Can't Wait Here Silent // Closed RP

May was a quiet month; the survivors focused on physically rebuilding, and then sharing the monumental task of laying the defenders to rest and sorting the lost enemies. The Ministry was stretched thin as it strove to provide leadership while primarily performing law enforcement, and the Order rose readily to the task of helping round up all who had fought under Riddle to be evaluated.

June began, and brought with it the Trials. Reviewing the lists of names awaiting judgment, Harry mentally found himself categorizing this into three tiers: those were clear and resoundingly to be condemned; those who were fully innocent and would need post-Imperius or blackmail therapy; and the hazy third type, those who had acted under different kinds of coercion or obligation.

Draco Malfoy was the first name he placed on that list, and Harry would not be dissuaded. It was a relief to his core that Ron and Hermione understood; Ron testified all that he had seen at the Manor, and then during the Final Battle, and Hermione was clever enough to get Ollivander's on-record input regarding wand allegiance, providing support for the assertion that only Draco's intentional surrender of the wands would have given Harry the power he had, both escaping the Manor, and in his final showdown with Riddle.

Above all, Harry argued for the influence of psychological and physical torture, unyielding until the Ministry all but collapsed its protests. He did not deny them Lucius Malfoy; Harry sorted him between his first two tiers, believing the man to have gone from devoted loyalist to scared shitless for his wife and son, by the end. Lucius faced yet another Trial, and again went to Azkaban, this time for one year.

And for that one year, they assigned Draco to house arrest at the Manor. He and his mother lived there alone now, with Tonks assigned as a liaison to monitor her kin. Harry heard next to nothing after that, simply confirmations that all seemed well, and life moved on to the rest of the Trials, the funerals, and then slowly turning the page to a new era in the wizarding world.

He had the date marked when that house arrest ended, and it found Harry at the gate of Malfoy Manor, spine stiff as Narcissa came to greet him there. It took three visits before she let him inside, and two more for those to not be silent and awkward hours at the tea table. Finally, she cracked, asking why in Salazar's name he was so insistent; Draco had left the estate the instant Tonks removed his Trace, and he was off the grid.

"No one should be alone," Harry had said, simply, thanking her elf for refilling his tea. "Least of all those who suffered. Draco blames himself, and he'll rot away in that mentality. I did not defend him out of some unwilling sense of requirement. I want him to heal."

Narcissa had stared at him for a long, long moment before asking him to return the next day. When he did, she gave him a parcel of foods and teas, and the information needed to cross into the Unplottable acreage where Draco was keeping a small cottage in the woods near Devon.

He didn't ask if she'd told her son. Harry thanked her, and Apparated there at once, finding when he landed that the air shimmered, and revealed a beautiful little homestead with a thick privacy hedge and gate. It opened to his hand, permitted by Narcissa, and Harry followed the stone path to knock on the little front door, curious if Draco lived completely alone, or if he kept an elf or pet, something for company in the solitude.

Could you talk about the Statute of Secrecy? Or the Ministry’s corruption in General :)

Well, those are two different things. Given that I believe I have an ask floating somewhere in my inbox on the Statute, I suppose we’ll talk about the Ministry of Magic today.

I feel like this is such a broad topic though that I’m not quite sure where to start. I guess I’ll just throw spaghetti at the internet wall and see what sticks.

The Ministry is a Reflection of Society Who Never Admitted They Were the Death Eaters

In the ministry of Harry Potter’s era the Ministry is hopelessly corrupt and filled to the brim with spies (more on this in a later section). Lucius Malfoy, very high up in an unofficial capacity in the Ministry and owner of the Ministry’s mouth piece: The Daily Prophet, was a known Death Eater with a very flimsy excuse.

How is he even able to wield so much influence, you ask? Well, I think it’s not just because of Fudge picking the wrong friends.

I think most the population probably does believe Lucius Malfoy is innocent the way Fudge does. I think it’s a very small subsection, i.e. Dumbledore’s lackies, who go “Nah, ain’t buying it.” I think that, in 1981, when it came time to reveal just how many were Death Eaters and how far this went many people just couldn’t handle it.

Because it was to the point where the nation wasn’t battling Death Eaters, Death Eaters were the nation. Look at the members, these are and were the most influential and prominent families in the country, who combined hold a non-small minority of seats in the Wizengamot. More, these were only the participants, combine those who given anti-muggle and muggleborn sentiment (which I believe are pervasive even among those who claim they fight for the rights of muggles and muggleborns) and you get a nation that is suddenly facing a huge cultural issue that was never previously acknowledged.

We’re talking an entire purge of the Wizengamot, of the Ministry, of the major families and cornerstones of this society. The Black family is completely and utterly destroyed.

People were and remain throughout the 1990′s, desperate to believe it was not as bad as it was or isn’t as bad as it is. If Lucius Malfoy says he was never really a Death Eater then he was never really a Death Eater.

The Ministry is Lousy With Corruption and Spies

What’s hilarious to me is not only is the Ministry incompetent. It is positively flooded with spies. Given the ministry’s overbloated, it’s not even a sizeable minority of employees, but nonetheless every major department has at least one person (if not more) who works for somebody else.

