1 year

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I would like it if we had one day without learning that a creator of a piece of media is a terrible person.

I don’t want to be a person that thinks “is this creator a bad person” before watching a show or starting anything new. I don’t want to cringe when somebody makes an off colour joke and think “ The Internet wouldn’t like that“

I already feel guilty about ever liking harry potter in the first place, given how J. K. Rowling’s rampant transphobia, antisemitism, classism, racism etc. etc.

And I’m thinking how many other things have I liked that was made by terrible people?

It’s exhausting finding out these things. And I’m wondering what else do we have to cast aside

I hate being continuously disappointed in humanity. I just want to be optimistic again.

I know the old adage never meet your heroes but I dont want to get into something and think in the back of my mind “is it ethical to like this?”

#rant time #media criticism #anti jkr

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alwaysahiccupandastrid · 2 years

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So there’s a rumour circulating that Warner Bros is going to make a Dumbledore solo show and like… okay. I don’t know if this is legit. I’m seeing people say it is, I’m seeing people say it’s not. I just need to say this because I’m so tired.

I have such a complex relationship with this franchise because on the one hand, the first film was so important to me - it got me through a time that had the stress of me starting university, my grandmother’s cancer battle, my grandmother’s eventual death from cancer, mental illness etc etc., plus I love the characters from the first film/the cast. On the other hand, however, I don’t think the second and third films have been of the same standard, I don’t agree with certain choices made (Bunty being introduced and being the worst cringiest character, where the fUCK is Tina, the films being about Dumbledore and Grindelwald instead of, oh I don’t know, the FUCKING FANTASTIC BEASTS etc), and on top of that it’s all gone downhill in the production/behind the scenes department with the controversy of hiring Johnny Depp, the firing of Johnny Depp, JKR being gross, the actor who plays Abernathy now in jail for sexual assault, and then whatever the actual fuck is going on with Ezra Miller… the longer it goes on, the more it feels like this franchise is cursed.

Here’s the thing: the reason a lot of people - especially myself - loved the original Fantastic Beasts was because of the new characters we knew very little about going in. The new film series was sold to us as being about the “main four”, meaning Newt, Tina, Queenie and Jacob; we were also interested in characters like Seraphina, Credence, Graves etc. Hell, I was interested to know what happened to Modesty! The reason we love the first film is because of those new characters, a lot of us who were adults saw ourselves in the main four adults, especially Newt and Tina.

You see, the problem with the second and third films is that those characters - the ones that in interviews and promotion for FBAWTFT were made such a big deal of - have been demoted to background in favour of Dumbledore and Grindelwald.

Hear me out: in between the first and second films, we knew we were getting more Grindelwald as well as seeing Dumbledore - we knew that, we were expecting it and were even excited for it to a certain degree. But the films are called “Fantastic Beasts” because that’s the title of Newt’s book - he’s the protagonist, it’s HIS story. Instead, Newt is now a side character, and the other three main characters from the first film are even less important - we don’t know any more about them than we did in the first film quite frankly. Worst of all, Tina, Newt’s canon future spouse and the female lead, had a total of two minutes at the most in the most recent film. The films are no longer about magical beasts or Newt - they’re just retcons of Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s story that was already told in Harry Potter.

Here’s my gripe: if WB and Rowling wanted to make a spin off series about Dumbledore and Grindelwald, they should have just done that from the very start. Why bother making a film selling Newt/Tina/Jacob/Queenie as the leads if you’re going to push them aside for Dumbledore and Grindelwald? Why bother making the four leads so likeable if you’re not going to write them properly, if they’re just there to prop up Dumbledore and Grindelwald?

If I had known in 2016 that Newt and the gang were going to be demoted and pushed aside for the retconning of Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s story, I frankly wouldn’t have bothered personally. I know people like those characters, good for them, but for those of us who fell in love with those four main characters, it’s unfair and upsetting.

Because of this, WB/JKR now have the problem of fans of the main four wanting their favourite characters to be focused on vs the Grindeldore stans wanting their faves to be the focus. If we do get more films (and frankly, I will be very surprised if we do because this franchise is NOT doing well), fans of Newt/Tina/Jacob/Queenie will be very disappointed if we just get yet another Dumbledore flick, and Grindeldore fans will be disappointed if all of a sudden Dumbledore and Grindelwald take a backseat while Newt and the gang get the spotlight. Either way, some fans are probably going to be pissed and complain.

