pangaeaseas

[pangaeaseas]

Do you think Harry is emotionally abusive or neglectful of Ginny? What kind of husband would he be?

I’m pretty confident that the boy who had an endless well of compassion and understanding, even for his worst enemies, would never be neglectful or abusive toward his wife.

That said, I do think Harry would have a lot of growing to do. He’s not an easy person to be around all the time. He keeps things to himself, he can get hyper-focused to the point of shutting others out, he carries the weight of complex grief, and he was an abused child himself.

He’ll need to learn how to be more open and communicative. He’ll need to develop patience. He’ll have to figure out how to separate his work from his home life and truly be present. But while I think he’ll struggle with all of that, I also believe he’ll work hard to overcome those habits. Especially with Ginny by his side, and with Arthur and Molly there to help guide him toward a more stable emotional space. And he loves Ginny. He’s always had an easier time connecting with her than with almost anyone else.

Harry will be attentive. He notices the small things. He’ll be supportive. He’ll bring home flowers because he thinks they smell like her. He’ll write her funny notes when she’s away at matches. He’ll learn household charms, and they’ll cook and clean together and build a life full of domestic, shared joy.

Harry will mess up. He’ll retreat into himself. He might get too angry or too quiet. But he’ll keep learning, keep working to understand his triggers, because he finally has the space and safety to do that kind of healing.

Harry will be a good husband to Ginny, not because it comes easy, but because he wants to be. Because he’ll put in the effort. Because he loves her.

Harry has always been at his best when it comes to understanding and giving love. That’s kind of his whole thing.

[pangaeaseas]

I find it baffling that in CoS, almost all of the Hogwarts students were so quick to turn on Harry (of course, they do it again in the later books), thinking he was the Heir of Slytherin just because he spoke parseltongue. Yeah, that's the language that Salazar Slytherin, the founder that the wizarding world feared the most. But c'mon, just a year ago, everyone praised Harry for surviving Voldemort's attack AND defeating Quirrell. The same boy who was marked for death as a baby by the descendant of Slytherin and had to go through a lot of suffering because of that same dark wizard. You'd think the students would give Harry more empathy instead of wrongly assuming he's the Heir of Slytherin.

See, it actually makes a lot of sense to me that they turn on him that quickly (and in the later books). And it comes down to two main things:

1. The Wizarding World, at large, sees Harry as a public figure, not as a person (or a child).

2. The impression Harry gives of himself to people who don't know him is very different than how we see him when we're in his head. (talked about here)

I talked about both before, but the short of it is that Harry comes off as arrogant, confidant, cold, and distant to most people. Most characters don't see Harry's awkwardness and compassion. They see a kid who laughs at the idea of a corridor being so dangerous it would kill you, and then, later in the year, he kills a teacher, who was also You Know Who — that's crazy. Harry is a cool, mysterious, dangerous, and fearless student no one knows all that well. For all they know, he is dark. And he speaks Parseltongue, a connection to the dark lord he supposedly killed. It raises the question of why Harry killed him, because again, the average student/wizard doesn't know Harry.

Don't forget, no one knows how he survived the Killing Curse. For all they know, there was dark magic involved. It sounds like something that could be dark. They don't really know how Quirrellmort died either, for all they know, it was dark magic. They don't know Harry well enough to know.

Add to that the fact that all students at Hogwarts, while Harry is there, have grown up hearing the story of Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived, Vanquisher of You Know Who. They look at Harry as a public figure, as a celebrity, not a person. They don't treat him like any other student; it's as if you went to school with a young Jesus, but he came back from the dead as a year-old infant.

They don't think of him as a person. It's why everyone feels so entitled to gossip about him, or his time, and Harry feels like he needs to give them that. I mentioned here how he politely shakes hands with everyone who fusses over him in PS. Adult wizards feel entitled to invade the personal space and time of an 11-year-old kid they don't know. The Wizarding World feels Harry's love life is their business and article material. He is treated like a public figure — a symbol — not like a human being. Which makes turning on him much easier, because he isn't really a person (or a child) in their mind.

[pangaeaseas]

harry j. Potter really is his own special flavor of magical British celebrity where he's famous for something he didn't do and also for something he did and he's a political figure but also not he doesn't fit in any regular category of celebrity but the celeb worship and parasociality must be. must be Off The Charts. I've seen at least one fic where he gets a cult. get harry a acult! he'd hate it so bad.