Most work for Tom Riddle. He seems to have intelligence in every department. Through Lucius, who is working pretty much as an unofficial aide to Fudge, he has access to Fudge, complete control of the Daily Prophet, and a voice on the Hogwarts’ board of governors.

Through Rockwood, Tom has direct access to the Department of Mysteries which Lucius is then able to take full advantage of.

Lucius is able to set up an ambush in the Department of Mysteries, getting escaped convicts into the building with the none the wiser, and, had his sole purpose not been a prophecy that only Harry Potter and the Dark Lord can touch, he would have been able to take what he liked. (Though it was always odd to me that the plan was to get Harry Potter to do it, when the better solution would have been to polyjuice Tom Riddle into someone else, set up a tour with the department, and then Tom wanders off conveniently to pick up the prophecy. My theory, I suppose, is that chasing after the prophecy was mostly an exercise in punishing Lucius. And then Lucius fucked up.)

And of course, in book seven, Tom Riddle makes a puppet minister. Point being, to me, it always said a lot that in Book Seven Tom just sort of walks into the building and says, “I’m in charge now” and everyone says “okay”. There was no second Wizarding War, it was a bloodless coup that met zero resistance from anyone but angry school children. 

But that’s Tom’s spies, we also have other spies. Who am I talking about, Dumbledore’s folks of course.

Shacklebolt, Moody, Tonks, and Arthur Weasley are all spies, they just don’t have the introspection to even realize it (which really tells you something about the state of corruption in the ministry). They all work for the ministry, yes, but they in fact pass on information to and serve another master, whose goals do not always align with the government and was a hop skip and a jump away from overthrowing the government at any given moment.

And they don’t even really realize they’re doing this! There doesn’t even seem to be a thought of “I’m doing this for the greater good”, they don’t seem to acknowledge that what they’re doing is very very very bad. Arthur, in fact, is appalled when Percy refuses to do this (well, he’s upset for a lot of reasons, such as that he thinks Percy is spying on Arthur for the minister, but in there is also that Percy refuses to help out with the Order or follow Dumbledore without question). 

Harry paints the Dumbledore’s Army threat that Umbridge saw as something utterly ridiculous, but honestly if I was the ministry I would be worried about this. Dumbledore’s people have infiltrated the ministry just as deeply and badly as the Death Eaters, Dumbledore’s known for recruiting children into his vigilante organization, I don’t know what he’s doing with an army of schoolchildren but I can smell a coup coming.

Anyway, I’m getting off track, point being though that corruption is not only expected and accepted by the ministry, they cannot recognize what it even is. They’re at the point where paying bribes is allocated in their budget.

I Don’t Blame the Ministry For Not Thinking Tom Riddle Was Anti-Jesus

Fudge is designed to get a lot of flack for his outright denial that Voldemort had returned from the dead. He, and other denier characters, are meant to be fools with their heads in the sand who can’t see the obvious.

I ask what about it was obvious?

The only witness to Tom Riddle’s resurrection, Harry Potter, has a known history of erratic behavior.

The previous year, he’d performed illegal magic on his muggle aunt and run away from home. During the previous school year, Harry was revealed to be a parselmouth in a time when the Chamber of Secrets was presumably opened and the mystery was never fully solved (remember, that it was a possessed Ginny never comes to light for more than a few people.) Beyond that, since his first day of school, Harry is routinely in and out of detention, constantly out after curfew, and only seems to not be in serious trouble because he’s openly favored by Dumbledore (who gives him hundreds of points for breaking one of his school rules, during the Philosopher’s Stone fiasco in first year). In 1994, Harry is entered into the Tri-Wizard Tournament under very suspicious circumstances.

We know why all this happens to Harry but from the outside he looks like a delinquent. In fact, he kind of is a delinquent. 

Point being, the only witness is not only Harry Potter (who is already sketch) but it’s Harry Potter holding a dead body of a rival in the tournament.

And he’s claiming that a man who has been nearly fifteen years dead, a man who held the nation in terror and Harry Potter is beloved for destroying, has returned from the grave and conveniently murdered Cedric.

Why is Cedric dead? Well, you see, he and Harry both touched the goblet at the same time because they were going to share the reward. The goblet, a national treasure, was turned into a portkey so that Voldemort could kidnap him.

Why didn’t Voldemort just kidnap him at any other point during the year where he’s guaranteed not to get tag a longs or the wrong kid? Uh... VOLDEMORT IS BACK (for the record, I think it’s because Barty got hung up on the goblet scheme and was determined to ruin his father’s day.)

Where is Voldemort at this very moment? Being evil, somewhere, that is not right here. No, Harry has zero evidence this happened.

Frankly, I wouldn’t believe Harry either.

And when Dumbledore goes about promoting this as sound evidence that Tom Riddle has in fact returned, it starts to get even sketchier. Rather than sounding the alarm, Dumbledore is using this boy’s madness to stir the public into a panic that he, perhaps, plans to take advantage of.

After Dumbledore does that, I would suspect that, even if Harry does give me a memory of the graveyard scene that his head had been tampered with by Dumbledore.

And it’s so convenient that, of all the names Harry picked, it’s Voldemort who killed Cedric. It seems like a ploy to not only deflect the fact that he murdered Cedric but 

Harry’s very upset when some don’t take him at his word but Harry’s also a dumbass and a psychopath. He hates everyone who doesn’t agree with him.

