#in a nice way but holy feelings batman 😭❤️

[chdarling]

Hi there! Please forgive what I am sure will be a largely incoherent ramble, but I wanted to tell you how much reading TLE has meant to me. I've never gotten into FanFiction before despite a few attempts - I'm the kind of person who has trouble with canon divergence or writing styles that don't seem to fit quite right. I somehow stumbled onto TLE and it felt like I was a kid again, reading a new Harry Potter book for the first time under the covers with a flashlight and too excited to (1/6)

too excited to put it down. Although of course I'm an adult and my job insisted I show up, but reading a bit each day was something I looked forward to like nothing I can remember since I was little, and I was worried that my love for reading and the experience it gave me had disappeared somehow. Thank you for giving me that feeling I missed so much back! Your writing is wonderful, clear, well-paced, and vivid and all the characters are just how I've always imagined them. (2/6)

And on a more personal note, the way you wrote Remus' character and the events of his life felt like a sort of representation of myself and parts of my own life, which have to date been incredibly hard to find and relate to in any sort of media. I know you've mentioned incorporating bits of yourself into his character, so I hope you won't mind terribly if I see a different (although perhaps similar in some ways) experience there. I've always understood him as a disabled character, (3/6)

as a disabled character, despite how problematic the original HIV/AIDS reference was and continues to be. As someone who has a painful, stigmatized disability, the way you wrote him was so relatable it felt like seeing myself as I was a few years ago on the page, dealing with stigma and internalized ableism while just trying to get through school/life. As unpleasant as those pieces of disability are, I love how you handled them with all the due weight and didn't sweep them under the rug (4/6)

didn't sweep them under the rug as "but-they-were-nice-to-him-so-everything's-rainbows-now" or some other annoying way disability gets handled in lit all the time. There was no hint of inspiration porn, but also no pity party or infantilization of disabled folks, and that's so rare and necessary. And having had the experience letting others get close and having that trust betrayed/weaponized, Remus' reaction to that felt so real and believable. (5/6)

Even the way you wrote the lead up/fallout of transformations and the transformations themselves was like a fictionalized version of what I experience and have never had the words to explain to others the sensation. I don't know how to explain it better and wish I had your gift with words, but I just loved your characterization of him to pieces. Thank you for the gift of representation, even if it was not the representation you had in mind! (6/6)

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Oh, anon. I’m going to struggle to respond to this as eloquently as it deserves — partly because of my end-of-workday-zombie-brain and partly because I’m overwhelmed by your kindness — but I’ll do my best.

First of all let me just emoji dump my feelings: 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

ok now that that’s out of the way: thank you, thank you for your kind words and this incredible message. It means more than I can even begin to express that my interpretation of Remus resonated with you. Remus as a disabled character makes so much sense to me. I have personally found his character to be such a gift in terms of expressing my own struggles and I am just really touched and honored that it was meaningful to you and your experiences as well. Thank you so much for taking the time to write to me and share this. It really does mean so much.

Sending so much love to you, dear anon, and I hope that you are treating yourself with all the kindness, gentleness and love we all want to give dear Remus.* 😉 Hugs. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

*unrelated fun fact: sometimes when I’m being really mean to myself, I think, “would you say that to MOONY?” and it actually works and I trick myself into treating myself with compassion. Yay for fictional characters who so embody our experiences that we can use them as avatars for self-care! lol ok brain, whatever works. 😂

#ch answers #TLE #god the way this made me weep though #in a nice way but holy feelings batman 😭❤️