#because I think it's actually very interesting when Potter is the one who lashes out at him

[youngpettyqueen]

Hi! "“and one more time”" for the WIP game?

ok im gonna cheat a little here cause "and one more time" is a sequel/part of a duo. hindsight being 20/20 I should've had it + "never again" together but I Did Not Think Of That

"never again" + "and one more time" are both gonna be really short oneshots that deal with the parallel scenes in MASH that make me the most insane- that being Trapper knocking Hawkeye down in Mail Call, and BJ punching Hawkeye in Period of Adjustment

I don't really have much written down for these besides the beginnings, so I'll put those down here...

"never again"

""Did I hit you?" Trapper asks out of nowhere.

Hawkeye looks up from putting his boot on. "Huh?"

Trapper is sitting on the edge of his cot, frowning with a look like he's studying him. "Yesterday, when I was... you know," He gestures vaguely, "Did I hit you?"

Hawkeye considers him for a moment. He was hoping Trapper wouldn't remember that little scene. He thinks about denying it on the off chance he might be able to convince him that it didn't happen, but he knows he waits too long to reply, because Trapper looks about the guiltiest he's ever seen him look.

He looks back to lacing up his boot. "You barely shoved me." He tells him quickly."

"and one more time"

""How's the eye?" BJ asks out of nowhere.

Hawkeye was wondering when that would come up. He's amazed BJ managed to go the entire OR session without mentioning it. He looks up from where he's sitting on the bench, finding BJ hovering close to him as he tosses away his mask.

"It's fine." He replies. It only hurts when he smiles a certain way, but he doesn't tell him that.

Doffing his cap and tossing it aside, BJ hunkers down to be more level with him. "Mind if I take a look?" He asks.

"Go ahead," Hawkeye invites, "It's really not that bad. Charles already looked me over." He reminds him.

BJ's frown tells him he's unconvinced. Hawkeye supposes he'd feel the same were he in his boots."

basically both of these have Hawkeye dealing with the aftermath of his best friends hurting him during drunken bouts of homesickness, because the parallel there is absolutely insane to me. i do wonder how deliberate it was, considering MASH is pretty famous for not really sticking with continuity, but regardless of if it was or not its still very very good

comparing both episodes is interesting to me because with Mail Call, Trapper shoving Hawkeye over and trying to desert is mostly played for laughs and quickly diffused. there's some tension in the scene but its ultimately not taken super seriously, and ends as soon as Frank comes in and gives Trapper something to laugh at. meanwhile in Period of Adjustment that is VERY much not the case, with that episode having very few laughs overall. one of those comparisons that really shows the tonal differences between the first 3 seasons vs season 4 and onward, especially getting into the later seasons of 8 and onward

I had the original inspiration for a bit of a different idea a few months ago when I first started reading fic actually, there was like... one mention in a fic I read of how Hawkeye is perceived as this easy target for everyone's anger. I wish I could remember which fic it was off the top of my head, I dont even remember what the fic itself was about, but I still think about it. cause like... yeah, Hawkeye is often the target of unfair anger, and thats not something that gets explored a whole lot within the show, so here I am 50 years later to write angsty fanfic about it

thanks for the ask!! hope you dont mind me bringing in another WIP haha but I figured it was relevant to digging into my intentions with them

[kbrick]

What do you think about the Draco haters? Personally I don't get them. I don't get how you can feel hatred for a child who was raised by fucked up people and then had to do awful things that he obviously hated to survive and keep his family safe too. All as a minor. Where has all the empathy gone? It's like they think they're talking about a hardened criminal lol. Why are people like this?

Okay, I'll be honest with you, nonny, I'm of two minds about this.

The thing that I feel in my gut when I see this sentiment out in the wild is irritation and maybe a little flare of anger. Because I love Draco. He's my favorite. I empathize with Draco, with what he went through in canon, and I also associate him with the thousand redemption character arcs I've read about him at this point. Have I argued with people on reddit over whether Draco should have been sentenced to life in Azkaban? Yes, I have. Am I proud of that? No, I am not. Looking back, it kinda makes me feel like an idiot.

I try to remind myself of two things when I feel this way. One, Draco is a character, not a real person, and we're talking about literature, not real life, and so it's really not that serious (please note - this is not usually effective in talking myself down off the ledge, but it ought to be mentioned).

And two, I used to hate (well, maybe strongly dislike) Draco.

I came to the fandom late (as a full-fledged adult!), but in my younger years, I was a big HP fan. I had all the books on a bookshelf in my room, I had a poster, I had pencils with big erasers on the end in the shape of the house mascots. I had my favorite Harry Potter mug (which just recently met an ignoble end on my kitchen floor, RIP favorite mug - and now I can't buy a replacement because I no longer buy HP merch because JKR is such a terrible human being and I refuse to support her...but I digress!).

And let's be honest: Draco Malfoy is a complete asshat in the books. He's the villain. He's petty, he's mean, he's arrogant with nothing at all to back it up. He says horrible things to Hermione, who was my very favorite character back when I read the series. And I was young enough to accept characters at face value back then, so yeah, I kind of hated Draco. I wasn't ranting about him online or anything, but if somebody would have asked me what I thought of him, I'd have probably blown a raspberry and given them a thumbs down.

It wasn't until the later books (Half-Blood Prince, specifically), that I began to neutralize on my view of Draco. Even back then, I felt bad for him in that bathroom scene. But it wasn't until I started reading Drarry (as an adult) that I looked back at Draco as a character and realized what a fucking delight he actually was (not in the sense that he was 'good' or whatever, but he was an excellent foil for Harry and was incredibly entertaining).

And part of this is maturity, I think. As a full-fledged adult, I no longer take characters at face value. I no longer think- oh, this character is being mean to the good guy, therefore they are a bad guy and I hate them. Instead, I think - wow, something is going on with this character, to make them act this way. They're so desperate for attention, or they're so insecure, or they were hurt so badly when xyz happened that they're lashing out. I look for the WHYS in characters. And Draco has a lot of whys, especially in fanon, and so it has become easy to empathize with him and like him.

Another part of it is that I have become a writer, and I appreciate complicated, compelling characters, and I'm no longer interested in Mary Sue good guys who are always noble and do everything right. Because let's be honest: people are not that way. We shouldn't write them that way. That's not truth, and I want to read and write truth.

But for readers who do not value characters beyond the hero, or who have chosen not to look more closely at character whys, Draco is a bad guy. He's not insecure; he's arrogant. It's not hurt feelings; it's a mean streak. And to be frank, I think JKR herself viewed Draco in this way (for the most part). Yes, she gave him some depth towards the end of the books, but I honestly think that was due to pressure from fans who wanted a redemption arc for Draco (and really, it's a half-assed redemption arc at best). I think JKR is a mostly black-and-white thinker, and I think she wrote a mostly black-and-white series. Harry and his friends are good, Draco and his friends are bad. Voldemort is evil. The end.

So I suppose what I'm saying is that I understand why people don't like Draco as a character. I think it suggests a bit of closed-mindedness on their parts, and maybe a lack of empathy, and that they're horribly boring irl (ha, had to get that dig in there). But the truth is that people are allowed to feel how they want to feel about characters. I'm not the interpretation police.

Does that mean I no longer get fired up when somebody on reddit says Draco should've been sentenced to life in Azkaban? Nope, I'm not that mature, come on. Will I continue arguing with them about it? I hope I'm beyond that, but we'll see. Do I still love Draco with all my heart? I do, and so you know what? I'm going to keep writing about him and enjoying him.

That's about all I have to say about that. Which was a LOT, actually. Who knew?

Thanks for the ask, nonny :) It was an interesting one.

[balkanradfem]

I stumbled on your post on Harry Potter. And I want to say thank you, bc you are first person to explain to me why I do not like Hermione and Ron pairing. Well, I read books when young and I mostly was swayed by other works I had atm. But Hermione and Ron story always made me sad for reasons I could not explain, but it just had this bitter 'this is life and you accept that it's not like you wanted' feel to it. I could it explain it as the common trope of smart and great girl getting average guy who likes her and being happy bc he treats her nice. Which is trope I dislike too. I am not into fandom enough to go back and read the books again, I just vaguely remember what I read, and you explained it well by saying that both Ron and Harry actually did not care for her for a long time. I at that time could not relate to her exactly bc her struggle was not shown. So I took her as a bit of ideal Mary Sue character, but when reading it as quite a kid then, I remember thinking all kinds of things like: Hermione is one of a king, I can't be that smart, I can't study that much bc I can't focus, my teeth are crooked and I can't fix them like her, so I will stay uggling forever, I will cry and wipe and be upset and have trauma and insomnia, I will never be as confident.. and so on. What I mean is, it seemed like she just had inborn talent, and while it's great, my self esteem was terrible (greatly bc I am 'ugly' type, not pretty type, even if I don't agree with those qualifications, it's what other people would qualify me). I remember often feeling the same about other books with main female characters, I just felt like I can't never aspire to be like them, first bc about my looks and I don't know how to fix them. And also in personality and strength, bc in story it was often that they were kinda cool and strong, and just could do things. And I never was that resourceful. Even with romance, heroine either needed to be pretty to be saved by prince, or very good at being social and healing people with their warmth, and I was bad at both. Can't really be warm and healing when you are traumatized potato. Well, that ended up really long, but I relate to your post a lot as also a kid who mostly was learning of word via reading. I used to like sci-fi, but I read both classics as well as modern, and a lot of those books were so degrading to their female characters, and I remember how I was sometimes devastated, but accepted it as some real world truth.

Thank you for writing this message to me! It means a lot for me to know that I helped something to click, and you're right about Hermione, and about how books shape our views that we're either 'pretty' in conventional sense, or we just don't get to be heroines, regardless of talents.

I can relate so much to wanting to be like Hermione! She was incredibly smart and brilliant and she was allowed to have bushy hair and crooked teeth and she was still so important and vital to the story. It's a bit sad that her features change with time and she too changes them for a special occasion. We could have done with a heroine that looks a bit messy but it doesn't matter because nothing would ever get done without her!

And it's true that for the rest of the trio, she was just a nuisance except when they needed her to fix their homework or just as someone to lash out on. Sadly I believe for Ron she was just turned into romantic interest because he felt kind of an ownership of her, he bullied her relentlessly and was a complete nightmare before figuring out how to manipulate her into a relationship. I believe if we had grown Hermione more, and she found out about feminism, she would have dumped him.

The books do damage our view of ourselves if we're not conventionally pretty, warm and healing, helpful and brilliant, and if we instead need attention and help to overcome our own struggles. But this is why we're real people, we're not made to tell a story with our life, we're here and we're alive, and I don't believe appearance directs the course of our life, or our value. I don't believe any bit of my life would be different if I looked prettier, there are circumstances in reality like class, environment, patriarchy, financial resources, upbringing, trauma, and they often set our life path more than appearance ever could. Media sells us the story that we too can become problem-free, and ImportantTM if we're pretty, and all our circumstances would change then, but they wouldn't. Pretty doesn't work to our benefit more than getting us certain kinds of attention and maybe a pass at few non-important issues (tho m*n get extremely jealous so they blow these issues up like it's the pinnacle of life to get a free pass sometimes, losers).

But I agree with your point. Our heroines should get to be messy and 'ugly' with all their features crooked and weird, and they should get to be traumatized and help no one else, but be helped, be important, be vital, get attention, and get love.

[doberbutts]

Man, that post about that friend who went wildly downhill after you admitted to liking Snape is definitely an Experience, but also reminded me that a huge portions of Snape's fandom tends to be marginalized people (especially ethnically) and are also very keenly aware of all the bigoted crap implied throughout the Harry Potter series. Which, is admittedly *very* besides the point of that post but does sort of reinforce an idea that actually listening to people with "problematic" favorites is more likely to net you a greater and more complex understanding of the world then just knee-jerk hating them because the creators presented them as someone unlikeable.

I'm not- and never really was outside of somewhat casually enjoying it in the Before Times very briefly- in the fandom and so I can't verify at all whether marginalized people like Snape.

However I would say that I think it's interesting that many many people can find something that resonates with them in these "problematic" characters, even if they overall disagree with the choices and actions of these characters. Same with problematic and flawed media.

My example of Anders for instance- he's not *wrong* to dislike the Chantry or the templars or to be very sensitive about the topic of mage freedom in general. He has a huge amount of trauma surrounding that part of his life and nearly died as a result. His best friend and ex-lover was more or less killed by the authorities (depending if you consider the Tranquil as being effectively dead) and he has a potentially vengeful spirit whispering in his ear at all times. Of COURSE he commited an act of terrorism, that's a character arc that makes sense given all the shitty things that led up to that point.

And of course that resonates with people who have been heavily punished for simply existing, whether because of their sexualities or mental illnesses or personalities or ethnicities or whatever. To have someone go "but that's not FAIR. it's not RIGHT." when an authority says "people like you deserve to be caged, you're lucky we let you exist". To show the righteous anger of the downtrod in one literally explosive fit of rage.

Snape's a bad victim. He's less likeable than Anders, who we see flirting and being a gentle healer and joking around with his friends. He's severe and stern. He terrorizes the kids and is a wizard-nazi. He was abused and bullied and sexually assaulted. A popular kid at his school tried to kill him as a prank. He obsesses about the one girl that's genuinely nice to him without an agenda and becomes incredibly creepy and possessive. Any attempts he made at being friends with someone were either met with people trying to get him to join the cult, or being rebuffed because he wasn't wanted. That's a really frustrating place to be, especially as a child and especially so as a teen trying to get your footing in a world that's made it clear it will always be at least somewhat hostile to you. I don't think he made good choices. I do think what we know about his story is a recipe for "makes bad choices".

I think having him serve as a foil for Dumbledore, someone else who made very bad choices but is presented as overall likeable and even someone to respect and admire, makes him an interesting literary device. I think having him serve as a foil for our protagonist, a similarly traumatized and abused child who happened to luck into having a support network once he got away from his shitty living situation for half a aecond, makes him a very interesting character as we watch Harry recognize something of himself in Snape's misery. Not because he wanted to be Snape, but because he realized that he could have been Snape if his life took that same direction. That's why I never really minded him naming his kid after him.

Bad victims are a hard sell. People love the idea that being a victim gives you more empathy. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it makes you angry. Sometimes it makes you lash out. Sometimes it makes you not really a good person to be around anymore. Trauma's funny like that. Unresolved and unprocessed trauma festers. Sometimes inwardly and sometimes explosively as it unleashes itself onto a different victim to continue the cycle. When a villian or morally gray character is a bad victim, people have a hard time understanding why that character could be considered at all interesting.

Maybe it's because other victims realize that's the path they could have gone down. 🤷‍♂️

[engie-ivy]

Marlene’s little brother has a thing for Sirius, because who doesn't have a thing for Sirius? Marlene is freaking out, and everyone thinks it's just hilarious. Remus would've thought it was hilarious too, had Marlene’s little brother not been very close in age, cute, witty, and oh so bloody charming.

Somewhat longer fic that will be added to my Crush Confessions Series! 3756 words, so not that long. Wolfstar Fluff, of course😎

Muggle Charms

James Potter’s garden party is the event of the summer. Everyone gets together at the Potter estate for a day of listening to music, swimming in the lake (yes, there’s a lake on the grounds of the Potter estate), and playing friendly Quidditch matches. Mrs Potter walks around with all sorts of delicious foods, James and Sirius fly their brooms above the lake and make bets who dares to jump off from the greatest height, Mary and Emmeline are sunbathing and make bets who will need to be healed first.

