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Remus and Harry from chapter 14 of PoA

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this is the type of work they’re gonna make high school art students study in ten years

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Tomorrow I will have been in fandom for thirty years.

I can mark the anniversary very precisely because I know the name of the first fanfic I ever read, which is fortunately archived online along with the date it was posted, the same day I read it. I don't believe Usenet exists anymore and I've been here too long to believe that nothing ever disappears off the internet, so I know that archives are truly a gift to history.

I posted my first fanfic not that long after. It wasn't well-written but reading it today I can see that the narrative was sound. People said they liked it, which was kind given how extremely bad my grammar was. I was an awkward teenager with undiagnosed ADHD and praise was rare for me, but when I wrote fanfic someone always said something kind about it. Eventually a few of them took me under their wing and explained things like "where quotation marks go" and "paragraph breaks". Commas, I fear, are a lost cause even today, but they tried, bless them.

I thought about doing something big to commemorate the anniversary, but I couldn't really think what I might do and the world right now is pretty exhausting. I'm forty five and I'm tired. But imagine how much more exhausting the world would be without fandom -- how much emptier my life would be without my friends, this community, the writing I do, the art and beauty fandom exposes me to. So for now I'm just meditating on that a bit -- the richness of the experience, the gifts I've been fortunate to receive, the lessons I've been fortunate (if sometimes reluctant) to learn.

In another thirty years I'll be seventy five, if I live so long. Thirty years ago we didn't in any meaningful sense have digital cameras, let alone cellphones or smartphones, social media, streaming television, GPS. I did a report on the science of cloning for my high school biology class (on the suggestion of a fellow fan) a year before Dolly was cloned. I wrote my first fanfic using a computer running Windows version 3.1. I wrote it in Notepad, still a constant companion.

I hope I live to seventy five. As tired as I am, I'm looking forward to seeing where the next thirty years will take us.

I hope Notepad will still be there.

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endeavour musings

Featuring: Fred Thursday's Traumatic Backstory and the War

In "Rocket" (s1e3), in the second half of the episode, we get the discovery of the rocket guidance schematics in Lenny Frost's pocket, which Thursday notices, looks at, and goes "huh" eyebrow. Then we get another scene with Dr Volk, our very German engineer, who Morse questions about the source of the documents, and Thursday...has other questions in mind.

THURSDAY: "Volk, What's that? German, is it? Worked long at British Imperial?" VOLK: "18 years." THURSDAY: "When would that be? Early '47? [switches to German] Where were you before? Kiel, Peenemunde, Nordhausen?" VOLK: [German] "I was a young Engineer. It was a long time ago." THURSDAY: "Yeah. [German] But some of us have a good memory."

The triple layer of conversation (yay! intertextuality) going on here is brilliant: Morse is looking confused, from one to the other, Thursday is using fluent German to confront Volk over the War (on his own territory, so to speak), and Volk is hugely on the defensive.

I'm pretty sure Volk uses the word "Zeit" when he says it was a long time ago, implying that that's both ancient history and also nothing to do with him, and Thursday rebuts him that he has a "good memory." Also, I wish had the screenshots for the venom on Thursday's face.

MORSE: What was that all about? THURSDAY: It was him and a load more like him flattened my street. MORSE: I'm sure it wasn't personal. THURSDAY: Wasn't it? You're too young to remember.

Then Thursday accuses of him excusing Vexin because she's a "looker" and in return Morse accuses him of him being xenophobic, ("I based it more on the fact that she isn't German") and then sort of apologises, with a reluctant, "Sir."

There are a lot of implications here to tease out. The first being that many German scientists were transported, mostly to the US, but some to the UK, (Operation Paperclip) regardless of what they may or may not have done during the war. Even at the time, the ethical implications of that were...messy. It's pretty clear that what's Thursday is accusing Volk of. Then the list of places: 1. Kiel, which was a major port for the Kriegsmarine, had a bunker to build and repair u-boats 2. Peenemunde, which was a factory for V-1 missiles until 1943 and a German testing facility and factory for both the V-2 and the Wasserfall missile. 3. Nordhausen, which was a factory for the V-2 missiles.

