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melancholicmarionette · 1 year ago

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Thoughts I’ve been trying to put into words part a thousand—

I think I have the sentiment “I don’t get why people get all serious about gender” but I never know how to say that without sounding dismissive as fuck to people who really need to not be dismissed. But I mean like—okay—

So I’m autistic. This is not news. I don’t know if it’s totally related, but it means I’m used to not really understanding things about the world on a fundamental level, mostly greater concepts that people accept as fact. I’m bad at math and most hard sciences because I am told that pi is a number that never ends and it keeps going forever and that these are how many elements make up everything in the universe and maybe there are more or maybe there aren’t. Like, my brain simply cannot conceptualize these things. I know that these are important things to know, I just have 0 clue how it is possible for a person to know them. But there are people that know better than me. So someone goes “also, there are imaginary numbers” and I’m just like “…okay.” That’s just not somewhere my brain goes.

So when I say I don’t get why people get so weird about the social construct of gender I mean—well by people I mean TERFs, really—life can be filled with so much less anguish and turmoil if you just accept that you are not going to understand something and that doesn’t make you stupid or wrong. Sometimes accepting that things that are not tangible or visible are still valid makes your brain stop hurting.

I’m a woman. If you ask me how I know that intrinsically my go to response is I Don’t Know, I Just Do™️ and if someone, cis or trans or nb or anything else, said that to me I cannot imagine any other reaction than “well, okay.”

Gender is a social construct. We made it, collectively, and it’s changed a lot in the entire time we’ve accepted it. It’s still changing now. So there are a lot of things we can’t see.

Fact that I can’t dispute: penises and vaginas are different from each other. They are fundamentally not the same thing. There are a lot of ways people’s genitalia can look, being intersex is possible. Physically, visibly, there are different body types whose reproductive organs work in different ways. It makes perfect sense to me for that to be true.

Where it gets fucky for me: your random assignment of chromosomes gives you a role in society at birth that you cannot fundamentally change ever in your life. And if you ask why this is, people will just say “god said so” or something and idk maybe your god did, sure, but I don’t know him. He ain’t the boss of me. And then TERFs and the like will go “because nature said so” or “because biology said so” and I’m immediately like no!! No they didn’t, Joanne, you said that!! Biology and nature said one of these types of bodies carries babies and the other helps make the baby, that’s it!!

I don’t cite my vagina when writing about why I’m a woman. It has nothing to say. I don’t know why pi never ends and I don’t know how the fuck we know enough of what a water looks like that we can make little models, but I live in my brain and I know how I feel. I am never going to know another person better than they know themselves and it’s fucked up when people claim otherwise.

So I don’t feel like I can participate in discourse in a meaningful way because I’ll say “this trans woman is a woman” and some chucklefuck with a blue check will say “but they were born with a penis” and my response is so what. Genuinely, so fucking what.

One of JK Rowling’s first transphobic posts was saying that the trans community are trying to deny that sex is real and it’s such an intellectually dishonest take I was taken aback. I don’t think you’ll find anyone outright denying that sex organs that fall within the binary standard are in fact physically different from each other. The hang up is that that assigns you an identity that you didn’t necessarily consent to because you were a fetus at the time. So my automatic response to arguments of that nature, that gender itself is assigned this way and that way and no other way, are unironically “who do you think you are?”

I can’t engage in intelligent discourse with the way I feel because on paper it seems childish. My response to transphobes is oh my god just shut up. And it’s not necessarily because reading the cruel and untrue things they can fit into like 280 characters is draining (because it is) it’s because I just don’t believe any of their points have value. And it infuriates me that these people so consumed with hatred for people they don’t know are affecting legislation and the safety of trans people. And I can’t engage because I don’t believe these people can change and that bleeds through. They are nothing. And if any TERFs (or GC, I think you’re using to sanitize it) have read this far, they think the same about me. Probably that I’m a simpleton who hates women and lives in a bog eating swamp sludge for sustenance and i take offense because I do not hate women please get out of my swamp.

Idk, I’m rambling on tumblr late at night bc I can’t drop this into a conversation. I’m tired. Trans right are human rights gender is a social construct and I may be a mud creature shambling through the bog

#talk #ramblings #lgbtq #old woman yells at cloud

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queer-chaos-08 · 3 years ago

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*Another Rant post, this time about jkr*

I have a lot to say about JK Rowling. I think everyone knows about her transphobic nature and turf behavior so I’m not going to say much about that other than the fact that it’s fucked up. What I’m going to talk about instead is the blatant racism. The only Chinese characters name is Cho Chang. Two of the poc names are Lee Jordan and Kingsley Shacklebolt. The only Jewish characters name is Anthony Goldstein. I’m not going to elaborate more on those since I am not apart of those cultures and communities and therefore don’t really have that much of a say in the matter. What I am going to take about are the Patil twins. Now I don’t personally have a problem with Parvati and Padma Patil’s names but I do have an issue with other things. The fact that both of them were sorted into ravenclaw and were shown as really smart know it alls brings up the stereotype that all Indians are smart and good at math, science, ect. There the point that both of them wore a sari to the yule ball, the wizarding equivalent to prom. Now I can’t speak for all Indian Americans or Indian British but I personally would not wear a traditional Indian garb to prom. I’ve grown up around western culture so that’s what I would wear. That’s where I’m going to end this off, thank for listening to my Ted talk.

#fuck jkr #fuck jk rowling

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pilarhamilton · 4 years ago

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i don’t want no scrubs.

NAME: Pilar Hamilton

NICKNAMES: ???

AGE: 23

BIRTHDAY: tbd

GENDER: Cis woman (she/her)

SEXUALITY: ….so I gotta have at least one lesbian okay

MAJOR: Marketing

OCCUPATION: being a bad bitch

FACECLAIM: Erinn Westbrook

TRAITS: Loyal & hard-working & resourceful. Ruthless & deceptive & blunt.

about.

Pilar has been a native to Cherry since the day she was born, and so was her father, and her grandparents. Generations have settled in Cherry, and though Pilar totally respects that - although she loves her Dad to death... She absolutely can't wait to get off of their little beach, and onto a much bigger beach!

Lambda Rho was all ever Pilar wanted in a chosen family, and when Belle Goode took her under wing in Pilar's freshman year? It was like a dream come true. Suddenly, she was popular - suddenly other girl's looked up to her and expected her to make them better. It was thrilling, and... terrifying, but Pilar had never shied away from a challenge. Especially when it came to Lambda Rho Iota.

She was voted Vice President because she'd do anything for her sorority - because her brand of tough love was respected, and coveted. It didn't matter what kind of nasty rumors Mia Montoya wanted to spread. Pilar knew that she was vice president because she deserved it - not because of Belle's influence. Maybe.

It doesn't matter, though... Because she knows things Belle doesn't. She's got secrets that would crumble the girl. But will she ever tell?

biography.

Pilar wasn’t exactly planned - she was born to too young parents Porter Hamilton and (as yet unnamed mother) trying to make the change work.

Three years later her mother was gone.

Pilar doesn’t remember her much, nor does she care to. Her dad is enough.

Because of her mother leaving, however, he had to lean on his family to help take care of Pilar while he finished med school. He was absent often, throughout her childhood and as a result, Pilar is close with her family, especially her grandmother.

Eventually her dad was a proper doctor, and able to move them out to their own place when he started working at the Cherry Family Clinic. Because of this, late middle school and high school is when she grew closer to him than she’d ever been able to when she was younger.

At school, Pilar wasn’t really on anyone’s social radar. She wasn’t picked on, but she definitely wasn’t one of the popular girls. She mostly just kept her head down and stayed off that radar.

College, however, was when she truly flourished. Rushing Lambda Rho and being plucked from obscurity by Belle Goode was like something out of a movie. Suddenly people paid attention to her, they listened, they followed. Something about Lambda Rho just clicked, and suddenly Pilar had a second home.

She’d do anything for her sisters, which she usually shows through tough love and straightforward advice. She isn’t always sweet and gentle but she is practical and people need that.

As for the future, she wants to see the world outside of Cherry once she’s done with her degree. She’s thinking LA, maybe. Somewhere with beaches.

headcanons.

We do not support JK Rowling but I’d say Pilar’s hufflepuff/slytherin aligned. For the record, Zahra is slytherin/gryffindor. I can and will elaborate if u ask.

Genuinely not sure if she knows she’s a lesbian. I feel like there’s probably some comphet but also she has such men ain’t shit energy that it’s hard to tell

Would do anything for Lambda Rho. Yes, that’s a threat

When she was younger, she wanted to be a doctor (but that was mostly because in her little kid brain being doctor = spending time with her dad and when they got closer she realised that she wasn’t super interested in it)

Best subject was math (nerd)

and oh yeah. Pilar’s a real good liar.

#me looking at any female character: okay. but what if she liked girls #cusaintro #i threw this together at some point and never posted it? probably because i wanted to make it better #but alas #this is the best it'll be

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thesapphicfox · 4 years ago

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Disclaimer: I don't support jk rowling or her actions, and I also don't usually post about Harry Potter, but I need to rant about something rn.

I can't be the only person who has a problem with the Hogwarts student numbers? Like if you do the maths, there's 7 students in Harry's house and year, if we assume that it's a bit less than average and that the norm is closer to 10 students per house and year, that still only adds up to about 280 students in the whole school, despite jk r*wlings claim that there are about 1000, but that's not even what bothers me that much.