It had started the summer after first year with just the four Marauders, but every year, their number has grown, and this year is the largest group thus far.

Marlene McKinnon is last to arrive, and, as usual, her arrival doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Everyone, come meet my little brother!” She shouts across the field.

The McKinnons have four children. Marlene’s mother and two of her siblings are Muggles, while the rest have magical abilities. Marlene’s sister is the oldest of the siblings. She’s a Muggle who works as a primary school teacher. Despite growing up with a father who’s a wizard, she has always felt slightly uncomfortable around magic, but she loves her family fiercely and is very protective over her younger siblings. As she’s much older than Marlene, she has always been more like a second mother.

Next comes Marlene’s older brother, who’s wizard, but has finished Hogwarts long ago. He now works in the Sales Department for a company that develops novel potions against levitation- and portkey-sickness. According to Marlene he’s a serious businessman by day, and a giant goofball by night.

Last is Marlene’s younger brother. He’s a Muggle, but where Marlene’s sister likes to pretend magic doesn’t exist, he thinks it mighty fascinating. He and Marlene are incredibly close, writing each other constantly and hanging out as often as they can when Marlene was home from Hogwarts. She has never brought him to James’ garden party, though. He works in the Food Service Industry, and the bright summer days on which James plans his parties are the days on which he most likely has to work. This year, however, he had managed to get the day off.

The first thing Remus thinks is that the McKinnons have good genes. He can’t really tell which of the two siblings is older, which means they must be very close in age. The boy has the same thick, blond hair and bright blue eyes as Marlene, as well as the same freckles from the sun. He’s short for a guy, barely taller than Marlene, but he’s quite muscular, with broad shoulders. All in all, Marlene’s younger brother is a very cute guy.

“Everyone, this is Miles!” Marlene says, when everyone has gathered around. “Let’s see... Here we have James Potter, he’s the host.”

Miles grins at James. “Some house you’ve got here, mate. Thanks for having me!”

James grins back and lifts his beer. “Cheers, mate!”

“James is Lily’s boyfriend,” Marlene says. “You’ve already met Lily-” Miles gives Lily a warm smile “-and of course you know Dorcas.”

“Hullo Dorky.”

“Hiya Miley.”

“And here we have my other girls, Alice Fortescue, Mary McDonald and Emmeline Vance.” Marlene points each of the girls out, and Miles gives them all a friendly nod.

“And these two are the Prewetts, Fabian and Gideon- don’t worry about who’s who, none of us actually knows.”

“Oi!”

“And this is Caradoc Dearborn, and this Benjy Fenwick, so miraculously you’re not the shortest guy here.”

“Marlene!”

“And here we have the rest of the renegades, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black.”

The chance in Miles is instant.

The polite smile he was wearing turns into a coy smile, as he gives Sirius a not-so-subtle once-over, though Remus doesn’t think it was ever meant to be subtle. Miles takes a step forward towards Sirius. “Well, hello there.”

Remus can’t blame him. He would’ve reacted the same had he been in Miles’ position (alright, maybe he would’ve turned into a blushing, stuttering mess and forget his own name if he were suddenly faced with a guy like Sirius, instead of step forward with an enticing smile and flirtatious greeting, but that’s beside the point). Sirius looks bloody amazing. His swimming trunks are clinging to his legs, and his damp hair is hanging over his bare chest, with little droplets dripping down his muscular body.

Sirius grins knowingly at Miles. “Hi.”

Marlene’s head whirls around from Miles to Sirius to Miles and back to Sirius, so fast Remus worries she might get a whiplash.

“No,” she says. “No, nope, uh-uh, absolutely not. Not. Happening. No.”

She steps between her brother and Sirius, facing the latter, and jabbing a finger against his chest. “You are not going to try anything on my little brother, got it?”

Sirius holds up his hands and takes a step back. “I only said hi.”

Marlene looks at him suspiciously, like she suspects Sirius saying hi is some sort of secret seduction technique (which would actually explain a lot).

“C’mon Marls.” Miles moves to stand next to his sister, and throws an arm over her shoulder. He winks at Sirius. “We all just want to have a good time, don’t we?”

Marlene’s face is getting more red by the second. Her fingers are clutching her cardboard plate, causing it to rumple. She’s clenching her jaw, while intently staring at the pair a bit further on the field.

“I can’t bloody believe it,” she hisses. “If Black thinks I’ll let him hook up with my little brother, he has another thing coming!”

Miles had managed to catch Sirius when he went to grab a drink, and they have been chatting apart from the rest of the group for about half an hour now, to Marlene’s great distress, and everyone else’s amusement. Well, everyone else except for Remus, but he thinks he’s been hiding it quite well.

Remus doesn’t know how the guy does it, but Miles somehow manages to stand closer and closer to Sirius. He’s looking up at him through his lashes, with those big blue eyes and that damned smile, sometimes even going as far as to bite his lip. Sirius has definitely been blushing at some point!

While Remus is the only one who can emphasize with Marlene’s distress over the situation, he really doesn’t like how she’s blaming it all on Sirius, while evidently its her brother who’s acting like a little minx.

“Honestly, Marlene,” Lily says, shaking her head. “Didn’t you talk to Miles about there being an incredibly hot, single gay guy present?”

Remus agrees. Marlene should’ve known what would happen when she decided to introduce her brother to Sirius! You cannot bring him here knowing Sirius is looking like he does, and expect him not to react!

Marlene huffs indignantly. “My little brother is a precious angel who’s not interested in such a thing as ‘hot, single men’!”

Lily looks at Miles and Sirius. Miles seems to be laughing at something Sirius said, and touches his upper arm while doing so, letting his hand slide down Sirius’ bicep. Lily turns her head back to Marlene and raises her eyebrow.

Marlene just folds her arms over her chest and pointedly looks away.

Later, when Miles reaches up to brush a strand of hair from Sirius’ face, Marlene’s face has taken on a more purple colour. By this time, she has started angrily chewing on her cardboard plate.

Luckily, everyone’s too busy making fun of Marlene to notice Remus looks like he’s going to be sick.

Normally, a day at the Potter estate flies by, but Remus is positive this day lasts at least three times as long. But Remus has been getting through it. He hopes that after today, he won’t see Miles McKinnon of ever again. Well, he mostly hopes Sirius won’t see Miles McKinnon ever again, he can admit that . To himself, that is.

Currently, he’s sitting down with James, having a butterbeer. Just when he thinks he might make it through these last hours without further additions to his misery, Marlene comes striding their way, Dorcas on her heels.

“Potter,” she says, stopping in front of them and placing her fists on her hips. “You’ve got something I need, and I want it now!”

“Sorry McKinnon,” James says with a smirk. “I’m a one woman man.”

“In your dreams, you wanker,” Marlene snaps. “You’ve got an Invisibility Cloak, no?”

James takes off his glasses and starts polishing them with his robes. “I may or may not possess such a thing.”

Marlene rolls her eyes. “After seven years of going to school with you, I think I can safely say that you do. Well, I need you to use it. Miles asked Black to take him on a tour around the lake.” She scrunches up her nose. “And you have to follow them so you can report back to me whether Black has kept his paws off of my little brother!”

“More the other way around,” Remus mutters, but Marlene hears and glares at him.

“My sweet and innocent little brother would never do such a thing! He simply... wants to see the surroundings and needs Black for directions.”

Dorcas throws her head back and cackles loudly. “The only directions your ‘sweet and innocent little brother’ is interested in, is the fastest way to get into Sirius Black’s pants!”

Marlene directs a deadly glare at her.

Just when Remus thinks at least Dorcas knows what she’s talking about, she continues. “C’mon Marls, Miles can make his own decisions. Let the boys have some fun!”

Let the boys have some fun? That’s not a good idea! That’s the opposite of a good idea! That’s a terrible idea!

“Well,” Remus says, managing to sound surprisingly calm. “We’re on Mr and Mrs Potter’s property, and Miles has only just been introduced to the gang. I mean, he and Sirius barely know each other. I’d say it’d be rather inappropriate if something happens between them here and now. You don’t want Marlene’s brother to give off the wrong impression.”

James sighs. “What if I lend you the Invisibility Cloak, and you can follow them yourself?”

“Oh, no!” Marlene holds up her hands and takes a step back. “There are certain things I don’t ever want to see my little brother do, or hear my little brother say. If I were to... accidentally stumble upon them, I’d either have to Obliviate myself, or be scarred for life.”

Remus snorts. Not so sure about her brother being so innocent after all, is she?

“Well, Padfoot’s my brother!” James argues.

“Remember when I put in a good word for you with Lily, and finally got her to agree to go on a date with you?” Marlene plays her final card, and effectively.

“Fine!” James puts down his butterbeer and gets up. “Remus, let’s go.”

“What? Me? Why?”

“Because you got me into this, Mr ‘it’d be inappropriate’. And besides, I’ll feel like some perverted Peeping Tom spying on them alone.”

“So better to have two Peeping Toms?” Remus argues, but he knows it’s an argument he’s not going to win.

That’s how Remus finds himself in the place he wants to be least of all, crouched down under the Invisibility Cloak with James, and, after casting a quick Silencio over their footsteps, following on Sirius and Miles on their ‘casual, totally not romantic, definitely not a date’ stroll.

“-and once I’ve gained enough experience, I’d like to come back to London and open my own restaurant!” Miles finishes.

“That’s amazing, Miles!” Sirius exclaims. “I’ll definitely frequent!”

“As long as you don’t expect any free food just because you’re so handsome,” Miles teases.

Sirius gasps in pretend-shock. “I would never use my looks for such purposes!”

“Right,” Miles chuckles. “You be careful, Sirius Black. A face like yours is a powerful weapon.”

“Wow,” James whispers admiringly. “He’s good!”

Remus grits his teeth. Of bloody course Miles McKinnon is all charming and smooth, chatting Sirius up.

“What about you?” Miles asks. “What are your plans for the future, now that you’re some kind of strong and powerful wizard?”

“I’m starting my Healer training soon!” Sirius beams, and Remus can’t help but smile at the pride in his voice.

“That’s... like a doctor, right?” Miles asks.

“Yeah,” Sirius replies. “But without the cutting people open.” He shudders. “Definitely no cutting people open.”

“Oi!” Miles protests, bumping his shoulder against Sirius. “Doctors cut people open to save lives, you know. They don’t do it for a laugh.”

“I’m sorry!” Sirius quickly says. “I didn’t mean to offend. It’s actually very impressive what Muggle doctors can do without magic, and the things they’ve come up with! I’m sorry.”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Miles says, glancing at Sirius. “Don’t worry about it.”

Sirius smiles sheepishly. “Sorry. It’s just... I was raised in this really conservative pureblood Wizarding family. I’m always afraid I’ll say something Muggle-phobic without realising.”

“It’s okay, it wasn’t that bad, honestly.”

“Good,” Sirius says, relieved. “I’m just... trying to be better.”

Miles smiles softly at him. “Just the fact that you’re trying already makes you better.”

They walk in comfortable silence for a moment, until Miles speaks again. “That must’ve been hard though, growing up in a family like that. Marlene already mentioned you’re living here now. Is that why?”

Sirius nods. “I ran away from home the summer before. Best decision I’ve ever made.” There’s a tightness in his voice, though, and an emotion in his eyes that makes Remus want to run towards him and pull him into a hug.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Miles says sincerely. Then he gives Sirius a teasing smile. “Though I must say, it’s a good look on you, the whole ‘sexy rebel’-thing.”

Sirius barks a laugh, and the pained expression slides off his face. “Well, I’m glad my issues at least fit my anaesthetic!”

Remus doesn’t know whether he wants to bless Miles McKinnon for being able to turn Sirius’ mood around and make him smile, or whether he wants to curse Miles McKinnon for being able to turn Sirius’ mood around and make him smile.

“I bet you love provoking your family, don’t you?” Miles asks.

“That might just be my most favourite pastime,” Sirius replies sincerely.

Suddenly, Miles stops walking, so Sirius stops as well and turns back to face him.

Miles takes a step towards him. “I bet it would really provoke your family if you were to make out with a boy, a Muggle boy at that.”

Sirius swallows and his face slightly flushes. “That... That’ll definitely do the trick, yeah.”

Miles comes even closer, now almost standing chest-to-chest with Sirius, and he tilts his head up and leans in.

James still looks mighty impressed with Miles’ flirting tactics, while Remus wonders if the sound of his heart shattering might give them away.

Suddenly, Sirius steps back. “Wait, stop. I... I can’t.”

Miles looks disappointed, but not too shocked. “Why not?” He asks. Then he jabs his finger against Sirius’ chest, much like his sister did earlier. “And I swear to god, Sirius Black, if it’s because I’m a Muggle you can stick that wand of yours up your-”

“No, no, no!” Sirius quickly says, whilst letting out a breathless laugh. “It’s not you, really, it’s me.”

Miles gives Sirius a stern look, while placing his fists on his hips, making Remus wonder whether they’re sure Marlene and Miles aren’t twins. “If you’re gonna give me that lame excuse, at least elaborate what it is about ‘not me, but you’ that makes you reject me. I mean, I’m not proposing a marriage here!”

Sirius sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “There’s... someone else. I mean, there’s not really, I don’t have someone else, but I have feelings for someone else. So therefore this-” He gestures between himself and Miles. “Just doesn’t feel right.”

Remus exchanges a look with James, who looks just as stunned as he is by this information.

Miles, though, just folds his arms over his chest and looks at Sirius thoughtfully for a moment. “So, Lupin then?”

Remus freezes. What? Him? Oh no. He’s not sure he can bear to hear Sirius’ denial. ‘Lupin? Remus? No, of course not! What in Godric’s name gave you that idea? Why the hell would I fancy Remus?’

However, Sirius just sighs and looks down at his shoes. “I’m that obvious, huh?”

Remus stares dumbfounded. It’s... true? He feels an eruption of butterflies in his stomach. Well, he always feels some butterflies when he sees Sirius, but now it’s like all those butterflies had babies, and those babies had babies again, creating an immense flutter.

“Nah,” Miles says. “If I had known for sure, I wouldn’t have made a move. I only had a suspicion, but I decided to take a chance anyway. I’m not too surprised by this turn of events, though.”

“It’s really the only reason,” Sirius says. “Because you’re bloody great, you know that? You’re gonna make some guy really happy one day. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

Miles groans. “ ‘Its not you, it’s me’, ‘anyone would be lucky to have you’. Shall we go before you start telling me we can still be friends?”

Sirius grins. “Normally I’d suggest we at least pretend to have had a good snog, just to see if Marlene’s face can get any more purple, but I don’t want to give Remus the wrong impression. Not that he’d care,” he adds with a mutter.

Miles stops walking again. “What? Are you seri- No, Marlene warned me not to say that. Really?”

Sirius just blinks at him.

Miles shakes his head. “I mean, you asked if you were being obvious, well, you were nothing compared to Lupin. Although, that could just be me. I couldn’t help but notice when he’s looking at me like he wants me to catch fire every time I come near you. Wait. You wizards can actually do that, can’t you?”

Remus huffs. He wouldn’t have actually set Miles on fire! At least he doesn’t think so.

Sirius frowns at Miles. “You must be mistaken. Remus is nothing but pure kindness! He always makes everyone feel welcome! You can’t help but like Remus!”

