#( the phoenix flower blooms invisibly out of the white ashes of the sea. )

[meadweos]

𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐊 𝐍𝐔𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄   ——   𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒅𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒑𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 !

❛❛ Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. ❜❜ — Iain Thomas

001. 𝒆𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒓…

sun or moon? stars or clouds? sea or sky? sunrise or sunset? early morning or late night? snow or rain? pastel or primary colours? hot chocolate or coffee? dusk or dawn? baths or showers? swimming or running? singing or dancing? paperback or hardcover? misty mornings or rainy mornings? soft pillows or hard pillows? pop or punk?

002. 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒆…

… forced to choose between saving your best friend or yourself, what would your choice be?

❛ My best friend. ❜ It seems as though there’s a lump in her throat as she speaks, her voice sure and strong. ❛ Far more readily than I would save myself. It’s --- It’s not right. It wouldn’t be right for me to --- for me to not save her, save them. ❜ She goes silent for a few more seconds, her eyebrows raising as she asks a simple question. ❛ Why, what did the others say? ❜

If ever you’ve already asked a question but already know the answer, it’s this one: Dorcas suffers from chronic heroism, and would save her best friend far more readily than she would ever consider herself worth saving. There’s no ‘forcing’ about it - Dorcas would choose others over herself in a heartbeat. 

… trapped on a deserted island, who would you want to have with you?

❛ Probably Calliope or Emmeline. Maybe, maybe Lily. Or Alice. I mean, it’s kind of impossible to choose, right? You can have someone you get along with, or someone who you know is better at magic than you, or someone who knows stuff about surviving on a deserted island, or literally anyone famous. ❜ Dorcas shrugs. The question is more casual than the others, and her shoulders droop as she breathes in and out deeply.

… able to turn back time and given the chance to change one thing, would you?

❛ My - my brother. I’d go back, for my brother. So I could save him. Or die in his place. Anything. Just - my brother. He should be here. ❜ Her voice is panicked, now. It’s a question she hadn’t been expecting, and she knows traveling through time is possible - time turners - but she doesn’t trust herself to use them. She doesn’t trust herself to save him without breaking everything. She didn’t save him the first time. What’s to say fear won’t paralyze her again?

… able to see the future, would you try to change it, or let it happen as it should?

❛  I mean, if things are happy in the end, I’d probably let it happen as it should. But i’s not about me or my happiness. If the people that I love are happy, then I’d keep it the same. But I’d change it in a heartbeat if I knew the end of all this was anything but simple, pure happiness for any of them. ❜

If Dorcas knew what would happen to her, to her friends, her life wouldn’t be the thing that she’d want saved. No. Marlene dies soon after she does - they think it’s by Travers and his crowd, but nobody ever finds out. He gets her entire family. There are no more McKinnons that will ever grace the grounds of Hogwarts. Gideon and Fabian Prewett - brave, strong, good - are killed by five Death Eaters that same August. The ground becomes hallowed, sacred, and nobody can speak their names without thinking of Molly - poor, dearest Molly. Lily and James have a son, they get to be happy, but they’re locked away in Godric’s Hollow, and it’s there that they die, only months after Dorcas had. Their son lives, but his life is scarred, and set out for him, already. The life of a martyr. Sirius wastes away in Azkaban, and when he gets his only taste of freedom, it’s tinged by imprisonment in a house he never wanted to call home again in his life, and then he dies, and there’s no body to bury. Peter’s a traitor, until he has one moment - one shining moment of humanity - and then he is dead by his own hand. Remus lives an entire life without his best friends, goes near mad with the grief of that loss, and after finding Sirius again, he loses him so soon, and then dies himself, too. 