[pangaeaseas]

honestly you all are so annoying because motherhood IS interesting but fandom people are simultaneously obsessed with deciding that every woman has motherly qualities and completely disinterested in actually exploring motherhood as a role that informs a character. I do think exploring a character being a mother can be wildly interesting if they are canonically one, but because of misogyny, people just view motherhood as a totally unremarkable naturalized state that all women must inhabit!

[pangaeaseas]

hello! I don't know if you've answered this question, but what do you think about Harry and sexual relations? What kind of type do you think Harry is? Can he have sex with a stranger, or would he rather prefer a person with whom he has formed a trusting and close relationship?Thank you so much for your texts!

Anonymous asked:

Hello there I woud like to know if you think Harry woud do one night stands! Or if you think that he only kiss people that he already knows deply And complementing that do you think Harry is touch averse?

Eh... my instinct is to say Harry won't be into casual relationships and one-night stands. I mean, he thought Cho was pretty, but he barely knew her and ended up horrified after kissing her:

Harry did not answer. He was in a state of shock. Half of him wanted to tell Ron and Hermione what had just happened, but the other half wanted to take the secret with him to the grave. [...] Harry said nothing. Hermione’s words opened up a whole new vista of frightening possibilities. He tried to imagine going somewhere with Cho — Hogsmeade, perhaps — and being alone with her for hours at a time. Of course, she would have been expecting him to ask her out after what had just happened. . . . The thought made his stomach clench painfully.

(OotP)

Pravati, in the Yule Ball, is another example:

and next moment, Parvati had seized his hands, placed one around her waist, and was holding the other tightly in hers. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, Harry thought, revolving slowly on the spot (Parvati was steering). He kept his eyes fixed over the heads of the watching people, and very soon many of them too had come onto the dance floor, so that the champions were no longer the center of attention. [...] Harry heard the final, quavering note from the bagpipe with relief. The Weird Sisters stopped playing, applause filled the hall once more, and Harry let go of Parvati at once. “Let’s sit down, shall we?” “Oh — but — this is a really good one!” Parvati said as the Weird Sisters struck up a new song, which was much faster. “No, I don’t like it,” Harry lied, and he led her away from the dance floor

(GoF)

He isn't comfortable, and he doesn't even look at her, and he takes the first chance he can get to stop dancing and get away.

(I sorta imagine Harry and Pravati dancing as physically far away from each other as they can, and the mental image is hilarious. Poor Pravati)

Harry, in general, doesn't really look for much physical contact with others, especially people he doesn't know well. But even with those he does know and trust, he doesn't initiate hugs or physical touch often, even in the later books when he starts initiating touch more.

I think he'd be really queasy about intimacy with a person he doesn't know.

That being said, I don't think he's completely touch-averse, even with people he knows less, but he's definitely uncomfortable with it.

He does enjoy the hugs he gets, when he knows the person hugging him and trusts them:

Mrs. Weasley set the potion down on the bedside cabinet, bent down, and put her arms around Harry. He had no memory of ever being hugged like this, as though by a mother. The full weight of everything he had seen that night seemed to fall in upon him as Mrs. Weasley held him to her. His mother’s face, his father’s voice, the sight of Cedric, dead on the ground all started spinning in his head until he could hardly bear it, until he was screwing up his face against the howl of misery fighting to get out of him.

(GoF)

Harry smiled weakly. Mrs. Weasley hugged him.

(OotP)

Since book 4 the various Weasley boys (Bill, Ron, and the twins) clap Harry on his shoulder or back, and he picks up the habit in HBP. In the later books, he does initiate physical touch with Ron, Ginny, Hermione, and other Weasleys:

Laughing, Harry broke free of the rest of the team and hugged Ginny, but let go very quickly. Avoiding her gaze, he clapped a cheering Ron on the back instead as, all enmity forgotten, the Gryffindor team left the pitch arm in arm, punching the air and waving to their supporters.

(HBP)

said Mrs. Weasley, watching him anxiously from beside the corner. “I’m afraid that one isn’t new like Ron’s, it was actually my brother Fabian’s and he wasn’t terribly careful with his possessions, it’s a bit dented on the back, but-” The rest of her speech was lost; Harry had got up and hugged her, He tried to put a lot of unsaid things into the hug and perhaps she understood them

(DH)

He doesn't touch others often, but when he loves people and feels comfortable around them, he does. But it's based on his comfort and trust levels, so I can only see him having casual sex in a freinds with benefits scnario where he knows the person beforehand.