A warm feeling spreads through Remus’ chest.

Miles just looks at Sirius, shaking his head. “You’re actually in love, aren’t you?”

Sirius blushes and looks away.

“Well,” Miles says. “You should tell him how you feel. He clearly feels the same. Then you can both stop this pining.”

James, who just had to process the shock of one of his best friends fancying another one of his best friends, now has to process the shock of his best friends fancying each other. He’s staring at Remus, and consequently trips over a rock. He does manage to catch is balance, but he lets out a loud yelp.

Miles stares at the empty spot behind them on the path, surprised, but Sirius’ eyes narrow in suspicion. He lifts his wand, and the next moment a gush of wind blows the Invisibility Cloak off of Remus and James.

To his credit, Miles recovers pretty quickly from seeing two people appear seemingly out of nowhere, including the person they were just talking about. He blinks a couple of times, then says “I suppose this works as well.”

Remus and Sirius are just staring at each other.

“Uhm...” James says. “I was sent here by miss McKinnon to escort the younger McKinnon back to the estate.” Because apparently awkward situations make him talk like he’s an eighteen century nobleman. “Off we go, young lad.”

Miles doesn’t protest when James grabs his arm and starts dragging him away, but he does turn around to give Sirius a thumbs up.

“We were sent here by McKinnon,” Remus quickly says, when he and Sirius are alone. “She wanted to know if anything would happen between you and her brother.” Remus takes a deep breath. “And maybe I wanted to know if anything would happen between you and him myself as well,” he says softly.

“Were you jealous?” Sirius asks. It sounds curious, not angry, judgemental or smug, just curious.

Still, Remus can’t help but pout, and he looks away. “Of course I was jealous. Bloody Miles McKinnon, with his big blue eyes, batting those ridiculously long eyelashes at you, and being all cute, and witty, and charming.”

“You know, if you want Miles to snog you instead, you should hurry and you can probably still catch him,” Sirius says irritably.

“No!” Remus quickly says. “No. I just mean, I wish it was me. When he calls you handsome, when he brushes your hair away from your face, when he leans in to kiss you... I wish it was me doing those things.”

“Why don’t you?” Sirius whispers, staring at Remus intently.

“Because!” Remus says desperately. “Because I know how to be your friend, but if I even think about flirting with you, I turn into an awkward, rambling mess.”

The only thing that can possibly be going through Sirius’ mind right now is how the hell he let the sexy, confident, flirtatious boy walk away, to be stuck with the flustered heap of awkwardness that is Remus Lupin.

Remus stares down at his shoes. “I mean, I like you a lot, and also because I feel comfortable around you, I do, but when it comes to flirting, I suddenly get scared that you’ll laugh at me or something. I even think it’d be easier if you weren’t my friend, if we didn’t know each other so well. Then maybe I could-”

Remus stops talking when Sirius gently cups his cheek and tilts his head up. Slowly, ever so slowly, he leans in, giving Remus enough time to pull away had he wanted to. Which, for the record, he absolutely doesn’t. Sirius presses their lips together. And it’s...

Well, it’s not awkward at all.

It’s fireworks, and symphonies, and the sun breaking through the clouds. It’s a sense of belonging, and knowing all is right with the world, and a feeling of coming home.

Both boys are a little out of breath when they pull back, more because of the intense emotions than because the kiss had been that passionate.

“See?” Sirius smiles at Remus. “If I want you to stop rambling, I can always just... interrupt.”

“Rude,” Remus mutters, before pulling Sirius back into another kiss.

[marley-manson]

☕️ Period of Adjustment

Thank you for the ask!

It's one of my favourite episodes. I think it's essentially meant to be the main payoff to several BJ moments over the course of the previous few seasons, eg "There must be a volcano under there somewhere," from Sidney, BJ punching Mulcahy's stress relief punching bag off its chain, etc. We see his anger issues a few other times, but this is the main episode where they actually have a major impact and take centre stage.

I think it's a really great episode for both BJ and Hawkeye, and BJ's issues here are interesting, complicated, and weird, and the episode pulls it off nicely.

So for BJ this episode is about feeling like he's both replaceable and a replacement. That's essentially the reason for the Trapper stuff, and the Hawkeye/Peg parallels here. Erin calling Radar daddy is what sets him off, and Hawkeye trying to reassure him with "It could've been anyone in a uniform" doesn’t help because the point is that he feels interchangeable. All Erin knows about him is that he's a stranger in a uniform, because he's missed most of her life.

There’s also the obvious parallel to Klinger’s inadequacy issues when he replaces Radar as clerk. The point of this episode is to explore the feelings of the “replacement” characters (Potter only gets like, a line about it, but yk, he basically states this theme directly.)

And like, it’s weird, right? It’s been 4 whole seasons for BJ, why are we exploring his issues with replacing Trapper as Hawkeye’s bff now? It could so easily feel tacked on and nonsensical. And frankly, it’s a wild choice to make the inciting incident for BJ’s Trapper-replacement issues beng BJ’s family issues rearing their head, but I think it’s one of my favourite writing decisions on the show, honestly.

BJ’s whole breakdown up to one of the final lines has been about Erin calling Radar daddy. There’s no mystery to this, we’ve known it since he read the letter. We can chalk BJ breaking the still and punching Hawkeye up to random lashing out bc Hawkeye’s annoying, and Charles even offers that as an explanation (”Clearly he was aiming for your mouth but it was moving too fast.”) That would be a perfectly adequate plotline for BJ - he’s sad about his family as per usual, he lashes out, he cries, he recovers. But nope, we gotta add Trapper in to parallel Klinger’s plot.

So with one sentence suddenly BJ’s Period of Adjustment plot isn't actually about BJ missing his daughter, it's about BJ feeling replaceable in both relationships, and explicitly comparing them. It's no longer just about BJ's specific sad situation, it's about the kind of person BJ is, it's about his deep-seated insecurities, war or no war. The war just brings them to the surface.

And it's overtly about the parallel between BJ's relationships with his family and with Hawkeye, and how they’re becoming equivalated to BJ. He starts off upset about any man in a unform being able to take his place in Erin’s eyes, and then lashes out at Hawkeye over feeling like a stand-in for Trapper. Like, in addition to being delightfully homoerotic, it ties in to BJ’s character arc and his shifting relationship to Hawkeye in a very interesting way.

Idk man, it's fantastic character writing imo. As an issue this insecurity is a perfect fit for BJ, who seems to... like to blend in to his environment and assimilate with others (eg the way he downplays his feelings, the way he adopts Hawkeye's style of joking and shifts from stilted to comfortable with it over the first season, his general upbeat friendliness), but occasionally lashes out and grows resentful of how accomodating he is (Wheelers and Dealers). It makes so much sense that he'd be insecure about being interchangeable deep down.

And as far as Hawkeye goes, I absolutely love the amount of dramatic focus the punch and the fallout gets. This is less analytical and more headcanon, but the way I read the scene in Potter's office, I see Hawkeye putting on the helmet as essentially drawing attention to what BJ did and vying for an apology without having to directly ask for one, because he needs BJ to apologize so he can forgive him, but it wouldn't feel as genuine if he asks first. The way he stands in the doorway uncomfortably until BJ does apologize, and then he immediately sits down, takes off the helmet and quickly says "it's okay" with what sounds to me like relief?

And this is entirely me projecting my own understanding of relationships as they might exist irl rather than anything directly suggested by the episode, this is full watsonian here, but I think if BJ hadn't apologized unprompted Hawkeye would've forgiven him anyway, because he needs BJ as a friend, but it would've... sucked a lot for him, yk? It would've strained things between them and altered the vibe.

Also Hawkeye being the one to comfort him sure is an illustrative statement that’s consistently followed through on over the course of their relationship. Like I really think that probably my favourite thing about late Mash, and maybe the objectively most well-written aspect of this chunk of the show, is Hawkeye and BJ’s complicated and often difficult relationship, and this is my favourite episode about it.

Hm what else... the tag of course, with the new still and the first born joke, extremely on point lol. And the last line being a joke about the punch nicely hammers home that it was the focus of the episode. Seems very likely to me that they had the idea for a dramatic episode where BJ lashes out at Hawkeye in mind for quite a while before getting to it, considering.

tl;dr Period of Adjustment good. It works extremely well thematically even though it seems like it shouldn’t, it illuminates BJ’s character in interesting and fitting ways, and it nicely illustrates some of the darker aspects of his friendship with Hawkeye.

send me a ☕️ and a topic and i’ll talk about how i feel about it

[malfoys-demigod]

Curious - Draco Malfoy x Reader

*redoing it again because i accidentally deleted the text

requested by the lovely @the--queen-of-hell​ request: So imagine Draco coming to visit you in your room, but just as he's about to knock on the door, he hears voices inside the room so he realizes you're not alone. You had invited your friends over (let's say Hermione and Ron are there keeping you company). Draco hears that they're both asking you and talking about HIM, so he stays a little bit longer, curious what you have to say. And they ask if Draco is in any way horrible to you, if he's mean to you. But you actually get overly defensive for your boyfriend. You tell them that they will never know him like you do, and that he's extremely sweet, and lovely. That no body really gives him a real chance, that  he deserves love and comfort as everyone else... So, time passes and you go out of your room and think about visiting draco, since you haven't seen him all day. You knock on his door, and once he opens it, he just pulls you in for a deep, but soft kiss. And then he pulls over and holds you in his embrace, then he whispers something like "thank you so much, for being in my life... for being by my side, always" fasjfklsmflksfj ;_;

It was a beautiful Saturday morning in Hogwarts. The sun was shining, the air was breezy, it was a sweater weather, and it was a beautiful day for Draco to take you on another date at Hogsmeade. 

The two of you officially showed the world that you two were a couple during the first weeks of the current school year. Sparks only started flying during the summer before the school year. His family and yours being close ties with each other decided to travel over the summer together. Being the only teenagers during the whole trip leads you to getting to know each other. 

With each quiet walk at night together or sitting together during meal times or trips to destinations, it showed that you started taking an interest in each other and later on fancying each other. It only took that very special night to finally express your love for each other. 

During one of those free days your parents had given you during the trip, Draco asked permission from both families if he could take you somewhere else for the day, including the night. During the day, he didn’t schedule any tours or guides for the day - no, he knew you wanted a free day wherein there were no tour guides or following authorities around. He found a nice garden for the two of you to walk around and lay on the grass and talk about literally anything. He opened up so much with you that you realized that he wasn’t exactly the resident bad boy of Hogwarts. He was a kind and loving person just like anyone else. For the night, oh, you were really lucky you wore something formal enough because this man booked two seats at one of the most fanciest places in the city you were visiting. Your table being in a secluded place gave him the privacy to start expressing his love for you, asking if you would like to take the relationship to the next level. Without thinking about it, you nodded, telling him you felt the same way. 

Now that school started, you both showed the world that you two were a thing. With holding hands, to small kisses around people, it told them that you, Y/N Y/L/N, were madly in love with Draco Lucius Malfoy, the Slytherin Prince, that everyone either despised him or were scared of him.

Of course half the school had the opposite thoughts that you were hoping not to hear. But you didn’t care and neither did Draco. It wasn’t their problem and they couldn’t manage to break you two up. Draco would personally have his father hear about any issues involving his son’s life and his girlfriend’s. You were technically family to the Malfoy’s already so Lucius would be willing to stand up for you. 

As it was a beautiful Saturday in Hogwarts, you got dressed up, enhanced your appearance, and began styling your hair. Placing the finishing touches to your appearance, you heard two knocks from the door. Assuming it was Draco picking you up earlier than expected, you started rushing your touches a little bit. “Hold on, Draco, just finishing a few touches to my appearance.”

Expecting to hear Draco come up with a way to compliment you, you were replied with a different voice which stunned you a little bit. “Oh, it’s not Draco,” said a feminine voice, “It’s Hermione.”

“Hermione?” you asked with curiosity. 

“Yes, along with Harry and Ron.”

All your final touches came to an end when you started walking up slowly to open the door to three slightly uncomfortable students in your year. The Golden Trio weren’t exactly the closest to you. Sure, you had moments where you’d talk to them, ask them how it’s going, and casually walk with them in Hogsmeade but not close enough to be an honorary member and tag along in their activities. So, it was a little uncomfortable for you to have them in your room as well. Nevertheless, you opened the door wide, and motioned for them to come in. 

“Have a seat anywhere.” you welcomed them in. 

“Thanks.” they all said in sync. 

“You look nice.” Hermione spoke, “Going somewhere?”

“Yeah, Hogsmeade, with Draco. But it’s a tad bit early so I’m not leaving yet.”

“Excellent, because we were hoping to talk to you.” Harry said. He stood up from your chair and walked toward you slowly. He looked unsure of his actions but wanted to show you the level of importance of the conversation. 

At the same time, Draco was walking towards your door, but quickly enough to hear a familiar voice just speak from your room. Thinking it was coming from the other room, he ignored it, but that voice… it was masculine, and really familiar. He slowly placed his ear on the door and started listening. 

On the other side of the door, you started speaking again. 

“Oh. Well, what is it Harry?”

Harry? Draco was angrily confused to hear Harry Potter in your room. Thinking it was just him and you alone, he was right about to storm in and scold Harry until another voice spoke. 

“It’s about Draco!” Hermione said, rolling her eyes at Harry who took a mere three seconds to say his enemy’s name. “We wanted to talk to you about your relationship with Draco.” 

“Oh,” you crossed your arms, “What about him and I?” you started sounding upset as you were quite aware of their standings with him. “I suppose you’re going to tell me how awful it is to be with him and that I should break up with him, don’t you?”

Hermione gave pitiful eyes as she thought you were reading a bit of her mind. She walked towards you and placed her hands on your shoulders and sighed. “We just want to know if he’s any way horrible to you, Y/N. This is Draco we’re talking about, he’s been nothing but vile and cruel to everyone in Hogwarts.”

“Yeah, and we’re just surprised that you wanted to date the most bloody evit git in school. Is it some arranged thing your parents have going on with his? We can help get you out of it.” Ron added. 

Hearing all this monstrosity, Draco decided to put your relationship with him to the test and stay, as he was curious to what you would say next. He trusted you of course but he just wanted to hear your comments about this without him being exactly there. 

Upset, you threw Hermione’s hands off your shoulders and jumped a step back from her, resulting in her doing the same thing. “Merlin’s beard!” you screamed. “You just never give him a chance, do you?”

“I-I don’t follow, Y/N.” Harry terrifyingly spoke. 

“Being with Draco has been the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. You actually don’t know how much of an extremely loving, caring, and sweet person he can actually be because you always throw fights and awful things to him the second you see him. You know, when I first had the chance to interact with him last summer, I wasn’t even hesitant of avoiding him because I actually sensed that underneath his black suit, he was a great person to know more of and I’m lucky that I didn’t treat him the way you guys do because you know, people want to be treated the way they treat people. If I wanted respect, I gave him respect. He deserves love and comfort like anyone else in this entire world and I’m glad to be filling that empty part of his life that he’s been craving for.”

Right after your triumphant speech, Draco quickly rushed all the way to his dorm because as a matter of fact, he was starting to tear up and what better way to hide his softness from the entire school body than run back to his room to hopefully stop crying. But he couldn’t. It was really difficult for him to because throughout his entire life, he has never had somebody like you to defend him as a person. He really couldn’t believe he finally had someone like you in his life. If people knew how soft he was, he could have opened the door and started crying on his knees, telling you how much he loves you. But the stupid golden trio just had to be there, he thought. 