More importantly, necromancy isn’t a thing in the Harry Potter universe. People don’t rise from the dead. Horcruxes exist, but they’re extremely rare, and it seems like no one ever really makes use of them.

So, yeah, not unreasonable that Fudge didn’t immediately go, “My god, Voldemort has risen from the dead! LIGHT THE BEACONS AND SUMMON ROHAN!”

So yeah, it’d take me seeing Voldemort waltzing through the Department Mysteries to go “... Goddammit, this man is more unkillable than Sheev Palpatine.”

After the Epilogue, I am Certain It’s Still the Same Damn Ministry

People hate the epilogue, but in a way, I love it, because it confirms many of my headcanons: these people don’t learn a goddamn thing.

Nothing in their society seems to have changed. Instead of one set of families holding all the power it’s now a new set of families and friends holding all the power. The difference being that they are now all in some way connected to Harry Potter.

Nepotism’s still the name of the game, we still see only human children boarding the Hogwarts Express so you know shit hasn’t changed for the goblins, Draco Malfoy’s alive and well and holds a position in the Ministry that Kingsly graciously allows him to have, it’s just now you have Hermione writing all your laws for you.

The Wizarding World is still the Wizarding World in every single capacity. The only difference is that Voldemort is dead again. Hooray.

Harry and friends simply don’t have the introspection to even realize it.

Wizards Hearts Recs: Epistolary

Wizards Hearts was a four-month-long Drarry reading fest. Players were given a playing deck of 52 tropes, and were asked to find 52 different fics to read and comment on to fill their decks. To prevent the same few fics from being read, fics were restricted to only being used for the game three times before being considered ineligible for further points. The tropes and submissions list can be found here.

Check out the masterlist of fics for this trope below the cut!

