#c: Marietta

[void-botanist]

Wrapped Scenelets No. 95: splits

I'm writing scenelets for (most of) my Spotify Wrapped top 100 songs. Here's number 95, Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

━━━━━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━━━━━

The Confluence leaves seemed to intensify the sound of the wind, clattering together in a way the conifers at home never did, and throwing around the weird storm light with their shadows. It was easier to look out the window than it was to keep watching what was happening six feet away, to keep waiting and waiting. Tem stole a glance back anyway. Marietta was still making small talk with the nurses, though it was getting bigger the longer it went on. Probably Tem should be talking too, pretending that all this was real normal and they weren’t that worried. But they didn’t feel quite like they were in the room anymore. The worry and the panic surrounded their mind completely, and they were getting through it by just not thinking about it too hard. Not thinking about how their roots were still locked into Marietta’s, and would be until their sprout, Milo, finally split off their combined rootstock, however many more hours that took. Not thinking about the brace around Milo’s tiny body, covering so much that it looked like per was just a metal can with limbs and a head, the only thing standing between per and all manner of infection and injury. Not thinking about what happened if the brace wasn’t enough, and despite the doctors’ confidence, Milo died when per differentiated. Just thinking about the strange foreign leaves. The strange foreign wind, and the strange foreign shape of the window. Just how this was their first, and Marietta’s, and if per died, they would have to get out of this job. There was no way they could brave it again after that. It was honestly a wonder they hadn’t passed out from the stress yet.

They were half-rehearsing a worst-case call to their husband when they felt an odd creaking in their roots. Turning back to the room, they found the nurses all crowding around Milo, and Marietta watching them. Milo’s roots were lifting up, shrinking back from the rootstock. When Tem could feel the bizarre sensation of Milo standing on their roots rather than as part of them, per eyes opened. They felt per wobble and their heart stuck in their throat. But the machine connected to per brace said that per was breathing. Now Tem was too, coming halfway back into reality out of pure relief.

━━━━━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━━━━━

Scenelets wrapped taglist: @kk7-rbs

[scorpiusmmalfoy]

“¿Entonces por qué repetiste año? Porque he oído un montón de chismes, y muchos son bastante... Exagerados.”

♡   𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀   cormac m. / @p3ach3snplums​

[hometoursandotherstuff]

And, now, it's time for another episode of "The Rich and Tasteless." This is a 2004 mansion in Marietta, GA, 9bds, 7ba. Asking $6.95M. Looks pretty nice, but check out the over-the-top architecture inside.

Not 2 column arches in the entrance, but 4.

Double staircase with lacy iron railings. Look at those Vlad the Impaler decorative spikes.

The sitting room has a very ornate, large fireplace, and b/c it's so ornate, they put a blank picture on the mantle. There's way too much fabric in this home. It's draped everywhere.

Chandeliers everywhere- even on the table. Look at the giant flowers over the table. Not bad, I kinda like them.

This must be the family room for the open concept kitchen/family room.

But, this kitchen looks like no one's ever cooked in it. They've got very ornate cabinetry in light and dark tones. Looks like there's a pantry to the left.

The primary bedroom.

The en-suite features gold-accented cabinetry, a huge chandelier and a big round tub.

Gold tile and marble in the shower.

The closet is claustrophobic. No room to dress, either.

Oh, closets, the stairs, and an elevator.

A gray bath. Check out the silver toilet.

Privileged kids room. (Geez, my parents painted my teeny bedroom pink and thought it was great.)

The child's en-suite has florals or birds on the toilet and sink.

Desolate looking stairs to the lower level.

The home cinema is down here. Disappointingly lackluster. Not even a popcorn machine.

And, the home gym.

A Grecian guest 1/2 bath. Check out the sink.

These stairs come down to the wine cellar.

And, a game table in a room that mimics Tuscany.

The rec room has a pinball machine, but is otherwise so formal.

More exercise equipment and a pingpong table.

This is weird- is it a massage table? What are those chairs doing on a stage?

The Cerulean Blue pool.

Geez, look at the outdoor kitchen. I love the counters.

Guest suite in the poolhouse.

Tennis court. The estate is on 2.20 acres.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4348-Paper-Mill-Rd-SE-Marietta-GA-30067/14282407_zpid/

[gacougnol]

Martin Badekow (German, 1896 - 1983)

Marietta Millner , c. 1920 - 1929

[whinlatter]

The Ginny and Peter parallel though?? How have I never thought about that?? It‘s so horrifying and insanely compelling to me at the same time. I would love to hear (read?) you elaborate on that.