The thing that truly bothers me is that Hogwarts is supposed to not only be the only school for magic in the whole united kingdoms, but is also supposed to be a school where other witches (and yes, I'm saying witches and not witches and wizards, witches is not supposed to be a gendered term) from other countries come to go to school. And while of course, the wizarding world is only a fraction of the actual uk population (bc otherwise, there'd be about 7.5M students at hogwarts), it's still a whole ass big secret society, that has its own government (ministry of magic), whole commercial system, entertainers (in terms of sport as well as music), historians etc. That adds up to, well, a shit ton of people. And of course, I'm sure some wizards do get home schooled, maybe even a large amount of them, but 1000 students feels like way too little to uphold a society like that one. Like I don't wanna do the complicated maths right now, but if we're being generous and say that 25% of wizards are home schooled, that gives us 1250 wizards between the ages of 11-18ish. So then, still being generous, we assume each of these children have two wizarding parents and one wizarding sibling outside their age range, that only adds up to about 5000 wizards (including Hogwarts students) in the whole of the uk. That feels like way too little to uphold a whole secret society, government and all the other stuff I mentioned above.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not surprised jk r*wling completely messed up the numbers, it just really annoys me. I wonder how many students Hogwarts should actually have in order for it to work with the whole secret society shit, so if anyone has actually done the maths on this, please let me know id be really curious to know.

#harry potter #hogwarts #hogwarts students #hogwarts numbers #hp #anti jk rowling #my posts #rant #long post #kinda it's not really but ya know whatever

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piesandswords · 5 years ago

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Raising Werewolf Cubs Under His Bed

Posted on Archive of Our Own here.

Riddle laughed his high laugh again.

“It was my word against Hagrid’s, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student… on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls… but I admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked.”

Um… hey. Hey, Tom? Mr. Riddle? Dramatic ass “I am Lord Voldemort” person-sir? Do you mean human children???!!! Hey Joanne, do you mean human children cause werewolf cubs? Werewolf cubs have gotta be human children.

There are four explanations for this line that I can think of. One Doylist (explained out of text), three Watsonian (explained within canon).

The first explanation: JK Rowling did not come up with werewolf lore until after she had written the third book. That explains why she keeps writing about people being afraid of werewolves in the Forbidden Forest even when it wasn’t a full moon and shit like this. She just hadn’t come up with the facts yet.

This explanation, while probably correct, is boring as hell and we will be disregarding it.

Explanation number two barely warrants an entry. Riddle was trying to think of a magical creature and just said werewolves without considering what that would mean. This is somehow more boring than explanation one.

The third explanation is more fun. Wizards are, to put it kindly, mildly, and with some of the love in my heart, dumb as shit.

The Hogwarts education system is shaky at best. Thinking of how little math wizards know makes me want to cry. I would say something like “The class of History of Magic is so poorly taught that I doubt any of the students even know that ___” but like. The class of History of Magic is so poorly taught that I can’t come up with an obvious example of Wizarding history.

Due to the shaky Hogwarts education system, I can partially excuse Ron for being stupid in the area of “what are werewolves” when he talks about werewolves in the Forbidden Forest in book two, as of his two Defence teachers the more competent was Quirinus Quirrell.

(Lockhart’s teachings on lycanthropy involve him curing someone of it by sticking a wand down their throat and saying a spell, which… If it were that easy then Remus Lupin would have had a much better life. If he could fix his furry little problem by eating a wand, the man would have had unicorn hair and cypress soup every night for the rest of his life.)

(That being said, Ron should know more about werewolves. Molly or Arthur should have taught their kids things like that.)

Tom Riddle, in contrast to Ron, went to Hogwarts before the position was cursed. Given that he was the one who cursed it, this makes sense. Riddle had a stable education that, theoretically, involved a competent professor. He should know better.

But also, wizards are dumb as shit.

They seem to have no standardization to their education except for aiming for the OWLs and NEWTs. What educational standards has the Ministry released for teachers to follow? Probably none, that would be too competent. (Ignoring book five, ew.) Just because werewolves were covered in DADA during Harry’s time at Hogwarts doesn’t mean they were in Riddle’s. Maybe they were covered in Care of Magical Creatures, which Riddle would almost certainly not take. Or maybe they weren’t covered at all.

So maybe Tom Riddle hasn’t learned about werewolves in school. He knows about them when he’s older though, so what gives?

Here’s the thing. This Tom Riddle hasn’t had his dark magic field trip yet, the one he goes on after he graduates. What if he doesn’t know about werewolves, but he thinks he kinda gets the gist, and, being Voldemort, assumed he was correct.

Hagrid could have been raising puppies under his bed and Riddle could have been like. “Ah, yes. These are werewolf babies. I am correct on this and will not be corrected by anyone ever because I am the pinnacle of all things knowledge.”

Diary!Tom Riddle is #ForeverSixteen. He is a teenager who insists on being called “Flight of Death” (or, incidentally, Flight from Death, which, yeah). He wears eyeliner, he listens to fascist!MCR, he wants to commit genocide, you know, just regular teenage boy things. Yikes.

(Can you imagine 72-year-old Voldemort having to interact with his 16-year-old self? This insolent boy who doesn’t even know what werewolves are? Harry wouldn’t have had to destroy the Horcrux, Voldemort would do it himself to get the kid to stop talking.

Tom Riddle, age 16: “Lord Voldemort is my past, present, and future.”

Tom Riddle, age 70ish: “You’re about to be past due if you don’t shut up.”)

Anyway, that’s our third explanation. Tom Riddle is dumb as shit. This is backed up by the fact that 1) he is sixteen, 2) wizarding education is a hot garbage fire, 3) grown Voldemort is dumb as shit. He refuses to do research into things he thinks he understands in his seventies, why would he be any smarter at age sixteen?

This explanation is less boring. This is the one that I consider to be the closest to canon one. This makes sense, and it involves making fun of Voldemort’s dramatic bullshit and narcissism, which I approve of.

I like this explanation.

But explanation number three? It doesn’t hold a candle to explanation four.

See, here’s the thing. I believe that Voldemort is dumb as shit and that his education could have been pretty spotty.

But I also think that the boy that has rediscovered Horcruxes by doing too much research would not be completely ignorant of what werewolves are and how they work. They’re considered to be Dark Creatures™ so he would have come across them at some point when learning of the Dark™ Mysterious® Arts©.

So what if.

What if he wasn’t talking out of his ass?

What if Hagrid WAS raising werewolf cubs under his bed? Or, not cubs. Cubs implies non-people.

What if Hagrid was keeping werewolf children under his bed while he was attending Hogwarts?

Picture this: 11-year-old Rubeus Hagrid gets his letter for Hogwarts. He’s overjoyed. His father is a bit surprised that Hagrid, a half-giant, received his letter, but he is also overjoyed.

(The fact that Hagrid got into Hogwarts at all with wizarding prejudices as they are is honestly remarkable. We know that the Wizarding World is awful about treating those who aren’t pure-blooded wizards like people and Hagrid being a half-giant isn’t exactly subtle.)

So Hagrid goes to Hogwarts. He learns. He makes friends. He probably gets in quite a bit of trouble with teachers because he’s never been someone with a ton of common sense or tendency to follow rules. Being in trouble doesn’t bother him too much, he’s young and usually, he doesn’t think about consequences for his actions. Besides, often the reward is worth the risk.

So Hagrid finishes his first year having loved the experience. And he goes home for the summer.

Let’s say that Hagrid and his dad live on the outskirts of a relatively small Muggle town. They’re not quite in the wilderness, but they’re not quite in the town proper either.

A new family, the Canids, has moved next door since Hagrid has gone off to Hogwarts. They have two children roughly Hagrid’s age, a daughter named Freki, age 12, and a son named Geri, age 10. Given Hagrid’s friendly nature and the general boredom that comes with a long summer, the three of them quickly make friends and begin to spend quite a bit of time together.

(Forgive my mixing of Norse and Latin etymology here, I refuse to spend more than three minutes googling names that mean “wolf wolf” or “moon moon” that haven’t already been used in canon.)

Then, one day when they’re hanging out, something weird happens. What exactly it is, I’m not sure. Maybe a branch breaks while they are climbing a tree and no one gets hurt, despite how high up they are. Maybe Hagrid says something unthinkingly cruel on accident, and Geri’s feelings get hurt, and Hagrid’s hair gets turned pink. Maybe Freki finds a magical creature that Muggles aren’t supposed to be able to see. Maybe their father is off fighting in World War II (it is 1941, after all), and there is some unsetting news from the front, and one of the kids causes a sunny day to become a rainstorm.

However it happens, Hagrid figures out that he’s got two underage wizards on his hands. And he knows Freki (age 12) hasn’t received her Hogwarts letter.

Hagrid has never been one to keep his mouth shut. The man at the age of 62 let slip to a group of eleven-year-olds that 1) he had a three-headed dog, 2) the name of the dog was Fluffy, 3) Fluffy was guarding something that was owned or created by Nicholas Flamel, and 4) you can put Fluffy to sleep by playing any kind of music ever. He is not one for subtlety, or for secrets. Honestly, he might have told these kids about magic on accident even if they hadn’t shown signs of being wizards.