📜 To My Enemy (Secretly Yours) by randoyoyo Rated:  Teen Words:  9757 Tags:  Epistolary, Eighth Year, Roommates, Fluff Summary:  McGonagall has decided on some changes for those returning to Hogwarts for an 8th year. Not only will Houses be abolished, but there will be a shared commonroom and rooms will be assigned to pairs. On top of that, they're all randomly assigned a pen pal within the same year that they have to write to each week. Harry and Draco don't like the way any of this information sounds, but it doesn't set in until they get their room assignments...they're going to be roommates?? ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Re: Harry's Crush by lettersbyelise Rated:  Teen Words:  3700 Tags:  Epistolary, Bets & Wagers, Aurors, Getting Together, Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, Humor, Banter Summary:  Ever get that feeling you're being talked about behind your back? Harry doesn't, he's too busy being stupidly, obviously besotted with the guy in the lab downstairs. A fic where the interdepartment betting war at the Ministry gets out of hand, Millicent and Hermione get scheming, Harry Potter ends up wearing black eyeliner, and everybody ends up getting more than they bargained for. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Misdirection by lea_anberlyn Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  3764 Tags: Humor, Snarky!Malfoy, Epistolary Summary:  Harry buys a new owl after the war – a bird he soon realises is cursed to send letters to the person he hates most. Draco Malfoy finds the whole thing hilarious. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Dear Enemy by GingerTodgers Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  69130 Tags: Epistolary, Secret Identity, Orphanage, Harry Potter's School For Squibs, Slow Burn, Swearing, Politics, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend, Minor Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, Minor Pansy Parkinson/Greg Goyle, Light Angst Summary:  An anonymous benefactor makes a generous donation to Harry Potter's School for Squibs in exchange for a weekly letter from the Boy Who Lived. What begins as a chore soon becomes the only outlet Harry has to talk about the war, love, life, hope, redemption, his renewed obsession with a certain blonde nemesis and how he really, honestly, believes that this will be the year Puddlemere United reclaim the Quidditch League Cup. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Howlr by partialtopotter Rated:  Explicit Words:  47634 Tags: Texting, text!fic, Sexting, Romance, dating app, Anal Sex, Rimming, they don't know they're falling for each other, Ginny has a personality, THIS IS NOT A NON-MAGICAL AU, Professor Harry, pansy x ginny, LGBTQ Themes, Smut, Mistaken Identity, Phone Sex, Depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Humor, Post-Hogwarts, Not Epilogue Compliant, Switching, Light BDSM, Bisexual Male Character, Spanking, Epistolary, Textfic Summary:  Howlr is the new dating application enchanting Witches, Wizards and Everyone in between. Are you looking for the one or a one-night stand; it’s all here folks. Howlr is sponsored by Weasley Wizard Wheezes, the same team that brought us the Spellular just two years ago. Ginny Weasley, famed chaser for the Hollyhead Harpies, swears by the app, ‘guaranteed to make sparks fly,’ she says. The magic awaits you! ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Garden War by Cibee (Cibeeeee) Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  4884 Tags: Fluff and Humor, Epistolary, Draco and Harry are neighbors, with a lake between them, and they keep trying to make their garden better than the other's, "one tree? fuck you I'll grow TWO trees", then omg quarantine, Frenemies to friends to lovers, Friends to Lovers, draco has a cat, harry has chickens, Mutual Pining, they both have no chills, Idiots in Love, Dramatic Draco Malfoy Summary:  Harry and Draco are quarantined in their houses, a lake across from one another. What better ways to spend this time than to annoy each other with letters and attempts to prove that their garden is better ? ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 A Series of Neighbourly Epistles by slytherco Rated:  Mature Words:  13671 Tags: Neighbors, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Anonymity, Letters, anonymous notes, Top Draco Malfoy, Bottom Harry Potter, Mutual Masturbation, Blind Date, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Resolved Sexual Tension, Curse Breaker Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy Has Long Hair, and it's glorious, Draco Malfoy in a leather jacket, Brief Draco Malfoy/Other, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, some French food, Bisexual Harry Potter, Dirty Talk, the morning after, Pillow Talk, One Night Stands, that turn out to be possibly-not-so-one-night, Snark, Banter, Sexual Content, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Blow Jobs, in general there's sex but it's not graphic ok?? Summary:  Harry finds himself in a very awkward spot when he calls the Aurors on his neighbour… having very loud sex. As in not actually killing anyone. He writes him a disgruntled note and thus begins a very interesting exchange. When they finally decide to meet, Harry’s not quite prepared to find out who his mystery neighbour turns out to be. Or for everything that happens next, for that matter. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Texting You by ununquadius Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  6005 Tags: Major Character Death, text fic, draco is dead, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, or maybe hurt/no comfort, Everyday Life, Pets, Asexual Harry Potter, Indian Harry Potter, one penis drawing, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Loneliness, Drinking, Terminal Illnesses, blink and you missed them suicidal thoughts Summary:  After Draco's death, Harry can't let go so he keeps texting their private chat, updating him on his life and rambling about everything and anything until it almost feels like there's a possibility that, one day, a reply will come. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 More Than Kisses, Letters Mingle Souls by Erin_Riwen, Kristinabird Rated:  Mature Words:  21171 Tags: Epistolary, Professor Harry Potter, Professor Draco Malfoy, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Fluff with feelings, Past Child Abuse, Past Suicide Thoughts, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore Summary:  It's the beginning of the term at Hogwarts and Professor Harry Potter never seems to be able to get close enough to have an actual conversation with Professor Draco Malfoy. When he discovers it's because his colleagues have been intentionally keeping them apart for fear they might have issues, he bristles at the intrusion and decides to send a letter to a very confused Draco Malfoy. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Summer's Lease by GallifreyisBurning, xkingofgamesx Rated:  Explicit Words:  74162 Tags: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Epistolary, Bisexual Harry Potter, Gay Draco Malfoy, Post-War, pre-eighth year, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Slow Burn, slowest of burns, First Kiss, First Time, Coming Out, Anal Sex, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, All of the jobs except employment, Gentlemen of Leisure, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Home Renovation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Nightmares, Mental Health Issues, Homophobia, Lots of drinking, Happy Ending, Fluff Summary:  It was just a letter. And then another. And then another. And then it was something more. The summer after the war, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are both at loose ends, not sure how they fit into a world where both of their roles have been fulfilled, for better or for worse. As the learn to live with surviving, they find, together, an unexpected way forward. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Recompense & Reparo by sablier_bloque Rated:  Explicit Words:  48981 Tags: Alternate Universe - Regency, Regency, Slow Burn, Pining, Gay Draco Malfoy, Bisexual Harry Potter, Alternate Universe - Historical, Masturbation, Anal Sex, Frottage, mention of suicide, mention of period-typical racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Mention of Child Abuse, Period-Typical Homophobia, Draco Malfoy tries to redeem himself in a very Slytherin way, Meddling mothers, Magic Rituals, Quidditch, Mention of Minor Character Death, Happy Ending, Letters, Epistolary, Indian Harry Potter, Desi Harry Potter, Austen-inspired, Mention of torture Summary:  It is a truth universally acknowledged that a pureblood wizard in possession of a slandered reputation will do absolutely anything to return to good graces. And Mr. Draco Malfoy, pureblood wizard whose reputation has certainly been slandered by The War (and perhaps even by his own actions in said war) has a plan. A list of five steps to restore the Malfoy family to its proper place in society. That is until Harry Potter comes along and mucks it all. A Regency AU, in which there are ungloved touches, letters, meddling mothers, and hope that love can somehow find a way. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Always and Forever by PurePeace Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  35162 Tags: N/A Summary:  An epistolary fic between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, taking place after the trials. It starts with irritation and relucant gratitude and ends - hopefully - with romance, always and forever. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 No Greater Victory by dicta_contrion Rated:  Explicit Words:  26951 Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Bets & Wagers, Diary/Journal, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Scheming, Blackmail, Recreational Drug Use, Casual Sex, Snark, Draco starts out as an angry defensive arse, Personal Growth, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Switching, First Time, Making Love, Fluff and Angst, Eventual Happy Ending Summary:  Back at Hogwarts after the war, a defeated Draco Malfoy is prepared to settle for life's simpler pleasures: snark, sex, and Slytherin scheming. That is until Pansy, newly in possession of Malfoy Manor, offers to return his ancestral home. Just one condition: he has to win, and break, Harry Potter's heart to get it. That's no problem. Draco's got this situation completely under control. Completely. At least until he doesn't. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Help Is Always There For Those Who Ask by donnarafiki, orpheous87 Rated:  Mature Words:  12873 Tags: Post-War, Mental Health Issues, Healer Draco Malfoy, Angst, Epistolary, Getting Together, No healer/patient, Depression, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Therapy, Friendship Summary:  It's been years since the war, and Harry's been doing fine (Not!Auror). But after witnessing a violent incident in muggle London, he feels empty and angry. Eventually, he reaches a breaking point and has an outburst in public. The next day he finds a letter on his desk, the Ministry reaching out to connect him with a mind healer, saying they don’t even have to see each other, and everything can be done privately if Harry wants to keep it anonymous and confidential. He decides to write back. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 This feeling inside by Andithiel Rated:  Mature Words:  8714 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Epistolary, Diary/Journal, flatmates, omg they were roomates, lockdown - Freeform, Quarantine, bisexual awakening, Oblivious, As in ridiculously oblivious, Mentions of a fictional pandemic, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Cooking, Baking, learning to play the guitar, mentions of:, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Frottage, Kissing, I think it was in that order Summary:  Harry Potter and his flatmate Draco are both straight as nails. But during a lockdown, things start to get a little desperate, and suddenly they’re giving each other friendly handjobs and blowjobs on the regular. But that’s okay. That’s just what friends do. Right? A story about two oblivious idiots, told through the diary of Harry James Potter. ❤️ Read on AO3