"Sirius, Sirius, what could I have done? The Dark Lord… you have no idea… he has weapons you can't imagine…. I was scared, Sirius, I was never brave like you and Remus and James. I never meant it to happen…. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me - " "Harry – oh, Harry – I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn’t say it in front of Percy. It was me, Harry – but I – I s-swear I d-didn’t mean to  - R-Riddle made me, he took me over..."

thank you so much for this question anon.  i have been thinking about this for a long time - about how ginny weasley might have made a really, really good traitor - and would love to talk more about my thinking behind it. a little meta on traitor talk - who flips, and why, and why ginny weasley might be the peter pettigrew to the trio's marauders after all - can be found below the cut (with spoilers for beasts chapter 14). 

hp, as a series, puts great moral emphasis on the concept of choice. after all, it’s about a world at war, where the question of whose side you're on is often a matter of life or death. double agents, deception, treachery, people serving the interests of others (either consensually or under duress): these are recurrent tropes, on both sides of the wizarding war. the plot begins the ultimate act of betrayal - that of lily and james potter by peter pettigrew - and the series concludes with the revelation of another (snape). throughout the books, there are all sorts of characters who spy, or flip, for all sorts of reasons. you have those who knowingly pretend to be serving the interests of one side when actually serving another, for principled reasons, either ideological motivation or out of selfless loyalty to another person: snape, peter, likely rookwood, quirrell, fake moody/barty crouch jr, both sirius and regulus black, kreacher, and narcissa in the forest. and then you have the group who betray either out of fear, or who are manipulated into acts of betrayal and deceit, sometimes through possession but otherwise through blackmail and intimidation, to varying degrees: xenophilius lovegood, mundungus fletcher, pius thicknesse, marietta edgecombe, bertha jorkins, bathilda bagshot, those types. (in a sign of jkr’s consistently dicked-up biases re gender in the series, women are never allowed to be interesting enough to actively betray anyone unless they’re doing it out of maternal love eg. narcissa - they can only ever actively be led astray or hoodwinked, whereas male characters can have a vast array of complex motivations and all sorts of shades of moral grey. we'll come back to that in a minute).

in chapter 14 of my postwar fic beasts, during the course of the hogwarts inquiry, augustus rookwood takes the stand and testifies of an attempt by him and his fellow death eaters to find someone who could play double agent to pass secrets about the resistance, the order and harry to the other side during the second wizarding war. rookwood - himself a former double agent - talks about how to make a traitor. he discusses the different motivations of traitors, how to find a target and how to exploit their existing vulnerabilities and weak-points to get them to come around to your side. he also reveals that, during the death eater seizure of the ministry and hogwarts school, he and his peers identified a would-be target in ginny weasley. in the fic, i have him describe the process of traitor-identification as ‘the pettigrew playbook’: finding someone who is connected, who knows the order’s secrets, who has the information you want, and who will flip less out of an ardent ideological commitment, but more because they are weak and scared but also disrespected and resentful and more inclined to save their own neck than act out of loyalty

i’ve always been very struck by peter pettigrew’s attempts to justify his betrayal of lily and james in PoA (see above). peter pettigrew is always a slippery and elusive character, rendered mostly through other people’s memories or descriptions of him. this is one of the very few times he explains something of his own worldview - though, as we know he is a liar, and in this instance errrr trying to save his own life as sirius threatens to kill him (slay), we have to take even these lines with a pinch of salt. we know pettigrew is a character that acts, at all times, out of a desire for self-preservation, trying to secure his own survival. he was tolerated but never respected by his schoolfriends, made the potters’ secret keeper as a ‘perfect bluff’ because he was a  ‘weak, talentless thing’ voldemort would never bother going after, a trait which ultimately made him the perfect and most vulnerable target. when outed as the real spy by sirius and remus here, he acknowledges he is aware of his deficiencies and weaknesses, and talks about his fear for his own life, his sense of how he did not live up to the principled bravery of his friends, and claims  that voldemort ‘forced him’ to surrender lily and james - presumably through the threat of terrible violence, suffering and death. 

pettigrew’s remarks are particularly interesting when put alongside the justifications and excuses of another character who has betrayed harry to voldemort, albeit under very different circumstances. like peter, ginny’s confession is given through floods of tears as a desperate plea to be believed and excused. in it, ginny begs harry to understand her own lack of culpability. just as wormtail does, she insists to harry she was forced by riddle to cause harm to others and to hand information about harry over to riddle, and to play an integral role in returning lord voldemort to life.  of course, the series always frames ginny’s actions in CoS as the behaviour of an entirely innocent person. but even these lines show a streak of self-preservation and a certain amount of weakness and cowardice that runs throughout ginny’s encounter with the diary. ‘I couldn’t say it in front of Percy’, she says, suggesting she feared getting in deep trouble with no proof of riddle’s hand in her actions. in fact throughout the diary episode, ginny shows real moments of acting to save herself rather than do the right thing and come forward with the truth. she tries to dispose of the diary, but doesn’t go to a teacher about what it has been making her do. she stole the diary back not to protect harry but to protect her own secrets and prevent him from discovering her complicity (at least by TMR’s telling). she even watches hagrid get falsely accused and sent to azkaban, and stays silent in the process, a distinctly pettigrew echo if ever i heard one. 

of course, we know ginny and peter pettigrew’s relationships with voldemort are not alike in dignity. it’s clear that, in so many ways, ginny’s encounter with the diary is much more clearly an experience of victimhood than of malicious intent. we know that ginny was possessed; we know she is not a character who would commit murder without that level of involuntary mental surrender. but there are more uncomfortable echoes of pettigrew in her experiences in CoS. we see them in the decisions of a character acting of fear and a desire to save their own skin in ginny’s experience of the diary than we might like to think. ginny ofc was targeted by lucius malfoy because of who her family was, as stalwarts of the anti-voldemort pro-muggle resistance during the first wizarding war, with powerful enemies determined to discredit and undermine them at every turn. but, as TMR makes clear, what makes ginny such a good target in the end, so vulnerable and so useful, was that she was weak. she was insecure, and lonely, teased and misunderstood and feeling inadequate. in all of that, there was a very rich opening for TMR to access her innermost fears and secrets and to use them to manipulate, pressure and threaten her into compliance, in addition to the active possession of her body to conduct deliberate acts of attempted murder. it’s not a perfect pettigrew parallel by any means. but there’s more than a little bit of pettigrew in that, too. 