“Oh,” Harry said. “Well, that was a surprise.”

“Yeah, he totally didn’t give her amortentia.” Ron joked, which only resulted in Hermione and you looking at him deadly. “What?” he innocently asked. 

“I’m really sorry I had to lash out that way. It’s just-”

“No, we get it,” Hermione said, “I’m really glad he has someone. Maybe he can actually soften up in school. I hope you can keep it that way.” she smiled. 

“Believe me, he’s really a soft person. But I think I can foresee him softening up in school, you just have to be around to see it.” you joked. 

“Excellent, truly. You have to stay with him, Y/N, we’re counting on you to see a changed Malfoy over the years.” Harry smiled, giving you a small pat on the shoulder. 

“Bet he’ll actually call you a friend by the end of our Hogwarts year?” you asked.

“Bloody hell, I’ll definitely keep my grades up in order to see that.” Ron looked at you with a surprise. 

“See you around, Y/N.” Hermione said, giving you a small hug, only for you to give a bigger hug as she chuckled. 

“Bye.” you said to them as they exited the room. 

Well, that was quite a way to start the morning. All that lashing out got you to lay down in bed and actually forget about Hogsmeade for a second only to remember how you dressed up nicely for today. Standing up quickly, you started getting your gloves and ran out to Draco’s room immediately. 

When you arrived at his door, you knocked twice, waiting for him to open the door. There was no response. So you tried again and knocked twice. 

“Draco, it’s me. Y/N.”

The door immediately swung open as you saw Draco with slightly pink eyes and light bags under his eyes. Without hesitation, he pulled your waist for him to softly kiss you in the lips. As your lips and his were playing around, he wrapped his arms around you tighter, as he was trying not to forget this feeling of true love. 

When he pulled back, you cupped his teary-eyed face with carefulness as you wiped a tear off his right eye. “Draco,” you cooed. 

Having a hard time containing the emotions he was feeling, he embraced you with a bone-crushing hug, only for you to give him the same. You weren’t exactly sure why he was sobbing but he deserves a giant hug anyways. Giving him all the patience to speak up, he finally did, and it started out with a weak, “T-thank you.”

“For what, sweetheart?”

“For everything.”, he said, “"Thank you so much, for being in my life, and for being by my side, always.”

“Oh, Draco.” you said, rubbing his back, “You and me? This is forever.”

[itsclydebitches]

Hi Clyde! I know this might be a bit late to the conversation but I just wanted to ask if you think M&K are writing Yang through a male lens? Not in the sense she's hyper-sexualised, but in the sense she lashes out at her allies without consequences (Fiona), has little empathy for female survivors of abuse (Salem and Blake) and gives her loved ones the cold shoulder when she doesn't agree with them rather than trying to reach an understanding (Blake and Ren).

Hi there, anon! No one is ever late to the conversation around here, not when I'm forever answering months-old asks lol

On the whole I would say no, simply because - as many others have pointed out in regards to other posts - this behavior is by no means seen solely in Yang. Ruby is out there lashing out in Volume 6, Jaune was giving Ren the same cold shoulder, no one else has expressed any empathy for the abuse survivors lately (though Yang might actually have a point in her favor there, given her talk with Weiss in Volume 5, when she learns about her mom's drinking). My point being, pretty much everyone is written with this classic masculine lens right now, where being angry, violent, and dismissive are framed as the correct way to approach problems, whether we're talking about Weiss shoving her weapon in Whitley's face, or Nora coolly brushing aside Ren's concerns. The exceptions being, to my mind, Ren - who learned this season that considering a kinder, more strategic approach is wrong - and Oscar who is embodying the archetype of the innocent child so fully that it allows him to forgive/grant absolution outside of the bounds of the story's internal logic and gendered expectations. Him reaching out to Hazel, Emerald, and even Ozpin is less a commentary on gender and more an extreme upholding of his status as the youngest and, comparatively, most innocent (which, as said previously, bumps up against Ruby's same, former status). Think Harry Potter, destroying evil with the love in his skin as an 11yo by merely touching Quirrel's face, not an older teenager hurling a dark curse at Malfoy while overflowing with rage. Oscar is still very much in that initial stage of being the young, baby-faced character who is not yet jaded and is thus able to overcome evil purely by wishing it so. Yet everyone else, including Yang, gets by on lies, secrets, violence, and anger - no matter how much the story wants to dress it up as heroics. So Yang is by no means alone in that.

What does interest me regarding Yang characterization right now is not, strictly speaking, about Yang. Rather, it’s about the presumed relationship with Blake and how changes to Blake’s character have reflected back on Yang. I won’t go into a full, eight season analysis of it here, but suffice to say, Blake’s personality has taken a sharp dive lately, most notably in the most recent volume. She used to be an opinionated, outspoken woman, the kind of person who marched up to Weiss in the middle of the street to denounce her family’s slavery, fighting for her people with as much intensity in a conversation as she gave on the battlefield. This is the woman who stormed off in anger at Weiss’ racism, demanded a solemn oath from Yang if she was going to believe her about the Mercury fight, rallied an army to defend Haven, set her own house on fire to defend her parents... I could go on. Blake used to only be quiet when it came to settling down with a good book. Now she’s far more meek and submissive. She’s been reduced to blushing prettily at Yang’s praise, begging Ruby to save her, going along with Yang’s plans for betrayal because she’s scared about killing again, clasping Ruby’s hands to assure her that she’ll save them all, etc. I use the term “reduced” intentionally because, on their own, there’s nothing wrong with any of these traits. If anything, Blake should be a more well-rounded character for being able to collapse crying over Adam, or go tongue-tied at a compliment. The problem lies in replacing her original personality with this new one: softer, less confrontational, less skilled, no longer as determined, no longer as angry, keeping to the background to play at comic relief or the damsel in distress. I bring all this up because - within the comparatively slim queer rep we’ve gotten in media - there’s a long history of writing them so that one is clearly the “man” in the relationship and the other is clearly the “woman.” This extends from visual markers like dividing them between assumed masculine and feminine clothing preferences - who wears dresses and who can pass for a boy in a baseball hat and sweats? - to caching in on equally assumed personality traits - who is the calm and compassionate individual; who has the temper and is constantly itching for a fight? To use two examples, think of couples like Sapphire and Ruby, or Kurt and Blaine. One is a cool blue in flowy dresses, always working to be sensible, while the other is an angry red in a sensible shirt and pants, easily pissed off. One is practicing a version of Beyoncé's “Single Ladies” in a sequined leotard, framed as the lady, whereas the other sings “Teenage Dream” in a suit at the piano, a song meant to appeal to the teenage girls watching, no matter the character’s sexuality. I’m simplifying a LOT here, including the context for the times (Glee) and the ways in which this divide is sometimes flipped (Ruby and Sapphire’s wedding), but my point is that whether authors realize it or not, they often force their queer characters into the gender binary, even while they’re supposedly meant to be challenging those norms. Blake and Yang, to get to a long-winded point, are becoming a part of that trend, wherein the closer they get to becoming a canonical couple, the more classically feminized Blake becomes. That, in turn, positions Yang as the “man” of the relationship. Already embodying some of those assumptions with her tough personality and brawl fight style, Blake’s regression into someone in need of rescue, someone less likely to speak up, someone who is visually positioned as less confident and in need of emotional care (think of her drooped ears and inability to make eye contact in “Ultimatum)” only increases that reading, especially given arcs like Yang’s insistence that she doesn’t need anyone protecting her, morphing into her becoming Blake’s protector instead. Yes, the dialogue states that they protect each other, but we all know RWBY struggles to show what the characters claim. Scenes like Yang arriving on a badass motorcycle to fight the majority of the battle against Adam, ending with her cradling a sobbing Blake who promises to never leave her side, or confidently taking Blake’s cheek in hand to comfort her after their not-fight, a moment of confidence and (unneeded) forgiveness... this all speaks volumes of something RWBY doesn’t think is there. So I don’t believe it’s intentional and, as said, there are a lot of complexities to take into account here, but I nevertheless don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’ve lost so much of Blake’s original personality right around the time the show got more serious about their relationship. As a presumed queer couple, there’s an instinctual desire to figure out which is the “guy” and which is the “girl” in the relationship, with Yang being positioned as the former the more Blake changes to fit the latter. 

[adenei]

Hiiii! Promt # 1 - angst 6 (Could you have Ron tell Hermione?), 14 and 18, and thank you very much in advance!

Hi anon! Sorry this one took me so long. The idea was there, but the execution was slowwwww.

Here’s an HBP AU of what could have happened had Ron and Hermione hashed things out immediately following the infamous Ron & Ginny row.

*******************

Lies

Hermione looked up as she heard the portrait hole open. Ron stormed in looking livid. He made eye contact with her for a split second and then looked away as if he were about to head up the stairs.

“Ron, what’s wrong?” she asked as she stood up from the chair she’d been sitting in.

“Oh, like you don’t already know?” he spat at her.

“Um, no actually I don’t, that’s why I’m asking..” Hermione said. She was trying to think what could have been done or said for him to be acting this way. Other than a bad practice, that was. They were fine earlier.

“Yeah, sure. I know you’re lying to me again. Why can’t you just tell me the truth for once?” His face was getting redder and redder by the second.

The words felt like a slap to Hermione’s face, and her temper began to rise at an alarming rate. “Last I checked, I do tell you the truth. You’re the one sputtering about something that I have no knowledge of. If you want answers, then ask me. I will not stand here and be wrongly accused of something!”

“You lied to me about Krum! You told Harry and Ginny, but apparently didn’t think I needed to know!” Harry chose the wrong moment to enter the portrait hole. He must have been waiting to avoid this.

Hermione shot Harry a confused and hurt look. “What’s he on about?”

Harry shook his head. “He got in a row with Ginny. I’m not getting involved.”

Hermione looked positively exasperated with Harry before rounding back on Ron. “Please, enlighten me about Krum! What have you learned about me that even I don’t know about myself?!” Her voice was becoming dangerously high.

Ron didn’t respond to her. He just shook his head and turned around to head up the stairs to the boy’s dormitory.

“Don’t you dare walk away from this!” she screeched. 

When he made no signs of stopping or turning around, Hermione went after him. By the time she reached the foot of the stairs, his long legs had already carried him out of sight. She ran up the flights of stairs and pushed the door open with a little too much force. He was kicking his shoes off next to his bed when she stomped in.

“This is not over. You need to tell me what it’s about right now,” she said hotly.

“And why should I do that?” Ron snapped back. Why couldn’t he make this easier?

“Because I deserve to know!” Hermione stamped her foot on the ground.

“Oh,” Ron chortled, “You deserve to know?”

“Seeing as how it concerns me, yes! You don’t get to just be mad at someone for a reason unbeknownst to them!”

“How about you stop using words that sound like you’re better than me. Vicky’s not here to impress,” Ron spat.

Hermione stared at him, her fists clenching in anger. “What is it about Viktor this time? I thought we were past this!”

Ron snorted, “I did too, until you decided not to tell me that you snogged him.”

“What?” Hermione froze, her face blank as she tried to process his words.

“You heard me.”

“Well, it’s not like anyone else ever showed an interest in me!” she said, her anger starting to bubble up from her stomach again. “And it’s not lying if it never came up!”

“That’s beside the point.” Ron waved it off.

“It most certainly is not! And for your information, Harry only knows because he walked in on Ginny grilling me about it when we were at Grimmauld Place. Why are you so put off about it anyways?” she asked, crossing her arms in front of her.

“Not important.”

“Then why is it bothering you so much?” They had both been shouting at each other.

“Forget it, Hermione! Unless you have any other lies left to tell me,” he said with a scowl.

“No! Not until this gets set straight! What would I have to lie to you about?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Viktor probably wasn’t available for Sluggy’s party so you invited me out of pity,” Ron said coolly.

“Pity? PITY?” Hermione had never been so annoyed and hurt in her life.

“Yeah, Hermione, pity! I’m sure you feel bad that you and Harry get to go to all his little tea parties, and thought, ‘oh, this is the only chance for Ron to join us. I guess I better invite him,’” he said in a voice that poorly mocked her own.

Blood was pounding in Hermione’s head. She was sure her face was as red as it felt hot, and she didn’t care about holding back anymore. “Well, when you put it like that, maybe that does make more sense than PUTTING MYSELF OUT THERE AND ASKING MY BEST FRIEND OUT ON A DATE!” 

Hermione was breathing so heavily that her chest was heaving up and down. She had no idea how loud she’d gotten, and the adrenaline was pumping so hard she didn’t even realize what she’d just said. All she cared about was making Ron see the idiocy in the way he sounded. Even if it meant revealing more information than she’d intended.

The silence was almost more deafening than their shouts. She was waiting for him to yell back at her, and was taken aback when his words were much softer, and the anger all but gone. “It is a date?” 

Despite his sudden change of demeanor, Hermione still remained haughty. “That was my intention, yes.”

“So Viktor wasn’t your first choice?” he asked again, but much calmer this time.

Hermione opened her mouth to speak, but only air came out as her head shook at the ridiculousness of his words. “He was never my first choice. Not for the Yule Ball, not for who I wanted to spend my summer with, and certainly not now!”

They were quietly staring at each other. Neither daring to move. Hermione had all but confessed to him how she felt, and yet she was still no closer to confirming or denying if he felt the same way. “So, I haven’t buggered this up so much that you’d take back your invitation, have I?”

She raised eyebrows as she set her hands on her hips. “Are you going to continue accusing me of lying to you?”

“No,” he said sheepishly.

Hermione chanced taking a few steps closer to him. “Next time, can you just ask me about something instead of blowing up at me for no reason?”

He grinned lopsidedly as Hermione’s heart melted. “What would be the fun in that?”

She noticed he’d taken a few steps closer, too. She looked up at him through her lashes. He was close enough to touch now. I could think of a few other things, she thought, but was too afraid to say.

“Sorry. It was just a shit practice.”

“I figured,” Hermione said.

“Thanks,” he said sarcastically. “And then Harry and I ran into Ginny and Dean snogging in the shortcut behind the tapestry and my temper got the best of me.”

“Well, maybe you should find other ways to expel your energy,” she commented nonchalantly.

“Any suggestions?” he asked. 

His voice had suddenly gotten lower, which caused Hermione to involuntarily inch even closer to him. Her fingers accidentally grazed his and it felt like an electric shock shot straight through her. She tilted her head up to respond to him, but when their eyes met, her vocabulary became blank. All she could focus on was the way those blue eyes were seemingly staring deep into her soul. The sweat and dirt and grime that no doubt still covered him from practice made no difference to her in this moment.

Hermione’s eyes fluttered down to his lips, where she could feel his shallow, quick breaths against her cheek. They were mere centimeters apart now. All she had to do was lean in and-. She felt her heavy eyelids close as her lips grazed his. More was the only word her brain could compute. 

They hovered there because despite wanting more, Hermione still wasn’t certain what Ron wanted. She knew the choice between taking a chance or remaining where it was comfortable was hers to make. Hermione felt her body lean in of its own accord, now firmly pressing her lips against his. She held her breath as they remained connected, waiting for him to make his move.

The anticipation was becoming too much, but just when Hermione was about to break away, she felt his hands slide onto her hips, pulling her closer so that their bodies now touched. To Hermione’s amazement, Ron continued the kiss, albeit timidly, and her heart burst with joy. If he hadn’t had a strong grip on her, her legs probably would have collapsed.