So he confronts the kids about the strange things that have been happening. Freki goes dead pale the second he opens his mouth. She begs him not to tell anyone in the village that there is something unnatural about them, Rubeus, please, you don’t know what people will do if they find out.

Hagrid’s confused. If they find out what exactly? Having magic is wonderful, you get to go to school and learn and make friends and discover all sorts of interesting facts and creatures and-

There are two ways this could go.

Either Freki and Geri don’t know about magic and they are delighted to hear about this wonderful place where they could be themselves, and also maybe they could get some help for this weird thing that has been happening to them since they were little kids and there was a wolf attack. Hagrid has to figure out very quickly how to deal with the fact that 1) he has to explain magic to his two friends, 2) his two friends are werewolves, 3) his two friends will not be accepted into wizard society, and 4) he also has to explain that.

Or Geri and Freki already know about magic. They didn’t know that Hagrid knew (they are in a Muggle town, after all), but they knew about magic. Maybe their mom was a witch and dad a Muggle. Maybe the other way around. Maybe both parents are wizards. Maybe they are the descendants of Squibs. Whatever their parental background, they have heard about Hogwarts. And they know the reason that neither of them had gotten Hogwarts letters, know the reason neither of them would ever get Hogwarts letters. And gently, sadly, they explain to Hagrid their situation.

And as Hagrid finds out that they’re werewolves and starts to process what that means for them and their future, Hagrid becomes indignant. And I mean Hermione-founding-misguided-but-well-meaning-organization-SPEW level indignant. I’m talking “thou shalt not insult Albus Dumbledore in front of me” level indignant. Indignant might not be the right word. He gets angry.

Remus Lupin will be the first werewolf to legally receive schooling at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But if Hagrid has something to say about it? Freki and Geri will beat the record illegally by about thirty years.

(This is a man who has been alienated his whole life for his half-giant status. He knows the feeling of being discriminated against for something he can’t change about himself.)

(This is also a man who tried to raise a dragon egg in a wooden cabin. He doesn’t necessarily think things through.)

And so begins Operation Get-My-Friends-A-Wizard-Education.

Phase One: Preliminary Education.

Hagrid spends the rest of the summer teaching these two kids everything that he can remember from his first year of school. He’s got a month. He’s got his books. He’s got enough determination to intimidate God. He’s only got the one wand, but he’ll make do.

And as late August comes? He thinks they’re ready as they’re gonna get.

Phase Two: Smuggling Time.

Now, Hagrid is an oversized lad. And one of the things that comes with being an oversized lad is oversized clothes. And one of the things that comes with oversized clothes is an oversized trunk.

Hagrid also has an undersized father with an oversized heart and an undersized sense of what is a normal and sane thing to do. (The man had sex with a giantess for Pete’s sake!)

With a little convincing, said undersized father could make said oversided trunk be even more oversized on the inside.

Geri and Freki? Welcome to the Hogwarts Express, viewed from the luxury seats of “Inside Hagrid’s Trunk.” No complimentary beverages, I’m afraid, and the view’s not great, but all the oversized clothes end up being quite comfortable cushions.

So Hagrid smuggles two kid werewolves into Hogwarts.

Phase Three: Ah, Shit, Didn’t Think This Through… Er… Live Under My Bed I’ll Bring You Homework

So they live under his bed while he teaches them everything that he is learning in all of his classes, sometimes in the dorm room when no one else is there, sometimes in the Forbidden Forest when they can sneak out, sometimes in empty rooms around the castle. They spend each full moon as deep into the forest as they can go, hoping against hope that they won’t hurt anyone and they will be safe.

(In this universe, the rumors of werewolves in the forest came from somewhere. The stories of glimpses of wolves through the trees during this time were passed down through the generations. “My aunt’s cousin’s friend’s dad saw a werewolf in the forest” may not be the most credible of sources, but in this case, it holds a grain of truth.)

They are careful, and, for a while, they don’t get caught.

How long are they at Hogwarts? I don’t know. A while, certainly. A month? A semester? A full year? Maybe they make it through to when the Chamber of Secrets was opened and everyone became more suspicious and more alert before they were found out.

Once they are caught, the Canid children are promptly sent home. After all, you can’t have monsters in a school like Hogwarts, and what are werewolves if not monsters.

The staff lets Hagrid off with a warning, thinking maybe this was a one-off occurrence of idiocy. But they do view Hagrid with more suspicion after that. After all, he brought monsters into the school. Who’s to say what he’ll let in next?

That being said, Tom Riddle’s probably just dumb as shit.

Posted on Archive of Our Own here.

#harry potter #hp #hagrid #fanfiction #kat talks #look ma i over analyzed #my fic

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eldunea · 6 years ago

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why the sorting hat found slytherin to be such an obvious choice for lotor that it sorted him there the moment it touched his head.

i mean……most of us would put him instantly in slytherin, so this hardly has to be a meta. but i can feel a long one welling up because one question has been nagging at me: one other option could have been a hatstall between slytherin and ravenclaw. alternately, since ravenclaw is the house of wit and intelligence, why didn’t the hat instantly put him in there? no, the answer isn’t “because he’s a manipulative bastard.” it all comes down to the fact that regardless of anyone’s morality, lotor exemplifies all of slytherin house’s core values in a way that sets him apart from ravenclaws. let me break it down for you.

AMBITION.

i don’t have to do much explaining on this--water is wet, lotor is ambitious. instead, i want to talk specifically about how this trait puts him in slytherin rather than ravenclaw.

lotor is smart. both ravenclaw and slytherin value intelligence. however, the two houses differ in the type of intelligence that they value. ravenclaw is content with intelligence and knowledge for its own sake, whereas slytherin wants to use those same properties for a purpose. and i always saw the core of mainverse lotor’s character as putting every bit of his knowledge to use as a leader of the alteans and the galra empire. in mainverse, he has plenty of time where he indulges in knowledge for knowledge’s sake--he does, after all, enjoy philosophy and math. but he is also intensely focused on how he can use what he knows to shape society around him.

i should note that this isn’t necessarily tied to a lust for power--in fact, mainverse lotor wants less power because of his whole thing with decolonization. but whereas most people associate ambition with wanting power, the dictionary definition is “a strong desire to do or achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work; desire and determination to achieve success.” therefore, desiring greatly to better society counts as an ambition……especially since lotor very much enjoys all the asspats he gets from being acknowledged as a savior.

harry potter AU lotor is very much the same. he is a massive nerd, with an extensive knowledge of alchemy, history and muggle science--but he’s not simply content with sitting at his desk and studying. he has the grand and sweeping visions for society of a slytherin: he wants wizards and muggles to be able to coexist. he wants a renaissance among magic folk in which they finally stop being so complacent with their technological progress and get up and invent at the same pace as muggles. he wants to put motherfucking wizards in space--and he wants to be known all around the world as the GREAT VISIONARY who created a new era for wizardkind. these are all the hallmarks of a slytherin. a ravenclaw, on the other hand, might just be happy with tinkering at their desk.

TRADITION.

this one might have thrown you off, because slytherin house is all about the traditions of self-proclaimed pure-blooded white europeans, and lotor is as brown as you can get. but tradition is important to him in its own way. he was raised to be fiercely proud of his heritage, to proudly speak his parents’ endangered languages and to carry on indigenous magical customs. one of his ideas as he becomes older is to decolonize POC societies around the globe who had the international statute of secrecy forced on them by european wizards--a return to the traditional way of living in which magical and mundane existed side by side. so yes. even though sometimes he acts in ways that go against religious and moral precepts, tradition absolutely is one of his core values……just not in the sense of pureblood (and most likely white) supremacy that was so prized by old salazar.

side note: this also fits with who lotor is in mainverse--mainverse lotor tirelessly worked to save altean (especially moon elf altean) traditions, immersing himself in the customs and beliefs of his own people and helping to preserve them for the next generation.

CUNNING AND RESOURCEFULNESS.

like………do i even have to explain this? he’s as much of a master strategist and just as silver-tongued in harry potter verse as he is in all of his other verses. he has an intellect as hard to grasp as a fish in a stream, and a tongue that can talk its way out of almost any situation. some of his methods may be outside those of conventional morality, but one can’t deny that they’re efficient and effective. once again, the reason why these traits put him in slytherin is because though both slytherin and ravenclaw value intelligence, it’s all about the type of intelligence valued by the two houses.

LEADERSHIP AND PERSUASION.

slytherins, much like gryffindors, are known for craving leadership--and let me tell you, lotor was just made for it. this is yet another one that’s like “no duh” given what he is in canon--he’s charismatic, he’s highly competent, and oh boy can he get the people going. it’s the ravenclaw in lotor that started designing the world’s first wizarding space vessel. but it’s the slytherin in him that gave him the ability to publicize it and make it popular, and the slytherin in him that swayed the masses to his side when just a few years prior the whole wizarding community was calling him crazy. he has the skill and the drive to shape history as it’s being made, and he has what it takes to lead the next generation of wizardkind to the great beyond. as bigoted as salazar slytherin is, i’ll bet it would make him very proud.