Consent Fest 2019: Masterlist

CF friends--here we are. After months of prompting, creating, betaing, revising, reading, hyping, squeeing, and guessing, it’s time for reveals. 

As with last year, the mods were staggered by the depth of thought and care and time and energy that everyone put into their creations. Likewise, we were heartened every time we saw a like, reblog, kudos, comment, or other hype.

Thank you to every creators and every reader and hyper for giving this fest such a wonderful, community vibe--you folks make CF.

<3

Now, without further ado, read on for reveals!

ART

Title: Coming loose Artist: @owlpostart Prompt: #80 Rating: E Pairing: None Warnings/Content Notes: Lots of very pornographic NSFW drawings,  internalised acephobia, unenjoyable sex, bite and blood fetish.   Summary: Pansy Parkinson has a lot of sex. Until she realises that it’s okay to not want to. Medium: Ink and marker on paper

 Title: Human, Not Object Artist: @nifflers-n-nargles Prompt: #23 Rating: Teen Warnings/Content Notes: Street harassment, cat calling, unsolicited touching, verbal harassment of a sexual nature, fighting back, defiant woman, powerful woman Summary: Fleur Delacour has endured harassment of all kinds from men from a young age. Growing up she’s told that’s “just what men do.” As a powerful woman learning to navigate the world she finds this mentality unacceptable and chooses to live her life defiantly. Medium: Digital

 Title: Something they don’t want to be afraid of Artist: @impasseart Prompt: # 21 Rating: explicit Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Internalized Homophobia, unenjoyable sex in a flashback See full tagset on AO3 Summary: Draco struggles with his internalized homophobia and fears, even when he really wants something. Last time, it went ugly. And ugly won’t do. They have to try again. Find a way to make it better. Medium: digital art

 Title: Who They Are Artist: @spaceaas Prompt: #15 Rating: G Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: genderqueer/nonbinary character, minor transphobia that is more unintended ignorance than anything else Summary: Draco’s always known who they are. They’ve just been waiting for someone to listen. Medium: Digital

FIC

Title: All The Little Signs Add Up Author: @gold-from-straw Prompt: # 49 Rating: Explicit Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Past domestic abuse, past child abuse Summary: Harry starts to notice some worrying signs in his relationship with Draco. He flinches when Harry moves too quickly, he thinks everything is going to be blamed on him, and he doesn’t think his own desires count. Harry, fresh from dealing with his own childhood PTSD, jumps to some conclusions. Some of them are right, some of them are way off. Word Count: 9624

 Title: Blind Item #3 Author: @postjentacular Prompt: #88 Rating: T Pairing: Albus Severus Potter/Scorpius Malfoy Warnings/Content Notes:  tabloids, right to privacy, forced outing, homophobic slurs, rated T for swearing, british sixteen year old talking about sex, blink and you’ll miss it threat of sexual violence Summary:  What’s the ssssecret doing the rounds in a certain common room? Rumour has it that the other snakes have been turning a blind eye to this burgeoning love affair, but what will the boys’ fathers say when they hear about it?   Word Count: 7064

Title: Blood Will Out Author: @frnklymrshnkly Prompt: # 87 Rating: T Pairing: Marietta Edgecombe/Pansy Parkinson Warnings/Content Notes: menstruation, PMS, endometriosis, heavy bleeding, cramps, intense period pain, Healers, doctors, hospitals, exams, critique of Healing and medical institutions, family secrets, memory modification, horrible parenting, blood status discourse, self-reflection redemption arcs See full tagset on AO3 Summary: Marietta Edgecombe doesn’t need re-education. She’s done nothing wrong. She just wants to keep her head down and keep her job. At least until Pansy Parkinson starts acting weird and a visit to the Healer suddenly brings the post-war conversation too close for comfort. Word Count: 21565