It’d been so long since she had done this with someone that she wasn’t exactly sure if she was doing it right. Then again, it’d only been a couple times, and she’d followed Viktor’s lead. She always broke it off because it was too much, and it wasn’t fair to him. This was different. Clumsy as though it felt, she didn’t want to stop. They only broke apart because they thought they heard voices in the stairwell.

They stood there awkwardly for a moment, still embracing, when Ron said, “I should, er, probably get cleaned up.”

“Oh, okay,” Hermione said as her face blushed.

“We can, er, talk or whatever after if you want?” he asked hopefully.

“Yes, I’d like that. I’ll, um, meet you back in the common room?” Hermione reluctantly stepped back, losing the connection between them as Ron nodded.

They both smiled shyly at each other as Hermione backed away slowly and Ron eventually moved out of his stupor to get things from his trunk. She turned and made her way out of the door. When she turned to start down the steps, she noticed a very guilty Harry and Ginny standing just outside the door.

She stopped and stared at them, and opened her mouth to speak. “What are you-. Nevermind, I don’t want to know.” Hermione simply shook her head and continued on her way. She really didn’t care what they were planning, and she was happy they hadn’t interrupted anything.

Ginny gave Harry a contemptuous look before saying, “See, Potter? They seem to have sorted things out on their own for once, and it looks as if whatever I said must have pushed them in the right direction.” Ginny gave him a smug look as she tossed her hair over her shoulder and began walking back down the stairs, leaving Harry completely gobsmacked.

[g0ldengubler]

chapter 6~life is a “high” way

(*i do not own this gif*)

A/N: this chapter is honestly one of personal favs because we get to see more of spencer feeling more confident in himself in a way while still being him and it’s just aaaaa :’) tomorrow you will get chapter 7 but then after that, expect chapters to come out a bit slower, including requests (which i am working on currently and thank you so much for sending them my way!). lots of my focus needs to be on my personal life but writing helps me get through all of that hell, so i’m in a very wishy washy position lol. thank you so much for the love on nauseous i love uuuuuu

Category: fluff w smut at the end

CW: road head, d/s dynamic, daddy kink

Word Count: 3282

before you read | last chapter | next chapter (coming soon!*)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spencer parks in front of your apartment building and stays in his seat as you get out. You both had decided that packing up right away and not going to lunch was better. That way, you can learn more about each other on the way there. You couldn't wait to get inside that smarty-pants brain of his and find out what's really going on in there.

You shut the car door and start walking, but stop when you don't hear his footsteps behind you. When you walk back to the car, you see Spencer sticking his battery in the cigarette lighter to charge.

"You're more than welcome to come in, y'know." You chuckled.

Spencer looks up at you, licking his lips as he moves some of his hair behind his ear. "It's ok, I don't want to bother."

"You won't be a bother. I've been to yours, now you can come into mine."

"Oh, so that's how that works huh? You have to go into the guys apartment before the guy goes to yours?" Spencer said sarcastically.

"You know what I mean!" You pull open the car and grab his hand, "C'mon, Spence. You'll be fine!"

He giggles under his breath and comes out of the car. After locking it, the two of you head inside and up the elevator to the 4th floor. Once at your door, you unlock it and open up to 4 paws jumping onto you. You hear Spencer gasp in surprise and giggle at his reaction, making it seem like you were giggling at your two buddies. Sitting on your old couch was your next door neighbor, Seth, who was watching Pose on the tv.

"Thank you again for watching the boys while I was gone. I really owe you big time for doing this." you say as you get up from the floor.

Seth gets off of the couch and walks up to you to give you a hug. "Anytime! If anything, they can stay at my place when you go on a case-" He stops and looks over at Spencer, standing awkwardly by the door still and letting the dogs sniff him, "Although, it seems like this new case was a success."

"Shut up, Seth!" You giggle, lightly slapping him on the arm. Realizing you forgot your manners, you quickly try to take it back. "Seth, meet Dr.Spencer Reid. Doc, meet my neighbor, Seth."

Seth reached his hand out to shake, but Spencer politely denies. "Sorry, I-I don't shake hands. It's actually been proven that it's safer to kiss." You catch Seth's eyes looking him up and down. "Seth stop teasing him like that!" You laugh. Spencer wasn't into guys, but somehow Seth looking at him made you a little jealous. You're not even dating the man, y/n shut up, you think to yourself.

"You and I will talk later." He says.

"Oh, Spence! These are my babies. The scottie is Benedict and the husky is Draco."

The room went silent for a moment, Spencer trying to hold in a chuckle. "Yes, I did name them after Benedict Cumberbatch and Draco Malfoy. I've had them picked out since I was a teenager, don't judge."

"Oh c'mon hun," said Seth, "it's adorable that you named them the way you did."

"It is," Spencer spoke, "I didn't depict you as a nerd."

"Oh my god, you kidding? She's probably the biggest nerd I've ever met with all her Sherlock and other crime shows, Harry Potter, Doctor Wh-"

"Ok, I think he gets it Seth!" You cut him off. That was enough embarrassment for today.

"I will say, Benedict or Tom Felton could always come my way."

You slap him on the arm again laughing. You look back at Spencer, who was awkwardly chuckling along with. You then announce that you were going to get in the shower. "Seth, can you take them for a few more nights? We're going up to my dad's cabin back home for the weekend. Also, when I get out and do my makeup, you promised me that you would tell me how your date went last night with 'Mr.Perfect' as you said it."

"Bitch I have ALLLLLL the tea that I'm not missing on spilling!"

"Good. Now you two get along. And Spence," He looks up at you, his hazel eyes looking into you...

"Don't miss me too much, hm?"

Then you walked into your bathroom, trying to wrap your brain on the fact that you just said that to him.

                           ~Spencer's POV~ I can't believe she said that.

She left me here a little turned on. I could start feeling my pants getting tight and had to put my bag over myself as I sat on the couch so then I wouldn't embarrass myself in front of Seth. I looked around her apartment to distract myself of thoughts of being in the shower with her. She had a very interesting aesthetic. Walls white with old picture frames that had beautifully taken old photos in them. The lamps that were in the living room looked like they were from the 70's, old gold coating chipped off at some parts of the stand. While there was a vintage look to her place, it was also very modern at the same time, a minimalistic look took over her kitchen. She had a fake vine hanging from the wall behind her tv, some of it covering her maroon record player. In some ways, our aesthetics were similar. If she had a bookcase in here, I'd feel like I was at my place.

Seth and I began to get to know each other. I came to find out that Seth worked as a bartender at a club, and he enjoyed taking photos for his social media. "I would love to be a photographer," he said, "but right now it's just a hobby that I do mostly during the colder months." He says cold, cloudy days (especially if it's raining) were the best times to take photos, in his opinion.

"So," he says, "you work with y/n at the BAU?"

"Yeah, we've really become good friends in the past 9 days. It's like we've known each other for years. Plus, she's great out on the field. She's definitely someone myself and the rest of the team will never take for granted."

"Thank god," Seth said as I heard the water turn off, "She told me that it was her dream to be a part of the BAU. She would never stop talking about it when she was in college."

"Hm, she never mentioned that to me."

"Well, let her tell you on your way to the cabin. She'll love it."

After a little bit more conversation, y/n came back to the living room. Her hair was damp, not fully wet but not dry either. She had thrown on a white turtle neck shirt with a brown sweater vest over it. She matched it with darker brown corduroy pants, cuffing the bottoms. In her hands was what looked like to be her makeup bag. She sat down in front of the mirror that was in the corner on the left side of the tv (when you look at the tv), beginning the process.

Seth and y/n talk about his date from last night and got pretty detailed about it. He talked about how the man took him to a gay bar that was a few blocks from here, and how they danced and drank the night away. "Oh and then get this," says Seth, "we're pretty drunk at this point, right? Well at one point, the local queen that performed came up to me and tried to flirt and shit, thinking she was all that and a bag of lashes, and he saw how uncomfortable I was and stood up for me. And let me tell you, he was REA-DY to throw hands!"

"Stooooop he's literally a keeper!" y/n says.

Once she was done with her makeup, she gets up and goes back to her room, coming back out with her luggage. She goes over to the door to grab a pair of Vans and comes back to tell Seth and her children goodbye.

"I'll be back in a few days. Thanks again, Seth. I really-"

"Owe me one, I know I know!" Seth cuts her off, "Now go have some fun and relax, you need to after working so damn hard for this job!" He turns to me and waves. "And it was very nice meeting you, Doctor."

"It was nice to meet you, too! But please, you can just call me Spencer."

Seth smiles as we walk out the door. What this trip will bring? For once, I'm letting fate take the lead instead of science.

~Y'N's POV~ It had been about a few hours of being on the road. At this point, you were somewhere in Pennsylvania, but not sure if you were close enough to Philly to grab a cheesesteak. You think back to the start of the drive. You suggested that you'd be the dj because your library on spotify had a full range of genres with some songs you had no clue were in there. "It'd be a fun little journey!" You told Spencer. And that it was, a journey.

You ended up driving right by a dispensary before even leaving DC. Garcia told you that that's where she gets her stuff, but knowing that bringing a lot of weed across the country wouldn't be a fun trip, you two decided to go with the original plan and just wait till you get to Michigan.

You could tell Spencer was getting a kick out of your music library. While majority of the songs he didn't know, he was still being goofy and jamming out along with you, trying to match the same energy you were having. The songs that talked about sex, drugs, and/or alcohol surprised him every time, his jaw dropping or his eyes bulging out of his head as he listened to the lyrics. You couldn't help yourself but laugh at his reactions, which would make him laugh along with you.

You two weren't alone, however. You were pretty much sucking down on the carts you still had, although you both made a deal that whoever was driving could only get a little high if they wanted to, drinking plenty of water and eating snacks to sober you up a bit if needed.

Driving through Pennsylvania, you look out the window and onto the scenery around you. You weren't paying attention, however, because you couldn't stop the dirty thoughts that intruded your mind. You couldn't help to think about giving him head, since you hadn't done it yet because both times he gave you all the pleasure. You couldn't wait to get to the cabin and go straight to your knees for him. Suddenly, you tried to get them out of your head. 'You're getting way too excited, y/n. STOP IT!' you thought to yourself.

You decided to just feel everything around you, taking a few more hits from your pen before taking it in. Nineteen by Movements was playing; it was like you could feel the song itself and everything about it as you looked up at the very tall street lamps passing by. Nothing felt better than this moment. Just you and Spencer out on the open road. It felt like nothing could stop you two. You felt free, but you also felt safe and complete, something you haven't felt in a long time.

At one point, you couldn't take it anymore. It was 2:30am and Spencer was still driving. He told you to get some sleep but you weren't sleepy or tired at all. You tried to feel free but when you did, you thought of Spencer, which led to dirty thoughts. It was like you couldn't escape it, and every time the thoughts came, you couldn't help but secretly rub your thighs together for some kind of friction.

As you tried to get the thoughts out of your head, you look over to see a nice little surprise. The passing lights outside helping you see, you noticed the bulge in Spencer's pants. How in the hell would he be getting hard now of all times? Were dirty thoughts intruding his mind, too? Seeing that made you even more wet than you already were. This was your chance.

You look out to the open road in front of you, and gently graced your fingers across his bulge. You look out the corner of your eye...nothing. Not even a flinch. 'Playing hard to get, hm?' You thought to yourself. So you did it again, which made him shift in his seat a little, still pretending he didn't notice anything. Finally, with some kind of courage that you never knew you had, you grabbed his cock through his pants and slowly started to stroke it. His eyes came out of his head, letting out a small gasp.

"You know I'm driving, right?" He asked, "We could crash if I'm paying attention more to this and not on the road."

You give him a smirk, "It's almost 3am," you begin to say, but then you notice that you're the only car on the road, "and no one else is on the road right now."

You start to undo his belt with your one hand. "You pleasured me twice already," you continue, your hand successfully undoing the belt and undoing the zipper on his pants, reaching inside to pull out his already, fully hard cock, "I need to show my thanks somehow, don't I?"

Spencer shifts in his seat, keeping his eyes out on the road. You were kind of hoping he was looking for somewhere to pull over, but you wouldn't mind doing it as he drove. "You...you already did...b-by inviting me to your dad's cabin."

You stopped stroking and he almost let out a whimper. "I saw that bulge in your pants just a few minutes ago, are you suuuurree you don't want to...daddy?"

Just hearing the word 'daddy' made him grab your hair tightly. You smiled as you shifted your position in your seat to go down on him. When you were ready, Spencer stopped at a red light and pulled your face close to his, lips almost ghosting each other.

"You better make daddy feel good then, since you're being such a fucking brat right now." He whispered as you continued to slowly stroke him again.

You couldn't even react to what he said because once the light turned green, he guided your head down to his cock before letting the tightness on your head go and letting his hand rest on top. You decided to egg on your bratty-ness by teasing the tip, giving him kitty licks at first and then slowly just running your tongue in it, licking up the pre cum.

Spencer tightens his grip again, making you whimper. "I'm not sure doing that is a good idea, angel. Do you want to get punished once we're there?"

You shook your head no, but the thought of him punishing you made you feel yourself drip between your thighs.

Spencer moves his grip from your hair and slaps your ass with a huge SMACK, which made you moan loudly.  "You have to use your words, angel. Unless you want to be a little slut tonight."

You look up at him to see his eyes were still on the road. You smirk as you pump him a few times before taking his head in your mouth. You bob up and down slowly, hearing him grunt and curse under his breath. You step it up by going down a little lower, each time going back up and then going lower until you had all of him in your mouth. You stayed like that for a few moments, gagging on it.

"Oh fuuuck that's it...that's it baby, take my cock in your mouth, just like that." He says before pulling you off to let you breathe. He's quiet for a moment before he says, "Now I'm going to guide you, angel. You're gonna make daddy feel more good than he already was, got it?"

"Yes, daddy." you answer, knowing that he wanted to hear you say again.

He pushes your head back on his cock, moving you head faster than before. He couldn't get enough it, making you gag every so often and pulling you back up. Spencer's cock twitched in your mouth and you knew he was close. He controls your head faster, his rhythm getting sloppy.

"You want me to cum in that pretty mouth of yours, angel? You want daddy's cum?" He growled, trying not to thrust into your mouth as he continues to drive.

"Mhmm!" You moan, which almost made him go over the edge.

"Keep doing that for daddy, moan for me. God, I bet you just love having my cock in your mouth, but I'm sure you're just desperate for my cum."

You moan again. That you were. You wanted his cum so bad in your mouth so you could taste him; taste how good you made him feel.

"Don't...fuck...don't stop doing that, angel...that's it...fuck I'm gonna cum..."

And with that, you feel his cum shoot inside your mouth, letting out moans and cursing. You slowly continued to suck him, getting every last drop. When you did, you move up to face Spencer as he pulled over, showing his cum in your mouth at first and then closing your mouth to swallow and open back up to show him it was gone. The look in his eyes told you that that was the hottest thing he's ever seen.

Spencer pulls you in surprisingly and attacks your lips with his, as if he was hungry for them. He was almost eating your face but you didn't care, you kissed him back and let your tongues play with one another. You both pull away after a bit and he just looks into your eyes. You look into his hazel eyes and felt complete.

"Now, will you stop being a brat and get some sleep?" He asks.