With all due respect to Jude Law (who I have no problem with, by the way) I don’t want a Dumbledore solo show set between SoD and Harry Potter. I cannot think of anything I’d like less quite frankly. We know his story. I want to focus on the other characters again.

Even from a money/ratings point of view, making a Dumbledore solo show seems silly. The graph below compares the box office of all three Beasts films, and you can see quite clearly that the domestic box office has been getting worse and worse with each film since the first one. For the difference between CoG and SoD, sure, you could claim COVID played a part, but that doesn’t explain the extreme drop between the first two films.

It should speak volumes that the first film - the only one of the three not to feature Dumbledore, the one that focuses the most on Newt and the others - is the one that has done the best. If there’s going to be a spin off show about any characters in this franchise, it should either be about Newt and the other new characters who haven’t had any story development (Tina, Lally, Theseus, to a lesser degree Jacob/Queenie since they’ve actually had a relationship onscreen) or even a spin off of a character from Harry Potter that hasn’t had the chance for a story.

I’m just so tired. I fell in love with the first movie for a number of reasons, but arguably the most important is the fact that it gave me an autistic role model to look up to - when I was in the process of seeking a diagnosis, seeing that the hero of such a well known franchise that I loved was autistic, that he was played in a positive and non-judgemental way, made me feel so much more comfortable with being diagnosed. There’s rarely any canon autistic representation on screen, let alone representation that’s NOT negative or stereotypical, and seeing the one character who’s canonically autistic and not a total joke being pushed to the background is just… exhausting. It’s painful.

It’s also upsetting because the character from the first film I related to the most, the one I looked up to and has been played by an actress I look up to, is now a glorified extra. When I watched the first film, I related to Tina Goldstein so much, more than any other character in the whole Wizarding World, and the fact that she’s now just a cameo role is heartbreaking; during that time where I was struggling with uni, my nan’s illness/death, bullying etc, I took comfort in cosplaying as Tina, in seeing my personality and traits represented in her, and also felt inspired to continue on and better myself. While I also love the other characters (especially Newt), Tina was the one that immediately spoke to me and made me go “that’s ME!”.

This isn’t even about me wanting to see my ship (Newtina) get buckets of content anymore, I just want them to have SOMETHING to do either together or as individuals. And to be honest, I’m not certain that we’ll get that because it wouldn’t shock me if there were no more Beasts films at this point. I’m not sure if this rumoured show (if it IS true, anyway) is supposedly going to replace the fourth and fifth films after the disappointing box office of the second and third films, or if it’s intended to be in addition to the remaining films, but either way… I’m just tired and fed up. I’m not even active in this fandom anymore, and it still hurts and makes me wish I hadn’t bothered with that first film because it makes me feel like I’ve wasted my time quite frankly; I can only imagine how much worse I would feel if I was still as obsessive about this franchise as I was in 2017/2018.

#fantastic beasts and where to find them #fantastic beasts: the crimes of grindelwald #fantastic beasts: the secrets of dumbledore #albus dumbledore #not dumbledore friendly #idk #tina goldstein #porpentina goldstein #newt scamander #newtina #rant #vent

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fresiants · 1 year

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everything you said in your post, yes! but i was referencing this particular article from wizardingworld (that - harry potter's official site?) that basically stated that snape being in love with lily was "vital" for the plot and even went as far as to describe that if he wasn't "in love" perhaps he wouldn't have done half of the things he did. as in the intensity of his devotion and care were only motivated by romantic feelings, nothing else, only friendship wouldn't have had any power on him to make him "change". it pissed me off. the whole concept of him ""pinning"" forever has only had people say awful things about him when he never regarded his feelings for lily (the nature of them) in the story, only r*wling ever did, and no matter what they try to counterpoint to demonize his feelings, aside from snapping at her with a bad term and lack of grace, his behavior towards her wasn't very out of pocket. he wasn't like the actual devil to her. she wasn't any better than him as a friend either so trying to antagonize him and then going "pwoor lily snape was So mean and controlling to her úwù!!1" like????? naaaahhhh

I think I found the article that you're talking about. Is it 'What if Snape had never been in love with Lily Potter?'

Without Snape falling for Lily, we doubt their friendship would have survived for as long as it did.