FRATERNITY.

slytherin often has a reputation for being the house that will stab you in the back, but word of god aka jk rowling’s slytherin welcome greeting on pottermore says that to the right people, slytherins are extremely loyal. canonically, lotor is capable of being ride or die with his friends the generals--i interpret narti’s death not as lotor consciously betraying her but as him reacting to her betrayal, which just goes to show how much he values faithfulness to those he loves.

deep and abiding loyalty to loved ones is a common trait among all lotors. he will not abandon his (close) friends, his spouses, his family, his children--he is with them until death, with very few things so morally objectionable that he would find that a reason to cut someone off. he may be standoffish around strangers, and a wily sonofabitch around those he doesn’t know well. and like many slytherins, he’s selective about who he gets close to so this sort of loyalty from him is very hard-won. but once you have earned his trust and his devotion, you have earned it for life.

#headcanon. || HARRY POTTER AU #alma te anul; the history of self. || HEADCANON

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aaaa-mpersand · 5 years ago

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Just Use Your Hogwarts House Traits...

DISCLAIMER: I wrote this like, 2 years ago, when I was way young. Obviously, now we know that JK Rowling is a jackass, so I want to clarify that I don’t support her or her work. The story itself isn’t about harry potter, but it does use a harry potter reference as a punchline. Anyway, summary is that this is a funny vent story I wrote about interviews, because they’re awkward and there’s a lot of pressure and I never know what to say. It’s an urban fantasy about a young witch who’s just as pretentious as Holden Caulfield but funnier (I hope?) and a demon in the woods who does her math homework for her. They’re at an interview. This is basically a crack fic. ––––––––– "How would your friends describe you?"

I tilt my head to the side as I consider his words, hyper aware of his gaze. You’d think they’d transfigured hawks, put ties on them, and told them to run interviews by how he’s looking at me, occasionally making notes on his clipboard even though I’ve yet to say a word. The fluorescent light above us continues to hum with electricity, bathing the room with glaring light that make the walls even paler. I tap my fingers on the stainless steel desk, thump my dirty sneakers against the perfect blue carpet. I can see the notes he’s scratching into the notepad, even though the wooden back of the clipboard is faced towards me. I can see it like someone hooked up a spy camera behind him and linked it up to my head. Dyed red hair––obviously symbolises her secret affiliation to secret organizations. Wholly unprofessional, and she fools no one. Trekked half a forest full of dirt into my office with those mismatched shoes––no respect for property and communal spaces. Hair uncombed, bad posture, chipped nails, and fidgeting suggests poor work ethic and unpreparedness. Denim skirts went out of fashion two decades ago. The obviously hand-knitted scarf she’s wearing looks like the crap I gave when Melissa told me was late because her car broke down suspiciously close to the nearest Starbucks. I think she’s trying to use it to cover up the horrendous pimple on her nose–– “Excuse me ma’am,” he says, his voice bleeding irritation leashed back by iron-willed politeness. “Would you please answer the question?” “What?” I ask, jerked from my thoughts. His thin lips crease into a brief frown. It’s an honest question, but people with ties and clipboards hate it when you say ‘what.’ He sighs through his nose instead of his mouth. It fools no one. “The question, Miss Chant.” “What was the question again?” A vein I hadn’t noticed before in his neck bulges. I can’t blame him. We’ve probably been here for longer than he expected. “How would your friends describe you, Miss Chant?” I lean back in my seat to consider it again, and he almost looks like he’s about to turn into a ball of flames and burn a hole through the floor. It would be funny if I were doing this on purpose, but I’m wracking my brain like a senior five minutes from the end of their final exam. Hard-working? Too generic, and Aunt Way would hold it over my head every time she wanted me to do laundry. She has a way of knowing these things. Team player? Absolutely no one in my life would let me live that one down, and I doubt he would believe me either. “Miss Chant.” I can feel his annoyance and anger rising like a storm, and my thoughts turn frantic. Unique? No one cares about that. Expressive? Just about the worst way to sell yourself to someone like Mr. Hawk Interviewer. The solution dawns on me, and I almost knock my chair over in my haste to get up. Wordlessly, frantically, I motion for him to wait, pulling out sharpies and tealights out of my coat pocket and accidentally dropping a few colorful hair bands in the process. He opens his mouth to protest, the same way he did when he was trying to stop me from wearing my big bulky coat into the interview in the first place, but I’m already out of my seat and crouching on the floor. “Miss Chant, what are you doing?” “One second,” I say, and before he can say anything else, I pop the cap off the red sharpie and start drawing symbols I’ve doodled and traced since I was a toddler. He splutters––they always splutter––but I pay him no attention as I place the tea candles in their respective spots. “Miss Chant!” He gets up. That’s always a bad thing in an interview, but I can’t think about it now. He wouldn’t listen even if I tried to explain. You can always tell what type of people wouldn’t listen even if you tried to explain, and Mr. Hawk is one of them. Before he can take another step, I pull a lighter out of my pocket and quickly light all of the tealights. He pauses, as if scared to accidentally knock over a candle and set the whole place ablaze, but his efforts are futile, because I mutter a few words under my breath, and the whole room is engulfed in flames. Or at least, that’s what it looks like. Mr. Hawk makes a strangled sound (I take it back, he’s not a hawk, he sounds like an ostrich who smoked too many cigarettes when he was a teenager) but I barely blink. You get used to the room being swallowed entirely by harmless, piercing white flames after the first twenty times. It’s barely for 2 seconds, however, before the flames disappear with a crack, and in the place of my messily scrawled symbols, there is––

"A cat,” he says, finally, looking as if the purring ball of fur on the carpet floor was about to sprout wings and laser eyes. “That’s a cat.” “Yes,” I frown. The cat’s coat is a pure white. The only one of my cats who’s even close to this color is Timothy, and I sold him to the man next door last week for seven AA batteries. “And it’s not one of mine.” “You mean…” he clutches his clipboard tighter––I’m surprised he’s even still holding it. “It wasn’t supposed to be a cat?” “Well, it isn’t,” I say, deciding to answer him honestly. “Just give it a moment. Sometimes these things are finicky.” I squint at the carpet around the cat, trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong. (It’s a little bit like math sometimes. You stare at the problem until you figure out what simple mistake made the whole thing give you a completely inaccurate answer.) This time, it only take a few sweeping glances before I notice the issue. “You’ve knocked over my tealight!” I say, irritated, scampering over to the candle at the interviewer’s feet. In his terror, he must’ve flipped it over. He mumbles an apology, but I barely hear it as I pull the tealight right side up, grimacing at the spot of wax that had stuck to the navy carpet. The janitors would have a hell of a time cleaning that up. Looking back just in time, I see the cat stand up, suddenly alert. Ordinary at first, and then its back legs bulge to the size of a basketball, then to the size of a table. The interview visibly pales––I almost feel bad for him, but it’s what you get when you mess up a simple summoning––and the cat pivots upright. Fur turns to leathery skin and scales, claws elongate, horns push out of its scalp like a plant sprouting in fast motion. The whole cat––or well, not really a cat anymore––swells ten times their size, turns a dull, bluish grey, and then opens their slitted gold eyes.

Their lips curl into a wide grin, revealing yellowed fangs. “Colin!” “It’s Kerin,” I correct him, politely. They squint at me for a very long time, bending down so their curled horns don’t scrape at the ceiling. They only stop when their face is inches from mine, and I struggle to keep my face straight when they breathe lightly on my face. It smells like a boy’s locker room after a three hour long football game. "Long time no see!” they say after a long moment, straightening and then banging their horns against the ceiling so hard it leaves cracks. They barely seem to notice. “What do you need today, Miss Colin. I have this week’s math test already completed, answers verified, if that’s what you––” “––No thank you,” I cut in quickly. My not-so-honorable testing habits were not something I want to flaunt in the present situation. “I just need you to tell me how you would describe me.” Their brow furrows in confusion, and they peer around the room, gaze falling on the interviewer, who is clutching his desk to keep from fainting. “Are you at an interview or something, Miss Colin?” “Yup. Internship.” They frown. “Are you sure you’re allowed to summon me around here? “They said they wanted interns who were good problem solvers and could think out of the box,” I reply, which is not really a lie. They seem satisfied with the explanation, however, and tap at their chin with one large, scaly finger. “What question did he ask you, Miss Colin?” “How would my friend describe me,” I say. They crack a bright, genuine smile at my implication, but it’s hardly old news. Supernatural creature or not, they’re the only one that can stand me. "Just use your Hogwarts house traits!” They say, throwing their hands up and accidentally carving deep scratches into the ceiling. The interviewer chokes out a small scream––I almost forgot he was there––and swallows in terror. They carry on as if they hadn’t even noticed. “I found that advice on tumblr. It’s crazy how much useful stuff you can find on that such a freakish hellsite." “I don’t like Harry Potter,” I say, but when both the interviewer and my friend gape soundlessly at me (though, probably for different reasons), I quickly amend my words. “I mean, I liked the books and all, those were great, but the movies were terribly done. I mean, the whole ‘did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire scene? And don’t even get me started on the Cursed Child––” “But you’ve got to have taken the Pottermore sorting quiz before, right?” they asked, the words almost sounding like a plea. I sigh. “Yeah,” I say, “I got ravenclaw.” “That’s great!” They say, breaking into another grin of good intentions and rotting teeth. “I got hufflepuff. It’s too bad we’re not house buddies––” “Yeah, but I need you to tell me how you would describe me,” I say, my patience growing thin. It was only a matter of time before the interviewer stopped staring at me like I was an alien species and started yelling about the scratches on his ceiling and the wax on his carpet. “That’s why I called you here.” “Well,” They tilt their head to the side, tapping their finger against their chin. “You’re funny.” “This is an internship. They don’t care about my endless wit.” Though I had to agree it was one of my best traits. They press their lips together. “And you’re kind. You come to visit me every day, or whenever you can. You’re really smart because you like to read, especially about space and stuff. You’re really brave, cause one time you got stuck in a fairy circle but you didn’t even panic, and all you did was tell the fae that you would rip out her perfect teeth from her jaw and make her eat every single one of them like cough medicine. And you’re really sensitive––” “––I’m not sensitive––” “––Because one time High Witch Way Chant told you to stop wearing mismatched shoes and walking around in the forest so much, and you came to my place and cried for three d––” “––Okay that’s enough,” I said, starting to regret my decision. I glanced over at the interviewer, who still looked like they’d been forcibly shoved into cardiac arrest. I decided to count that as a blessing. “Thank you for your help. You can go now.” They frown. “But you haven’t paid.” I roll my eyes. “Do I have to?” They wave a finger in my face. “You know the rules, Miss Colin. If you’d come over to my place, it would’ve been different, but because you summoned me––” “––Yeah, I couldn’t exactly run to a cottage in the middle of a forest in the middle of an interview––” They shook their head. “You know the rules, Miss Colin.”

