normalize not having sex until you feel comfortable :) normalize not having sex until you meet the right person :) no matter your age! :) i mean it! in your teens! your 20s! your 30s! :) also normalize these things without automatically tying them to some kind of religious or abstinence-based reasoning :) 

what if we all killed ourselves

Coming across the scene with Sir Nicholas (Nearly Headless Nick) complaining about not being able to join the Headless Hunt in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and thinking “ah yes, I’d forgotten the ableist ghosts…”

thinking about how in gof, sirius says “ever since i found out snape was teaching here, i’ve wondered why dumbledore hired him” and goes onto explain how snape was famous for the dark arts at school and part of a slytherin gang that all turned out to be death eaters (who we later find out were attacking students with dark magic). so he’s one of the only people to immediately be like “why the fuck is dumbledore letting snape teach children”. then says that as far he knows snape was never even accused of being a death eater but many of them were never caught. but when ron keeps insisting that snape must be a death eater, sirius disagrees and reasons it out, because he doesn’t think it makes sense based on the facts, and also because: “there’s still the fact that dumbledore trusts snape, and i know dumbledore trusts where a lot of other people wouldn’t, but i just can’t see him letting snape teach at hogwarts if he’d ever worked for voldemort.” (so even while questioning dumbles, sirius clearly still has way too much faith in him. which makes everything in ootp extra infuriating). anyways, sirius was willing to give snape the benefit of the doubt on being a death eater, like, he’s perfectly capable of being rational about snape and not jumping to conclusions despite his hatred of him!

and then at the end of gof he finds out that snape WAS in fact a death eater, and sirius has no proof or reason to believe that snape has actually changed, all he has to work off of is that Dumbledore Trusts Snape, even though all sirius knows is that snape literally tried to hand him (and remus) to the fucking dementors and outed remus, and witnessed snape going unhinged at his godson and two other teenagers in the same scene.

and now he has to work alongside snape knowing that he apparently paid no consequences for his death eater past, wasn’t even so much as accused of being one (not unlike lucius malfoy and karkaroff and the others who did deals with the ministry and clearly haven’t changed their ways, who sirius shows bitterness towards in gof) while sirius was branded as one by the ministry and the whole wizarding world and unjustly imprisoned for it for 12 years without even getting a trial.

and snape is constantly taunting him about the fact that he can’t leave the house and help the order because of the world STILL thinking that sirius is a death eater and murderer because of that very same unjust imprisonment that the fascist hate group snape joined directly fucking caused, and snape the actual former death eater is able to do these things and live freely because he got away with it all. and he might complain about it but sirius still puts up with all of that for months along with all the other shit he has to deal with in ootp.

then he’s told that snape has to teach harry occlumency, and makes sure to sit with harry rather than letting snape talk to him alone, and is apparently the ONLY one to question this clearly terrible stupid ass decision and ask why dumbledore can’t teach him instead. yeah sirius starts off with a petty comment or two but harry even looks to sirius to intervene on his behalf, and sirius does. sirius calmly and firmly warns snape not to use occlumency lessons to give harry a hard time, to which snape responds by insulting not only his fifteen year old godson but his dead best friend, that voldemort, who snape WORKED FOR, literally murdered, to sirius’s face. OF COURSE SIRIUS IS GONNA LOSE IT. ANYONE WOULD. and the first thing sirius says is “i don’t care if dumbledore thinks you’ve reformed, i know better” and refers to snape being lucius malfoy’s lapdog bc he knows they were fellow death eater buddies at hogwarts and during the war, like wow i wonder why sirius would have doubts about snape’s loyalties, especially after what he just said??!? this is not an example of sirius’s supposed ~crazy uncontrollable temper~, any normal person would want to throw down at something like that, personally i think sirius showed an impressive amount of self control for managing to wait that long to try to hex snape. AND he makes sure to give harry the mirrors specifically so harry can contact him if snape treats him badly, because that’s all sirius can do at that point when he’s powerless and his input is being completely ignored.

anyways it’s truly a tragedy that sirius never even got to find out that snape was the death eater who told voldemort about the prophecy, i think sirius deserved to know and go completely unhinged at snape!!! as was his right!!!!!

There’s some great trans girl Harry Potter fics out there, but I really want to read a trans boy Harry fic. Like, it’s *right there*. The Dursleys making him do cis heteronormative female tasks like cooking and cleaning to stamp any idea of masculinity out of him. They’re not making him mend Vernon’s car, are they? They’re making him do stereotypically female things.

….optional….

“We swore when we took her in we’d stamp that out of her.” If you want to use this line, you can have it so that magic can tell gender as opposed to sex at birth and so Harry’s parents knew he was a boy, and in the Wizarding World he really is the Boy Who Lived to everyone.