Keeping Lily on side wouldn’t have mattered as much to him – and she wouldn’t have been there as the conscience to keep him on track.

Oh boy... that was horrible. Who's this 'we' anyway, cuz that ain't me.

People need to remember that Severus came from a dysfunctional family and Lily Evans was the first person to genuinely care about him, something that even the Slytherin gangs weren't able to provide to him. Sure, they respected and (maybe) looked up to him, but they weren't exactly close like him and Lily. So even if Severus wasn't romantically interested in Lily (personally, I already thought his love for her was platonic but whatever), he would still cherish and care for her as a friend.

The only person besides Lily who had ever shown him kindness in his memory was Lucius. We saw Lucius welcoming Severus into Slytherin with open arms and later taking him as a protégé during their school years. The fact that Lucius was shown in his memory but not Mulciber made me believe that he was not as important to Severus. The only reason he hesitated to choose between Mulciber and Lily was because he was blinded by his interest in the Dark Arts and he knew that Mulciber was destined to be part of the group he would soon join.

Not once have we seen Mulciber protect Severus from Marauders' attacks. Where was he during SWM? If Severus was truly close with Mulciber, this would be a vital part of his life, and he would have included him in his memory. If he can include Lucius, then he could have included Mulciber as well.

One thing I have learned is to ignore whatever the fuck JK Rowling said after the book ended. Not only was she very inconsistent, but some of her statements also make no sense. In an interview, Rowling stated that Severus joined the Death Eaters to impress Lily.

He wanted Lily and he wanted Mulciber too. He never really understood Lily’s aversion; he was so blinded by his attraction to the dark side he thought she would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater.

How does that even make sense? How would Lily be impressed with Severus joining a group that targeted people like her? The only plausible explanation for this is that Severus believed Lily was attracted to bad boys, which was somewhat confirmed by J.K. Rowling herself.

MA: How did they get together? She hated James, from what we’ve seen.

JKR: Did she really? You’re a woman, you know what I’m saying. [Laughter.]

But it still doesn't make any sense because joining a cult that targets the person you love is fundamentally different from bullying, and it's hard to imagine that Severus wouldn't have recognized that. I'm pretty sure he was smart enough to know that it wouldn't work.

Well moral of the story, just don't give a fuck about whatever Jk Rowling/the official website say. Besides, that article was based on personal opinions, not facts. "We doubt" is the key word here. These were all just assumptions.

#ask #severus snape

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annegirl13 · 1 year

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Harry Potter Reread Reviews (Part 1)

Note: Given her recent actions, I have decided that I am not giving J. K. Rowling any more of my money. However, I bought these books years ago, before she revealed her true self, and they are comfort reads for me. One of my reading goals was not to reread all the same books, but sometimes I just need an easy listen. I’m going to put the reviews under a cut, because I can’t help blathering about them. The short version is:

Sorcerer’s Stone: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Chamber of Secrets: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Prisoner of Azkaban: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve listened to the first three so far. These were the ones that had come out already when my dad gave me the first book to read. I think the third one had just come out.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s (Philosopher’s) Stone — ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A lot of my feelings for this book are nostalgic. It is a very good first novel I think, but mainly why I love it is the memories that it brings back to me. My dad heard about this book when it was just coming out just getting popular and he also heard all the Christian uproar about “this is about which is this is about magic this is evil. This will send your children to hell don’t let them read it.” Naturally, being a person with an actual brain, my father read the book. Then he handed it to me and said, “Anne, I think you’ll really enjoy this book.”

Enjoy was an understatement. fifth grade Anne devoured this book. in the space of one night, I read all the way up to almost the climax. I remember that I read all the way to almost the climax, because my father – – and his infinite wisdom – – came into my room at 11 o’clock at night and took the book away again. He told me I could finish it in the morning. I have still never quite forgiven him for that. 😉

I think this book is a great starter book for the series and a great debut novel. Because I no longer give the author my money, the only copies of this series I will have in any future classroom will be secondhand ones that I picked up from the thrift store. Because I don’t agree with this author’s actions, I will not be actively recommending them to students, but I’m not about to discourage any of them from reading what is a really good book.