Kiel and Peenemunde used forced labor of POWs.

But Nordhausen was an offshoot of Mittelbau-Dora and was specifically built to be a V-2 factory fueled by the concentration camp. An estimated 60,000 people passed through the camp, although the precise number of people who died isn't possible to determine, but figures range from 15,000 up to 25,000.

Volk's response is to deny responsibility based on his age, just as, interestingly, Thursday absolves Morse of responsibility of remembering or understanding because "he's too young."

Thursday says that it's personal because Volk / German engineers flattened his street, but there's something more to it:

THURSDAY to GULL: "Oh, I've looked into the eyes of far worse than you. People who've committed real atrocities. And they were sane. Next to them, you're nothing more than a third-rate freak show. A bearded lady with glue running down her chin." (Fugue, S1E2, my emphasis)

Justice is a personal thing for Thursday, as in, it's about the individual (unlike Morse, "The truth will be buried"), it's Thursday who rejects with force the idea that Olive Rix is a "gold-digger," to Henry Bloom Sr. ("She might not have had the best start in life, but at the time she went missing, she was working hard to make something of herself.") It's hard not to hear Thursday himself in that sentence. The implications buried here, I think, are that Thursday, as a sergeant with the Eighth Army, who speaks fluent German, probably did liberate, or participate in the liberation of a concentration camp. Which: queue more traumatic backstory for Thursday. I think one of the things that the interchange with Volk shows is that Thursday has long learned the lesson, for himself, personally, that justice doesn't always happen. He can't do anything about Volk: all he can do is remember what happened. And thus, MORSE: "That's not enough." THURSDAY: "Sometimes it has to be. Not every question gets an answer. Learning to live with that is the hardest lesson there is." The whole of Morseverse in two lines of dialogue.

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Fanfic is a free hobby.

It's one of the last few things we can have as a society that's free. You can engage, for free. People give you things (art, stories, etc), for free.

Don't buy into the consummerism just because it's everywhere else.

You don't have to consume everything you interact with. You don't have to use things, just because they exist.

You're allowed (still, for now), to have things that are enjoyable for free.

Do you realise how insane the world is? We don't have many places where we can just be, for free anymore, but ao3 is. Did you notice we don't have ads in ao3? We don't have pop ups? Where ELSE do we not have that?

Where else can you just go and not have to wait for a commercial to be over or for ads to be on the sidelines?

I don't think the younger people understand, but the whole of internet used to be like this. YouTubers would do Youtube for free, just because. You couldn't monetise your internet presence before.

Ao3 is like a little preserved corner of the internet where the old internet used to be, and it's being attacked by people who do not understand that free things are allowed to exist without judgment.

Please don't ruin this for us.

Some of us need it.

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7 Reasons Why Anything Goes in an Endeavour AU fanfic…

Because Canon Is Already So Much Like An AU….

The Tiger.

A detective leaves Oxford to become a cowboy.

Morse meets the Great Gatsby ….

….who has a deranged identical twin.

Two detectives go undercover…. and there is only ONE bed. 

Mr. Bright is a television star. And an animal trainer. 

This spectacular non-sequitur that alone could spark a 40K slow burn fic. 

Organic chemistry student Max DeBryn had always dreamed of going on to medical school, but, when faced by surmounting student debt, he took a job instead with the Additives Department at Cresswell’s Confectionary. Little did he imagine that he would find the man who would win his heart, a contentious, blue-eyed, failed Greats Scholar, working, of all places, in *the Jelly Room.* 

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Endeavour (2012-present) introduces itself "I'm a meticulously-written moody period police procedural. No I changed my mind I'm a conspiracy thriller. No I changed my mind I'm a brightly-colored ode to the swinging sixties. No I changed my mind magic is real. No I changed my mind I'm a gritty hardboiled noir about corrupt cops. No I changed my mind I'm a lurid three-act opera. No wait I just remembered what happens thirty years in the future, hang on I need to adjust something [turns the misery dial to its highest setting] that's better. Oh, you weren't attached to any of these characters, were you?"