Another thing I want to note is that Harry is really good at hiding his discomfort with touch since he doesn't feel like he's "allowed" to show his discomfort. See above with Pravati, who isn't aware that something is wrong at first and believes his lies initially. Or in PS and DH, when crowds are moving forward to touch him and he lets them out of a sense of politeness:

Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, Harry found himself shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron. [...] Harry shook hands again and again — Doris Crockford kept coming back for more.

(PS)

and Harry could not hear a word that anyone was shouting, nor tell whose hands were seizing him, pulling him, trying to hug some part of him, hundreds of them pressing in, all of them determined to touch the Boy Who Lived, the reason it was over at last— [...] They wanted him there with them, their leader and symbol, their savior and their guide, and that he had not slept, that he craved the company of only a few of them, seemed to occur to on one. He must speak to the bereaved, clap their hands, witness their tears, receive their thanks, hear the new now creeping in from every quarter as the morning drew on;

(DH)

And in DH, he actually feels like he must be there to talk and clap hands, uncomfortable and tired as he is becouse he knows he is a symbol. In that above scene, he hardly belongs to himself in a sense. He is there as the Boy Who Lived, not as Harry.

But no, I don't think Harry would be into one-night stands with strangers; it seems to me he'd be uncomfortable with it.

[pangaeaseas]

the worst thing about being depressed again is you know how it feels now

[pangaeaseas]

Not putting an option for non-writers because they're not the target audience of this poll. If you haven't written before and still want to vote, then write a fanfic, post it to the platform of your choice, and then vote.

[pangaeaseas]

i think wizarding fashion likely puts a lot of emphasis on individual uniqueness and creativity, possibly even the amount of magical acumen required to make the piece. I'd imagine there's a lot of tailoring and magical clothes-maker is a pretty lucrative occupation. something that's weird and unique is gonna be fashionable. like the vulture hat or the lime green bowler hat.

[pangaeaseas]

sometimes you are just minding your own business in a public place and someone drops some crazy drama you clearly weren't meant to hear but. now you know about the saga of the girl whose cheating ex sent her nudes to her dad.

[pangaeaseas]

Hello! I've been loving reading your metas (especially about Hinny, since I could never quite articulate why I thought they didn't work) and I was wondering: what do you think of the Mauraders friendship? To me it seems a bit baffling, but that could just be JKR's poor grasp of timelines and details.

But it seems that the Mauraders are a close friend group (like, you don't make the map and spend 3 years working on an illegal and potentially fatal Animagus transfiguration on a lark) that as soon as they graduate and join the Order they seem to fall apart. Which I can buy, given the high stress low trust environment they're in, but it seems weird that only Sirius and Remus suspect each other, and I don't think we know why? I could also be forgetting something.

Thank you! 💖

I talked about the Mauraders as individuals a bit here, but their friendship is not as close-knit and happy as the fandom likes to think. I think their dynamic was always more complicated than that.

Like, what you have is James & Sirius who practically fell into friendship at first sight, and have always been the closest in the Marauders group. Remus and Peter were a little bit afterthought. I mean, in SMH, James and Sirius respect each other:

“If it bothers you,” he said, stuffing the Snitch back in his pocket. Harry had the distinct impression that Sirius was the only one for whom James would have stopped showing off.

[...]

“Well, I thought that paper was a piece of cake,” he heard Sirius say. “I’ll be surprised if I don’t get Outstanding on it at least.” “Me too,” said James.

But clearly, don't share that same respect for Remus, whose lycanthropy isn't taken seriously:

“Did you like question ten, Moony?” asked Sirius as they emerged into the entrance hall. “Loved it,” said Lupin briskly. “ ‘Give five signs that identify the werewolf.’ Excellent question.” “D’you think you managed to get all the signs?” said James in tones of mock concern. “Think I did,” said Lupin seriously

[...]

“I’m bored,” said Sirius. “Wish it was full moon.” “You might,” said Lupin darkly from behind his book.

Or Peter who is always the butt of the joke:

Wormtail was the only one who didn’t laugh. “I got the snout shape, the pupils of the eyes, and the tufted tail,” he said anxiously, “but I couldn’t think what else —” “How thick are you, Wormtail?” said James impatiently. “You run round with a werewolf once a month —” “Keep your voice down,” implored Lupin.

