I don't know how to get this into some of yours heads but getting yourself out of abusive home is not being a coward

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give me walburga who really thought she was gentle parenting. that she was breaking the cycle of abuse because she doesnt force them into engagements with their cousins when theyre six, and she spends time with them when theyre young instead of letting the nannies raise them until theyre ready for polite company, and she buys them toys and ice cream, and she keeps orion away from the kids when hes angry, who tries to give sirius a better childhood than she had. whos angry at sirius for leaving because why cant he just be grateful, why cant he understand how much better he had it!!

“If you have time to watch Netflix you have time for a side hustle” my side hustle is relaxing so that my body and brain can heal from by this nose-to-the-grindstone bullshit. I refuse to feel guilty for being a human with the need to relax sometimes. my side hustle is no.

JUST LEAVE A COMMENT FEST

(19-21 April)

This was so fun!!! It finally got me to focus on reading the wonderful fics on my tbr list that I've been desperate to read and comment on even if my brain was stupid and kept putting it off.

Thank you to @justleaveacommentfest for the inspo and organisation of the fest. I managed to make 16 comments which is not a lot but still (!!!). And a big thank you as always to all the fantastic authors for putting their work out there <3

Recs from the weekends' reading under the cut!

All The Animals He Could Be by FrillyPinkUmbrella (HP, 29K, E, Sirius/James)

Summary: "It was like just like looking into a fire, he thought, as he gazed into the one currently blazing in the Common Room. He knew that it provided consistent comfort and that it burned at the touch, yet nothing of what lived behind the flames. It was so bright it blotted out its own answers. James’ rule-breaking, not only of the obvious rules, but the unwritten, agreed-upon ones—none of that was new. But the nastiness was." In sum: Remus hates the idea of his friends trying to be Animagi, James is being strange, and Peter just wants to pass his OWLs. And Sirius is...turning into a dog. ___ An exploration of

where you belong by itsjamespotterr (HP, 1.2k, G, Sirius/James)

Summary: Sirius is finally moving into the boys' dorm room, where he belongs. Written in celebration of Trans Day of Visibility <3

"A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism." by camichats (HP, 255 words, T, Sirius/James)

Summary: Drinking from Sirius is the closest they can be, but James wants more.

Need you tonight by mycupofrum (HP, 1.6k, E, Sirius/James)

Summary: Not one to back down from a challenge, James closes his lips around his straw and sucks. The man merely raises his brow, but James knows he just gained the stranger's undivided attention.

The Sanctity of Sin by forest_death (HP, E, 2.5K, Sirius/James)

Tags: Alternate Universe, Priest Kink, Sexual Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Religion Kink, Religious Guilt, Religious Content

all you do is kill, love snakes, and lie by soopsiedaisies (HP, M, 4.7K WIP, Sirius/James/Lily, Tom/Harry)

Summary: [BREAKING] LOCAL DARK LORD STILL HAS NOSE TO PUNCH GODRIC’S HOLLOW - English Dark Lord ‘Lord Voldemort’ (54) may be high on egocentrism, but he gets one sobering reality-check. After Harry Potter (32) went on a trip in his favourite rocket ship, he promptly ended up getting slung through the space-and-time-continuum; this curious happenstance ensured that his father, James Potter (21), got away from a murder attempt with no more than some mildly bruised ribs.

Sometimes I got to get away by plecotusauritus (HP, M, 1.4K, Gen Sirius-centric)

Summary: They leave while it’s still dark and cold. Those are the best hours of the day - before sunrise brings the smothering heat of August, and before everyone else has gotten up. Just the two of them, a quiet world, and open roads.

it's getting hard to be someone (but it all works out) by soopsiedaisies (HP, T, 37K WIP, Gen eventual S/J)

Summary: James dies. Or he doesn't. Either way, being legally dead but not actually dead is kind of a hassle, getting his best friend out of jail is as well, and let's not even talk about the difficulty of preventing multiple murders by controlling his temper. Also, his Cloak is acting really weird...

realizing that sticking to the "do it bad" "do it scared" mentality implies theres also a "do it bored"

Really really really really want Sirius to hug James from behind and nuzzle his neck and maybe even peck it and them just being in this position while talking softly and it's so

Hi, you can't just say all that about rarepairs and just not link the fic. Fleur/Sirius sounds so interesting! I never even thought of them in the same room let alone as a romantic couple. Now thinking about them makes me want to think about them more. Thank you for this new experience inam experiencing!! 😭😭😭

Lollll sorry!! 😅

the design of flaws by julestales is Sirius/Fleur. It is honestly one of my favorite smut fics I’ve ever read.

to be of use is the sequel and it’s Sirius/Fleur/Remus…which worked for me. And y’all know I’m not big into WS, so… 👀

But yeahhhhhh. It never would have occurred to me. But. I love it.

Do you maybe have tips for editing? I never really know where to even start...

Hey nonnie, funny that you should ask because editing might just be the thing about the writing process I'm having the most thoughts on 😂 Mostly it's because I do write my first drafts pretty fast, and that means they tend to need a lot of polishing until I'm satisfied with them. I'm not saying this would work for anyone - it's simply what I've come up with for myself; feel free to adjust, restructure, ignore altogether or, most importantly, use only half of it because according to my friends, I'm insane. Anyway.

I basically do 6 editing rounds, not counting beta-edits. Bear with me. First of all, I never edit before I'm done - it's a matter of taste, but I don't post my long fics before they're fully written, partly so that I can change things when editing. It's mostly a result of being someone who doesn't outline, so again, feel free to adjust this as needed.

