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[ID: screenshot from Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix. “Look, Harry" said Sirius placatingly, "James and Snape hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other, it was just one of those things, you can understand that, can't you? I think James was everything Snape wanted to be — he was popular, he was good at Quidditch, good at pretty much everything. And Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts and James — whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry — always hated the Dark Arts." /End ID]

if you consider the yellow highlighted section (orange in image description) to be useful characterisation, despite Sirius’s biased perspective, then surely the red highlighted section (red in image description) is too. And this isn’t even touching the fact that he…joined the other side of the war and died for it. Seriously, if we’re now in the actually James was neutral about Death Eater ideology phase of this argument, we’re fully discussing different books. I am laughing.

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if anyone was wondering how the three most outspoken voices about this issue have been treated the past few days:

we’ve all had to turn off anon because of separate bouts of ad hominem vitriol

we’ve been told explicitly and repeatedly that everyone in Jily fandom hates us, are talking about how they wish we would shut up behind our backs, and that people no longer want us in the space/we’re not welcome

we have had our identities denied, ridiculed, and weaponized against us in order to manipulate us into thinking we’re making things up and there’s no issue

we’ve been told “well you should/could have been nicer about XYZ and maybe people would have listened to you” when discussing..our own feelings of discomfort

we’ve had to reiterate and re-explain these issues countless times to people who don’t want to listen

we’ve seen people staying silent when asked to interject and step up; paradoxically, people center themselves when asked to listen to marginalized voices. the isolation of that really can’t be overstated.

I can’t speak for anyone but myself here but I’m just tired. and I know people don’t want to hear about this anymore—I don’t want to keep talking about it. trust me, I would love to go back to posting content for everyone and interacting with stories and using this space as an escape from real life. but I can’t do that—WE can’t do that—until the appropriate boundaries are in place.

please support marginalized voices now that the dust is starting to settle; we’ve been through the ringer as it is.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about how to best convey my own thoughts on the week's events on the Jily Discord.

Firstly, I want to acknowledge the incredible individuals who have taken the time to valiantly and patiently explain why DE!James as a trope makes a majority of minority, Jewish and POC readers feel incredibly uncomfortable and unseen. Authors who write this trope — I hope you have taken to time to actually read what these individuals have already said to you and take the time to process, that despite whatever your intentions are with the fic, you are directly hurting those in your community.

If you know me, you know I’m literally the most non-confrontational person. I don’t like to be involved in any drama, I don’t ever wish to fuel any existing fires. But I know that I draw the line when others voices are not being heard.

As a POC I’ve grown up in a world where racism is intertwined with everything I do - it’s horrible, yes, but it’s a fact. We still live in a world where because you are “different” in some background or way, you are targeted that reason. It’s the look you get when you open your homemade lunch and everyone scrunches your nose in distaste, it’s when people ask “where REALLY are you from”, it’s the act of someone calling you a different name because they “can’t pronounce” yours. It’s all this and a bajillion more tiny cuts that many people don’t see on a daily basis, won’t understand unless they’ve also had these small cuts bogging down on their lives.

Fandom sometimes is the only place that we can escape to and paint our own realities — where characters of color can be acknowledged for who they are, fight injustices, that is end of that. By promoting a narrative where the relationship of a marginalized population (aka muggleborns, a captive, a slave) and an aggressor (aka death eater, master) is romanticized, you are actively fueling the years and years of racial discrimination.

And let me just say that again so I can be so utterly clear: By writing a DE!James fic, whether you know it or not, you are saying a marginalized population needs be saved through means of a toxic, even Stockholm syndrome-esque, relationship.

Please really take the time to have that sink in. Read that again and then again. Tell me now, how is that okay? How presuming is it to believe that by creating a relationship like this, you are not highlighting the horrors of history for many POC, Jewish and minority readers? Even more, the horrors our own ancestors had to endure with no choice.

Look I don’t mean to be judgmental of those who have had the privilege of never having to think about this. If you’ve truly never thought about this, thank you for reading this and I hope you can find it in yourself to learn more about the silent (and not so silent) oppressions that many of us have to deal with. I hope this conversation highlights that yes, we have common interests, but also that our backgrounds are each beautifully different — and we all need to learn from each other.