(copyright me)

happy trans awareness week, folks.

be kind.

There’s some great trans girl Harry Potter fics out there, but I really want to read a trans boy Harry fic. Like, it’s *right there*. The Dursleys making him do cis heteronormative female tasks like cooking and cleaning to stamp any idea of masculinity out of him. They’re not making him mend Vernon’s car, are they? They’re making him do stereotypically female things.

….optional….

“We swore when we took her in we’d stamp that out of her.” If you want to use this line, you can have it so that magic can tell gender as opposed to sex at birth and so Harry’s parents knew he was a boy, and in the Wizarding World he really is the Boy Who Lived to everyone.

Another song - well, this time it’s a kind of a cantata or the like, but I don’t really remember all of the songs. I think they were translated from Russian, which may be why I can’t find the lyrics on the net, and as I can’t remember the composer, it’s difficult to chase down. The series of songs were about a man sent to the gulags in Russia, and how cold and miserable it was there. One song went:

“I’m just a number

you’re just a number

he’s just a number

we are all numbers

counted like pigs or sheep at a market

we are numbers not men”.

Then another had:

“Fire, burning brightly

warm and glowing

blood is flowing

thank you, thank you fire.”

so if anyone knows it in the original Russian, and might recognise the translation, that would be splendid. We sang it at an all girls’ school, so you can imagine “we are numbers not men” was highly amusing since we weren’t men (none of us officially identified that way, back then, anyway).

Nowhere On The Internet

… or the “Just me, then” list. okay, so I keep intending to start a thread of things that I’ve looked for on the internet because I remember them but no one else seems to at all. I thought other folk could add theirs if they wanted.

First, in 2002 (I think?) radio 5 live in the uk ran a competition for a football song for the England football team. And there was one which went,

“Sven Goran Erikson

isn’t my buddy he’s my chum

Sven Goran Erikson

is a very very very nice man.

He’s ice cold, he’s sophisticated

full of Scandinavian charm…”

And I can’t remember the rest but no one anywhere on the internet even seems to remember that much, so… Just me, then.

Nowhere On The Internet

… or the “Just me, then” list. okay, so I keep intending to start a thread of things that I’ve looked for on the internet because I remember them but no one else seems to at all. I thought other folk could add theirs if they wanted.

First, in 2002 (I think?) radio 5 live in the uk ran a competition for a football song for the England football team. And there was one which went,

“Sven Goran Erikson

isn’t my buddy he’s my chum

Sven Goran Erikson

is a very very very nice man.

He’s ice cold, he’s sophisticated

full of Scandinavian charm…”

And I can’t remember the rest but no one anywhere on the internet even seems to remember that much, so… Just me, then.

HP Plot Bunny

AU Where Sirius Black really was the Potters’ Secret Keeper and when he and Peter Pettigrew met, Sirius threw a curse which killed the Muggles, but Peter transformed, so the curse only caught his finger before he became a rat.

The thing is, the curse catching him affected his animagus transformation and he can’t transform back, which is why he spends all those years as a rat in a wiazarsing family. At first he tries to get them to realise he’s not really a rat, but after a while, he almost forgets himself, until Sirius breaks out of Azkaban…

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

is it just me, or has the meaning of this been watered down of late? To me, fics labelled with this are ones which are unremittingly full of rape/torture/incest with no happy ending.

Now, though, it seems to be used for anything that has a number of rape or torture scenes in it. That just used to be a fic which got the archive warnings “non-con/rape” and “graphic depictions of violence” - not the dead dove warning. The dead dove, I thought, was meant for *more*. Like, if a fic has a happy ending, (unreliant on accepting problematic features like incest or dubious-consent via long term manipulation in the so-called happy ending) I wouldn’t call it a dead dove fic. I wouldn’t even call all rape or gratuitously violent fics dead dove fics, necessarily.

Dead dove means a fic I would have to think about several times before reading at all, not a fic that I need to be in a certain mood to read. It means one which is really really out there, not just somewhat ick. For example… two Harry Potter fics:

Toy (Lucius/Draco, enforced by a successful Voldemort) is a Dead Dove fic.

War Makes Strange Bedfellows (Harry/Snape, forced bonding) isn’t.

I still really really want to read this. Please, someone?

Plot Bunnies I Wanna See Writen

Merlin, but A/B/O universe, where Merlin’s “reward” for saving Arthur is to become his personal Omega (ie manservant with benefits, who doesn’t get mated to him but is there to allow Arthur to get his needs met before he gets mated/married to a royal).

Merlin having no idea what a personal Omega is, and Gaius having to explain it.