Sighing, I search my pockets, finally finding what I’m looking for in the back pocket of my denim skirt. I pull it out, and then, one by one, I toss them seven AA batteries.

"Thanks," I say again. They nod to acknowledge my words, their large, coiling horns glowing white with heat as they do. The interviewer makes himself even smaller, struggling to stay upright on his wobbly legs, but it doesn’t make a difference. In another flash of light, they’re gone. All that’s left are a couple crushed tealights, bleeding broken sharpies, and a lot of wax stuck to the once-perfect navy carpet. The clipboard lays forgotten on the floor.

"I'm very intelligent, curious..." I tap the side of my chin, turning back around to face him. "And creative."

The interviewer manages to choke out just enough words to tell me I'm fired.

#urban fantasy #short story #humor #crack fic #old writing

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emmiareads · 6 years ago

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There’s this one lecturer who continues to say the funniest things, here are some samples from the last semester:

“Slightly undercooked research.”

“That’s very white male stale.”

“You're all millennials aren't you? No, okay, tell me this, how do you feel about avocado?” [student remarks that they’re not good for the environment] “Oh my god, that's such a millennial thing to worry about.”

“One of my best friends is dating a man that dresses like a musician but like... has a steady job? Such a millennial.”

“Harry Potter's not a wizard. Gandalf’s a wizard.” “My toxic masculinity is showing: To be a wizard, you need to fight an orc.” “HARRY POTTER IS NOT A WIZARD!”

“I can't draw... I probably should have figured that out by now”

“This was like a mic drop moment... That's how you say it, yea? Yea, I'm cool.”

“When Trump's giving a speech, people don't sit there going “Ahhh, there's a ‘the’.” No! They're going “What an idiot.””

“IT CAN’T BE DONE... Well, no wait, I'm wrong, hang on.”

“JK Rowling wanted to tell her story, Joyce wanted to piss off academics for 100's of years.”

“Because I’m a white male that has hair.”

“Rolling delta… if you thought that was confusing… ‘hold my beer’ as they say.”

“I am a Star Wars nerd. Like proper, used to be in a Star Wars costuming group nerd.”

“You’ll get funky errors.”

“I’ll bet it was Conrad, because he wasn’t mental. Ford was a lunatic.”

“Look at these very controversial results! GOOD LUCK!!”

“I’m not sure how to do that. Nobody’s really sure how to do it.”

“I’m gonna use the presidential speeches again because they were on the desktop…… and I’m lazy.”

“All synonyms are not born equal.”

"I don't consider myself- Well, no, actually, more and more recently, I DO consider myself an old man..."

"My Twitter is just... honestly, it's just me ranting about things." "Last night I ran out of milk so I... well... I ranted about how annoyed I was"

"John Borstein is a German researcher that... actually, I don't even know if he’s German. Huh."

"Twitter is where I post work stuff, political stuff, ideas... how to take down the government."

"You don't send an angry email with comic sans."

"IF you were to all describe this pen..." [stares intensely at the pen for a full 30 seconds]

"If you were to do mapping- I mean, mapping is just, mapping is great, I love mapping, you all know my feelings on mapping- ANYWAY, the point I'm trying to make-”

"Time really goes fast when you... man, time is really subjective, isn't it. Just think about this for a minute. Time. Like. So subjective. It's just based on that physical stuff like the earth circling around something and- anyway, think about it."

"I've seen some of your stuff and some things are pretty good! ... some"

"I think there was a plugin for this a few years ago but I think it died... cause everything does"

"If you get hit by a bus tomorrow, how will your project survive without you?"

“Don’t be stressed… I mean, do be stressed”

“Is Bing a search engine? Oh, it is.”

“They’re not boxers, they’re just gobshites from YouTube.”

“It’s an aesthetic class.”

"Before we clap, when are we having lunch?"

Guest speaker: I am not sure this is the right time to go into Maths Lecturer: No, not on the first date.

#harry potter became something of a running joke after the skin incident #and seeing how the death of an owl had a bigger negative impact than some character deaths #his reaction to that was impeccable #as usual #long post #mine #hall of fame

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griffynbird101 · 2 years ago

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Harry Potter: The Wizarding population doesn’t make sense

At the beginning of this tumblr (a few gears ago now I posted a series of rough calculations for the populations of wizarding populations across the globe based on the number that JK Rowling gave (1.1 Million Wizards in the world, 6600:1 Muggles to Wizards). I also calculated the number of children attending the identified schools. (I am in the process of digitalizing these posts because I know they’re hard to read)

Looking back my calculations were not entirely accurate because they assumed that the ratio would apply everywhere and didn’t account for societal factors. That aside, while creating them I noticed a very big problem with the number given.

Based on what I calculated then, the UK specifically had about 10 000 people in total. Recently I discovered that I was mistaken and the problem is much worse than I thought. JK Rowling stated (casually??) that there were “about 3000” Witches and Wizards in the UK.

….This is a society that has been around for a thousand years or more. In fact; a thousand years ago the British Isles had enough children to open a gigantic castle as a school. The numbers just don’t add up. Supposedly this society that marries young, and lives longer than average humans took a THOUSAND years to reach a measly 3000? No. I don’t think so. In fact, the logical idea would be that a reproducing wizarding society should have surpassed their muggle counterparts ages ago.

By contrast; it took hundreds of years for muggles to implement mandatory education, for many years we didn’t even have understanding of germs, and by all means even today there are many ailments that wizards can heal and muggles can’t. And today population trends have people marrying older and having fewer children, whereas in Wizarding society having children is still a priority.

Evolutionary speaking, muggles probably wouldn’t even exist anymore, or be a minority. Wizards in the old days had a much higher chance of survival and living to passing on their genetic information. Plus; Muggles just randomly have magical children sometimes…

Still; there are 67 Million+ People in the UK, and “about 3000” in Magical Britain.

In order to make this make some sense at all, there has to be a high percentage of squibs. Wizards can’t be having dozens of magical children that marry and have dozens more magical children; there has to be some kind of reason why there are so few magical people when they have such a better chance of having children. And yet squibs are apparently supposed to be rare.

What I’m saying is; The Weasley’s should be “The 7 magical weasley children vs those other 7 who we had to leave at the muggle orphanage” because otherwise my brain explodes.

Alternatively; Rowling should be banned from doing math because everytime she makes a flippant comment like “about 3000” she inadvertently makes either 1. A world that just doesn’t make sense or 2. Gives me a nightmare about a literal hellscape where apparently the world is filled with abandoned squibs that no one talks about (or Harry’s too dumb to notice) and where Cygnus Black was apparently a victim of child marriage (unrelated; he was born in 1938, Bellatrix was born in ‘51 you do the math).

PS: I am well aware that thinking too deeply about a children’s series where kids do magic, fight evil wizards, and go on adventures is a very silly thing to do; but I don’t seem to have an off button and this has been floating around in my mind for a few years now it was gonna come out eventually. So you TAKE my word vomit.

#harry potter #wizarding world #jk rowling #doesn’t make sense #population #inaccurate numbers #inconsistent worldbuilding #squibs #muggleborn #what #overanalyzing #jk rowling can’t do math

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lobsters-on-their-heads · 6 years ago

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Continuing Travels of Cophine, Part 3 Chapt. 10

Fucking finally. I’ve been trying to get my novel out to literary agents, which has taken up a lot of creative energy on top of regular life activities and things (bipolar doesn’t always work in my favor, either). But, here it is!

You can read all of Part 3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16820221

Cosima didn't know how to write a condolence card. She sucked even more at picking one out, but on Tuesday that was her One Job.

At the card-and-party-goods store Sarah brought her to, the card section stretched over three full aisles, and the “sympathy” cards were ten percent of that. “Just grab a card,” she muttered to herself, “any fucking card.” But all of the cards she picked up sucked. Donnie Hendrix just lost his mother – the first person in his entire life who loved him – and the trite pre-written message on a two dollar piece of card stock was supposed to sooth his pain? Were the swoopy cursive letters and watercolor flowers actually supposed to comfort anyone? Or wasn't it all just a ploy to make those who hadn't lost anyone feel better about themselves? Like saying “look, I helped” without actually helping anything at all?