maybe more parallels with ginny and peter pettigrew than meets the eye - particularly in ginny’s relationship to the trio. there are a few posts that periodically do the rounds on tumblr and reddit that talk about neville’s relationship to the trio as the parallel to peter pettigrew’s with the marauders - as this post compellingly puts it, ‘all who peter could have been’. neville, these posts usually point out, was a character who was weak and much less talented than his friends, an outsider who needed the protection and patience of cooler classmates, who was always on the outside looking in on a friend group that largely excluded him. what distinguished neville from peter was his approach to his own weakness, and how that approach drove him to heroism rather than betrayal and villainy. it’s an interesting idea, and there’s something to it. but the more i thought about it, the more i thought - is neville + the trio the only parallel with peter + the marauders? what about ginny? 

it’s remarkably under-appreciated in fandom that ginny is remarkably poorly treated by the trio for much of the series. ‘go away, ginny’ - that’s how ron banishes his sister at the start of PoA, because harry mutters to his two mates that he wants to talk to them in private and to ditch ginny. neither harry nor hermione object to it - hermione, though kind to ginny when the dementors arrive, makes no defence of her right to stay. ginny duly leaves, hurt, to go sit by herself on the train back to school, returning to hogwarts for the first time after her deeply traumatic experience in the chamber, dismissed and dispatched. not meaning to drag ron here - this is, ofc, how big brothers have behaved for time immemorial, as is their wont. but it’s kind of the statement for how the trio treat ginny for much of her school career really until HBP, harry and hermione included. ofc there are many textual/plot reasons ginny needs to be held at arms length from the trio. but it is striking that the effect of this plot habit for the reader is a usually unkind and sometimes even callous exclusion of ginny by the trio throughout many of the books.

in CoS itself, ginny is never invited to join the trio or spend any time with them: when she isn’t, you know, trying her hand at possessed attempted murder, she’s doing a light bit of potter hero worship that does recall a certain lakeside snitch-catching display of yore. it’s ginny who’s left feeling left out when the trio are swapping suspicious eyes and sirius secrets in GoF, ginny who is hermione’s back-up friend when the ron and harry showdown kicks off over the triwizard tournament, ginny who shoulders the role as harry’s consolation prize friend when ron and hermione go off to the prefects on the train in ootp (and takes him to neville and luna), ginny who goes defenceless when the trio are demanding to be included in order secrets and is physically removed from the room with no protest from the others, ginny who has to fight her case to be taken seriously and included in the department of mysteries plot to rescue a man she too is friends with (‘I care about Sirius as much as you do!’), being patronised by three friends who pick her up and put her down when they feel like it (always enjoy hermione being like ‘we need three thestrals!’ and ginny being like ffs we need four why won’t you show me an ounce of respect). in fact, when ginny is revealed to be becoming popular in a different social circle throughout ootp and hbp, it is something of a shock to harry and ron, who have spent a good six years making no effort to include her and now are finding she has built a much more successful social life beyond them (you reap what you sow, lads). i don’t say this to overstate the trio’s malice nor to overstate the pettigrew comparisons (ginny is clearly both conventionally attractive and much more socially adept).. but i do think it’s striking that  if there is a character with pettigrew echoes in the trio’s surround, always orbiting the trio, trying to feel included (and hero worshipping the potter at the heart of it), it’s more often young ginny than it is neville. so many of the things that made ginny vulnerable to TMR - her loneliness, her isolation, her insecurities and sense of inadequacy - are not helped by the trio in the years afterwards, and in some cases, actively reinforced.

(to briefly say something on gender - sometimes wonder if ginny were a male character if people would have made more of this. percy stans, for instance, go to great lengths to point out all the ways percy was bullied or teased by his family as an excuse for his errrrr war crimes. would people care more about many ginny's exclusions if she were a maligned misunderstood young man? probably? it's noticeable too that all traitors in hp are men lol, a classic example of jkr’s weird and fucked feminism striking again. women are led astray or hoodwinked - men get the complex motivations and agency arcs. but i digress).

why does any of this matter? we know ginny doesn't take the path of pettigrew, however much she might have good reason to. harry's endearingly naive line in DH ('I trust all of you, I don’t think anyone in this room would ever sell me to Voldemort’) ends up being borne out: there are no betrayals during the second wizarding war, and certainly not by ginny (though the sword heist almost ended up doing it on accident). but i found myself thinking a lot about this as i was sketching out the plotline for beasts and thinking about ginny’s war, and what is asked of ginny in it. i was particularly thinking about it relation to how the second wizarding war plays out, the unique position of danger ginny would have been in as a hogwarts student in the 1997-1998 academic year, and what a good target she would make for death eaters on the hunt for a spy within the order of the phoenix.

