#he's spineless and soft and consumed by self-loathing and fear

[acewitch-writes]

I love Canon Remus and all of his flaws. Enough of this "Casanova of Gryffindor Tower" BS, Remus is the cowardly lion of Gryffindor tower. He values bravery because it is something that he lacks and yet still strives to be. He has an ingrained sense of shame and self-loathing and an inferiority complex that stems from society's contempt and marginalization towards Lycanthropy, a condition he was cursed with from a very young age. He wasn't a leader, he was a follower. A blind follower who believed to his core that he was unworthy of love and respect because of what he was.

Which opens the door to what I believe to be Remus' greatest flaw: His unwavering, unquestioning devotion to Albus Dumbledore.

I think Remus saw Dumbledore as the perfect encapsulation of Good. He was everything that Remus desperately wanted to be, everything that society was determined to believe a werewolf could never be. And maybe, if Remus could earn (and cling to) Dumbledore's favor and make him proud, he would prove to the world and himself that he is Good, too, in spite of his lifelong curse.

Remus felt that he owed Dumbledore a debt he could never hope to repay for allowing this chronically ill little boy into his school when no werewolf before him had ever been given such an opportunity. So many of Remus' choices in canon stem directly from this imagined debt that he had dedicated his life to paying. Hell, he didn't even hold a grudge against Snape for OUTING HIM to the entire wizarding world simply because Dumbledore trusted him.

Remus trusted Dumbledore wholeheartedly. And Dumbledore personally saw to Harry's placement with the Dursleys. Why should Remus have considered, for even a moment, that Harry wasn't safe? Certainly far safer than he would have been with a monster in close proximity, as Remus believed himself to be. In his mind, staying away from Harry was what was best for Harry. Until Dumbledore needed a favor, that is.

It's reductive to suggest that Remus failed Harry (and by extension, James) for putting his trust in Dumbledore to do right by Harry. James and Sirius trusted Dumbledore, too. They all did. Stripping away all of the nuance and blaming the abuse Harry suffered on Remus is simply unfair. NO ONE helped Harry, not even those who were fully equipped to do so, and Remus was the farthest thing from being equipped to take that on, what with being an impoverished werewolf living in a society that reviles his very existence. The only person who could have saved Harry from the abuse was the very man that placed him in that home, the very man that Remus revered with blind conviction.

[musicallisto]

🌘 — 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲𝐥𝐨𝐧; (nik ryder x f!mc)

~ 2021 start-of-the-year event ~

@ladylamrian​ requested: No. 75 - Nik Ryder (Choices fandom) I wish you good luck, @musicallisto 😊 song: 5 seconds of summer - babylon | 𝄞

summary: Each time they crossed paths, she’d curse herself right afterward, and device some plan to disdainfully walk away next time she saw him. Each time they crossed paths, she forgot everything.

author notes: I liked this a whole lot when I started writing it and now I’m not so sure of it - I feel like it’s rushed in a way I can’t explain, and I’m just crap at writing arguments, and that’s on me being a libra. also, if you think i projected and the first part is just me rambling about my crush haha!! shut up word count: 1.9k words warnings: language, angst, lowkey obsessive infatuation/relationship but that’s just because I feel everything 100% and know no balance. I do not recommend loving someone with this much intensity, kids.

𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐘 𝐓𝐎 Nik Ryder’s charm had been like fighting a fire kindling in her chest. If she closed her eyes long enough, she could maybe take a deep breath, fill her lungs with air and hopes, and naively believe it would soon die down, the embers a mere reminder of what a long-forgotten stranger had once ignited in her.

Funnily enough, she didn’t close her eyes too often. It made her miss out on all the flames around her, she said.

Each time they crossed paths, she’d curse herself right afterward, reprimand herself for being so lovestruck and him for being so infuriatingly magnetic, and device some plan to lift her chin, eye him through half-opened eyes, and disdainfully walk away next time she saw him.

Each time they crossed paths, she forgot everything except for what her gut could yell and her eyes could see - him, nothing but him, everywhere and every time, even when she wasn’t looking. So she trailed after him, bit her lip when she caught him staring, soared when they bickered and he smiled, that devilishly crooked grin of his.

And inexorably, over the weeks and months, without him even realizing at first, he found himself pulled closer and closer to her, opening little cracks in his walls for her to see all the ruggedness beneath.

The first time they sat next to each other on the steps of the Graveyard Shift, shoulder to shoulder to fight the chill of the night, was the first time she caught a glimpse of Nik’s beating heart. When he absent-mindedly took her hand in his, not even commenting on how cold they were, her breath caught in her chest. She’d been infatuated before - but they always appeared to her as angels bathed in light, unstained and crowned in gold. But Nik’s heart was charred and his eyes glimmered with the gentle, albeit a little worn spark of disillusionment.

So much pain, solitude, and yet so much vulnerable softness all in one man, all in the man holding her trembling hand and not saying anything, enraptured her as nothing had before.

Maybe it was the New Orleans night, maybe it was all the supernatural chaos rushing to her head, maybe it was just that she’d had a charred heart too. But from then on, she wanted all but one thing. Him.