She picked up a card showing a tire swing at sunset. Always remember that every part of life is a part of God's plan, it said.

Cosima huffed. “Is cloning a part of God's plan, too?” she asked the card, and stuffed it back into it's slot.

Another read, Nothing happens without a reason. A whole bunch of Cosima's life experience contradicted that one, too.

Those who love us never really leave us.

“Way to rip off Sirius Black, yo,” Cosima told that card. As she suspected, JK Rowling was not credited with the message anywhere on the back.

She had no idea how close Donnie was (had been) to his mother. If (when) Cosima's mother died, there wasn't a card in existence that would even dent Cosima's pain. To make matters worse, in her search Cosima came across sympathy cards for the loss of a spouse or partner and she nearly fled the card aisle to join Sarah in the “summer fun” aisle with the pool noodles and plastic sand buckets. The two news alerts from Syria she got a few minutes ago really didn't help, and Delphine wasn't even in Syria yet.

Cosima was scowling at a card reading Don't cry. They're in a better place now when her phone rang. She crammed the card back in it's overcrowded slot and answered. “Hey gorgeous,” she said.

“Hey,” Delphine said. “Is everything alright? You said you needed some help?”

Delphine sounded exhausted, and Cosima chided herself. Delphine had treated two Turkish clones in two cities in two days. She deserved some time to herself. “Totally alright,” Cosima assured her. “Nothing to worry about. Forget I asked.”

“Euh, not very likely. What do you need help with?”

“Well, you seem like a classy lady, and so I thought – ”

Delphine's snorted laugh cut her off. “I'm sorry, what?”

“I have to buy a sympathy card for Donnie, and I have no frikkin' clue what to get, or, like, what to do when we see him later today.”

“Oh.” Delphine's mirth vanished. “Why are you buying a sympathy card? What happened?”

“His mom died. She had a stroke on Friday and she never woke up from the coma. Not, if you ask me, the worst way to go, but still sad, you know?” Funny how none of the sympathy cards said that: It wasn't the worst way to go, but it's still sad, I know.

“Hm.”

“Anyway, I'm trying to find the right card, and nothing seems right. Sarah doesn't know either, and the whole “sorry your mom died” thing kind of sent her to a bad emotional place too. Totally understandable, you know? She's distracting herself right now. I'd normally ask Alison, but obviously that doesn't work here. Scott's socially inept in these areas, even worse than me, and my mom's off the grid until June, so I can't ask her either.”

“I see.” Traffic rushed by on Delphine's end, and she said, “hang on,” a couple of times before the traffic noise ceased. “I'm not sure how much I can help, actually. I'm not exactly an expert in comforting phrases or what to say after someone dies. In English or in French, actually.”

Cosima sighed. “Well, you've gotta be better at this than I am. Like, what kind of card would you want if your mom died?”

Delphine laughed again. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“How she died, if she'd decided to talk to me before she passed, if she has a will...”

“Let's say there's no will, you were on speaking terms, and she died of a stroke.” Cosima had no idea about the will part, but assumed it didn't matter here. “In fact, you know what, scratch that. You'd probably want a card saying something like Guess what? She's dead.”

“In my case, yes, that would be fine. But this is not my case.”

“What kind would you want if I died?”

Delphine inhaled sharply, and Cosima kicked herself again. Delphine already had those nightmares. “I'd rather not think about that.”

“Yeah, fair. Ditto.”

“Cosima. What kind of card do you think you should get? What would the right one say in this situation?”

“I just want one that says, This sucks, and we all know it sucks, and we're here for you. None of this greater purpose, heaven and God shit. I mean, I know the Hendrixes go to church and all that, but... I don't know. It seems off base to me, and it'll be super obvious I don't mean it.”

“Don't they have any blank cards? You can write in your own message if you want.”

“I am not sure that would be better, actually.” She sighed again and held a hand to her forehead. Chances were, this would be their only conversation that day – it was dinner time in Bursa, and Cosima would be spending the next few hours with the Hendrixes. She should get the most out of her daily Delphine Time. Walking away from the cards towards the big store-front window, she asked, “How'd your day go, then? How was the treatment?”

“Fine. She's asymptomatic, as we suspected.”

Cosima smiled. “Nice of you to use the plural there. If I remember correctly, you're the one who convinced me not to drop clone fest to inoculate her back in March.”

“You weren't terribly opposed, though.”

“Mostly because I knew Alison would kick my ass.” Cosima giggled. “If only we'd known how Clone Fest would actually go! Alison might've been happy for us to miss it.”

“I thought you two smoothed all that over?”

“Eh. I guess. Forgiven but not forgotten, for my part.”

“Doesn't sound like you've completely forgiven, either.”

“I've forgiven enough to not bring it up again with her. How's that? I'm letting it slide.”

“As long as you're both okay.”

“I am fine. Alison's husband is the one I should be worried about right now. And you. I'm always worried about you.”

“Don't worry too much. Bursa is very nice. Rainy, but nice.”

“Oh, I'm sure it's nice. And it's not really Bursa I'm worried about, either.”

Delphine made a noncommittal noise. Cosima picked up a little animatronic Easter bunny from the store's clearance bin and pushed the button on its ear. While it danced around to its tinny robotic song, Cosima tried to think of something else to say – something other than “you know there have been chemical attacks in Syria recently” and “you know our security team can't really protect you from everything.”

“How's everyone else?” Delphine asked.

“Fine. Charlotte's still being Charlotte. Sarah's worried she's gonna fail her math class, so we're all trying to help her out with that.”

“Wait. Sarah's worried that Charlotte will fail? I thought she was strong in math.”

“No no no. Sarah's worried that Sarah might fail math.”

“Ah!”

“Too many shes, I know.”

“Hm.”

Cosima looked around to make sure Sarah wasn't in hearing distance. “I'm trying to kind of gently coax her into, like, an advisor's office or something. Maybe an academic counselor.”

“Sarah, you mean?”

“Yes, still Sarah. Like, it's weird.” Cosima looked around again. Sarah had moved on to the “Over the Hill” birthday aisle, where she was laughing at some tombstone shaped decorations. “She's obviously smart,” Cosima whispered to Delphine, “and she's doing everything she's supposed to do. She's working her ass off for these classes, and she just can't get it. Me and Scott are still tutoring her like once a week or so, but I dunno. I think she needs something that we're not able to give her, but I don't know what. She just keeps saying she's too stupid to get it, but I don't think that's the case.”

“No, I don't think so either.”

“She was joking the other day that someone must've dropped her on her head as a baby.”

Delphine was silent on the other end, but in the silence Cosima heard her thinking. The gentle tap of a pen or pencil gave it away. Before either of them to continue the conversation, Sarah came over and waved a “old man survival kit” at Cosima.

“Art's birthday's all set, then,” Sarah said. When Cosima just stared, she clarified. “He's turning 40 in a couple weeks.”

“Oh,” Cosima said. “Cool. Um. Send us the date, yeah?”

“Sure. He doesn't want anyone to know, but whatever.” She waved at the phone in Cosima's hand and raised her voice. “Hi Delphine!”

Delphine chuckled softly and said, “Hello Sarah” in a voice soft enough for Sarah to miss it.

“I should get going,” Cosima said into the phone. “I probably can't talk much later, but text me if you want, yeah?”

Delphine agreed to, they both said “I love you,” and Cosima hung up. Then she turned to Sarah. “How'd you know I was talking to Delphine?”

“Your face, mostly. Anyway, you ready yet? Where's the card? I wanna get outta here before I buy too much shit I don't need.”

* * * * * *

On Thursday, as Delphine travelled to Izmir, Cosima sat in their apartment and scrolled through job listings. The exercise was futile – she wouldn't apply to any of them and anyway, she didn't have her PhD yet. Her advisor sent back a list of dissertation edits yesterday, but Cosima had only made two of the smallest ones. More and more, every time she sat at the computer, her mind drifted. Some of it was the same old shit: anxiety over the state of the world and the nagging feeling that nothing she did amounted to much. And worry about Delphine. She always worried about Delphine. The job search began as a combination of those – worry that she'd never get a job good enough to give Delphine the kind of life she deserved.

Her family made sure to get her away from the Rabbit Hole for at least an hour every day now, and Cosima was not allowed to protest. If she did, they pretended to move in with her, loudly, until she left the apartment in frustration. That only happened once, though. Tuesday's outing was to the store and the Hendrixes, where Clone Club gathered to support Donnie in his grief. Yesterday, Cosima was back at Bailey Downs, to “help Helena with the boys” while the Hendrixes attended the funeral in Hamilton. “Helping with the boys” made no sense, of course, since Cosima didn't know what the fuck to do with one-year-olds except make silly faces once in a while, and Helena resented the obvious supervision. Cosima spent half of that visit riding Alison's bicycle aimlessly through the subdivision by herself.

Thoughts of the twins and the suburban expanse of Scarborough set Cosima's mind spinning again.

She remembered the sprawling, packed metropolises of Mexico City, Istanbul, and São Paulo. Those weren't even the biggest cities in the world, and still their size and scope took her breath away. She remembered the bustling streets of Lima and Cairo, and she'd never stopped being amazed at how many distinct individuals existed in the world. Little Arthur and Little Donnie were unique, just like every single one of those people. Just like Delphine. Just like Cosima and each of her sisters.