Emmeline lives. She gets to live, for a shining, glorious number of years, but they’re numbered. They’ve always been numbered. He comes for her, as he came for Dorcas, and she dies in the street. Alice is tortured into insanity like Frank is - they become Aurors and are successful pillars of the community and then it happens. They get their happiness, their son, but it is ripped away. He’s raised by his grandmother - formidable and strict, always criticizing him for not being the father he’d never known. Nobody ever knows what becomes of Regulus Black. Nobody ever talks about his story, or how he’s a good person, in his own way. Andromeda and Ted get married. They have a daughter, with a name as long and complex as Andromeda’s own, but then Ted goes away. He goes into hiding, and he doesn’t come home. His name is on the list of deaths announced on the radio, and Andromeda’s world stops, too, when she loses her daughter as well. Emma Vanity has a career in Quidditch - she lives through both wars, and is happy. She’s not untouched by the ravages of war, on either front, but it doesn’t hurl her into the waves like it had with the others. Lucius and Narcissa live. Lucius, imprisoned for far less years than he deserves, gets a pardon at the very end of things - they both see their son grow up, see the son they had raised to be a snake marry, and have children of his own. Mary survived, but, God, at what cost? At what cost? She loses her best friends, her family. 

Severus dies as he had lived - hopelessly in love with Lily Evans, staring into the last piece of her has left - her son’s eyes, but he has become someone not even Dorcas would recognize - a man of casual cruelty, who bullies young Neville Longbottom until he’s his worst fear. But there are no more McKinnon’s. No more Meadowes. No more Prewett’s. No more Black’s. No more Tonks’. The war that they had thought would be final isn’t. They are raised to become soldiers, some less touched by this reality than others, but it comes to them in the end, and one by one, their lives are torn apart. But, in the end, they get to be happy. There’s happiness even in their failure to surely end things. They don’t get to live until their eighties, sit back on their rocking chairs and reminisce about the old days. They die young, but some of their children live. They fight like hell to live, but they do. It’s the question of whether or not it’s worth it. They are children born to be soldiers, who bring soldiers of their own into the world without knowing it. Harry Potter is saddled with a fate worse than death - he’s raised like a pig for slaughter, and people don’t talk about that enough. He survives, he wins, but at what cost? Nightmares, pain, horror? For the rest of his life? His scar may not hurt anymore, but his limbs ache, and he remembers the feeling of someone in his mind more vividly than he ever wanted to. His friends, his friends, die. Fred and George Weasley? Dead. Remus? Dead. Tonks? Dead. Colin Creevey? Dead. Happiness isn’t something easily measured - they are happy, but it’s always tinged by the fact that a lot of their problems haven’t gone away. Psychologically, the harm of war stays with you forever. 

Dorcas would want everyone else to live. She’d throw herself in front of that Killing Curse for anyone, for anything. If she knew, she’d want everything rewritten. It would begin and end with her, nobody else, and she’s so foolishly optimistic that it might actually work. But the thing is she doesn’t know, and if she did, she’d surely go mad with the weight of it, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t change it - just that she wouldn’t be the same. And in the end, when she dies, she isn’t the same as we know her now. She still doesn’t kill, but she’s raised her wand far more times than she ever thought she’d have to, and she still holds out hope for everyone, but it’s not rose tinted anymore. The sad truth of the matter is that right now, she’d die for any of the people I mentioned above. Any of them. 

003. 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒔…

what’s your character’s myers-briggs personality type?

INFP — The Mediator

Mediator personalities are true idealists, always looking for the hint of good in even the worst of people and events, searching for ways to make things better. While they may be perceived as calm, reserved, or even shy, Mediators have an inner flame and passion that can truly shine. Comprising just 4% of the population, the risk of feeling misunderstood is unfortunately high for the Mediator personality type – but when they find like-minded people to spend their time with, the harmony they feel will be a fountain of joy and inspiration.

what’s your character’s alignment?

Neutral Good

Creatures of neutral good alignment believe that there must be some regulation in combination with freedoms if the best is to be brought to the world--the most beneficial conditions for living things in general and intelligent creatures in particular. Creatures of this alignments see the cosmos as a place where law and chaos are merely tools to use in bringing life, happiness, and prosperity to all deserving creatures. Order is not good unless it brings this to all; neither is randomness and total freedom desirable if it does not bring such good. Neutral goods value both personal freedom and adherence to laws. They feel that too many laws may unnecessarily restrict the freedom of good beings. They also believe that too much freedom may not protect society as a whole and encourage counterproductive divisions and in-fighting. They promote governments which hold broad powers, but do not interfere in the day-to-day lives of their citizens.

if you had to use one tv trope to describe your character, what would it be?