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Hey! I cooked something new! Or kinda old hehe... I know it is a bit lazy to just paint this movie scene, but I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to experiment with my style. Besides, three years ago (I think?) I already painted this movie scene, but with Gary Oldman instead. Back then I was not so used to paint men, especially from memory, but still wanted to paint Sirius & Harry, so I used it as a warm up for future book Sirius paintings.

I am so now that I can actually paint my own version of Sirius now 😊

Painted with Clip Studio Paint and Rebelle.

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Drarry as Onion Articles (pt. 1?)

feel free to add on!

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@drawprongsfootbadly

McGonagall is convinced either they’re going to maim themselves or she’s going to have an aneurism over their antics someday.

Fully believe they would have had the MOST shenanigans. They’ll just spend all their time in detention together anyway.

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Funniest Lines from Endeavour Side Characters

I've been in desperate need of a laugh, so here—presented in episode order—is a list of what I think are the funniest bits of dialogue from Endeavour side characters...

Pilot...

Look at Dempsey's face and guess which option he would actually prefer...

LOVELL: This is ridiculous. DEMPSEY: Ridiculous? A government minister at a sex party. Writing his telephone number on the hand of a teenage girl. Now that's ridiculous. We've kept your name out of it. So far. But there's a young copper chasing this, and he's not so willing to play the game. LOVELL: Morse? Explain to him.  DEMPSEY: I've tried. Not for sale. You do the decent thing, his governor might be able to rein him in. LOVELL: We'll see what Harold has to say about it. DEMPSEY: This is what he has to say about it. There's two ways out. This one, don't have to get blood on my shoes.

Long post...

Girl

Morse is again baffled by normal humans. HE HAD A HAT MORSE!

GREAVES: He had a hat and everything. MORSE: What about identification? GREAVES: I didn't think to ask... with the hat.

Rocket

When mother is a bigger concern than the imminent arrival of royalty...

BROOM: For Her Highness? ALICE: For your wife. BROOM: Nora can't abide cut flowers. JOHNNY: Nor they her. Blooms wither at her passing. They say a scorpion stung her once. And died.

Trove

Prof. Copley-Barnes attempts to get back at Morse for the bit about the Venerable Bede...

MORSE: You're tutor to Kitty Batten, aren't you? What do you make to her? COPLEY-BARNES: Daddy issues. Well, Mommy and Daddy issues to be precise. Hence all this "Look at me!” of late. Nothing a good spanking wouldn't cure, I'm sure...Oh, I see....Turned your head, has she? Touch of the barley fever. Got you yearning for bouts of erotic gymnastics punctuated by Thomas Mann and the New Left Review? Yum-yum. The flesh is weak, I suppose.

Sway

The smoothtalking Joey Lisk doesn't stand a chance against the gallant Charles Highbank...

HIGHBANK: Hey, handsome. She said she's not interested. LISK: And who asked you? HIGHBANK: This young lady happens to be a friend of mine. LISK: Oh, is that right? Well, you're barking up the wrong tree there, darling. He's a bloody fairy. I don't know why they let your type in here. Should be strangled at birth. HIGHBANK: Well, thank you, Cary Grant. GLORIA: Don't, Charlie. LISK: My old man fought a war for people like you? HIGHBANK: And he never got one? Shame.

Neverland

Young runaway Tommy Cork ensures that no policeman's good deed goes unpunished for long...

BRIGHT: Hasn’t anyone ever told you the policeman is your friend? TOMMY: That’s not what my dad says. BRIGHT: No? TOMMY: No. He says you're all bastards.

Lazaretto

Philosophizing local hospital porter paraphrases Longfellow...

PORTER: I suppose everyone's got their own secret sadness, haven't they? MORSE: Suppose. What's yours? PORTER: Flat feet.