You giggle as you quickly look at the time in the car radio. "It's 3:15," you said, "it's my turn to drive."

"But now you're all tired from pleasing daddy," he jokes, "so you get some sleep, and I'll drive. I really don't mind it. Honest."

"Are you sure?"

Spencer nods his head. You decided to give in and get comfy in your seat.

"Goodnight, Spence." You say as you move the top part of the seat all the way back. You grabbed your traveling pillow and placed it on top of your right arm, laying your head as you turned your body to face away from him.

"Goodnight, angel."

[austen-tatious]

Northanger Abbey Lee Miller

        Prior to this year I hadn’t read Northanger Abbey or Pride and Prejudice, surprisingly as a fourth-year English major.  Even more surprisingly I liked Northanger Abbey the best out of all the Jane Austen works I’ve read, more specifically, I think that Henry Tilney is the most attractive Austen love-interest. 

         I made this meme to represent my hot takes on Austen-men that I’ve developed from this class. I didn’t use a template, but rather edited photos over stills from the TV show “Dance Moms”.  I chose the “Dance Moms” pyramid scene because It reminds me a lot of our discussions every week in class; we often circle back to debates around which Jane Austen love interest is the best, and the “Dance Moms” pyramid functions in the show to do just that—rank each week’s best performer. If you follow the show, you will understand more, but if you don’t, allow me to try to explain. One of the running themes in the “Dance Moms” TV show is that every week when they do the pyramid, Maddy is on top, because Maddy is Abby’s favorite. This favoritism is evident even outside of the pyramid—Maddy can truly do no wrong in Abby’s eyes and she is constantly rewarded with solos, praise, and one-on-one practice sessions with Abby free of charge. Likewise, all of the other girls have to work twice has hard (if not three times as hard) in order to get recognized by Abby, and even when they do just as well as Maddy, they are still not praised for it. Abby talks more critically to these girls, specifically the Chloe, who is the closest in age and talent to Maddy. Now, this isn’t to say that Maddy isn’t an amazing dancer, she is, and since the show she has gone on to be very successful. However, she is not necessarily better (at least not all the time) than the other girls, especially Chloe. Now, Abby represents the Janites, Maddy is Darcy, and Chloe is Henry Tilney (for the purposes of this post I am only including Austen love interests from the books the have read thus-far), which is why I chose a rare scene where Chloe ends up on the top of the pyramid, Maddy coming in second. I also took the liberty of filling in the other open slots, which I feel like I could get some back lash for that bottom row, but I feel pretty strongly about it.

         I personally believe that Darcy is over-hyped. I think that this is partially due to the movies that have come from Pride and Prejudice. This lends into our discussion around cannon and what is accepted as cannon in the Jane Austen fan base. Pride and Prejudice, unlike almost all of the other novels, has a film version that has a fan base that hasn’t read the book, as well as a fan base that has. The move over-romanticizes Darcy in a way I don’t think that the book does. Something we haven’t talked about yet that I feel like we need to, is how intertwined erraticism and fan-made works are. For example, 50 Shades of Grey was a Twilight fan-fiction, just as Twilight was a Harry Potter fan-fiction and each one is more sexual than the next. There are no sex scenes in Harry Potter, however there are several in Twilight, and all of 50 Shades of Grey revolves around sex. Fan fiction and fan art revolve around sex, filling in the blanks of the intimate between characters, and even fostering relationships between two characters who don’t actually have any romantic relation in the original story. I think that this romanticized Darcy is the one that people chose to picture and fawn over—not the Darcy that is on the page of the book.

           Henry Tilney is charismatic, smart, mostly handsome, and rich enough. Further, Henry mentors Catherine in his own quirky way, preparing her more for the real world than the manipulative Isabella and the diluted Mrs.Allen. He isn’t afraid to show his feminine side, which is a more-modern taste than one of the period. Like Elizabeth Bennett, I don’t think that TIlney would struggle if he were yanked out of his world and placed into ours—perhaps he too is “born out of time”. More so, I would argue that Tilney is more selfless than Darcy because he defies his father for Catherine forsaking the most important thing to a man in the 18th century—his money. Would Darcy give up all of his wealth for Elizabeth? Would Darcy have any good qualities if his wealth didn’t permit him to be selfless? I personally don’t think so. While Tilney falls for Catherine because she loves him, Darcy falls for Elizabeth because she doesn’t—and he becomes obsessed, which I personally would find annoying and maybe even creepy if I were her. If in modern times an older man was paying for everything for a woman, proposing to her every few months, and yet still treating her as if she is lesser-than him, we would call that a sugar daddy, not a love-interest. Instead, I believe the reason we like Darcy (even in the book) isn’t just because of the movie depictions that glorify him, but because we like Elizabeth, just as we dislike Henry because we don’t like Catherine (at least in the beginning). Through free-indirect discourse we get proportionately more of the female characters than the male, and thus our judgements are based more on their interiority than on the male characters themselves. Like Abby Lee Miller in “Dance Moms”, the fan base has an undying biased towards Darcy, but there is so much more to Austen then a rich bachelor. 

[weapingweasley]

sore loser ~pt. 1~ (george weasley x narrator)

Description: Enemies to lovers (kinda). A Slytherin seeker has a minor bragging problem and manages to just get under every single cell of skin George has. After the biggest game of the year George decides he’s had enough. 

Note: I am aware Umbridge banned Harry and the twins from quidditch and Draco is typically the seeker but we are going to ignore her and injure him for the sake of fiction.

Also, I am sure the narrator will piss a lot of people off, however I like her attitude a lot. She definitely receives the back lash for being a Slytherin, but is never the instigator. She just knows how to end any confrontation. I gave the boys a bit of a temper. Since the narrator is a Slytherin, I though I could use some of that prejudice to fuel some of the “hatred” between characters.

Disclaimer: Cursing, gambling, and a lot of words. She’s a long one.

I am sat in the Great Hall with the rest of the Slytherin table listening to them go on and on about other students and how much of a “spoiled prick” Harry is. That of course is according to the one and only “my father will hear about this” Draco Malfoy. I can’t help but find myself staring at the Gryffindor table. Fred and George are enchanting pieces of napkins to throw themselves at Hermione’s head, while Harry and Ron try to hide their chuckles. Even Neville is whispering about it to Seamus and giggling. 

“Are you ready for the match tomorrow?” I can feel Draco’s eyes on me along with everyone at the table.

“I’m ready to see those Gryffindor’s cry if that is what you are implying, Malfoy!” I know he is trying to make me feel less for not actually playing, but I am much better at the whole trash talking and intimidation to care about his remarks. “I don’t mind watching if it means my father doesn’t have to force the school to let me play,” I send him an unnerving smirk, which was not in my benefit.

“Even if you could afford it, you still wouldn’t even qualify,”

“Perhaps we will never know, since your father already paid for your position and I don’t see myself winning a large sum any time soon,” I begin to pack my stuff up for the end of breakfast and pull out one of Draco’s hairs on the way out. It always makes me laugh when he yelps and jumps like this is not an established routine. 

As I walk to my first class I feel a push from the back and I manage to catch my books before they sail across the corridor. I can hear Fred’s laugh followed by a sarcastic “oops” from George. Both of them stand likely about fifteen centimetres taller than me, but that has never stopped our aggressive encounters. 

“Even with two of you, half a reasonable thought still cannot be managed!” They boys just laugh at my outburst. Pricks.

“Princess still has that stick up her arse, huh Fred?” George’s back hand taps on his brother’s forearm. 

“I can’t wait to shove a stick up yours tomorrow at the match!” I snap back at them.

“Or maybe we can do you a favor and shove one of ours up yours,” Fred’s laughter fills the corridor at George’s comment as they both turn and walk past me. After a few metres George’s head looks over his shoulder and leaves me with a long stare followed by a smirk. I can’t explain why the subtle action sends chills through my spine and heat to my cheeks. 

When George turns back to his brother I can hear their faint whispering about placing bets on the match. Gambling in favor of themselves, I’m sure. I continue my way to class, at least DADA with the Gryffindors will actually be an interesting aspect of my day. 

Throughout class I manage to keep my head down to avoid any attention from Umbridge. Harry can be the victim of her chaos as long as it avoids my direction. On my way out of class a younger redhead jumps in front of me with a smug look.

“You know George made a bet saying that you won’t ever get to use your broom in a game and Fred countered it with if you do, he gives you twenty minutes top before you lose it for Slytherin.”

“Merlin, Ron. You sure know how to open your mouth despite the fact everyone wishes it would just stay shut.” I brush past him making sure that the contact was hard enough to ensure he stumbles. If I knew why everyone seems to hate me, I am sure I could piss them off even more. After treading to the sixth floor for Study of Ancient Ruins, I witness two tall statures pushing each other around in what seems to be a minor argument. 

“Tweedledee and Tweedledum, I heard you have wagers against me,” the two Weasleys stop their interactions and turn to face me. “I am flattered the two of you spend your free time thinking about me. However, I much rather be included the next time there is value on my name.”

“Princess, you would not want to be present every time we mention your name." Fred is the first to respond.

“Your tiara would fall with your ego,” George follows as if rehearsed. He holds my eye contact while Fred lets out a laugh. There is an intimidating fire in George’s eyes.

“It’d be worth any diadem to see your empty pockets every time you bet against me.” I turn on my heels and make my way into the classroom. 

Ancient Ruins is not exactly an exhilarating class, but it tends to be much less problematic compared to any course with Malfoy and Potter in it. Studying can be quite peaceful when those around you are not waiting to watch the other boil.

I was able to spend the rest of my day avoiding any other confrontations besides witnessing any comments made in passing by a Weasley or any of Malfoy’s followers. At dinner I sit in my usual spot between the fifth years, like myself, and the fourth years. As long as I stay at the end, I don’t have to worry about remarks made my way. The fifth years are talking about the upcoming match which I enjoy listening to. I can hear Malfoy talking about how Gryffindor’s team is full of lazy bastards who just work impulsively out of their “bravery” and how we will win easily. 

His comments do make me laugh a bit, but I attempt not to show it. Draco is right though, we are much more systematic and can win. Even if certain players on our team choose not to cheat.

“I can’t wait to get Potter to fly straight into the grass and pull worms out of his nose. It’ll be a nice reminder of where he came from, dirt.” Malfoy is still in the midst of his Potter tangent when I can sense a heavy stare on me. As I look up I can see the Gryffindor table full of chatter, I assume it is much like ours, but only one student is staring right at me. 

George’s eyes connect with mine, and I can feel a huge force on my body. Usually, I am one to just hold the stare back, but there is something about this moment that makes me switch my focus towards my dinner plate. Another odd moment with George today, brilliant. 

The rest of the meal I manage small talk with Daphne Greengrass. She is much more bearable compared to the other Slytherins in our year. Not once has she made a comment about me being a half-blood or even being the second string seeker. 

Instead of following most of the Slytherin house back to the common room I make my way to the library to complete some work before the match. I manage to locate a quiet corner in the back to complete my Defense Against the Dark Arts essay. As soon as I open my book I hear footsteps walk by and stop right at the aisle I am working at. 

“If I were to guess, your boggart is probably actually having to mount a broom for a match,” the voice belongs to my favorite redheaded twin. His comment only results in an eye roll from me.

“And if I were to guess, your boggart is having to come up with your own thought for once in your life. ‘Is quite a shame to see you can only be a replica of your brother, and not just physically.” Clearly, I strike a nerve because George takes two long strides and slams my book shut and bends down so our faces were only centimetres apart. The loud thud from the books startles my breathing. 

“I. Am. My. Own. Person.” The fire in his eyes is back once again.

“You’re right. However, for some reason when it comes to me you’re the instigator. You become the one with the jokes and the loose temper when I’m around. Funny seeing how you’re suppose to be the good one.” I hold myself as still as I can despite wanting to push him away and retreat to a quiet aisle. 

“You pretend to be one of them despite having impure blood. Your existence in that house is the purest form of irony.” A cackle leaves me after that.

“Oh my Merlin, you think I’m a purist. You probably think I have the dark mark too!” I cannot control my laughter at this point. George takes a step back a bit shocked, clearly not expecting me to talk so lightly of the mark. “Keep to what you’re good at, gambling.”

A small smile appears on George as I continue to erupt in laughter. What an idiot. Me, a purist.  What a leap to assume. “Fine, princess, let’s gamble,” his smile quickly turns into a devious smirk, resulting in my laughs sobering up.

“Fine. Five galleons, that if I play tomorrow you will lose.” A confused look appears on his face, knowing that the odds of me playing are very low. “I don’t cheat either. If someone cannot play, I am next in. So I will take my chances.”

“If you lose or do not even play, I win.” George’s notorious smirk emerges onto his face. I only nod my head. The odds are not in my favor, but at least I have the chance to earn some respect. 

“When I win, I will be looking for you and my money.” I stand up from my seat to gain some leverage over him, only for him to stand up straight and return to his naturally towering height. 

“Oh, I look forward to seeing you after the match. With my money.” 

[copper-dust]

yet another writing meme

20 Questions: Writer's Edition!

Tagged by @pebblysand , who probably already knows the answers to these questions about me!

How many works do you have on AO3?

14

What’s your total AO3 word count?

235,661—but keep in mind that those words have been written over the course of seven years, so I’m really not all that prolific. I write slowly.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Just 2 (Harry Potter and Rent.) I used to write for a few more fandoms, all in musical theatre, but that was before Ao3 existed, and those works are very immature. I started writing fan fiction in middle school, so I’m not exactly itching to post that stuff on my current account.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Seam Between, Snow Globe, In Search of Mythical Kings, March Hare and All Your Seasick Sailors.

What’s interesting is that with the exception of ISOMK, all of those are stories I began writing no earlier than May of 2020. It may be that the pandemic allowed me more time to practice writing and build my audience, or simply that I’ve improved as a writer in that period. I’m inclined to believe that my audience has grown mainly because I’ve been more active in the writing community since the pandemic started and so people are more likely to check out my work. Honestly, I believe my work started growing in popularity mainly because @floreatcastellumposts liked The Seam Between and mentioned it on her Tumblr, and that had more of an effect that any change in the quality of my work. 

I still dearly love my completely neglected fic The Atoners.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

It depends. I used to never respond to comments because I felt that any engagement with readers outside of the writing would kind of disrupt the world of the story and remove them from the text. For that reason, I also didn’t post author’s notes. I was very strict with myself.

I no longer believe that, and I now see that great friendships and connections are forged in the comments section. There are a few comments I won’t respond to—mainly, people that ask a question about the resolution of the plot when I’m posting a middle chapter. Obviously, I’m not going to give away the ending just because you asked for it! I also don’t tend to respond to comments on FFnet, though they’re rarely valuable comments anyways.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don’t know, all of them? I will say that the story that most moved me while I was writing the ending would be The Seam Between. I really had tears in my eyes during the last 2 paragraphs.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Hmmm...not sure. Maybe it would be A Network of Spittle, one of my earliest-ever Harry Potter fics, about the night that Harry was born and how the message of his birth travelled through the secret networks of the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters. That piece was written back when I was more interested in the children’s lit aspect of the series, and trying more seriously to imitate JKR’s tone and style, rather than developing my own.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven’t, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of potentially doing it if I found two fandoms with just the right kind of synchronicity.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes and no. I have received comments that were rude or worded in a way that didn’t show respect, but I don’t think the people who wrote those comments necessarily intended to be hateful. For example, I received some pretty out-there comments on The Atoners from an intense Snape fan who would lash out as if addressing James Potter or Dumbledore (rather than me.) I also received some pretty rude comments on March Hare, but they turned out to be from a minor on the autism spectrum who has difficulties with communication. I don’t think she understood how her behaviour came across, and I almost immediately recognized that she might be on the spectrum (I have special ed training.)