 Title: Capture the moment (Capture my heart) Author: @all-drarry-to-me Prompt number: 24 Rating: Mature Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Asexual Draco Malfoy, Demisexuality, Queer Character, Brief mention (from previous encounter) of Mildly Dubious Consent, Photographs, Minor Luna Lovegood/Pansy Parkinson, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley Summary: Surrounded by photographs with just a cat to keep him company, Draco was left questioning his identity and what a new label would mean for his relationship with Harry. Word Count: 9,612

Title: Curry & Wine Author: @dorthyanndrarry Prompt: # 35 Rating: Mature Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Mentions of main character being pressured to have sex in the past Summary:  Harry’s promised Draco their first proper date. What could be better than homemade curry, a little wine, a much-needed talk? Word Count: 1,651

Title: Epoximise Author: @ladderofyears Prompt: #10 Rating: Explicit Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Consent Notes: Press and Tabloids, Dom/Sub Play, Sub Harry Potter, Dom Draco Malfoy, Sex Magic, Kink Spells, Coming on Demand, Dildos, Magic used as a Restraint, Panic Attacks, Discussion about Consent, Discussion about setting Ground Rules before Sexual Activity, Discussion about Safe Words, Sexual Triggers. Word count: 2487

Title: Forbidden Fruit Author: @momstiel Prompt: # 15 Rating: Teen Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Internalized Homophobia Summary: “To Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter had always been akin to forbidden fruit.” In which Harry comes out as genderqueer, and Draco envies his self-confidence. Word Count: 1,907 

 Title: The Generation Who Lived Author: @lettersbyelise Prompt: # 11 Rating: Explicit Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Journalist Draco Malfoy, Enemies to lovers, Past relationship, Getting back together, Minor Luna/Neville, Minor Ginny/Blaise, Interview format, Post second war with Voldemort, Enthusiastic consent, Rimming, Anal sex, POV Draco Malfoy Summary: In the months leading up to the 10th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy writes a series of articles about famous war survivors.

So far, he’s managed to interview everyone he wanted.

Everyone…except his old nemesis, his one-time lover, and the elusive war hero who stubbornly refuses to be featured in Draco’s interview series, Harry Potter. Word Count: 14761

Title:I See You In The Club Author: Elle Gray (LGray) Rating: E Pairing: Draco Malfoy/OMC Warnings/Content Notes: Sex club, Dom/sub play, Light Bondage, Age difference, Consent Issues, Dubious Consent due to Identity Issues, Ruminating on the Topic of Consent See full tagset on AO3 Summary: Draco, recently divorced (for the second time) is finally free to explore ‘other interests’. In particular, reconnecting with some long-put-aside desires to play with dominance. He’s not confident in what he’s doing, but he’s done his research, and surely this delectable young thing, kneeling in wait for him, can help?

'Hello,’ he says, and feels immediately stupid.

'Hello, Sir,’ Alex says, his voice low, barely above a whisper. Draco wonders if it’s an effort to sound sexy, or show submission, or if his throat is so well-fucked by others that he can no longer talk. He doesn’t even know if it matters. Word Count: 12909

Title: Knights in Shining Armour (Ever After Lovers) Author: @thirdeyeblinkings Prompt #: 23 Rating: M Pairing: Bill Weasley/Fleur Delacour Warnings: No major archive warnings See tagset on AO3 Summary: Fleur has been objectified for most of her life, her bodily autonomy often dismissed. Being part Veela only makes matters worse. Word Count: 8.6 k

Title: Like The Sun Author: @marlenemckinn Prompt:  #78 Rating: T Pairing: Remus Lupin/Sirius Black Warnings/Content Notes: Unaware Veritaserum consumption See full tagset on AO3 Summary: Sirius wants a good laugh and when he comes across some Veritaserum, he decides slipping into Remus Lupin’s, the ever guarded werewolf, pumpkin juice will be a great way to start their day. Remus ends up revealing a bit more than Sirius had anticipated. Word Count: 4033

 Title: Lily Luna, Unapologetic: The Things We Don’t Talk About (But Should) Author: @nifflers-n-nargles and @slashfoxes  Prompt: #39 Rating: Hard T Pairing: None Warnings/Content Notes: Implied Dubcon/Noncon, Offscreen Dubcon/Noncon, Implied Violence (offscreen), Implied vs Explicit Consent, Consent Issues, Teaching Consent, Sex Education, Peer Pressure, Harry Potter Next Generation, Badass!Lily Luna, When Internet Meets Magic, Alternative format: magazine profile Summary: “Before I can get my first question out Lily asks me, ‘When was the first time someone gave you a sex talk?’I find myself telling her about overhearing my mom in my older sister’s room when she was home on hols from Hogwarts in her fourth year—I was 10 and had just received my letter. It was the year there had been a string of love potion ‘accidents’ and I could tell my mum was worried.

She nods and jots something down in her notebook. As I continue telling her about these memories, I wonder why I’m sharing all this information with Lily. Aren’t I the one supposed to be interviewing her?