A convicted criminal and a Chief Superintendent walk into a hospital…

BRIGHT: Don't trouble yourself on my account. Really, we're not friends, Mr. Bakewell. BAKEWELL: No need to be like that, copper. I'm just trying to pass the time of day. We're all in the same boat here. BRIGHT: As may be, but don't presume to some easy familiarity by it. BAKEWELL: Don’t fool yourself. You might have a nice house and sit on the Bowls Club Committee, but when it comes down to it, we're just two cheeks on the same arse.

Colours

Racist salon owner does horrible job of pointing out that she is clearly not racist...

MRS. RADOWICZ: You can't call me a racialist, not by any stretch of the imagination. I went to see Sammy Davis, Jr., in "Golden Boy" at the Palladium only three months back. So I think that speaks volumes.

Quartet:

Millie Bagshot, badass…

MILLIE: You’re either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. You look like a decent enough young man, so perhaps it's the former, but you really are involving yourself in matters way above your pay grade.

Apollo

Given the option, I know a number of academics who would easily choose "The Masque of the Red Death" over yet another wine and cheese...

THURSDAY: We’d assumed till now that Drake had parked somewhere and killed her after leaving the party, but if the brakes on the car were shot, she was already dead before she left the Wingqvists'. ISOBEL: I've never heard anything more grotesque. It was an academics' wine and cheese, not "The Masque of the Red Death." LARRY: Really, I think we'd have noticed if Adam had been carting a dead girl around a party.

Raga

Sloane tries to explain it another way: "Look guys, this is the most vanilla part of my day..."

THURSDAY: Your mates, the other wrestlers, they know about your preference? SLOANE: Some. Nobody cares. I don't know about the last time you looked, but we get paid to roll about with blokes wearing only our underpants. Wrestling's just another part of show business, that's all I'm saying. So long as you bring the crowds in, nobody cares what you get up to in your private life.

Scherzo

Major Jones, I salute you!

JONES: Good afternoon, sir. Luggage in the car, is it? STRANGE: No, it's, um... First visit. JONES: Well, there's no need to be nervous. No need at all. Now, I don't think we've any reservation down for today. But we've plenty of vacancies. The season hasn't really got going yet. STRANGE: I'm a policeman. JONES: And I'm a former major with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. But the naturist world takes us as it finds us, Mr… STRANGE: Detective Sergeant Strange, Thames Valley. And I'm not here for a frolic in the altogether, Major... Jones.

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nothing scarier than being a fan of a fic and then becoming mutuals with the author. like hi shakespeare. big fan of your fake dating au

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if the person who uploaded big blue sky to this website sees this, please remove it. I don't know how I can make it any clearer that I don't want my fics reposted anywhere in any format. I literally have this note at the top of every fic, and have done for years:

the fic is on ao3 - you can read it on ao3. you can download it from ao3 if you want to. you don't need to be uploading random PDFs to other sites.

I don't want to have to go through the faff of submitting a DMCA complaint and it's really unfair that I should have to spend my time doing that, but I will do if this doesn't get taken down. please just get rid of it, thanks.

if this keeps happening then I'll just have to remove all my work from ao3 and you can all do a big clap for the people responsible.

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Yeah Mr. Darcy’s proposal was a complete turd and a half but you gotta understand. You got your life together. A good career, stable income, retirement plan, all that shit together. And you meet this girl. And she’s everything. Clever, outspoken, funny, calls you on your bullshit. Grade A cutie, right? And she doesn’t go out of her way to spend time with you but she’s nice, and sometimes you catch her looking your way in a way that makes you think you might have a shot.

But her family. Holy shit.

First off, it’s p much ALL women, and mostly UNMARRIED women, which at this time means of something happens to her dad then you’re financially responsible for like. Four grown ass adults, potentially forever

Because mom in law is DEFINITELY gonna need someone to take care of her when dad in law kicks it, and they have like. NO money. So already you’re accepting that if all goes well, you’re gonna be one random old bag’s retirement home. That’s expensive and exhausting, yeah? Imagine asking someone on a first date knowing that if they say yes and things go good her high-strung chihuahua mother is gonna move in with you. IMAGINE.