First editing round: colour-coding the shit out of the thing, as follows:

Purple: plot-things that need to be changed, foreshadowing to adjust, dialogue (both content and does it sound natural?), consistency of timeline, characterisation, places, etc. etc. Red: to be deleted or massively shortened (in my case, too many dialogue tags, characters getting stuck in their own head for too long, stuff like that) Dark blue: Repeated words and phrases, wording/phrasing in general, passive voice (is it needed?) Turquoise: fine-polishing of wording (i.e. I could leave it like this, but I could also still word it a little better, find a more fitting metaphor, stuff like that). Green: sentence structure and flow, meaning run on sentences, rhythm, anything that reads wonky not due to word-choice but beats Pink: Words that I tend to overuse, filler words ("really, only, just, though" etc.), as well as those that create unnecessary distance ("feel, think, wonder, remember," etc.) - not that you have to delete all of them, but it makes sense to check if they're needed. Yellow: maybe change. The stuff you're not sure about, that could work or maybe not. The cheating colour, basically. Orange: grammar, tense, spelling (I tend to correct a lot of that as I go, but as English isn't my native language, sometimes I have to look stuff up/want to check whether it's the British/US spelling).

Right, so that's a lot. I'm not going to try fixing all of it at once, so:

Second round: fix purple and red, it takes the most rewriting. Third round: dark blue and green. Fourth round: turquoise, pink, and yellow. Fifth round: orange Sixth round: one final read through as a whole, not with an intent of changing anything anymore. If anything still sticks out to you, fix it as you go.

This is mostly for longer fics - for one shots, I sometimes throw three and four together, or even two to four. Again, this is very in-depth, but I do hope it might help you/give you an idea where to start! ❤️

i know it’s been said before, but it bears repeating: a big, big part of maintaining your confidence & self esteem as a creator is fully embracing the concept of “you don’t have to be good like them.  you can be good like you.”

for example, i’m not someone who’s particularly good at coming up with complex, elaborate plots or incredibly unique ideas.  it’s just not how i choose to write.  and it would be easy for me to look at someone with an elaborate, super unique plot & decide that because i don’t write like that, i’m not a good writer.  after all, unique plots are good, and my writing lacks those, so my writing must not be good, right?  well, no, actually.  i just have different strengths, like taking a simple premise & digging super deep into its emotional depths.  that’s what i do well & it isn’t any better or worse than people who do elaborate world building or come up with really creative and unexpected plots.

your writing is never going to be all things to all people.  it just isn’t.  inevitably, you’ll have to make creative choices that favor certain aspects of writing over others.  there is truly no getting around that & it’s honestly a good thing, because it means you’ve developed your own style.  but you’ll always encounter other creators who posses strengths that you don’t.  it doesn’t mean one is better than the other or that your writing isn’t good enough. 

comparing yourself like that would be like taking a piece of pizza & a cupcake & going “oh no, that cupcake is so sweet & my pizza isn’t sweet at all.” or “gosh, the garlic crust on that pizza is delicious and my cupcake doesn’t have ANY garlic.”  obviously your pizza isn’t sweet.  obviously your cupcake doesn’t have garlic.  a food can’t have every single delicious flavor at once.  the cupcake is good like a cupcake.  the pizza is good like a pizza.  so you don’t have to be good like them.  you can be good like you.

my contribution for @torturedpoetsflashfest

Sirius Black / rated G / 459 words

the scandal was contained the bullet had just grazed at all cost keep your good name you don't get to tell me you feel bad

(taylor swift: who's afraid of little old me?)

something we agreed we like about uncle vernon is that despite like, personally suffering at the hands of wizards pretty significantly (dudley’s tail, marge), vernon is like, always ready to fuck with wizards? like he is SO SCARED of them but he’s always ready to fight? please take this moment to imagine uncle vernon meeting voldemort

i feel so sorry for neville because he was the fifth wheel in the Gryffindor boys' dorm for 7 years. while ronarry and deamus were busy in their pining era, he was in the background, wondering when it would all end.

I feel like the double-edged sword of Sirius’s looks is rarely explored.

The immediate snap judgements from people, the envy, the contempt and spite, and also this rapturous worship. People projecting onto him and claiming to either deeply hate him or have experienced ‘love at first sight.

All before he’s opened his mouth.

And deep down he fears he’ll always be a trophy to someone, not loved for his mind or character but because he’s handsome.

Also the exhaustion of being in a public space and not having any anonymity.

obnoxiously loud marauders fanon is turning me into a snape stan actually and i’m a snape-bullied-harry-for-no-reason truther. what do you mean regulus is the poor badass morally grey meow meow with an horrible family life who got pushed into voldemort’s violent little cult through societal pressure but was secretly a good guy all along? hello? that’s literally severus snape put some respect on our dungeon bat’s name

Sure James. Whatever you say

The Sanctity of Sin

James/Sirius, M, wc 2500, tw religious content

"Father James, if God is love, why does He forbid love?" Sirius, a young man who has been attending catechism for several months, asks. Unbaptized and raised by a Baptist mother, Sirius has now decided to seek baptism in the Catholic Church.

"Please clarify your question," James responds, turning the page of his Bible.

"Leviticus 18:22. 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination,'" Sirius quotes. "Why? If they love each other."

"We've already gone over this, Sirius," James says wearily, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"But you didn't answer."

"I did. You just didn't like what I said."

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