Merlin, coming from a small village where having sex when you‘re unmated (especially as an Omega) is the biggest NO (he should know, he is a bastard) is scandalised and can’t believe that this is (a) a real position, and (b) a respected one.

Why hello reading this at 4am when I can’t sleep and I know I’m going to feel like shit all day because of it…

everyone talks about merlin's crush on arthur, but let's focus on arthur's crush on merlin. the way arthur internalizes his crush is totally different from the way merlin internalizes his. merlin uses the excuse of "destiny" and constantly thinks/talks about how arthur will never truly understand why he acts the way he does ("everything I do is for him and he just thinks I'm an idiot."). whereas arthur spends every moment trying to get merlin to understand him even though it comes off as joking. arthur will play around with merlin and merlin will play back because he's the only person who sees arthur as a person and not a prince. that's why arthur has a crush on merlin.

arthur knows that it cannot be, two people like them together, but he still does it anyway. arthur goes to merlin's childhood home and says "if I wasn't a prince, I think we'd probably get on." arthur tells girls that he'd run away with merlin. arthur takes merlin with him everywhere and tries (and fails) to makes sure that he knows where he is all the time. arthur fights anyone who tries to seriously downplay merlin's role in his life.

arthur may be a dick, but he isn't completely stupid. he knows merlin's repressed ass will never say anything plain and simple. he knows how to speak his language of snark. so that's how he communicates with him. people think merlin is always following along with arthur, but arthur is also always following along with merlin. arthur sees that merlin wants to be all secretive? fine, he can tell with just one look when something is upsetting merlin. he will force him to talk to him about it. he'll watch him and he'll count the days he hasn't smiled. he'll use his crush to make him understand that he sees him. he knows him.

arthur can and will play the game forever and forever. and he will make it worse. he will react when merlin tries to hug him because it's like— I thought we didn't do that. why are you crossing the boundary you put there? you reject me, I reject you. but oh, I will touch you all the time. and I will initiate the hug when it's time. sure, arthur will try to get with other people, but nobody could ever be merlin. arthur lives and dies by merlin's words. and he wants merlin to understand that. so arthur listens to merlin only. and he makes it clear that he will always value what he says over the others. but something deep in arthur tells him that maybe merlin doesn't truly get that and never will. so he finally says "you know, merlin, all those jokes about you being a coward...I never really meant any of them. I always thought you were the bravest man I ever met. guess I was wrong." and he says this because merlin says he isn't going with him this time. arthur knows that he's guilting him with it. and he kind of hates that he's doing it, but he can't change how he feels because he wants him to understand.

it's a shame that it took only until his death for arthur to finally realize "wait, no, I didn't have to always say everything like he did. I have to tell him that he built this kingdom with me. I'm dying, so I have to be sincere. I have to do it, I have to say I love him, but no, I can't do this to him. not like this." so he mouths "I love you" (thanks bradley for the acting choices) and says "thank you." and as he dies, he hopes merlin finally understands.

Just sos you knows, AO3 is down under a DDOS attack right now. They’ve been coming back in little blips and then disappearing again. It’s been several hours. (For reference, it’s currently 3 p.m. eastern, July 10, 2023.)

https://twitter.com/AO3_Status/status/1678468065070030856

The culprit (as with a few other DDOS attacks recently) is Anonymous Sudan, a group that is likely Russian, not Sudanese. The ‘reason’ they gave–that AO3 is “full of disgusting smuts and other LGBTQ+ and NSFW things,” is thin and probably not completely legit, though still legitimately concerning.

The AS claim: https://twitter.com/FalconFeedsio/status/1678397195039526912

Reporting on AS: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-28/anonymous-sudan-does-group-behind-microsoft-cyberattack-have-ties-to-russia (you can use archive.ph to get this one, 12ft doesn’t seem to work)

As noted here, https://twitter.com/honeyskeleton/status/1678449598703050769:

DDOS protection is expensive especially for a high traffic site like ao3. And it’s uniquely vulnerable as an independent site without ads or other corporate support. SPECIFICALLY targeted bc of its queer works and yet ppl will still complain every time they ask for donations lmao 

So, again, when AO3 comes back online, please don’t go hard with refreshing all your tabs. Please do remember to download fics you love early and often as  you continue in your whole ~reading journey~. And please do support AO3 through a dono or becoming a donating member, if it is possible for you to do so.

hey I wanted to wish a very special disability pride month to every disabled person who’s getting worse. to people who are losing the ability to do things they used to do. people whose symptoms are increasing in severity. people who are developing new symptoms. people with degenerative and terminal disorders. people who are dealing with new disorders on top of preexisting ones. happy disability pride month to everyone who knows they’re not getting better. there’s nothing wrong with that, and you deserve to take pride as much as anyone else.