But I’m not so naive enough to think that many will take this well —- so this bit is for you. I am not asking for you for an apology, nor do I think that my post alone is going to solve this issue. I doubt that (if this is the category you’re placing yourself in) you will actually have the self awareness to do this…. but if there’s just one thing you do, I hope it’s this: take the time out of your day to ask a POC, Jewish reader or someone who identifies as a minority, how you can be better. I will gladly volunteer myself for this because while I know I don’t have all the answers to the world, I know so many other POC, Jewish and minority creators on here are being bombarded with extreme asks. I’d be happy to guide you to other resources but you need to make the first step. Acknowledge that you never thought of the hurt this would bring others and ask what can you do.

No seriously. Ask someone who has been hurt what you can do.

Find that ridiculous? Well, I implore you to think of your best friend. If your best friend came to you one day and had a large cut on her knee, actively bleeding —what would you say? Maybe it’s “omg so-and-so how did this happen?” Or “Are you okay?” But then… isn’t your next question “How can I help?”

That is the same question I’m hoping you will ask, because whether or not you can see it, this scenario with your best friend is how you should be treating everyone else as well. The answers I will have (and the resources I may link you to) are going to be hard and you probably won’t like them. But if after, you wish to continue on whatever path, despite knowing you are actively hurting people and their own history then at least do me the courtesy and never interact with this blog. We all just want to be valued, heard and feel safe in this online community. It starts by having these hard conversations and being willing to admit that you are wrong.

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CERTAIN SHARP THINGS, for @crimson-snitch

tattoo shop but make it regency 🪡 8k words; rated M

All the other customary marks on James’s body have been made either aboard his ship, his fear abated by cheap spirits, or in foreign ports. But this, they all said, this, his promotion to captain, this deserves ink from the Portsmouth tattooist’s hand.

READ.

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Lily Evans when she discovers that her 1-year-old son is in danger and she needs to protect him at all costs.

“War” Portraits

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I’m not drawing Jily because it’s october 31, not at all

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Teenage Kicks

Written for September @jilychallenge!

Partnered with @chierafied (thank you for being my sounding board!)

Prompt: I accidentally professed my love to a celebrity on a tv show and oh my god everyone thinks we’re dating

And because I couldn’t help myself I’m adding another multi-chapter fic to my plate!

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It all starts with Lily being hired to be the bands tour photographer, then she actually meets the band and she quickly becomes absorbed by their fast lifestyle, their pranks and the hot lead singer. But its not exactly simple to be crushing on a famous Rockstar, is it?

Read chapter 1 on: AO3

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Evans’ brain: arms, arms, arms, arms

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bittersweet and beautiful

She tastes like the morning. She tastes like the way the light looks, sharp and beautiful.

Extremely short one shot about Jily’s first kiss.

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some with arrows, some with traps

jilychallenge september | @flowersgrowback vs @isahorcrux | celebrity AU - ‘we’re actors who have been quite vocal about hating each other, but the casting agent cast us as the romantic leads in the same movie and i am sooo annoyed at your perfect abs’

author’s note: absolute madness that I tried to do this during the month I’m moving house, but here we are.  This fic is dedicated to all the Hollywood assistants to make the impossible, possible. The tv shows and films we consume daily wouldn’t exist without them. While in this fic, our assistants are treated with respect and are paid well, most assistants currently working in Hollywood are underpaid and often exploited. For more information consider following #payuphollywood, an organization fighting for better conditions and pay for Hollywood’s assistants.

read on ao3

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Room Service - Chapter 1

Summary: When receptionist Lily Evans is informed that the hotel she works at will be hosting the owner's son for the whole month of October, she figures he's likely to be smug, and unbearable, and really nothing new.

As it turns out, she's right about the first two assumptions—and terrifically wrong about the third.

Read on: AO3 || FFN

It's already 12 a.m. where I live, so happy Jilytober everyone! This is going to be one INSANE month, and I am so ready for it!!! I've been really excited to share this story with you guys ever since I came up with the idea of it. And now I finally can! Really hope you enjoy this fic ❤❤

Yes, updates will be daily, unless otherwise specified. But to balance the effort out, the chapters will be relatively short, with most of them ranging around 1K - 2.5K in length. Let me know what you think!