when i was reading DH for the first time, i remember thinking that it is absolutely bonkers that ginny weasley goes back to hogwarts in september ’97. by that summer, the weasleys are the order of the phoenix. no longer just the blood traitors’ blood traitor, they’re now the face of the wizarding resistance, both parents and (nearly) all sons in active combat, something the ministry certainly knows about even when trying to normalise death eater rule and allowing the facade of arthur et al going to go to work in the ministry/gringotts etc. ginny’s family home is order hq: she lives there all summer, and trots off to the hogwarts express straight from the kitchen table where order meetings take place. when death eaters descend on the wedding, she’s there alongside the rest of the rest of dumbledore stans. she is also famously in the DA, and fought death eaters alongside the trio in the department of mysteries, and again in the battle of the astronomy tower. and then there’s the obvious point that hinny shippers everywhere have pointed out is baffling since the dawn of time, which is that the world and his wife knows that ginny weasley is harry potter’s ex, something that might put a big fat target on her head for a death eater or two to have a pop at trying to get some secrets and intel out of her. 

of course, there’s a compelling case for why ginny has to go back. ron’s already used the splattergroit excuse, and arthur’s going to work, and so is bill, and the twins (at least for a bit), and the weasleys are going for normalisation and at least a fig leaf of compliance. so off ginny goes, into the belly of the beast, back to school, despite all the access she has to order secrets and intel, as well as information on harry and the trio. she is in a uniquely dangerous position of risk: it’s a fortress run by death eaters and her card is marked. she finds herself in an unenviable and unrivalled position as a very good person to go after if you’re a death eater fancying some intel about what the guerilla resistance - and harry potter - are up to. we know there are death eaters about who would like to claw themselves back into some level of relevance by working towards the big man and trying to curry favour (yaxley). we know there is a family intimately aware of ginny weasley's weakness and failings who are desperate to get back in voldemort's good books (the malfoys). we also know there are witnesses to ginny's exclusions both from the order and from the trio over the years - in particular, one witness that already sold secrets on the order to death eaters, namely kreacher.

the reason i came back to thinking about parallels between ginny and peter in beasts is because beasts is a story about ginny’s war, but also in part about morality in the wizarding world, about war and sides and choices. at various points in beasts, i’ve tried to play with ginny’s echoes with characters that waver morally - including regulus - or who find themselves drawn to or in some way embroiled in darkness, and who are at times governed by fear and cowardice and self-preservation in a moral universe that prizes bravery, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. so this plot came from putting all these pieces together - ginny's existing vulnerabilities and insecurities, her position of privilege and access, but also her alienation and mistreatment, and this interest in moral motivations and what experiences or traumas might lead a person, or even justify, a person's treachery, moral inaction, or active moral failing. it was even more interesting for me to play with the idea that other people might have noticed ginny weasley's weird position relative to the trio and the order too, people who want to know what she knows and who would be willing to exploit the cracks in those relationships for strategic wartime gain. and that's for chapters fifteen and sixteen!

[kayflapper]

Marietta Millner, c. 1927.

[lonestarflight]

"Packed into a modified experiment canister, the sunshade would be deployed through the scientific airlock, above right. Martin Marietta photo. The sketches show the steps in deployment, which would result in the sunshade being held close to the workshop wall."

Sequence of parasol deployment.

(a) Parasol operation from interior of airlock.

(b) Parasol at partial extension.

(c) Full extension and partial deployment.

(d) Fully deployed and retracted for service.

Date: May 31, 1973

source, source

[artejoke]

I wanna be curated

1. Lavinia Fontana, Self-portrait, circa 1577-1585, Saragossa Museum 2. Friederike Julie Lisiewska, Self portrait of the artist, aged twenty-one, 1793, Staatliches Museum Schwerin 3. Na Hye-sok, Self-Portrait, c. 1928, Suwon Ipark Museum of Art 4. Elisa Counis, Self-portrait in Uffizi Gallery 1839, 1839, Galleria degli Uffizi 5. Marietta Robusti, Venecian lady, 16th century, Museo del Prado 6. Alice Pike Barney, Self-Portrait with Palette, 1906, Renwick Gallery 7. Elin Danielson-Gambogi, Self-Portrait, 1900, Konstmuseet Ateneum 8. Henriette Lorimier, Self-portrait, between 1804 and 1806, Musée Magnin 9. Lucia Anguissola, Self Portrait, 1557, Castello Sforzesco, Milan

[usafphantom2]

A Lockheed C-5M Super Galaxy leaving Marietta GA. (Lockheed Martin)

@kadonkey via X

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Oil painting, ca. 1578, Italian.

Portraying the artist in a white dress.

Painted by Marietta Robusti.

Uffizi Gallery.

[stoicbreviary]

What a man does not understand, he does not possess.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

IMAGE: Marietta Robusti, Allegory of Wisdom (c. 1580)

[void-botanist]

I would love to know about the elbas sitcom AU (<- big sitcom enjoyer)

Tbh it wouldn't be that different from their actual lives, lol, just played up for comedy. Also this was such a fun response to write that I did not stop myself and I just kept inventing stuff.

A lot of these characters are discussed in this powerpoint post.