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I have never written smut, but I have written sex scenes when I felt they were necessary to the plot. They were pretty abstract and lacking in explicit detail, though. I’m not saying I would never write smut, but I haven’t yet and if I did, I probably wouldn’t share it online. 

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, but it would be the highest compliment.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I would love to, so if anyone’s willing...

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I haven’t—but it’s something I would consider, if I really liked the other person’s style.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Okay, here me out: I love the relationship between adolescence and trauma. I love pairing the interior growth you experience as you transition from childhood to adulthood with some kind of exterior drama that reshapes your psychic landscape just as your body as undergoing so much change. That’s my favourite ship.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

It really hurts to admit this, but I think I’ll sporadically update but never actually complete In Search of Mythical Kings.

What are your writing strengths?

Oh, god. This question. It feels impolite to even answer. I suppose I do a lot of research to get my settings right, and to make my stories feel authentic to a time and place. I’ve put lots of work into learning the British dialect too.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I have a generally narrow range of interests with regard to themes and emotional valence. I could write the same story over and over, with minor variations, because I get emotionally fixated on one topic. I also struggle with transitioning from one scene to another, and indicating the passage of time in a way that feels authentic and organic. Oh, and I also write Really. Damn. Slowly.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I wouldn’t attempt it unless I had a person who fluently spoke the appropriate dialect to help me. But you also have to consider your audience—are you writing loads of dialect that your readers won’t understand?

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter, but that was back when I was 11ish and none of the documents were ever posted online, nor did they survive various computer crashes.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I’m not sure. They’re each so intricately connected to some personal emotional phenomenon I was going through at the time. It’s also affected me to see how popular or unpopular some fics have become. I really didn’t think The Seam Between would get much of an audience, and then it sort of broke away and became my most popular story. I really appreciated the audience engagement I got on that one. Like I said before, I’m still quite attached to the work I did on The Atoners, which is sort of a missed-connection story about teenage Snape meeting middle-aged Lyall Lupin on the night of the Prank.

Tagging @sybill-the-seer @floreatcastellumposts and anyone else who’d like to participate, but hasn’t been tagged!

[jebazzled]

should you open a site?

Hi there! If you've been around the block a time or two in rp, you've probably thought about opening a site of your own - or maybe you've already given it a go. How did it go?

Mixed reviews, yeah?

Here's the thing: the Venn Diagram of people who want to staff a site & people who are well-suited to staffing a site actually has very little overlap. You probably should not open a site, or if you are going to, you should make sure you're doing it in a way you can sustain and for the right reasons.

In today's tutorial, we're going to unpack the reasons people are drawn to staffing - both good reasons and bad reasons - as well as the things that most frequently close sites. Hopefully, this will give you some good shit to think about next time you get that itch. You know the one.

Before we launch into some troubleshooting, I'd like to talk about staffing more broadly, and why it should matter to you whether you are doing a good job.

Of course, it's important to do a good job managing your site so that it has some longevity, builds a positive community, and becomes a place that people enjoy spending time.

But it is also important to remember that

when you staff a site, the site becomes part of your reputation.

The roleplay community is both very large and very small - there are always people you've never met before, but there are also always people around who you recognize. Stick around long enough, and you start to see people who always seem to be buzzing a project that doesn't open. You see people who are always staff searching. You see people who habitually buzz, open, and ghost two or three or more projects a year.

Maybe you are one of those people.

Folks notice, dude. There are a number of folks in the rp community who I am sure are perfectly nice, but whose sites I will never join, because I know from observation that they will ghost or formally close the site within three months.

No one will straight up tell you, "hey, you have a reputation for being super flaky." But it might be why you have a hard time filling a staff search. It might be why a buzz or opening is lackluster. It might be why none of your members seem to be super committed to your site: they assume you, too, are not very committed to your site.

It is in your best interests for future projects that your current projects go well. So you should consider carefully, before asking a dozen or more people to invest their time and creative energy towards your site, whether you will be able to sustain the project.

A lot of people treat staffing a site as the inevitable next step when you've been in rp a long time, and that is simply not the case. Staffing isn't about having ideas or talent. Staffing is about project management.

Staff don't need plot and lore ideas: you can crowdsource these from members.

Staff don't need coding or graphics skills: you can commission these from creators in resource communities.

Staff don't even need to be excellent writers.

Staff need to be able to set goals and achieve them, delegate and accomplish tasks, mediate conflict, and manage and recalibrate expectations. This is, of course, very unsexy, and often is tedious: updating claims, monitoring activity, engineering and executing events. I think a lot of people remember what a fucking pain it is to do ads all the time and it's the first thing they stop doing, which then means they don't have new blood to replace the folks who joined and ghosted after the buzz, and then the site dies. None of it is open heart surgery, but all of it is at least somewhat important.

If you don't want to do the boring day-to-day work of staffing, you shouldn't staff! Members on site don't have to do that shit, and also get to opt out on the emotionally exhausting work of conflict mediation, app review, etc. You can be a longtime roleplayer who never staffs. It's allowed.

But you want to open a site. Or you have opened sites and it's been underwhelming. For whatever reason, you're here. So sure. Let's talk about opening sites.

Reasons to open a site

There are lots of reasons why someone might want to open a site. Some reasons are better than others, with the broad distinction that writing-centric reasons are generally much stronger reasons to open a site than psychology-driven reasons.

GOOD REASON: Control

If the pro of not running a site yourself is the lack of responsibility, the con is the lack of control. Being a member means you're dependent on admins to keep the site open - and we've all been in situations where the staff of a site lost interest before we did. Being a member also means being at the mercy of the staff for plot, lore, and etc, depending on your community. On a "member-driven" site you might feel more empowered to have a hand in the worldbuilding - but if the staff decides to double down on the one subplot you thought was stupid and boring, you're left navigating having a good time by yourself.

Opening a site because you want to be able to rely on the site's availability and attractiveness to you for your own writing needs isn't a bad reason to open a site. After all, we build the community and the environment we want to see. So if you don't like something in a writing community, and it's not something you can work with staff to fix - it might make sense to build a community that does fill those needs.

GOOD REASON: Ideas

"Having ideas" is, in my opinion, the least important thing when it comes to staffing. But it can be a reason to open a site of your own! If you have a fictional world you can't find elsewhere, or a really specific overarching plot idea, or a rich vision of lore, it might be easier for you to develop your own playground for these ideas than to bend them to fit an existing site.

BAD REASON: Control

"JB, JB, how can it be two things at once?" Because! Haven't we all been on sites where the admin staff were on a major power trip? When admins start making decisions for members and against a member's wishes, whether it be for character progression or plot development, admins are being unreasonable and demanding. Remember: this is a collaborative hobby. If you can't handle the idea of a member writing something without your eyes on it, you are likely getting too invested in having power over what other people write, and you need to back way off.

BAD REASON: Influence/Importance

Writing is such a personal and intimate thing, and it becomes so easy to get too emotionally invested in how people write or don't write with you. We all know people in the rp community who base their sense of self around rp (I go in on it at length in my troubleshooting tutorial here). These are the people who will have 5 characters accepted within a week of joining, with 20 threads written with 2/3 of the site's members, and who will leave in a tearful hurry within a month saying they feel excluded.

Do you feel Seen?

If you are relying on rp to tame your insecurities, it is never going to work. Staffing a site, claiming the most important canons, and having your hands in every subplot won't automatically make you the most popular person on the site. And even if it did? You would still be insecure, because that is some shit you have to work through offline, dude.

Do not open a site because you think being the admin will make you feel important/popular/beloved. It is not about whether or not you actually are included or excluded in a community - until you unpack your insecurity and your sense of constantly being overlooked or excluded, you could plot with literally every character combination possible and you wouldn't be happy.

If you are wanting to staff because you like to feel special/important/etc, the problem is not the site. It is you. You are never going to get that fulfillment from staffing a site.

You need to work through this without the pressure of running a site.

Why do you want to open a site? Is it for a good reason, or a bad reason? Is it just because you feel like you should? I shouldn't have to tell you that that is a stupid reason.

Opening a site for the wrong reason is a losing proposition.

If you open a site because you want tight creative control, you are going to frustrate your writers, who will likely go elsewhere to write more freely. If you open a site because you want to feel important, you're going to take it very personally when people get mad at you for admin things like denying their apps, handling their interpersonal conflicts with impartiality, or turning down their proposition to turn your Harry Potter site into a Harry Potter/Doctor Who crossover.

If people feel driven out by your power-hungry attitude and rigidity, your site's activity will die, and it will get harder to recruit new people, and it will fizzle out until you either ghost or tell your four remaining members that you're throwing in the towel.

If you feel personally attacked by the thankless work of staffing, you will emotionally burn out, and likely either ghost your own site, or close it. If you are a person prone to lashing out, you might first encounter massive interpersonal drama.

If you are going to open a site, do it for the right reason.

Reasons to close a site

Let's also talk a little about those of us who have opened sites before. Most of us - if not every single one of us - have also closed a site. Sites close for a lot of reasons, and they aren't all admin's fault: a site is, after all, a community. Sometimes the community loses interest, grows apart, or otherwise dissipates. But it is true that staff sets the tone, and that ultimately, staff are who decide to put the board offline.

So maybe you've closed a site. Maybe you're one of the people I mentioned earlier who buzzes, opens, and closes three sites a year. Let's take a good, hard look at why your site closed. It might be a good reason not to open a site again - at least not until you figure out your root issue.

Time

One of the most common reasons why admins will close a site is a lack of time. Real life gets too busy, and the grind of keeping the site up is just too much. It happens! RP is no one's real job. Everyone has a real life.

Not having time to staff won't necessarily be a nail in your reputation's coffin. But it is a reason that you should take into account next time you have the itch to staff.

Some situations are more understandable than others, as far as scheduling goes. For example, if you open a site the summer after graduation when you have a lot of time, and then realize how time-consuming job-hunting is, you might close your site to make time. If you open a site while sitting comfortably at a low-stress job and then you switch to a fast-paced, customer-facing position, you might have less energy and less downtime for the site. If you opened a site when your kid went to grade school, and now you're homeschooling them during the pandemic, you simply might not have time anymore.

The commonality here? A circumstance changed, and the person living the circumstance didn't expect the change. It was a surprise.

By contrast, if you're a tax accountant, you know when your busy season is, and it would be stupid and irresponsible for you to open a site in December knowing that you're about to be bogged down in tax season until April. If you're a school teacher, you know that the start of the year is a whirlwind, and it would be stupid and irresponsible to open a site on the first day of school. If you know that normally your workload doesn't even allow you time to participate on a site as a member, it would be ridiculous for you to open a site during a two-week slow period.

You can close a site because you're too busy for it. You can do it again, a couple of years later. But if you make a habit of doing it - and doing it often - people are going to notice that you just don't have time for the sites you want to open.

I remember being on a site several years ago that closed seemingly without warning. The staff said they didn't have time to run the site anymore, a claim I took at face value - until a month later, when they opened a new project.

I remember being deeply annoyed: either they had been dishonest about the reason for the site's closure, or they were stupid enough to think that a month-long lull was reason enough to expect to be able to maintain a site. If you are too busy to keep your site open, that is fine - but you then shouldn't open another site until you have been distinctly not-busy for a while.

You can take steps to mitigate time constraints, on your next project: you might build out your site's world and administrative process around what tasks you can automate with scripts and etc, to minimize the amount of administrative tasks you need to do. You might go no-app to skip another task. If you're a person who experiences time-blindness, and you have no idea how long you spend on any task, you will need to deliberately select your staff based on their ability to execute tasks on time and efficiently in ways that you cannot.

Staffing may also just not be for you! And there is nothing wrong with that.

Burnout

You might find yourself worn down with the grind of staffing: the ads, the claims, the app review, the mediating conflict, the way your own writing can often come last. The concessions you might make to plots you'd like to do in the interest of pleasing the greater site community. Etc. It's a lot, and it's a thankless job.

And it's always going to be like that. You can counter some of the things that suck up your time - automate claims, go no-app, narrow down your advertising to a tiny list of blogs and servers rather than a dozen directories - but staffing is always going to be, at times, exhausting and thankless. If it's too exhausting and thankless to be worth sticking around - that's fine! But you can't keep being surprised that staffing is like this. It isn't really a realization you can have more than maybe twice, and it's not a realization you can keep having at two months in and expect it not to be a sticking point.

Premature Death Calls

Listen: your site is not dying two weeks after the site buzz. The swarm of activity when you opened was an artificial high caused by bottlenecking your membership intake. Keep posting your ad after your site opens to keep new members coming in so even when your site buzz population moves on to the next buzz, you've got members there. Don't throw in the towel too early, Denise!

Boredom

Unlike the above, where site buzz members move on to the next buzz because they're always chasing the next big thing, you being bored with your site is a potential reason to close. After all, you're the one putting in the time and energy. If you're not vibing with it, it's not like the community is entitled to you keeping the site open as charity work.

But similarly to the time reasoning: this is a rationale you can only use sparingly.

If you have a habit of losing interest on an idea, you should not be opening sites. It is one thing to misjudge your interest and its longevity once. But if you do it two or three times a year - it's a pattern, and you shouldn't ask a dozen or more people to invest their creative energy into something if you know there's a strong possibility you'll lose interest within a few months.

(It will not be different this time, dude. It is never different.)

Drama

Any community of people is not without conflict. Sometimes, the conflict gets to be too much, and whether your members scatter to avoid it or you close to be done with it - it's worth evaluating if it happens more than once. If site drama keeps closing your site, the call might be coming from inside the house.

If you came on staff because you wanted to feel special and important: you are likely causing some of the drama. When you take it so personally whether or not people write with you, how much they write with you, etc, you are setting up for your expectations to 1) be unreasonable 2) to not be met.

If you came on staff because you like control, you might be too rigid, and your controlling and unyielding approach to your site may be driving your members away.

If every site you run closes due to drama, you might look at their common denominator. What behavior do you exhibit that might be unwelcoming, abrasive, or toxic?

(Linkin Park voice) Breaking the habit

People notice, if you are constantly opening sites that die after two months. RP is a weird atmosphere where two things are constant:

Sites often have a shelf life of 2-4 months before they die either due to admin neglect, lack of new membership, or infighting with the existing members

Sites are often being launched by the same people over and over again

Which is to say, I think some of us in the resource/admin chat space tend to think of early site death as a problem of member attention - people being drawn away from existing sites by new and shiny buzzes. This is true to an extent - but I think we latch onto it because it absolves us of the truth that some admins are not just bad admins, but habitual bad admins.

To be clear, I don't mean that they are nasty people - just that they have a track record of not being great at keeping a site open. But just as some people are perennial site hoppers - some admins are perennial site starters, and that doesn't seem to be something talked about with as much depth as site hoppers. And perennial site starters feed the site hopper problem: if the perennial site starter wasn't opening a new buzz every two months, the site hopper wouldn't have a new flashy thing to get instant gratification on, would they? They would need to do some more long term plotting and character development.