My dad didn’t tell me not to read them, and I go with his philosophy. If you tell a child not to read a book, they’re going to read it to see what all the fuss is about. Better to tell them what he told me about the golden compass series by Philip Pullman. “This author has views that I don’t agree with, and you might find things in this book that make you uncomfortable, but if you want to read it, go ahead and read it.”

(As an aside, I did read the first in that series and liked it OK, but I got really confused in the second book and didn’t ever finish. I’m pretty sure my dad was talking about the author’s views on God in that case.)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I honestly don’t remember a whole lot about reading this one for the first time. That’s probably because I’m pretty sure I picked it up from the library read it in one long session and then proceeded to hunt down the third book like my life depended on it.

Rereading it now, for the 47000th time, I find that it is not my favorite. I still gave it four stars, but I would rank it below the first book. I like the overall story, I thought it was clever, but Gilderoy Lockhart still makes me want to punch him in the face. I suppose that’s a strength of the author, making characters you want to punch in the face. It’s too bad that I also want to punch her in the face now. 🤷‍♀️

Anyways. Book two, decent. I only really return to it because it is the second in the series.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban — ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This one is still my favorite. It is the only one of the potter books that I give five stars, and not all of those are nostalgia based this time. I think this book sets up a really really good mystery, and set up an interesting way to solve that mystery and kind of a twist ending.

(On another note, I noticed that the American covers that I grew up with, which I have used as the pictures here, give away spoilers! Especially book 2 and book 3 here. If you read the books, take a look at the cover and tell me that you don’t think it’s super spoilers.)

I love the character development we see for our main trio. I love Professor Lupin. He is probably my favorite part of the book. I think he’s a great teacher. I love the way he helped Neville, who is my favorite character of all the books. I also have to credit this book for sparking my fanfiction debut. Not right as this book came out, but a few years later, I was writing my first Harry Potter fanfiction about Harry’s parents and their friends at Hogwarts.

I do kind of feel that this book is a turning point between the fun adventures of the first two books, and the slightly darker adventures of the rest of the series. This is the one where things start to get serious (or Sirius? 😉)

📕📗📘📙 📕📗📘📙 📕📗📘📙

I’m currently listening to the fourth book. I’ll update after I finish that one and the fifth one. I kind of lump those two together. (Shouldn’t do that if you have the hard copies. You’ll hurt yourself. 😉)

#book review #miss anne reads

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rabbitcruiser · 1 year

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National Serpent Day

History of National Serpent Day

National Serpent Day is observed every year to appreciate snakes. They have been known to humans for centuries and have evolved over an even greater period in history.

Studies show snakes go as far as to coil up and rattle to warn approaching humans of their intention to be left alone and striking only as a last resort when they feel trapped or cornered.

National Serpent Day timeline

1869 — 1897 Edward Drinker Cope’s Findings

His contributions include extinct reptile fossils leading to an understanding of snakes.

1969 “Biology of the Reptilia” is First Published

It serves as a reference to topics on the evolution of amphibians and reptiles.

2001 Modern Research on Snakes Starts

The University of Texas publishes a survey on the ossification in neonatal squamates.

2015 The Oldest Snake Fossil Ever Is Found

A 113 million-year-old fossil of a four-legged snake is discovered in Brazil.

National Serpent Day FAQs

What do serpents symbolize?

What do snakes represent in tattoos?

Snakes are an ancient symbol of rebirth, temptation, fertility, and power that is often depicted in tattoo arts with those things in mind.

Can a snake love you?

Snakes may become tolerant toward their owners but in general, they aren’t affectionate toward humans.

How to Observe National Serpent Day

Visit a nearby zoo

Learn about them

Celebrate on social media

5 Things You Should Know About Snakes

Snakes have remedial properties

There are thousands of snake species

Snakes eat their prey whole

They are mostly non-venomous

They sometimes give live birth

Researchers have identified roughly 3,000 species of snakes existing around the world.

Snakes are known for their ability to swallow as a whole, prey up to three times larger than the diameter of their head due to their upper and lower jaws being separate.

According to scientists, only one out of eight of the known snake species are venomous.

Snakes are mostly known to lay eggs; others give live birth too.

Why National Serpent Day is Important

It encourages overcoming our fear of serpents

It helps us appreciate their existence

It promotes our understanding of snakes

National Serpent Day’s purpose is to help us overcome our fears of snakes. It serves as a day to especially help us to form a friendly bond with the ancient animal.

Source

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