Some recurring bits:

No one can remember Casper's name even when he's standing in front of them, except Nidilaenn (his kid) and Vinnek. They all call him Pa (which they do IRL) or some random name ("he has a John face"). Regardless of whether he's there or not everyone is always talking about his whirlwind romance that took him out to the Vale and left them with one less prankster. You know he always returns for the solstice episode.

People go "where's Nidilaenn" and then we immediately cut to Nid in their boat. The funny part is where the boat is this time.

"El this might be easier if you don't get so frustrated" [Ellery turns back toward the camera with the nastiest look on his face] "I'm not frustrated"

There's always a new random nonroot staying at the Yellow House to witness the shenanigans and mostly laugh them off as "wow this island is weird haha"

The nonroot is also always shocked when they find out that they were not wrong, Madge is in fact twice her husband Rigo's age, and those ages are 120 and ~60.

Madge and Rigo are only on the island half the time. The other half they're traveling the mainland and getting called back to Elbas for increasingly ridiculous reasons. While they're away someone else has to care for the lighthouse (which is why IRL they don't actually travel that much).

Herric is always meddling in something. Frequently it has a butterfly effect, where they do something tiny like borrow Milo's butter and by the middle of the episode the island is in shambles.

Herric and Urielte are the "they should just be together" couple of the series, and to be honest they don't disagree (like if they just said "nah we're friends" people would drop it but they've never said that). However they do keep coming up with increasingly silly excuses for why they won't (the real reason is Herric doesn't want to have another breakup and Urielte just doesn't give a shit about formalities).

When someone needs information, Vinnek always has a book on that. Unless it's about legal histories or contract law, in which case Milo has a book on that.

Ysa sets the mood perfectly as a bartender but never serves alcohol. Thon keeps coming up with increasingly complex names for thons juice cocktails.

While working at the docks or the lighthouse Rigo has seen sea monsters of all kinds and just shrugs it off and goes back to his book.

Madge has a bike. The island is small. She tends to ride down the lighthouse hill into town but sometimes she rides into the sea instead (Rigo: [looks up] Madge: [rides right off the end of the dock] Rigo: [goes back to his book, then does a double take]).

This would make more sense in an anime but I thought it so I'm going to say it: sometimes Nid and El grab hands and go "because the power of friendship" with the dramatic eye shine and everything.

There are as many explanations as to why Rae is missing a leg as there are islanders. Even she doesn't give the same answer every time, but she always mentions the ankle bracelet she lost.

Some episode concepts:

Some nonroot comes to stay at the Yellow House and Tirias starts spending all her time with them. Ysa and Amadjes are like "you should branch out" and Tirias is like "noooo" and all bashful about it, because the reason she's hanging around them is because they understand her obsession with an extremely niche media property that no one else gets.

A nonroot can't tell the difference between Amadjes and their cousins Amelie, Aloysius, and Asteras and convinces them all to make increasingly strange fashion choices. For some reason their dad Emil was off-island when this happens and upon his return he can't tell them apart because of the fashion.

Milo's parents Marietta and Tem come to visit and it's a series of humorously awkward interactions between Milo & Herric and Marietta & Tem, to the point that Herric will say something like "what the fuck" to Marietta (their kid) and then immediately turn to Tem and say "I find this somewhat confusing". When Milo mentions Tem to the Council they all offer their own advice: Ellery talks about not getting frustrated, Nid wants to formulate a strategy based on who swept who off their feet, Patience suggests getting kombucha-drunk with them, Tirias says to look for their passion. Somehow all of these become relevant over the course of their relationship-building.

Someone discovers that "the reason" Herric and Urielte won't officially get together is because they don't want to move into each other's houses. So they orchestrate moving one to the other, then vice versa, then into a separate third house, and it all goes really badly and they have to be moved back.

After the previous episode, Herric's ex-wife and estranged son return to demand something from them, probably money- and/or goods-related. Herric ends up moving in and/or getting the equivalent of a Vegas marriage with Urielte to fend her off. Everyone is disappointed when they ultimately undo it all.

Binna's launch is approaching and Milo is just trying to enjoy spending time with her but everywhere he goes are just silly reminders that she's leaving ("that weirdly suggestive calendar has a rocket in it!").

Patience's teenage grandkids come to visit and everyone is super impressed by them because uep twins are rare. They use this to their advantage. Everyone also wonders whether Patience knows what's going on, because of course they pull the most nonsense when she's not around, but she knows exactly and she thinks it's incredibly funny to play the doddering old lady.

Rae gets into a dispute with the owner of the Evly radio station she runs a weekly music show on. Madge (her sister) and Tirias (who regularly plays on the show and also has technical knowledge) decide to team up and start an Elbas radio station. This turns out to be a lot harder than they expect. It would be fun if they managed it though because then we could have a radio station set.

The port authority of Port Danziger, which is several hundred miles away on the mainland, approaches the Council and suggests they pay for docking rights even though that doesn't make any logistical sense. Nidilaenn sets out to discover whether it really is that far to sail (answer: yes) and encounters a variety of nonsense situations on the way.

A new arrival asks about Rae's leg. She says it was a sea monster. We then discover that the sea monsters only Rigo seems to notice are in fact real, but don't really hang around the island because there's not much meat there. The new arrival does not succeed in locating Rae's fabled ankle bracelet.