I've staffed my site for two and a half years now, and the relief of having a space with such longevity is incredible. Because my community trusts that the site isn't going to close on a whim, people invest in long-term plots - for example, when we polled members in March asking if they wanted a specific event to happen in the spring or in the fall, an overwhelming majority opted for fall. Six months out, six months to plot and thread and worldbuild - on so many other sites, it would feel risky to count on anything that far in advance.

Wouldn't it be nice to have more stability in the rp world? More opportunity for deeper plotting and character development, slow burn plots that are legitimately slow to burn, the satisfaction of executing a plot years in the making. We can have that, if we focus less on having a vast number of short-lived sites and more on building sustainable, welcoming communities that allow for ebb and flow without going straight to closure any time there's a slow or difficult period. We can have that, if we're more thoughtful in our staffing - even if it means not staffing at all.

I hope this tutorial was helpful to you! As always, feel free to drop your requests for future tutorials in my askbox. In the meantime, all best, and happy writing!

[engie-ivy]

If searching for non-existent signs that Sirius might fancy him, is all Remus has to do to get Lily to drop her crazy theory, then so be it.

Read Part One here!

Read Part Three here!

Read The Final Part here!

Get What He's Saying: Part Two

Remus drops down on the couch next to Lily holding a cup of tea.

“Potter just left for Quidditch practice in quite a state,” Lily says. “Was he still mad about me going to Hogsmeade with Chase Danes?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. I think he’s over it. He’s actually going with Hestia Jones.”

“Oh.” Lily presses her lips in a tight line. “Well, good for him. What was he getting himself worked up for now, then?”

“I guess that’s my fault,” Remus sighs. “We had this weird conversation, and I think he got upset because I didn’t believe the stuff he was telling me.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, he was all like ‘Moony, someone told me he fancies you, and it’s serious and you should-’”

Lily lets out a shriek and bolts upright, staring at Remus with a hand covering her mouth. “Merlin’s beard, Remus! Why didn’t you say so immediately? This is huge! Potter confided in you that Black fancies you? I knew it! I just knew it! How can you be so calm about this?”

Remus blinks at her for a moment. “What? Oh. Oh! No, Lily, no. Merlin, no. Why would you even think- Serious, Lily! As in not joking.”

“Oooh.” Lily sags back on the couch. For a moment, she looks disappointed, but then she starts laughing. “I’m sorry! I totally thought you meant it was Sirius! Really, that boy’s name!”

Remus shakes his head at her, while Lily, still laughing, wipes some tears from her eyes. “Remus, Remus, Remus,” she says. “Getting my hopes up for nothing.”

“Its not my fault you’d jump to such a ridiculous conclusion!” Remus says defensively. “How can that be- Wait. Hopes up? How so hopes up? And what the hell did you mean with ‘I knew it’?”

Lily shrugs. “‘I knew it’ is probably too strong a phrase. More like, I suspected it? Or at least I thought about the possibility before.”

Remus, who has never considered it as a possibility, gapes at her. “Why?” Is all he manages to say.

“I’m not sure,” Lily replies, looking at him thoughtfully. “He’s just... different when he’s around you. More grounded, somehow.”

“Well,” Remus mutters. “We’re best friends. Would be strange if he didn’t feel comfortable around me.”

“No,” Lily says in the same contemplating tone. “It’s different. Different than when he’s with Potter. When you two are together, it’s like... puzzle pieces falling into place.”

Remus can only stare at her. If only. If only he could be Sirius’ missing puzzle piece. But if Sirius’ puzzle is some bright, sunny landscape, Remus is a dreary raincloud that has no business being there.

Lily smiles sheepishly at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know how else to phrase it.”

“Phrase it however you like,” Remus says. “I’m not going to let myself believe such fancies. It’ll only lead to disappointment.”

“Oh?” Lily smirks. “So you’d be disappointed if Black would turn out to not fancy you?”

Remus clenches his jaw. “It. Doesn’t. Matter.”

“Anyways,” Lily chuckles. “Good thing you didn’t misunderstand when Potter told you! That would’ve made for an awkward conversation.”

“The thought didn’t even cross my mind,” Remus responds. “I’d never get such an idea in my head. He’s clearly way out of my league.”

Lily opens her mouth to protest, but Remus beats her to it. “No, Lily. Don’t try to boost my confidence. ‘Remus, you’re not in a different league, you could date someone like Sirius’. James already gave me that speech. He even said I could ‘date someone exactly like Sirius’.” Remus rolls his eyes. “Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“Remus...”

“And the conversation was awkward enough without misunderstandings. He kept repeating ‘it’s serious’, while giving me these weird, intense looks. Like, what can I even do with that information if he won’t tell me who it was? But when I asked, instead of answering, he just repeated ‘it’s serious’ again.”

“Remus.”

“And even if James meant it, the person who told him could’ve very well been messing with him. James can tell me this person was serious all he wants, but how can he be sure? I mean-”

“Remus!”

“What?”

“Remus! Bloody hell, Remus!”

“Yes, Lily what?”

“Remus, for Godric’s sake, Remus. You bloody idiot!”

“What, Lily? What am I missing?”

“I’ll tell you what you’re missing, you bloody oaf!” Lily crosses her arms over her chest, giving Remus a firm stare. “You’re missing the whole bloody fact that Potter looked you right in the eyes and told you Black totally fancies you!”

“He... What?” Remus chokes. “What in Merlin’s name are you talking about?”

Lily sniffs. “From what I gather, he wasn’t even very subtle about it.”

“No, Lily. No.” Remus shakes his head. “I really think I would’ve noticed!”

Lily raises an eyebrow. “Do you, Remus? Do you really?”

“You weren’t even there,” Remus mutters.

“Alright, alright.” Lily throws up her hands. “So he didn’t consequently phrase it as ‘it’s serious’ and ‘this person was serious’, and never anything like ‘I’m serious’ or ‘it’s for real’?”

“Well, yeah, he did, but-”

“And wasn’t he throwing you meaningful, emphatic looks every time he said that?”

“He was, but that doesn’t necessarily mean-”

“Come on, Remus! He was sending you a message, you must acknowledge that!”

“Lily, please,” Remus says pleading. “I can’t afford to hope. Hope... is dangerous.”

Lily’s face softens. “Remus, I don’t expect you to run up to him right now and declare your undying love. Although I do think that would be the right course of action,” she adds with a stern look. “But nevertheless, you shouldn’t let fear stop you! Just... try to at least open up to the possibility. Keep your eyes open the upcoming time, for any signs he might actually like you. That’s all I ask.”

Remus sighs. “Fine. I will.”

Lily stares at him for a moment. “Nope,” she then says. “No. Nope. No, you’re not getting away with it that easily. Knowing you, Black could be wearing an ‘I love Remus Lupin’ shirt tomorrow and sit down on you lap at breakfast, and you’d go ‘ah, such an affectionate friend’.”

Remus rolls his eyes, but Lily ignores him and picks up a quill and a piece of parchment. “I’m going to make you a list of specific signs you need to keep an eye out for! Number One,” she says. “Looking at you often.”

“We are best friends,” Remus says dryly. “We do tend to look at each other occasionally.”

“You know what I mean!” Lily says, but still she adds “Looking at you often, while you aren’t talking, or doing anything interesting, so when he has no reason to be looking at you. Let’s see, what else?” She taps the quill against her chin, before bending over the parchment again. “Number Two. Blushing/biting his lip/doing that thing were he tilts his head downwards and looks up at you through his lashes while interacting with you.”

Ah, yes. That thing. Remus definitely knows that thing. Not that he has ever thought Sirius does that around him in particular.

“Number Three,” Lily continues. “Giving you loads of compliments.”

Remus crosses his arms over his chest. “He only says he likes my sweaters to have an excuse to feel how soft they are!”

“Number Four,” Lily says pointedly, while looking at Remus unwaveringly. “Making up excuses to touch you.”

Remus huffs, and looks away.

Lily taps her quill in thought again. “Oh, right! Number Five. Acting extremely jealous when other people flirt with you.”

“How the hell am I supposed to check that?” Remus asks. “It’s not like people flirt with me every day! Or any day for that matter.”

“Well, I could-”

“Oh no, Lily! Don’t you dare! James’ sad deer-eyes are heart-breaking enough without knowing I caused them.”

“I’m sure he won’t mind that much,” Lily mutters.

Remus looks at Lily, then down at the list, and then back up at Lily. “Well, hello kettle. Nice to meet you. My name is pot.”

“I’ll think of something else,” Lily says irritably. “Let’s stick to these five signs for now, starting tomorrow at breakfast. If by the end of the week you haven’t seen any of them, I’ll drop it, but if you do manage to catch a few, you have to start seeing it as a serious option. Or as Potter would say, a Sirius option.”

“Fine,” Remus says, taking the list from Lily. “If that’s what it takes to get you to drop it.”

The next morning, Remus sits down at the breakfast table in his usual seat next to Sirius, across from James and Peter. James is rambling on about some new Quidditch strategy he wants to try out, and Peter is pretending to understand and trying to ask questions that don’t sound too dumb.

As Remus reaches for the porridge, he notices Mary McDonald batting her eyes at him. At first, he frowns at her. Does she have something in her eye, or is she trying to get his attention? Is she sending him a message in Morse code or something? Her finger is twirling in her dark hair so fast, that Remus is worried it might get stuck in there. Then Lily leans over and whispers something in Mary’s ear, and Remus understands. So this is Lily’s ‘thinking of something else’ for the last point om her list.

Remus groans under his breath, but decides that he might as well get started keeping his end of the deal. He turns to Sirius, and startles when he finds Sirius, head resting on his hand, staring right at him.

Sirius, also startled, jerks his head up when he suddenly meets Remus’ gaze. Remus wouldn’t consider blushing as something Sirius Black does, but the colour on his cheeks having been caught staring is definitely red. Sirius bites his lip, and tilts his head downwards, before looking up at Remus through his lashes. “I... Erm, I was just wondering if that’s a new jumper you’re wearing?”

“Eh, no. No, it’s not.”

“Well, in any case, I like it.” Sirius gives him a small smile. “I like how it looks on you. The colour really brings out your eyes.” Sirius chuckles as he reaches out and gently brushes Remus’ hair from his eyes. “If you don’t let that floppy hair of yours cover them completely, as adorable as those curls are.”

While Remus is struggling to form a reply that makes more sense than his first urge to promise Sirius he’ll never wear anything else ever again, another voice demands his attention.

“Rrrrrremus!” Mary makes the R sound like a purr. She has walked up to him and is now standing right behind the bench where he’s sitting, leaning in close over his shoulder so she can directly speak into his ear. Really, if she’s going to lean over like that, she should button up her blouse a bit more. Poor Peter nearly chokes on his toast.

“You’re so good at DADA. I was wondering if you have time after classes for some tutoring? I could really use some practice with my wand work.”

“Eh...” Remus once again struggles to form a reply. If she really needs help it’ll be rude refuse, right? Or is it part of Lily’s scheme? And if it is, would Lily want him to refuse or agree?

Before he can say anything though, Sirius speaks up, his cold gaze intently focused on Mary. “He can’t,” he says in an icy voice. “Remus is already working on his Potions Paper after class, with me.”

Remus doesn’t recall making such plans, but they do have a Potions Paper due, and Remus does desperately need Sirius’ help when it comes to Potions, so he just nods.

“Oh, booo,” Mary pouts prettily. “Better luck next time, I suppose.”

She turns around and walks out of the Great Hall, swaying in such a manner Remus worries she might dislocate a hip. Boys all over the Great Hall hang out of their seats to watch her go, but Remus is pretty sure that Sirius is the only one who’s glaring daggers.

Even though he only started keeping an eye out five minutes ago, Remus goes over the signs on the list in his head.

Well, fuck.

Part One

Part Three

The Final Part

[mimizepp]

Good day!! Id also like a jjba matchup specifically for part 3 and 5 but if ya only do one character per request, part 5 is all right!

'm sorry this is gonna be super long i tend to get carried away and just ramble abt myself pls bear with me :))

My pronouns are she /her and i am a bisexual female, 5'7 and slightly cruvy with smooth shoulder length black hair and dark brown eyes modified by long lashes! Its honestly my best trait of all. My zodiac sign is capricorn and im a aries ascendant, libra moon with infj-t personality type.

I see myself as sympathetic, self-driven, and sensible but i am sensitive, indecisive, and stubborn. I come off as confident, smart, responsible, approachable and kind though im actually quite the opposite. Im impulsive and i let my emotions get the best of me though I've learned to control it and keep it inside. My hobbies are reading, cleaning ( therapeutic honestly 😭), singing, volleyball, track and field. I love clean and organized environment, daydreaming, laughter and smiles, kickboxing, amd books/movies/anime & manga that are psychological, thriller or horror maybe a bit of comedy too! Im pretty open-minded so i dont have anything i hate, except for unorganised places, stubborness and dislike someone hot-tempered.

I admire someone who can bring the best out of e and support me. Someone who can help me find myself and open up. A humorous and upbeat person but is also responsible and perceptive! Because my love language is quality time and physical touch since i struggle with words and my own feelings ( im using to masking up and i have a major breakdown once ive had enough)

That's everything so far 💐♥️tysm i advance i hope you are safe and healthy mwah lovelots!

i match you with…

*°:⋆ₓₒ mista! ₓₒ⋆:°*

- YOU TWO ARE ABSOLUTELY PERFECT TOGETHER GOODNESS ME. you n mista bring out the best in one another in such wonderful ways. never a moment goes by where the two of you aren’t smiling together, basking in your shared and loving dynamic

- to mista, you are the warmest and most welcoming person he’s ever been graced by. he feels so very lucky to have you and he honestly can’t believe that someone likes, hell, maybe even loves him! you’re sensitive and sensible in the same ways he is - and it’s so damn alluring! who doesn’t love someone that sticks by their morals.. and tetraphobia....

- mista is v watchful over you and your well-being is something that cannot be taken lightly. he loves you sm and will be babying you more than anyone would expect (take note that he also likes being babied)

- mista loves pda !!! pls let him at least hold your hand at all times + hug you at random points in the day when he’s feeling extra lovey-dovey. he’s also going to be utilizing his humor to the max when he’s with you. your laugh is EVERYTHING

- it’s very easy to open up to mista, whether it’s in lighthearted conversation or something a little deeper. he’s an amazing listener and is always there to provide some motivating and loving words (probably some silly innuendos thrown in the mix as well). he’s not quick to be driven off the rails and tends to have a level-head, though this can all change the moment he has a single negative thought. though because of you n that wondrous aura of yours, this rarely happens.

- your interests are now mista’s interests. reading? he supposes he can give harry potter another go. theraputic cleaning? he’s down to try it (and once he does... he’s shocked at how satisfying it can be). athletics? he’ll be so playfully competitive and it’s adorable. SINGING? oh dear, he’s not the best but he’s having such a great time.

- btw be prepared for loads of cuddling when you watch some of your eerier favs on the tv. mista swears he isn’t scared, but the way he yelps and buries his face into your neck every thirty seconds says plenty

- michiyonakamura and mista sitting in a tree.. ;)

* as for sdc i think you pair best with oldseph! he is great at bringing others up and having a fun time while doing so. he’d love your aesthetics and interests, and it’s not hard to get his attention with those lovely eyes of yours! he’ll be spending loads of time trying to win your affection, his attraction clear through how protective he tends to be over you *