‘That sounds awful,’ she commiserates, ‘but can I ask you one more thing?’ I nod, curiosity piqued by her tone. ‘When was the first time someone talked to you about consent?’” Word Count: ~8,000

 Title: Long live the beautiful heart (who find love and tear it apart) Author: @etalice Prompt: #46 Rating: GEN Pairing: Ginny Weasley/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Angst, Depression, Abusive relationship See full tagset on AO3 Summary: If Harry were someone else, someone who loves and understand books, someone like Hermione or Draco, he might think of a classical tragedy. He might section the whole catastrophe neatly into five acts and make sense of it that way. But he’s not, and so he doesn’t, and, anyway it’s just the beginning of the story yet. Word Count: 6630

Title: (Never) Be Still My Beating Heart Author: @sliceosunshine Prompt: Self-Prompt Rating: M Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes:  Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Trauma,  Violence, some blood, Vampires, Light Dubcon Parallels, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, further explanation of dubcon tag in A/N See full tagset on AO3 Summary:  Post-War, Draco decides he’s done being comfortable. Which turns out to be quite convenient as he’s thrust headlong into a case involving a Serial Biting Vampire. Worst of all, Potter’s gotten himself involved. Draco thinks he can take it, so long as his heart doesn’t give out on him along the way.   Word Count:  15595  

 Title: a note to the boy I love Author: @violetclarity Prompt: # 81 Rating: E Pairing: Albus Severus Potter/Scorpius Malfoy Warnings: Underage See full tagset on AO3 Content Notes: epistolary, first person POV, established relationship, school romance, communication, consent, sexting except in letters because they are wizards, underage in that they are both seventeen (17), first time, loss of virginity (but that’s a social construct anyway), letter writing, dirty talk (sort of), vignettes, kissing, frottage, dry humping, oral sex, love confessions, boys in love Summary: Albus knows what he wants to do in bed with Scorpius, but struggles with actually talking about it. Scorpius’s solution? Writing letters. Word Count: 4,359

Title: A pink tie, a box of condoms Author: Barry_Manilows_Wardrobe Prompt: 52 Rating: E Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: See tagset on AO3 Summary: It had been months since they’d last seen each other.  And if Potter didn’t show up soon… Word Count: 1459

 Title: One and Only Author: @nerdherderette Prompt: # 20 Rating: Explicit Pairing: Albus Severus Potter/Draco Malfoy Warnings/Content Notes: Bodyguard AU, Bodyguard!Draco, Minister for Magic!Harry Potter, Pansexual Albus Potter, Potions Accident, Forced Bonding, Sharing a Bed, Legilimency, Explicit Sexual Content, Masturbation, Frottage, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Bottom!Draco Malfoy, Age Difference, Implied/Reference Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, References to Addiction, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Eventual Consensual Relationship, Romance Summary: Draco always knew his downfall would be at the hands of a Potter.He just never realised which one. Word Count: 19.6k

Title: Risks Worth Taking Author: @keyflight790 Prompt: 83 Rating: E Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Light BDSM, Dubious Consent, Mildly Dubious Consent See full tagset on AO3 Summary: Draco and Harry broke up 78 nights ago. Only a miracle (or perhaps an errant spell) could bring them back together. Word Count: 18,149

  Title: Ron Weasley and the Clothes of Doom Author: Liesha130 Prompt: #86 Rating: Explicit Pairing: Blaise Zabini/Ron Weasley Warnings/Content Notes: (I honestly don’t know) Summary: Do the clothes make the man?Ron Weasley thinks he has no chance, until one night when he dresses up and Blaise Zabini can’t take his eyes off him. The solution is easy, then, right? Ron just has to keep dressing up, and Blaise will keep wanting him. But every time Ron puts the new clothes on, he’s sent spiraling off into a past filled with insecurity. Will he really be able to keep this up without going completely bonkers? And what does Blaise actually want from him, anyway? Word Count: 32,872

Title: Safe Words Author: @e-sebastian Prompt: # 47 Rating: Explicit Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Consent, BDSM, Bondage, Whipping, Safe words, Safe Sane and Consensual, Kink, Family Drama, lots of book reading, Dirty Talk, Slapping, Kink Negotiation, Rough Sex, Accidental Bodily Harm, Remorse, Weasley Bashing, Molly Bashing, but please know it’s from Draco’s admittedly skewed perspective, In this house we love Molly Weasley to death even if our characters don’t always, Married couples are kinky too Summary: Draco discovers his husband has been keeping a secret from him. At first he’s amused. Then he’s curious.

The problem? Harry’s always had a hard time saying no. Word Count: 26,867

Title: Sex Ed for Witches and Wizards of All Ages Author: AhaMarimbas Prompt: # 68 Rating: E Pairing: Multi-ship Warnings/Content Notes: Major Character Death, Underage, Explicit sexual content See full tagset on AO3 Summary: Draco and Astoria decide on their wedding night that they’re not going to raise their future children with the same outdated traditions they were raised with, especially relating to love and sex. They never could have predicted exactly how much that decision would change Scorpius’ life. Word Count: 76 732

 Title: So sweet with that blood in your teeth Author: @bangyababy Prompt: # 16 Rating: E Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Dom/Sub, Consent issues, vampires, sleep issues, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Mind manipulation, depression See full tagset on AO3 Summary: Harry works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. His latest case his to stop a vampire uprising lead by none other than Draco Malfoy. Malfoy seems willing to negotiate with the Ministry. There’s just one small condition: Harry has to agree to be Malfoy’s dinner. Word Count: 25k

 Title: swallow your words Author: @candybarrnerd Prompt: # 67 Rating: Explicit Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter  Warnings/Content Notes: No archive warnings apply Summary: The truth is, not many things are known about the magic that is behind soulmarks. They’ll turn up when they want and not before.