Following the previous episode, a human sneaks meat onto the island, which causes a massive uptick in sea monster activity. Something something an entire suitcase getting dramatically thrown into the ocean. NO MEAT ALLOWED goes unexplained into the visitor rules and the mainland press has a field day with it.

Casper returns for the solstice episode without his wife (the one who swept him off his feet and caused him to move away). He says it's because he wanted to spend time with Nid, but Nid becomes increasingly suspicious that something is off. They get sent on a wild goose chase wondering if Casper ever even got married only to discover that their stepmom was late because she was bringing a surprise for them.

Vinnek gets haunted by the ghost of Fira past, and while the moral of the episode is that they have to remember the good times they had with Fira and stop getting on the network to listlessly search for Fira, there's a lot of snarky humor on the way. Depending on when this takes place, there will also be the ghost of Casper past (not intentionally a reference lol the importance is that Casper was and is a good friend of Vinnek's who also left the island) and potentially the ghost of Dez past (another friend who left).

A paranormal investigator shows up and insists the lighthouse is haunted. Everyone says no, the lighthouse is not haunted. Eventually the investigator turns out to be right, though the spirits haunting the lighthouse are just chilling and that's why no one thought it was haunted.

Rae, Tirias, and Ysa team up to turn the pub into a club for Jes's birthday, with the heavy bass he so loves (he's deaf). Unfortunately they instead succeed at blowing out Ysa's custom skylight and invoking the ire of Ellery, one of the few people on the island who has ever been to a club. In the course of putting in a new skylight they hatch a better plan: a sort of silent disco-esque setup where they will not shatter the skylight a second time.

For some reason Haskell has to leave the island for a bit and asks Nid and El, who have been considering having kids for a while, if they would watch Lacey. I feel like everything that happens after that is just par for the course for having a 4 year old around but still it seems like even Nid will have changed their mind about kids. When Haskell gets back and is like "haha hope that didn't put you off of sprouting" the two of them are like "nah. we'll survive it with the power of friendship" with the whole solidarity clasp and everything. Then the shine fades and they say, "in five more years maybe".

Tirias becomes obsessed with a wedding shoot he found on the network and starts bothering Ysa and Jes about it. They misunderstand and think what he wants is to get married when in actuality he just wants to have an event for wearing a princess dress. By the time they get on the same page Ysa and Tirias are practically standing at the altar (I don't actually know how Elbas weddings work but you get the idea). But in the end Tirias gets what he wants and they don't actually get married...probably.

I think there should be a season devoted to Dez being there too, with episodes such as:

The rootspace episode, where Dez figures out how to decode the chemical messages of rootspace and becomes obsessed with sharing rootspace with people ("for the love of god Dez PLEASE use your words I'm tired").

The radio show episode, where Dez becomes the synth.

The toilet humor episode, where Dez discovers that one of Elbas's imports is literal shit, which goes into the dirt beds they root into at night. Have I mentioned Dez doesn't really get toilet humor? Uep and neriem, however, do on some level, even though that's not how their digestive systems work.

The laugh scale episode, where Dez notices that making serious Milo laugh is a particular point of pride among the Council. The Council in turn notices that Dez has never once laughed and try to figure out what would make him do so. 50/50 chance they either realize he can't/doesn't laugh OR some random apparently nonhumorous thing happens at the end of the episode and Dez snickers, which is enough of a laugh to celebrate.

The prank episode, where Dez takes the role of the answering machine that has a bunch of snippets of someone's voice to remix except he has extensive recordings of most islanders, which makes it extra fun. He starts pranking people with Nid but as people discover the prank they join in, and after a few days everyone on the island is in on the prank and there's no one left to bother. But then Casper shows up.

[alannah-corvaine]

B A S I C S

Name: Rebecca Cross

Nicknames: Brina, Becca (family only)

Age: 31

Nameday: 7th Sun of the Sixth Umbral Moon

Race: Midlander Hyur

Gender: cis female

Orientation: demisexual

Profession: rogue, honorary Scion of the Seventh Dawn

P H Y S I C A L     A S P E C  T S

Hair: Very pale blonde, not quite platinum. Hangs down to her shoulder blades. Bangs. Mostly worn tied up, sometimes braided. Very fine.

Eyes: wheat-colored, a similar shade to her hair.

Skin: Formerly pale and smooth, typical of a society lady. Now tan after years spent outside. Has a smattering of freckles.

Tattoos/scars:

• several small scars from knife fight knicks

• a tattoo of three small gulls on the back of her left shoulder

F A M I L Y

Parents:

• Roland Cross (38m, deceased)

• Marietta Cross (36f, deceased)

Siblings:

• Philippa (18f, deceased?)

• Lacey (17f, deceased)

Grandparents:

• Oliver Cross (paternal grandfather, deceased)

• Elizavet Cross (paternal grandmother, deceased)

• Thomas Porter (maternal grandfather, deceased)

• Madeleine Porter (maternal grandmother, deceased)

In-laws and Other: None.

Pets: None.

S K I L L S

Abilities:

• Moderately skilled with shortblades in close quarters combat, trained by Jacke.

• Proficient with chakrams when paired with dance-style movements, as taught to her by a nomad viera formerly of a tribe from the Rak'tika Greatwood.