[...]

“Put that away, will you?” said Sirius finally, as James made a fine catch and Wormtail let out a cheer. “Before Wormtail wets himself from excitement.” Wormtail turned slightly pink but James grinned.

There is a reason in PoA everyone mentions James and Sirius in the same breath, but they don't mention Remus. There is a reason James and Sirius were: "you didn't see one without the other" and the other Marauders weren't brought up. They weren't as close.

Like, I know from what I've seen in my high school that teenagers' friendships can be really weird and not necessarily good friendships (adult friendships can be like that too, I just think it's easier to fall into in a school-like environment where you are together most of the day — especially in a boarding school, I mean, they shared a dormitory, hey were together 24/7 for 7 years, they kinda had to be friendly with each other). The Mauraders have an unequal dynamic; they aren't the picture of a perfect friend group.

Sirius and James lived together (with Lily) after graduating, but Remus and Peter didn't. It all follows the same pattern.

This friend group was built around James and his charisma. Sirius is probably more alright with Dark Magic than James was ("The world isn't divided into good people and Deat Eaters"), but I'd go on a limb and say he never told James that because just like Remus and Peter he was desperate to be liked by James (I think he saw James liking him as a sign of his goodness and not being like his family). The difference is, James saw Sirius as an equal and respected him in a way he didn't Remus and Peter. He liked them, he liked their attention, but I don't think he saw them as equals to himself and Sirius.

Sirius clearly didn't see Peter and Remus as the same as James. He is the one making fun of Peter more than the others. I think he didn't think Peter would betray them because he looks down on him. He thought Peter worships James too much to betray him (a little projection of his own sense of loyalty as well) — and he was wrong.

The friendship fell apart becouse it was built on sharing a dorm room and being silly together, not on real respect and connection (at least in the case of Remus and Peter. Peter liked being part of the group, Remus was glad to have friends at all, Sirius wanted to be everything his family wasn't, and James was just being himself and had fun). When I read Sirius and Remus' interactions in PoA and later, they always gave me a weird vibe. Like they are both desperate for a sense of normalcy and connection that they remembered from school, but are both completely different people than they were back then, and even then, they weren't as close as either of them was to James. They are both trying to replace James with the other. (If only more Wolfstar fics portrayed them like that and like they weren't that close in school, I might've been more into it)

To illustrate, I always saw their dynamic when at school as something like this:

James also suspected Remus, Remus never doubted Sirius was to blame when he was sent to Azkaban because this entire friend group was around James. And it was also a mess. So, it just makes sense. Sirius never really respected Remus as much as James and Remus knew that.

TL;DR, the Mauraders weren't that close-knit of a friend group as the Mauraders fandom likes to believe.

[pangaeaseas]

[pangaeaseas]

— the walpurgis girls (class of '45)

(aka: mom said it's my turn with the toxic codependant doomed yuri barbie dolls.)

because the knights get a disproportionate amount of love and I wanted to flesh out the girls in tom's year for my own fic writing

relationship charts below!

[pangaeaseas]

Imagine if Voldemort die dies the night of Halloween. Harry still becomes an Auror. And he's inspecting Azkaban and he comes across a cell which oddly has a bunch of prophet clippings of him on the walls.

He gets a bit creeped out and begins inspecting the crazy stalker....

MY HEART.

Like an adult Harry meeting Sirius? I’m sad now.

[pangaeaseas]

How do you think Azkaban works? Do they have extremely depressed house elves making the food for the prisoners? Or do the prisoners themselves have a work rota of cooking and cleaning more or less like muggle prisons? Are the dementors the only wardens, can they ID prisoners in any functional way? Or are there wizards there in admin roles?

Is there a very precarious courtyard gym? Was Lucius Malfoy breaking rocks and getting a stick-and-poke tattoo from one of the Carrows? How do visits work? Are they allowed conjugal visits? Do you think true crime girlies tried to pull that when Sirius was taken in?

Are all the cells the same? Or are maximum security cases like Sirius and Bellatrix kept in isolation, where petty thieves and magic carpet smugglers may bunk together?

Oooh anon here comes an essay ♥️

Food and Labour:

I don’t think the prisoners are cooking or cleaning. The whole point of Azkaban is total hopelessness. Giving prisoners tasks; even dull ones ) could provide structure, which might, god forbid, foster a sense of purpose. Can’t have that- especially as they see insanity as the ultimate punishment. I have a meta about it here

I doubt there are house-elves either.