Skilled, but Naive or Wide-Eyed Idealist

[postrock-instrumental]

Post-rock & Post-metal: The 50 Best Releases of 2018 [THE LARGER SHORTLIST OF ALMOST 300]

This coming Monday, 17th of December, we’ll publish our selection of the 50 best post-rock and post-metal releases to come out of 2018. There were over 700 releases on our original list, which was later narrowed down to a shortlist of nearly 300. The upcoming “50 Best” list was culled from this shortlist of nearly 300 releases, which you can see below if you want to use it for some purpose. If you don’t want to miss the upcoming “50 Best” list, you can follow the links below: facebook.com/postrock.instrumental twitter.com/postrock_music facebook.com/arcticdrones twitter.com/arcticdrones --- FULL LIST 1099 – Blindpassasjer 42DE – Fall Of The Moon A Film In Color – They March In Endless Circles A Storm Of Light – Anthroscene A World In Grayscale – The Process Of Passing Time Aesthesys – Achromata Aikira – Light Cut All You’ve Seen –  Synopsis XVI Anatomy Of The Bear – Alysu Antarte – Isole Antorchas – Aphelion April Rain – To Whom It May Concern Arcadian Waves – Above The Mountains Archelon – Tribe Of Suns Ares One – Optimist Arhios – Arhios Around The World In 80 Days – Dissonance Astodan – Ameratat Astronauta Marinho – Perspecta A-Sun Amissa – Ceremony In The Stillness Augure – Omina Aurora Borealis – Goodbye Autumn Creatures – Funeral Garden   Autumn Moonlight – Passangers Babel Fish – Follow Me When I Leave Baikonur – Nihil Per Saltum Bear The Mammoth – Years Under Glass Below A Silent Sky – A View From Afar Beyond The Event Horizon – Far Blanket – How To Let Go Bound – No Beyond BRUIT – Monolith Built-In Obsolescence – Instar Cataya – Firn Cats Never Die – Stay At Home Cavern – Eater Celestial Wolves – Call Of The Void CEVEO – Jordsand Charus – Mundus Cereris Ciempies – Intérprete Del Espacio Circadian Eyes – A Future Nostalgic City Of The Lost – Master Martin Rescue Cloud Anthems – Areté Coastlands – The Further Still Cold, Cold Heart – Arch Craters – Laurentian Abyss Crippled Black Phoenix – Great Escape Crno Dete – Neponovljivo Crows In The Rain — Ashes Of The Past Culak – Oblivion Dan Caine – Nocturne   Darius – Clôture Dark Matter – The Sovereign Night Darker Shapes – Kavik Dawnlit – True North DDENT – Toro Deafheaven – Ordinary Corrupt Human Love   Degree Of Arc – Raptures Dep – We Are The Lights That Will Not Go Out Des Astres – Des Plans Sur La Comète Dios Trio – II Distant Dream – Your Own Story Doomina – Orenda Doppälgängär – Melencholia Dûrga – De Lira Ire Earthholder – There Will Be A Future Edelveiss – Skull   Efrim Manuel Menuck – Pissing Stars Eigengrau – Radiant El Ten Eleven – Banker’s Hill El Tubo Elástico – Impala Elephant Gym – Underwater Elhombreanormal – La Unión De Distintos Vientos Elizabeth The Last – Elizabeth The Last   Empathy Forever Empty – All Monsters Are Human Encircling Sea – Hearken Epic45 – Through Broken Summer Feed Me To The Waves –  Before This Wilderness Consumes Us FERE – Montedor Feroces – Josephine First Came The Shadow – Premonition Flares –  Allegorhythms Floating In Space – Dreamland Follows – Nyctophile For Dummies – For Dummies Forest Mountain – Prisma Foxhole – Well Kept Thing   From Oceans To Autumn – Leave Me Here Future Usses – The Existential Haunting Gespenst – Oblivion Gift Of Blindness – Wasteland Giraffes? Giraffes! – Memory Lame Girih – Eigengrau   Glasir – New Dark Age God Is An Astronaut – Epitaph Grand Tétras – Abiogenèse Grito – Endless Grottos – Тетис / Tethys H A : Z E – Passage Hæster – All Anchors No Sails Halocraft – Chains For The Sea Hammock – Far Cry 5 Presents: We Will Rise Again (OST) Hammock – Universalis Hauste – Leavings Have The Moskovik – Papier Vinyle Heklaa – 1491 Hesperian Death Horse – Živ Hold Down The Ocean – The Symmetry Of Odd Numbers Holy Fawn – Death Spells Hope The Flowers/Pleiades – Gates To Universe HUEY – MA Human Factor – Let Nature Take Its Course Hundred Year Old Man – Breaching Hyedra – Hyedra I Am No Hero – Cyberpunk   I Am Wolves – ABCD IAH – II   If Only The Trees – Drop The Air Il Giardino Degli Specchi – Oltremare Illus Teller – The Backup Imploding Stars – Riverine Indignu – Umbra Infinite Third – Listen(Ing) Ingrina – Etter Lys Inspirative – Inertia Pt.1 Isles – Remnants Isola – Isola ISON – Andromeda Skyline Jean Jean – Froidepierre Jeffk – Inadequate Shelter Jet Plane – Falls Feather John Malkovitch! – The Irresistible New Cult Of Selenium JYOCHO – A Parallel Universe EP JYOCHO – The Beautiful Cycle Of Terminal Kalte Sonne – Ekumen Kaschalot – Whale Songs KHARA – Heaven Can Wait Khöbalt – The Sky Is Dead Kiova – An End In Motion Lake Of Licks – Blue Lang –  There Is No Reply But Sweet Wind Blew Lasitud – Lasitud Last Of Us – Swarm Le Temps Du Loup – Cardinal Le_Mol – Heads Heads Heads Leech – For Better Or For Worse Legendary Skies – Navigation Leonov – Wake Lights & Motion – Bloom Lobo Estepario – Los Que Bailan En Las Sombras Locktender – Friedrich Locomotora – Vuodet, Vuoret Long Distance Calling – Boundless Longlake – Beyond The Sun Loud Exit – Loud Exit Lowercase Noises – The Ironic Distance Macondø – Macondø Magdalena Gornik – Dream Sequence Collapse Man Mountain – Infinity Mirror Mass Culture – Primal | Ephemeral Massa – Walls Medussa –  LA PALABRA HA MUERTO Mesozoic – Earth Alone Message In A Cloud – Anassa Milanku – Monument Du Non-Être & Mouvement Du Non-Vivant Minsk / Zatokrev – BIGOD Modsdive – Four Wet Hands Moe’s – Smiles & Scars Mogwai – Kin Montaña – Coordenadas Morrow – The Weight Of These Feathers Mountaineer – Passages Movement Of Static – Naegleria Murmure – Nos Idées Fantômes Musatov Brothers – Existential Crisis Nautilus – The Oceanwalker Ninth Moon Black – Amaranthine Noorvik – Noorvik Northerner – Northerner Ocean Districts – Doomtowns   Of Two Minds – Of Two Minds Ohgod – The Great Silence Ok Seas – Ok Seas Old Faith – Old Faith Old Seas Young Mountains – Seasons Once Upon A Winter – .Existence Orellana – 52 Orphans Of Doom – Strange Worlds/Fierce Gods Osorezan – Osorezan OTHRS – Broken Dialogue Paraphon Tree – Aura Pershagen – Tarfala Pijn – Loss Planisphere – Into The Known Prune Deer – Chemistry 化學 Raedsel – A Simple Act Of Redirection Rammen – The Echo & The System Raum Kingdom – Everything & Nothing Reaching 62 F – Chronicles Of A Dying Sun Red Apollo – The Laurels Of Serenity Reformat – The Singularity Respire – Dénouement Riah – Autumnalia Rilf – Three Stories For Numbers RLYR – Actual Existence Rocket Miner – The Long Goodbye Roots And Ruins – Die Right Rostres – Les Corps Flottants Sagor Som Leder Mot Slutet – II Sairen – Neige Nuit Sejd – Ben & Hjärta Set And Setting – Tabula Rasa Seul Ocean – Je Fais Revivre Shadow Universe – Speaking For Clouds Ships Fly Up – Dream Maker Sinistro – Sangue Cassia Six Months Of Sun – Below The Eternal Sky Sky Flying By – (Re)Routed Sleep Dealer – Memories So Far As I Know –  Fragments: Disclosure Sojus3000 – Wanderers Soldat Hans – Es Taut SOM – The Fall Sonance – To Possess You Entirely Sondrous – Something Like Serenity Sons Of Alpha Centauri – Continuum Spurv – Myra Standish Hall – Standish Hall   Startle The Heavens – Canyons Straya – Sobereyed Subnoir – A Long Way From Home Summer Effect – Reverie Sunstare – Eroded   Taller Than The Trees – Hubris EP Talons – We All Know Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving – No Tether The American Dollar – You're Listening The Clouds Will Clear – Recollection Of What Never Was The Fog Ensemble – Throbs The Man Within – The Man Within   The Ocean – Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic The Sun Burns Bright – Through Dusk, Came The Light There’s A Light – A Long Lost Silence This Will Destroy You – New Others Part One This Will Destroy You – New Others Part Two This World Has Bees – Nearer Those Who Dream By Day – Glad To Be... Tide/Edit – All My Friends Tides Of Man – Every Nothing To Those Who Exist – BAIAME Toe – Our Latest Number Tomorrow We Sail – The Shadows Toundra – Vortex Trees Die Standing – Trees Die Standing Triple Deer – Urban Shepherd Trna – Earthcult Tsima – Koniec Twin Speak – Soulss Umber –  This Earth To Another URO – CABBA! Us, Today – Computant Velns Viņu Zin – Posts Versa – Versa Violet Cold – Sommermorgen Trilogy Vorcha – Liberosis Vy Pole – Like You Say Wang Wen – Invisible City WANHEDA – The Cenozoic Implosion Warm Shelter – Reflections Way Station –  The Way Of Minstrel We Made God – Beyond The Pale We Were Heading North – Lightness Weary Eyes – True North Wess Meets West – A Light Within The Fracture Whale Fall – Sondersongs White Lion Parade – Cloudlines   Widek – Dream Reflection Winter Dust – Sense By Erosion Winterlight – The Longest Sleep Through The Darkest Days World’s End Girlfriend – Meguri Wrekmeister Harmonies – The Alone Rush YNICORNS – Intervals Zommm – Reality Is An Illusion 昴宿 Pleiades – 致未來 For The Future

[meadweos]

@m-mckinnons sent an owl: draco malfoy, lucius malfoy

draco malfoy: is it better to be feared or to be loved?

dorcas’s lips twitch upwards. ‘ in my experience ( though flawed and incomplete, ) it is always better to be loved. fear only breeds discontent and loneliness. ’

lucius malfoy: what is your most prized possession?

dorcas swallows a gulp of tea, momentary hesitation on her lips. she can still hear her mother’s voice in her ears, distant and fuzzy, but there. time has done a number on all things, except that. except that one shining memory. the years have ensured that dorcas could no longer tell what color her father’s eyes were, or the type of shoes he always wore to work, or what kind of flower her mother liked best. her hand raises involuntarily to ghost over her neck, smile splintered as tears burn behind her eyes. ‘ my mother --- she gave me this necklace --- more of a locket, really --- for my seventh birthday. it’s been broken and repaired too many times to count, but it’s a part of her that i’ll always keep with me. ’