And girly’s other sisters. Well, one is a sweetheart, yeah, and she’s getting engaged so she probably won’t be an issue, but that still leaves two more, and those ones are INSUFFERABLE. Never went to school, dumb as rocks, spend cash like it’s toilet paper

And while one of ‘em’s young still and might grow out of it the OTHER one is actively torpedo’ing her entire family’s reputation by wandering off with random dudes and chasing ass. She’s never gonna work, she can’t build connections, she’s a fucking sinkhole, and she’s being led on by the same goddamn con man ass leeching tit who’s been bleeding you dry while telling anyone who’ll listen that your family is full of ratty thieving bastards.

And if he dumps her after a week- WHICH YOU KNOW HIS BITCH ASS IS GONNA- you’ve got a SECOND UNMARRIABLE GROWN ASS ADULT TO PROVIDE FOR. And you KNOW she’s gonna be a tantrum-throwing little shit about it, and it’s not like you can lock her in the basement or something, you’re gonna have to bring her fucking. Everywhere. And give her an allowance and shit while she contributes zero, because again, she NEVER GOT EDUCATED AND HAS NO MARKETABLE SKILLS. She’s not even good to TALK to. FUCK

And you’re looking at this girl’s father like “please for the love of fuck get your spawn under control, marry them off, get them working on their résumé, learning to sew or be nursemaids or manage staff or SOMETHING, yall got no money and one foot in the grave” and that old man just laughs like “haha yeah, what can you do. lol”

So you’re looking to the mom and finally it’s making sense how she got that twitch in her eye and as MUCH as she is you’re starting to realize she’s the SMART one, desperately throwing her armloads of girls at random men like they’re a bunch of fucking lifeboats bobbing around a sinking ship, like yes Jesus Christ sweetly that life boat IS old and ugly and kind of boring but for FUCKS SAKE PICK ONE

And you look back at this girl who is ALSO REFUSING THE LIFE BOATS BY THE WAY and god damn it she’s still the most radiant thing you’ve ever seen so fine, fuck it, Christ alive, you’ll do it. You’ll shoot your shot. She’s everything you’ve ever wanted in anybody abut it’s not even just about that anymore, it’s about being her best fucking shot at a future, and even if she doesn’t like you all that much she’s still gonna say yes and that might break your heart a bit knowing it’s about the money but who knows, maybe it will at least be civil, or companionable, and even if she doesn’t LOVE you at least you’ll know she’s well and cared for

And so you’ll do it. You’ll take on the neurotic stress mess mother in law, the absent father, the broke ass wingnut no brain no money no future airhead sisters, the bad mannered relatives and the embarrassing behaviour and the impending future of sharing your entire shit with a clown parade of freeloaders, you’ll risk it all and accept the absolute certainty of financial ruin and emotional exhaustion for the rest of your whole ass life and you’ll make your own family deal with it too, you’ll do it, you’ll fucking DO IT, you stupid lovesick motherfucker

And so you go to this chick like “look. Your whole family’s a shitshow. You’ve got fucking nothing and you’re gonna die on the street. But for some reason- and I don’t get it either- I’ve fallen in love with you, and I wish I didn’t, but I did, so I’m telling you that whether you like me or not, I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you everything even if it’s the dumbest shit I ever done. Fuck my stupid Baka ass, I’ll marry you.”

And she looks at you- having heard or considered absolutely none of your months-long internal debate and monologue- and goes “The fuck did you just say about my family, you son of a bitch?”

And the shock of that is enough to jolt you back into a reality where you are able to actually hear and process what just came out of your damn mouth And yeah

Yeah, I think I kinda get it

[soupy-george]

In NZ we get the psychotic version

Nothing like getting swooped in the spring! #swoopswoopmotherfucker

Magpies are so cool looking like how is this a real creature I see on a daily basis