She shook her head and tapped her own cheeks. Another cup of tea was in order, but before she got up her phone emitted a weak little chirp – another news alert from Syria.

“Fuck it,” Cosima told her laptop. Grabbing her coat and purse, she went outside, leaving the job search and dissertation edits behind.

The Syrian news alerts never made Cosima feel better. Even the occasional cease fires failed to get her hopes up, because most of them devolved into violence again, or yet another armed group entered the scene to fuck shit up again.

At least Cosima now checked those alerts only from outside of the Rabbit Hole, with a view of sky and trees rather than drab walls and a moldy ceiling she lacked motivation to clean herself. Ignoring the chirps from inside the apartment didn't change the situation, but it helped Cosima keep her head screwed on, and it kept her from telling Delphine to just stay far the fuck away and send someone else to cure the Syrian Leda.

Not that she hadn't thought about it. The trouble was that no one else would do it – not the way it needed to be done, or with the appropriate discretion.

Cosima ordered a chai latte at the cafe around the corner, sat near the window, and gave in to her brain's desire to dwell on bad news for the day.

Fighting in Aleppo schools bombed in Hama clinics shot up in Ghouta ISIS kidnapping people in Deir ez-Zor

Hundreds of thousands of people were trying to flee with the clothes on their backs, and the only people trying to get in were ISIS recruits, aid workers, and foreign military “advisors.” By the time this whole shit show ended, Cosima doubted there would be anything left of the beautiful country she'd wanted to visit as a teenager – encouraged by her tenth grade math teacher who just happened to be Syrian and also super fucking hot. But that was now beside the point. The point now was that a different super fucking hot object of Cosima's affections would be in Syria within the next couple of weeks. Their purchase earlier that year of “kidnap and ransom” insurance only made Cosima feel worse.

Skimming over the most recent alert from Damascus, a pair of chimes interrupted her. The first was from Qamar, their remaining Arabic translator, requesting a phone call in a few minutes. She did that often, preferring to relay messages longer than five words verbally rather than in writing. Cosima sighed and agreed.

The other was the semi-daily update from Nabil back in Djibouti. Like most of the children's texts, it was short and random – a picture of a filthy street cat in the shadow of a trash can that he'd captioned “friienb.” Cosima replied as she usually did, with a picture of her own – her chai latte, framed by a glass sugar shaker and a napkin holder. She added a short and simple message of her own. “Lunch.”

She kept thinking of talking with Qamar about Nooran's nieces and nephews. Djibouti was certainly safer than Yemen, and now that Nooran was cured their life could improve somewhat, but Cosima couldn't let go of Nooran's request – to take the children to Canada with them. She also couldn't forget the role they'd inadvertently played in Cosima's current situation by sending a picture of themselves with the flag of the Muslim Brotherhood in the background. It wasn't their fault, and she would never – could never – ask them about it.

Her phone rang and she answered before even checking the caller. “Hello, this is Cosima,” she said.

“Hi, Cosima,” her mother said, a certain heaviness in her voice.

The dissonance between her expectation of Qamar's chipper accent and the sound of her mother's voice made Cosima reel. “Oh. Hey, Mom. I thought you were out to sea right now?”

“Well, we were.”

“Okay. That doesn't sound good. What happened? You said the boat was having some issues, but – ”

“No, honey, the boat's fine. We got that fixed last month.”

“Okay...”

A garbled, wonky announcement sounded through the phone, like the announcements at airports or train stations, but filtered under water. Sally sighed and waited for it to finish before speaking again. “We're at the hospital right now.”

Cosima froze. “Oh shit. Is it your foot?” She'd been worried about that, about her mother going out to sea so soon after bunion surgery, but Sally said no.

“No, honey, my foot's doing fine. It's Gene.”

“Oh. Is he...”

“It's not his heart this time. He's very keen on everyone knowing that. He did not have another heart attack, and he's been taking his statins regularly.”

“Okay, well that still doesn't really tell me what's wrong with him.”

Sally sighed again. “Well, a couple of days ago, he started noticing blood in his urine. Of course, being Gene, he didn't say anything about it until yesterday, when he couldn't urinate at all.”

Imagining that made Cosima squirm and cross her legs in sympathy. “That sounds awful.”

Beeping in Cosima's ear told her Qamar was trying to get through. Whatever. Qamar could wait. Qamar probably didn't have a urinary blockage.

Sally went on. “Yes, well, after several hours of that, he agreed we should turn around and head for shore. Fortunately we were only about six hours out from Eureka, so here we are.”

“So, what, Dad went like eight hours without peeing? Holy shit.”

“Closer to twelve or fourteen, I think. He's on a catheter now and they're running some tests.”

“Jesus Christ, poor guy.”

“Yes, well.” Sally gave a few of her deep sighs – the kind that came from somewhere beneath her diaphragm and that Cosima was all too familiar with.

“Go ahead and say it, Mom.”

She sighed again. “Well, it's just – I know this has been going on longer than he says it has. The doctors were worried about his prostate last year, and sometimes Gene gets this pinched look on his face, you know? This pinched pained look and then he acts like it didn't happen and he's not in any pain, like I'm some kind of an idiot.”

“That... sounds familiar.”

“Oh, so you noticed while we were in Toronto a few months ago? You noticed it too?”

“Uh, no, actually, I didn't. I was thinking of something else.” She was thinking of Delphine, wincing over the phone and over Skype and swearing that nothing was wrong, all the while having a cracked knee cap. “I think you and I have similar tastes in partners,” she told Sally.

Sally laughed. “Don't say that! Delphine's a nice girl.”

“Yeah, nice and stubborn as hell. Anyway. What's next? What's going to happen?”

“We're staying on land for a while. I knew Gene was really hurting when I told him we'd have to, and he didn't even argue.”

Cosima whistled. “Back to Berkeley then?”

“We'll see. I'll keep you posted. Love you.”

Cosima returned the sentiment and hung up. She needed to call Qamar and see what she'd turned up, but that could wait another few minutes. Pulling up her on-going text string with Delphine, Cosima typed, Would you tell me if you couldn't pee for twelve hours? After hitting send, she kicked herself. Over text, she wouldn't see Delphine's face when she read the question, and in regular messenger it was impossible to delete texts.

The phone call with Qamar lasted four minutes. Samira, the one Leda remaining in Syria, still resided in Douma, but had no cell phone or internet access. All the information Qamar had was word-of-mouth, from the cousin of a friend of Samira's husband.

“I tell him, you see her next month,” Qamar said

“It'll be a lot closer than that,” Cosima said. “Delphine's scheduled to meet the security team there on May 9.”

“May 9? Okay, I tell them tomorrow. I talk them tomorrow.”

“I mean,” Cosima cautioned, “there's also always the chance the date could change. Just like the others.”

“Yes yes. I know.” Qamar had been with them since they got the Leda List, or close to it. She knew the deal, even if she never quite understood it.

Off the phone again, Cosima let out a long, slow breath. Different news would have been welcome – that Samira had fled along with her Syrian Leda sisters and Delphine didn't need to go there at all, ever. Or maybe that Samira was in some unique position to hop over the border into Lebanon for a day or two and get treated there.

Not likely.

Finishing her drink, Cosima debated a trip to the aquarium or to see Scott at the university, where he was working on nanotechnology. She'd just settled on visiting Scott when Delphine's reply arrived. Yes, I will tell you if I can't pee for 12 hours but only on one condition.

That was unexpected. What's that?

You have to tell me why the fuck you tried putting a robot worm in your face a few years ago.

#continuing travels of cophine #my fanfiction #cophine fanfiction

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simonjadis · 6 years ago

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Your post on subversion was intriguing. My friend and I were similarly wondering if fans take "fanon" too seriously as it warps their perception of "canon." As in the direction taken, be it by different writers or the same one, goes someplace fans just don't like. What makes it "bad writing" or "fans who just didn't like what they got" exactly? It can feel so... mixed up honestly.

refers to this post [X]

Thank you!!!

I think that fanon has so many definitions that it can be difficult to discuss without being specific

a not-particularly-safe-for-weenies example is Transformers fandom has a particular way of describing cybertronian genitals, in terms of their form, function, and terminology, that is widely (though not universally) used in fic, despite not being part of the established lore

that’s what happens when fanon is created to be lore-conforming but to address something that is not (or cannot be) directly discussed within the media itself

sometimes, fanon is about taking a hammer and fixing canon because it’s broken

for example, though it’s frankly the least of her problems when it comes to worldbuilding, JK Rowling can’t do math. it’s never clear how many students attend Hogwarts, but her overly simplified small number of magical schools throughout the world really shows that she just … didn’t crunch the numbers

I could go on about how to figure out proportions of mutants/wizards/vampires etc, but the issue here is that fans basically have to ignore this new lore because it’s absurd. that doesn’t mean that there’s a newly established fanon for HP international schools, but one day, there might be

sometimes, fanon takes a very different turn, when fans far and wide commonly accept what’s called “woobification“ of a character

Snape, Loki, Kylo Ren, Damon Salvatore. these are all fine characters to like if you so choose (I’m obsessed with Sheev Palpatine; I get it), but sometimes people will try to justify that fondness by pretending that the character is someone wildly divorced from their actual morality

I don’t want to talk about any given character, and inconsistent writing can also be a factor, and also not all of the characters I just listed are on equal moral footing by any means. but sometimes the fanon version of a character is unrecognizable because they’re a much better person than their canon counterpart

fandom expectations can be extremely difficult to manage and even to predict. if fans come up with their own ideas about how a story should end or what sort of dynamic a pair of characters have, that can come into conflict with what ends up happening in the story

unfortunately, there’s no single, hard-and-fast rule for what makes a good story vs what makes a bad one

in my previous post (linked to at the top of this post), I talked about how telling a good story is like setting up a marble ramp or a series of dominoes, where all of the pieces should be in place to get you to the ending you desire. if you have to flick over a second domino or pick up the marble and deposit it somewhere else – that is, force characters to do something that neither personality (marble) nor circumstances (ramp/obstacles/etc) support – then you’ve made a mistake. audiences will usually notice

sometimes, fanon ideas of who a character is can influence fans, which lead them to do the pikachu-surprise-meme when a canon portrayal remains consistent. but sometimes, there are other factors, such as a likeable actor. Alan Rickman was a good guy, but Severus Snape was not

this may seem like a tangent, and perhaps it is, but sometimes authors and other storytellers try to impose their own, incorrect, moral view of the world in their stories.

Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien himself used Gandalf to tell the Frodo (and the reader) that it would be morally wrong to simply execute Gollum rather than kill him in self-defense or battle. this pays off later when Gollum’s avarice destroys the One Ring and saves Middle Earth (spoilers!). this only works out this way because JRRT, who is catholic, told that story, not because it’s always the case that the person whose life you spared will accidentally save the day later.

another great example is JKR declaring that Snape is a hero. I won’t get into her odd treatment of Slytherin, and this may fall under the I Will Fix Canon With Hammer type of fanon, but I think that we all know that she bent over backwards to vilify Slytherins just as she did with fat people (except the ones who were just foolish)

nothing that JKR says can make Snape a good person unless she tells us that the dialogue that he spoke and the actions described on the pages were just … lies she told us for some reason. writers can control the very laws of reality of their worlds, but right and wrong are what they are

anyway, I absolutely agree that what fans want to see can come into conflict with what the storyteller gives them, and that it can create an unfair backlash

by that same notion, sometimes storytellers will dismiss fan concerns over bad writing (inconsistent characterization, rushed storylines, etc) and blame “fan entitlement.” that’s a real thing, but it’s the people who rage angrily and lead review-bombing campaigns – not the people who hate seeing their favorite characters murdered by the writers (and sometimes, by other characters) because it was poor writing

I love-love-love Mass Effect Andromeda, but I know that some fans of the series did not. that does not make them bad fans. sending hate to a developer or to people who enjoyed it would make them a bad fan

bad fan behavior comes from actual behavior, not what they think about a piece of media

and as for telling the difference between bad writing and fans disappointed by a solid narrative? I mean, my marble example shows one part of what I think defines good vs bad writing. mostly, we just have to figure out for ourselves if a choice made us sad or if it was actually bad

#writing #fanon #storytelling #I hope that this is helpful anon sorry that it's so long #anon ask #anon #ask

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childrenchildrenandchaos · 6 years ago

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How I Constantly Improve My Writing

Hello Everyone!

As someone who is trying to make a living by writing, I have to constantly utilize and improve my craft. For this week’s post I decided to discuss all the ways in how I constantly improve my writing. No matter what field of study you’re in, or a hobby that you enjoy, you will never be perfect in that area.

Now I’m not trying to say you won’t be great. There are amazing writers. Stephen King, JK Rowling, Cassandra Clare, just to name a few that I personally enjoy. They’re great writers, but they’re not perfect. Perfection is just making something as best as it can be but there is always room for improvement. Improving your craft means you learn new ways in which to create and utilize your talents. The more knowledge you have the more you can do so there is no reaching perfection because perfection does not exist.

So let’s just get into it. Here are the ways how I constantly improve my writing!

Write

Okay this probably seems cliché but it’s true. The more you write the better you’ll get at it. It’s the same with singing, exercising, math, you get the idea. The most common thing for writers to hear is to write every day. I personally don’t write every day. I try, the effort is there, but sometimes it is hard to write every day. I’m working four jobs and have two kids, yes three of my jobs are writing jobs, but some days I just want a break from doing anything work related. If I don’t write, I edit. This counts as writing because I’m editing my writing. I’m still getting things done. If I have nothing written to edit and I don’t have any inspiration to write, I still try. If you’re trying, you’re doing good; keep that in mind if you feel like you’re failing.

I set a minimum goal for myself of 100 words a day. I have this goal set specifically for me to feel like I’m getting things accomplished. This goal assures me that I know I need to get something done if I don’t have anything to edit and/or I don’t have the inspiration to write. Always have a goal set for something you’re passionate about. This improves my writing because I’m working on it every day and I have a goal set in place for the days where I have nothing planned or just can’t get anything out. This works for all crafts, not just writing.

LinkedIn is a site that I didn’t think I was going to like and actually refused to use for the longest time. Since I’ve been getting into freelancing, I made a LinkedIn account because it makes it easier to find clients and get in contact with other freelancers, agents, and publishers. What I didn’t know is that the site offers writing courses and quizzes to help test and improve your skills. They have these options for multiple skills in all areas of study. I find this extremely useful because it helps me pinpoint areas that I need to focus on. I’ve even taken a few communications quizzes to see how my communication with others is. I also learned that I need to work on my punctuation a little more because I’m starting to slack on my usage of it.

The best part of this is that LinkedIn shares your results if you want potential employers and clients to see them. This helps display your skills and abilities and increases your likeability. I’m constantly using the tools and resources LinkedIn provides to improve my writing and it can help improve multiple skills.

Free Courses

There are many websites on the internet that provide free courses for writers. I personally enjoy using Reedsy Learning which is a website for writers that offers courses on how to improve your writing, how to get an agent, how to self-publish and market books, and so many more! These courses are helpful in giving me new knowledge and ideas. After taking a course on how to get an agent from them as well as the course I took in college, I was able to feel confident in querying an agent about a completed manuscript that I have been wanting to get published for quite some time. I only did this a week ago and am still waiting to hear back, but this course gave me the confidence I needed to assure me that I was writing a query in a professional way and using all the right details. If I was someone who thought I didn’t need improvement, I probably would’ve never sent a query, or I would be writing terrible query’s and would be denied by everyone. One of the courses that I found extremely helpful and recommend to anyone who is trying to write every day is to take the Stop Procrastinating! Build a Solid Writing Routine course. The courses from Reedsy Learning are 10-day courses and they send an email once a day for you to read and work on. Of course there are lots of other websites and some that offer courses you have to pay for, but if you think something is going to help you improve your craft then do it! Knowledge is invaluable even if it doesn’t help you in the way you thought it would.

Read

For writers, reading is a great way to improve one’s writing. There are lots of things a writer can learn from other writers. Things like techniques, writing style, how to use POV, and how to utilize drama, romance and family dynamics. These are just a few of the things a writer can learn by reading. One of my professors once told my class that you should read books you don’t like because you can still learn from them. I took this seriously have since finished reading a few books that were difficult to read because I didn’t like them. For example, Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk was a hard book for me to read because I absolutely loathed the writing style, but I also learned a lot from his novel too. It was the things I learned from a book I didn’t like that helped improve my writing in ways I didn’t think it would. In fact, reading books I don’t like helps me just as much as reading books that I do like. Sometimes it’s learning how not to write my books and other times it’s giving me a new idea on how to write a particular scene in a different way to develop a great impact or something similar. Regardless of what you want or expect to learn from a novel, reading in general helps to improve a writer’s skills.

NaNoWriMo

For those of you who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, its National Novel Writing Month. It takes place from November 1 to November 30 and participants work towards writing a 50,000-word novel in that month. The goal of this is to push writers. I love this idea because even if you have a terrible novel at the end of the month, you still have a completed novel, one that you can edit and work on after the month is over. Besides pushing you to write, NaNoWriMo helps writers to plan their writing. Going into NaNoWriMo unprepared will likely result in not completing it, but if you complete a plan and set goals for yourself that in itself will help improve on completing writing goals you set for yourself in the future. Another thing that I like about NaNoWriMo is that there are groups you can you can meet up with in person and work on completing your novel. This lets a community of writers get together and work on something they’re passionate about together.

These are the primary ways on how I constantly improve my writing. There are many ways a writer can improve their writing. Some don’t work for all and that’s okay. Writing is a craft and a craft can be done in multiple and unique ways because everyone has an individual style. This can be said for all crafts. No two people ever do something the exact same way and that’s what makes any type of craft amazing. Even science is a craft and no scientist will try the same thing over and over if an experiment doesn’t work and even if it does work, they’ll still experiment in different ways to see the different outcomes.

If you enjoyed this post or found it helpful then hit the like button, follow the blog, share this post, and drop a comment on what things you found helpful, enjoyed, or a different technique that you use to improve your writing, or whatever type of craft you’re constantly trying to improve. I’m on multiple social media platforms that are linked below and to the side bar so follow me on those to see more ideas and posts!

- Chelsea <3

Original Post at Coffee, Children & Chaos

https://coffeechildrenchaos.wordpress.com/2019/07/26/how-i-constantly-improve-my-writing/

#writing #my writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #writers #blogpost #blogblr #blog #blogger #blogging #newblogpost #improvement #writing improvement #skills #skill development #learning

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