More likely: the Ministry sends rations to the island — probably magically-preserved sludge that just about keeps people alive. I HC there’s some kind of automated spellwork in the kitchen areas that portions things out so the dementors can deliver it ( dementoroo), designed to serve food that is technically edible, but so soul-crushing it actively hastens psychological collapse.

Wardens and Administration:

Before the post war reforms the Dementors are the primary “guards.”

Can they ID prisoners? Not conventionally. They don’t see with eyes; they feel. (According to Sirius). They can probably distinguish prisoners based on emotional “flavour” the way a sommelier can tell you which vineyard a wine came from.

That said, I refuse to believe even the Ministry would let literal soul-eating wraiths handle all logistics. There must be a handful of extremely unfortunate Ministry workers assigned to admin roles: transporting prisoners, recording deaths, updating rolls. Also who is doing the photoshoots that meant there was a fresh pic of Sirius on hand when he escaped.

Exercise and Recreation

There is absolutely no courtyard gym. None. No Lucius Malfoy doing squats while Crabbe Sr. counts reps.

Exercise is hope. Exercise is self-care and good mental health. Azkaban’s entire ethos is the annihilation of self. I doubt prisoners even get fresh air breaks.

Visits and Conjugal Rights:

Absolutely not. Can you imagine your happiest memory would getting ripped out of your body mid-shag?

Visits would be restricted to extremely rare, Ministry-sanctioned events: trial appeals, re-sentencing, possibly posthumous identification (“Is this the body of your husband? Sign here.”)

As for true crime girlies thirsting over prisoners? Oh, 1000%. Sirius Black would have had deranged fanmail - see end of this for both my fic about his fanmail and my script for a podcast about him. No one would be allowed to visit, but there would be a pile of owl-delivered “you don’t know the real him” letters mouldering in a Ministry mailroom somewhere.

My podcast fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55304761

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33898300

Snippet: Artemisia Black: And now, a quick word from our friends at Mundungus Fletcher’s Legitimate Potion Ingredients! Sponsored Ad Break]

My fanmail fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33898300

Snippet: Documents?’ The guard snorted derisively, shaking his head, as he pulled out a large stack of letters from a drawer in his desk. ‘You mean his fan mail?’

Kingsley controlled the urge to smile. He did mean the fan mail, and he intended to deliver it to its recipient to make him laugh.

‘Yes,’ he said as soberly as he could, ‘They are key documents in my ongoing investigation.’

‘Well, there’s plenty more,’ the guard said, rolling his eyes. ‘Honestly, these people need locking up themselves.’

Fic: Dave the Dementor

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62099272

Snippet: Had he not won Azkaban's Employee of the Year four times in a row after arriving from Iceland as a fresh graduate of the university of human misery?

Oh, how he had savoured his victory over the other Dementors, who had initially mocked his innovative introduction of microtortures.

How they had scoffed when he first suggested seasoning the British prisoners’ food while leaving everyone else’s agonisingly under-seasoned.

[pangaeaseas]

I think the Marauder's fandom has obliterated the "magic" part of the series. There's just so much "modern" clothing (or what people in the 2020s would believe to be 1970s clothes) when there could be so much more in terms of robes and such.

Where are all the pointy hats.

[pangaeaseas]

what I’m trying to do in my conceptual examinations of wizard fashion is break down the really intense Western European gender presentation that we see in the the films, in fanart, in moodboards and collages, in fanfilms, in edits using fancasts, and in fanfiction. I think that’s worth doing, because the books have a high degree of normalized androgyny and crossdressing-adjacent clothing. Blending in with Muggles is hard because it involves wearing tighter pants! This is something we see acknowledged in the text! Wearing Muggle clothes is either a political or a fashion statement! I would like to see a conception of wizard masculinity that doesn’t involve reliance on 20th century gender presentation, and of wizard femininity that’s equally different, and of wizard androgyny, too!

We know there’s a concept of crossdressing according to wizard norms (see: Mundungus) and we also know that this is distinct from Muggle crossdressing (see: the man in GoF who arrives to the campground in women’s clothing and refuses to change; he doesn’t seem to register what he’s wearing as gendered in the same way Molly registers what Mundungus is wearing as gendered.

we’re missing out on so much by going Man Trousers Girl Skirt, people