Dedicating all of this to @all-things-jily and @the-dream-team because they've been the most encouraging friends and amazing cheerleaders to this story! I love you both with all my heart 💖

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A list of amazing Jily multi-chapters because why not…

exit song (for film) by @startanewdream

The world has somehow shifted by @potterandevans

The Reckless Now by @mppmaraudergirl

The Wrong Guy by @tumbledfreckles

We Have Buried the Putrid Corpse of Liberty by @mabeltothknows

Ignite by @theresthesnitch

Good Old Fashioned Love Letters by @theesteemedladydebourgh

Save the Groom by @theresthesnitch

Controlled Addiction by @hogwartslivy

Forget-Me-Not by @cesays

Teenage kicks by @arianatwycross

disgraceful by @maraudersftw

Please tell me if i tagged someone wrong or if i didn’t tag you :)

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can’t wait for the next update :)

Chapters: 7/? Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Mary Macdonald/Dorcas Meadowes Characters: James Potter, Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black, Marlene McKinnon, Mary Macdonald, Dorcas Meadowes, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody Additional Tags: Slow Burn, I Mean Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Sirius Black & James Potter Friendship, Graphic Sex, Smut, Eventual Smut, Modern AU, James is an asshole, Hate to Love, Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Pining, Mutual Pining Summary:

James made it his life’s mission to make her miserable. Comments about her height, her looks, her intelligence. Everything you could imagine, any barb you could throw, he threw it at her. And Lily hated how her heart would stutter a little when she saw him. Someone so awful shouldn’t be so good-looking.

But school was done.

She was successful, wanted, envied.

Lily hadn’t heard from James in years. But now he was standing in her dressing room, and apparently, someone wants to kill her.

BODYGUARD AU

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All About The Chemistry

The Epilogue: Equilibrium 

It was the little things that struck her.

Strolling arm in arm across campus, not caring who saw.

Studying at the same table in the library, casting meaningful glances at the stacks.

Dancing the night away at the same club from the start of the semester, re-enacting that fateful first kiss.

Getting coffee at The Brew Lab between classes, holding hands across the table, sharing a muffin, a croissant, a macaroon.

Read from the start | Read the Epilogue

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Golden Waltz

by evanspotter

Lily Evans wants to be the best ice dancer in the world, which means she needs to find a dance partner ASAP. After two failed partnerships, her coach gives her one last option: James Potter.

ao3

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The Wedding Ring

Summary: What is undeniably worse than attending your sister’s wedding looking as desolate and forgotten as a wilted houseplant? Drunkenly ringing your ex-boyfriend and asking him to be your date.

 There is nothing quite like a wedding for a late-twenties singleton with no viable prospects on the horizon. Worse so, if it’s a family wedding where all types of aunts, uncles, and second cousins come out of the woodwork to ask the ever-cliché, ever-grating Your turn, next, eh?

 For Lily Evans, this question has been asked to her so many times over the last two years that her response has evolved from awkward mutters and self-conscious laughs to an unblinking perfunctory, “No” before she steals another champagne glass from a passing waiter and leaves without any form of farewell. (In part because she doesn’t wish them and their overly-nosy, outdated opinions on marriage well.)

 What is undeniably worse than attending a family wedding looking as desolate and forgotten as a wilted houseplant is attending your own sister’s wedding as such. Under normal circumstances, Lily thinks she might have been able to stomach it. But then there are cake tastings, and dress fittings, and countless hours spent at the florists to make sure the peonies are completely the right shade of pink, and even more time surrounded by the ghastly bridal party doting upon her sister every other minute.

 And Lily realizes she can’t bear to go alone to this one.

 She tells her friends so, over strong cocktails four months before the wedding when she has received her formal RSVP. The mocking little check-box next to I will be attending alone (more like, I am revolting to the entire available dating pool) has made her dry-heave at least twice.

 Three cocktails later, she is convinced to call up an ex-boyfriend of hers from uni, who—unsurprisingly—does not answer. Unfortunately for Lily, she is two cocktails too late to realize leaving a trash voicemail is the worst thing she can do. 

 The words come spilling out of her mouth, some form of English that might be studied later by historians. When she awakens the next morning, head nearly split open, she can only hope he has the good sense to delete her voicemail before listening; or if he has done the disastrous thing and listened, time has dulled his ability to decipher her drunk babbling.

 She doesn’t hear from him by lunchtime and the tension headache starts dissipating. But just as she fishes the last of her broken omelet onto her plate for a late, late breakfast, her mobile comes blindingly to life.

 “Hello.”

 “Evans,” says the deep voice on the other end, and Lily nearly drops her plate in shock. “How’s the hangover?”

Read on AO3

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omgomgomgomg freaking out a little

so excited for woodvale

Reputation

by @petalstofish

We think we know someone, but the truth is that we only know the version of them that they have chosen to show us. There will be no further explanation, only reputation.

ao3