“I’m real glad I found you,” he had whispered into the cold, damp air, and involuntarily pressed her hand. “You make it seem like all this is worth fighting for.”

“It is.”

You are, she meant with all her heart. We are, she’d murmur later to the secret nooks of her ribcage.

How long will we be, she forgot to ask.

Falling in love with Nik Ryder was like letting the fire rage uncontrolled in her chest and savoring the warmth and the burns as they came.

After that night at the Graveyard Shift, and all those that followed where he would just hold her and talk of anything and everything, she’d only breathed in the same air as he, warm with an aftertaste of smoke like an embrace before an adieu. She’d seen the corners of his chest, the scars on his back, the hints of his life before her, but she wanted it all. She wanted to know his soul completely bare, to drown entirely into him, into his familiar, strong, and acidic smell of firewood and naphthalene. She’d seen his highs and his triumphs; she had loved them all like the rivers love the ocean; now she wanted the dust, the dirt, the grime, the tears, and the blood.

Her heart had once roared like a fury when she caught his gaze, when their hands accidentally brushed against each other or when he stepped between her and every danger; now it wasn’t quieter, but she had gotten accustomed to the rumbling like that of a waterfall. Her pulse didn’t skip anymore when he grabbed her hand as a reflex, because it had long before settled in tune with his. Her dreams were not haphazard flashes of him anymore, but vast expanses of sea. A brazen brown sea, exactly like the shade of his eyes...

And the more he talked, the more she listened; the more she unveiled about herself, the more he leaned over; until she knew him better than she knew herself; until he’d rested his head on her shoulder, and let go of years worth of troubles and worries and fears. There, on a quiet balcony overlooking Lamrian at night, she had uttered the word for the first time.

“I love you, Nik.”

She was certain of it. What else could be this fluttering in her chest at the sight of his face, so pure and tranquil and handsome, slightly tilted toward her own? How else could she call the fever that had taken over her, delectable and dizzying all at once, that threatened to consume her whole - what else, other than love?

He had looked up at her, opening earnest and profound eyes. He hadn’t seemed taken aback by the confession in the slightest, perhaps a consequence of his smug radiance. A silent mist, hovering beneath the moon and around them both, encapsulated their heartbeats until he spoke.

“Hell, MC, I think I love you too,” barely a murmur, an inch away from her face. “This is stupid, but I want to say it... I think-- I think I want to love you till I die.”

“I’m not stopping you.”

Please do.

A gasp escaped him, neither entirely relief nor laughter, when she took his hand in hers, warm for the first time. It was a mere second of her wondering at his eyes where stirred a few glimmers of the night before he’d kissed her deeply. She clung onto the lapels of his cloak, closed her eyes, and let herself be devoured. Soon enough his sighs had dissolved in the dark.

Oh! How naive had they been, to talk of life and death and love, with a Fate thundering overhead like a sword over their necks!

Having her heart broken by Nik Ryder was like the fire erupting into a blaze, like its tendrils of smoke clutching her throat, like a famished inferno devastating everything around her. It wasn’t losing him per se; it was losing them both, him and herself, all at once, as though the dormant mountain between them had exploded with no grunt to augur the outburst.

They had seen everything, they had fought everything, they had survived everything. But they both died the night they shattered.

“Goddamit, MC, how can you be so stubborn? You’re not listening to a goddamn thing I’m saying -- you never fucking listen!”

“Oh, I’m listening alright -- listening to you insult me and belittle me and ignore what I say and want because I’m a Rookie and an imbecile and--”

“When have I ever belittled you, MC? When?”

“Every damn time you’ve looked at me, Nik!” she exploded, making the walls and windows rumble. “Every damn time you’ve looked at me and treated me as if you saw nothing but a defenseless, spineless idiot!”

A deafening silence fell on the living room, as she breathlessly took notice, for the first time, of the unrest that had taken over Nik’s apartment. None of it was tangible; the cushions were in their usual place, the coffee table lined up with the sofa as it always was; but a troubling stillness lingered in the air as if the world were quietly frothing before a blast. None of them had noticed the lights outside dimming with the day, nor the slight breeze blowing in the room; and it all appeared suddenly to her, as she was staring up at Nik before her, her eyes neither cotton nor steel. Nik, who always had to have the last word, especially when it came to you, always so sure and full of himself...

“You were defenseless when I met you. All I ever did was to protect you.”

His tone, metal and ice, and his eyes, stone and darkness, and his abject self-sufficiency... always having to be the indispensable one... a bout of pure fury rose in her throat once more. He had been indispensable to her once, so very much, like the sun and air. He probably still was, too. Yet she realized with horror that she’d been engulfed in him for so long that she didn’t know what remained of her, purely her, and it suddenly made her sick beyond reason.

“Maybe I never wanted your protection! Maybe I’ve had enough! Maybe I never wanted to meet you!” she raised her voice again.

“Hell, if this is how it’s gonna be, maybe I was better off without you!” he spat back, throwing his arms in the air.