Hobbies: Climbing, parkour, swimming, calligraphy, studying history, reading mystery novels

T R A I T S

Most Positive Trait: She's calm and level-headed in a crisis (although this might be because she's totally dissociating) as well as incorruptably loyal.

Most Negative Trait: She's somewhat understandably vengeful, wrathful, in response to any wrongs done to her and those she loves. She's fixed in her eye for an eye philosophy, even when mercy would be wiser.

L I K E S

Colors: rose pink, periwinkle blue, hunter green

Smells: the ocean, her mother's perfume, gunpowder, lavender, fresh laundry

Textures: steel, lace, blood, sand, porcelain

Drinks: champagne, whiskey, lemonade

O T H E R    D E T A I L S

Smokes: No.

Drinks: Enjoys hard liquors, will drink socially, has a reasonably moderate relationship with alcohol.

Drugs: No.

Mount Issuance: None. Typical travel for her is either by foot or by boat.

Been Arrested: Surprisingly never. There have been some close calls, especially because Captain Milala is very often annoyed with the Rogues Guild, but Brina is very good at melting into the shadows when she needs to.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

While this may look like a lovely, house it's actually a WTH House. You've never seen a reno job like this. Think columns and posts. 2008 build in Marietta, Georgia, this 5bds, 5ba home is priced at $923K (Nope.) The home may have not actually been built in 2008, b/c sometimes, the real estate will give the year that it was completely renovated.

The first thing we notice is that they cut part of the 2nd floor to make a 2-story entrance hall.

You can't convince me that this doesn't look like a funeral home setup.

Here is the first glimpse of the posts. Apparently, they cut out every wall that existed and, without regard for support walls, they just left all the corners and made them into posts. Note the silly little wainscoting.

Ah! I was wondering what those few inches of light above fireplace were. It's what may have been a 2nd fl. bedroom window.

This is insane. 3-pronged posts all over the place. They even cut around the doorways. (Well, at least you can see the original footprint of the house.)

This is the view from the new 2-story entrance.

Upstairs, they cut a few pieces of wall out of the hallway and also made a small balcony on the right.

View from the balcony.

They opened it up to make it open concept. I'm sorry, but open concept isn't a maze of posts. Somehow they get the place to stand up.

I love the wood here in the hall, and that they left the niche. (I'm wondering if that wasn't a dumbwaiter, though.) What I don't like, is the stupid frame they put around the light switch.

Oh, this is cool. After a big meal, step into the hearth and burn those calories.

Don't worry, it's private- they can't see you from the kitchen table b/c it's blocked by a flatscreen on the dining table.

The kitchen is new, of course. This would make a nice bar, rather than a small appliance parking lot.

Here, they're showing off the "beamed/coffered" ceiling they made with beadboard and molding.

The bedrooms are small, but they have nice shutters.

What a great idea, they can steam the clothes.

Just so ya know, the other bedrooms have plain ceilings.

Look at the mini park at the end of the street.

https://www.movoto.com/marietta-ga/309-fairbrook-cir-ne-marietta-ga-30067/pid_d015kdllbh/

[laventadorn]

Hi. Me again. In canon Umbridge finds out about Dumbledore's Army/Defense Club due to Umbridge giving Marietta Edgecombe (I think that was her name), Cho's friend, truth serum. But, I was speculating the nuance of actual betrayal, and forcing the younger generation to re-asses their house biases. Like, maybe b/c of the presence of a Slytherine, people just assume the worst of them. Harriet defends them. Only, for it to be a fellow Gryffindor, or Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw who sells them out to Umbridge. Whether you go there or not in your fanfic, I was just curious about what you think of the nuance of the positive/negative extremes of ALL the houses. I think it was confirmed Umbridge was in fact in Hufflepuff, which shows the fine line between loyalty and fanaticism. Pettigrew was Gryffindor; the fine line between bravery and ego. Ravenclaw can probably be so practical that they sometimes don't think about people's feelings. And through Snape (especially the way you write him ; chef's kiss) we see the nuance of Slytherine. And since you're keeping Cedric, I hope we get more POVs (however brief they may be) of the other house characters. I LOVE that you're expanding Harriet's circle of friends, slowly but surely. Hermione and Ron will always be her closest friends. But, I loved how we saw Cho, and even Fleur in 4th yr, Asteria - I hope we see more Millicent - so, I look forward to more of that goodness. I think that's one of the reasons why I keep coming back to your fics for re-reads. You've added nuance that I felt was lacking in canon. Anyway, thank you for writing such a beautiful story.

hello again! someone once said "JKR divided the human race into four groups and then ignored two of them," which i think is pretty accurate... and the older i get, the sillier the whole house system seems. my brain is not operating at its peak today, so some of this might be garbled nonsense or just repeating the obvious, but:

to me, the houses don't have any inherent value as a means of determining character. i think it would be more accurate to say that people are sorted based on how they want to appear to others or how they think of themselves. this isn't a bad thing per se -- i think it's neutral and natural. it might not even be conscious, especially when they're young.

we can read harry's experience this way, for example. dumbledore says "it's our choices that determine who we are" and cites the example of harry turning down slytherin and choosing gryffindor, but i would argue this is not because slytherin is inherently evil or gryffindor inherently good; harry made his choice based on how the houses were described to him. the sorting hat frames it differently than hagrid did (slytherin is the "way to greatness" vs. the bad people house). harry doesn't want to be bad*, so he just says "not the bad people house" until the sorting hat gives up. it's more like the house system reinforces beliefs or biases because you get 4 separate groups who establish what behavior is "the best," and then what could have been a minor inclination (or even a major one) gets reinforced into something bigger. hufflepuff seems to have the least issue with this, as helga is described in one of the songs as "tak[ing] all the rest," i.e. the kids that didn't sort into the other three houses with their prized qualities of courage, intelligence, and ambition. a person doesn't have to be smart to get into ravenclaw, they just have to prize intelligence (or want to be perceived as wise or intelligent). in her mind, umbridge could believe that she is very loyal to traditional wizard values, but in reality, she's just a sadist who loves control (fanaticism). peter probably wanted to be seen as brave because he was scared of everything all the time -- but then he wasn't actually brave, and this could've reinforced his inferiority, especially adding in james and sirius' bullying behavior and his own clearly mixed admiration and resentment.

idk, i'd like harriet to just realize the house system is so deeply flawed and largely based on pure perception as to be inherently meaningless. maybe she doesn't make a big platform out of it, but she's already pretty much decided this on a subconscious level from her interactions with asteria and snape. so if someone were to ask her, she'd say, "i dunno, it doesn't really seem to matter. just do what you think is right."

and: thank you! c:

ETA:

*it could be argued that harry doesn't want to go to the bad people house because the dursleys have always labeled him as a nasty, rotten boy etc. and he doesn't want to wind up in that position in the wizarding world. (plus, what child wants to be seen that way?) then he meets malfoy, who makes him feel small, and this reinforces his No Slytherin point of view. these are very child-appropriate concerns, so i'm not saying this is narrow-minded of the text; it feels quite honest, really. of course, this is just about Not Slytherin; the Hat puts harry in gryffindor based on what it senses in his personality. so maybe i'm undermining my own point :)

[punmster]

Sorry if this ends up overwhelming you and if it does, feel free to ignore them. I’m just bored and curious. 👉👈😅

Which character do you think had the most potential in the Harry Potter series and do you plan on implementing any of your ideas into them?

If DSMSG Draco was locked in a room with Umbridge, Lockhart, and Voldemort and had a gun with two bullets, who would he choose to shoot?(totally not stolen from The Office)

I think you may or may have not mentioned this earlier and feel free to ignore this question if it’s a spoiler, but when does Harry begin having feelings for Draco/act on them?

no worries, i wanted a distraction from my work anyway lol

In terms of potential, I'm not quite sure. My first thought was Draco (Duh) mostly because I wish so badly that they kept the scene in the final movie where he threw his wand to Harry. That alone would probably do so much for his character, and I am very likely going to do something with it in the fic. Plus the whole really weird hug with Voldy thing, kinda seems like Voldy is trying to have a relationship with him that parallels Harry and Dumbledore's. Anyway, Draco's SO uncomfortable all the time in 7th, it makes me very excited to get to it :) I also think Narcissa is pretty interesting since she kinda parallels Lily, and the fact she lied to the Dark Lord TO HIS FACE and protected Harry...I know I make Narcissa out to be just a very overbearing mother (and bad cook) but I hope to make Draco see the other sides to her later on, when he gets his head out of his ass. For now, she's sort of just comic relief, but there are some things set up in the very first years that will come back in the later years.

(also i REALLY need to add neville in some more--thematically he's super important, but he just doesn't get that much screen time yet. I'll have to think more about how to integrate him, but definitely he will appear more in 3rd w/ other characters. Other characters I plan to include are Cedric, Luna, maybe Cho? Marietta, probably, for the whole traitor thing in the 5th book, and ofc Pansy and Zabini, though those two are the flattest in the books so I'm gonna have to make up a lot of stuff lol. gotta add in sirius obvs [he's actually my favorite, which was why he was not-malfoy's fave in the old version], and remus [also we gotta discuss the werewolf in the room, with the whole snape prank thing...])

Draco would probably blackmail Lockhart into taking the gun and shooting Umbridge twice. He isn't stupid enough to try to kill Voldemort with a gun (are the horcruxes around in this hypothetical?also Voldy lived in like. WWII? Although he's ignorant of love magic stuff, he is probably deeply aware of the dangers of Muggle weapons, which maybe relates to his desire to conquer them) but Draco would love Umbridge dead, and he'd want more blackmail on Lockhart lol. The man's main fear is losing his reputation so that's probably a better punishment than death. If it's sixth year Draco he might just shoot himself though

I have mentioned that Draco doesn't want to date as a minor or date minors even if physically the same age due to the weird age gap/time question thing (a really big issue in isekai/transmigration imo, and the bit of this fic that makes me want to just make it platonic--seriously. I read one where this grown man DATED A SEVEN YEAR OLD B/C HE WAS IN A CHILD'S BODY??) but Harry will obviously not be thinking about that since for all he knows, they're both normal kids. You can probably safely assume he starts thinking of romance at the same time as in the books, though obviously his friendship w/ Draco and the whole "it's the nineties and I think I'm gay?!" thing would make him not as proactive about it for a while