“Maybe, Nik! Maybe I don’t want the constant fear and pressure that being with you entails!”

“If you’re so scared of being with me, then leave! Leave, MC! I’m not stopping you!” he roared, as a first teary tremor troubled his voice. “But don’t come back crawlin’ when you miss me, MC, or when you find out I was right. I’ve had enough heartbreak and anger for a lifetime.”

“You always made everything about you,” she spat, resorting to bitterness just like he had.

Maybe it was all my doing, indirectly. Maybe I loved you too much for my own good. Maybe I wanted to forget myself into you. Maybe all we could both see was you...

No match ignited like theirs had been could have burnt for any longer.

No soul who’d been so utterly and desperately entangled with another could sit face to face with itself, bare and rotten, and escape unscathed.

“If you leave now, MC,” he hammered with a composure you loathed without really knowing why, “it’s forever. I ain’t choosin’ for you, for once.”

The weight of his words dawned on her suddenly, like a vice constricting her throat. She raised her eyes at him, meeting and holding his gaze, swallowing hard. Such a beautiful face, one she had loved so tenderly, all she could see, imagine, and sing for months. A face she had covered with kisses and touches and sleepy words. A face she had started at for so long, in hopes she would eventually forget hers...

“I need some space.”

Nik’s shoulders deflated, and he rubbed a hand behind his neck as she took a laborious breath. Something was twitching and yelling in her insides, begging to break free; perhaps one last sense of self she had unknowingly preserved... All she needed was space. An immensity. A wide, open field, where she could yell and cry and jump and sing... stare at her reflection in puddles and find herself again.

She grabbed her coat from the back of a chair. On her way to the door, she thought she heard an agitated but above all immensely pained whisper.

“You were all I cared about, MC, hand to God. I would’ve died for you.”

I would have too. Maybe that’s why we couldn’t both live.

More violently than she had intended, she closed the door behind her.

Breaking both her and Nik Ryder’s heart was like wrecking a tower, sky-high, unsinkable, unshakeable. Neither of them remained long enough to salvage anything among the rumble; specks of dust jammed their mouths and chests already.

[sofoulandfairaday]

#canon Remus is so complex and interesting #he's spineless and soft and consumed by self-loathing and fear #I think he was drawn to Sirius and James and Gryffindor House in general for the same reasons he was devoted to Dumbledore #He was quick to believe that Sirius was guilty because he had no confidence in himself to make his own judgement #He considered himself to be an inherent monster battling endlessly to supress his evil nature #and therefore placed all of his faith in those he believed to be Wholly Good #Reducing his character to “selfish manipulative coward” is a disservice #Also erasing these flaws in favor of the Fanon cocky asshole alpha male wattpad werewolf Remus is a massive disservice #remus lupin #marauders #character study #Canon Remus Defense Squad #i could rattle on and on about this topic for hours

I love Canon Remus and all of his flaws. Enough of this "Casanova of Gryffindor Tower" BS, Remus is the cowardly lion of Gryffindor tower. He values bravery because it is something that he lacks and yet still strives to be. He has an ingrained sense of shame and self-loathing and an inferiority complex that stems from society's contempt and marginalization towards Lycanthropy, a condition he was cursed with from a very young age. He wasn't a leader, he was a follower. A blind follower who believed to his core that he was unworthy of love and respect because of what he was.

Which opens the door to what I believe to be Remus' greatest flaw: His unwavering, unquestioning devotion to Albus Dumbledore.

I think Remus saw Dumbledore as the perfect encapsulation of Good. He was everything that Remus desperately wanted to be, everything that society was determined to believe a werewolf could never be. And maybe, if Remus could earn (and cling to) Dumbledore's favor and make him proud, he would prove to the world and himself that he is Good, too, in spite of his lifelong curse.

Remus felt that he owed Dumbledore a debt he could never hope to repay for allowing this chronically ill little boy into his school when no werewolf before him had ever been given such an opportunity. So many of Remus' choices in canon stem directly from this imagined debt that he had dedicated his life to paying. Hell, he didn't even hold a grudge against Snape for OUTING HIM to the entire wizarding world simply because Dumbledore trusted him.

Remus trusted Dumbledore wholeheartedly. And Dumbledore personally saw to Harry's placement with the Dursleys. Why should Remus have considered, for even a moment, that Harry wasn't safe? Certainly far safer than he would have been with a monster in close proximity, as Remus believed himself to be. In his mind, staying away from Harry was what was best for Harry. Until Dumbledore needed a favor, that is.

It's reductive to suggest that Remus failed Harry (and by extension, James) for putting his trust in Dumbledore to do right by Harry. James and Sirius trusted Dumbledore, too. They all did. Stripping away all of the nuance and blaming the abuse Harry suffered on Remus is simply unfair. NO ONE helped Harry, not even those who were fully equipped to do so, and Remus was the farthest thing from being equipped to take that on, what with being an impoverished werewolf living in a society that reviles his very existence. The only person who could have saved Harry from the abuse was the very man that placed him in that home, the very man that Remus revered with blind conviction.