The truth is, you don’t get a choice in your soulmark. The truth is, not everyone is okay with that. Word Count: 9,140

Title: That’s Ace Author: @acciotomriddle Prompt: Self-prompt Rating: Explicit Pairing: Charlie Weasley/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Asexual character, bisexual character, sex toys, non-penetrative sex, mutual masturbation, monogamy Summary:  Charlie is asexual. Harry isn’t. They still find a way to satisfy both of their needs, however   Word Count: 2080

 Title: They Talked Author: @unadulteratedstorycollector Prompt: Self-prompt Rating: Teen Pairing: Ron & Draco (platonic) Warnings/Content Notes: none Summary:  Is it ok if they talk? Draco isn’t sure, but it keeps happening. Word Count: 1094

 Title: This Year’s Love Author: @thusspoketrish Prompt: Self-Prompt. H/D—how to navigate feelings for your best mate. Rating: Explicit Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: This story discusses complex topics such as slut-shaming, promiscuity, heartbreak, dating culture(s), and sexual autonomy within everyday life. See full tagset on AO3 Summary: This year’s love had better last, heaven knows it’s high time when you try to make lovers from friends. But Harry Potter realises time and time again that it’s simply not possible for him. And then along comes Draco Malfoy— the ultimate foe on the mend. Whatever will become of them? A story about love. Word Count: 84000

Title: A Touch Of Respect Author: @rose-grangerweasleyisbae Prompt: #90 Rating: Teen Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Family Drama, Touch Phobia, Panic Attacks, Old Fashioned Parenting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Past Minor Character Death (Astoria), Past Ginny Weasley/Harry Potter, Child in Hospital Summary: Five year old Scorpius isn’t fond of people touching him, and he has a million reasons for it. However, his father is of the opinion that just saying ‘no’ should be enough without giving any of those reasons, but not everyone in his new-found family agrees. Word Count: 23.432

Title: Unconditional Author: @ladderofyears Prompt: #32 Rating: Teen and up Pairing: Albus Severus Potter/Scorpius Malfoy Warnings/Consent Notes: Anxiety, Boys in Love, First Boyfriend, First Kiss, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Feelings of Inadequacy in a relationship, Discussions of Pyschological and Emotional Manipulation, Relationship Discussions, non-consensual touching, Scorpius gives good advice, Mild Bigoted Language to describe Asexuality, Discussions about Healthy Relationships, Demisexual Albus Potter, Awakening Feelings of Desire, Eventual happy Ending. Word count: 7277

 Title: The Way Your Heart Touches Mine Author: @bafflinghaze Prompt: # 56 Rating: Explicit Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: N/A Summary: What does it mean when a certain someone gives you numerous gifts on ordinary days? Harry’s kind of sure (and mostly hoping) that Draco likes him. So why hasn’t Draco asked him out yet? Word Count: 3.9k

 Title: The Words that Pass Between Us Author: @elderxprice Prompt: # 28 Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: POV Draco Malfoy; Invasion of Privacy; Loss of Trust; Infidelity; Misogyny, Classism, Unredeemed Draco Malfoy, Verbal Abuse of a House Elf  Summary: Sometimes, Draco draws pictures of what could have been, had he made all the right choices: Draco in the Slug Club; Draco holding the Quidditch World Cup; Draco holding hands with some nameless, faceless person whose become some sick, secret sort of friend. He’s on every page Draco has touched. He flies with him, sleeps with him, laughs with him. And sometimes, if he pretends hard enough, Draco swears he can feel this person’s breath against his neck; a whispered I love you that has him pressing into the mattress every night, only to wake up alone wishing it were real. Word Count: 10,047

 Title: Working Out The Kinks Author: @potter-loves-malfoy Prompt: #18 Rating: E Pairing: Jeddy Warnings/Content Notes: Mild Dom/Sub Elements, Mild DubCon See full tagset on AO3 Summary:

There are three things James Sirius Potter is certain of:

One: He’s loved his boyfriend since he learned what romantic love was;

Two: There is nothing James wants more than said boyfriend to pound him into the mattress;

Three: His boyfriend, Teddy Lupin, can never find out about number two.

—or—

Four times James tried to pretend he wasn’t submissive and the one time he didn’t.

Word Count: 6,247

 Title: You Set My Soul Alight Author: @parkkate Prompt: #13 Rating: Explicit Pairing: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Warnings/Content Notes: Post-War, Auror partners, case fic, enemies to lovers, mystery, romance, adventure, pining, getting together, forced proximity, bed sharing, banter, UST, loss of virginity, first time, dub-con, consent issues, secrets, misunderstandings, miscommunication, sleep talking, frottage, rimming, face-sitting, intergluteal sex, anal sex, switching, blow jobs, fluff, angst, angst with a happy ending, references to suicidal thoughts, implied/referenced child abuse, references to depression, mental health issues, emotional hurt/comfort, minor character death, arguing, reconciliation, ewe Summary: Students are going missing at Hogwarts, but that’s not the only mystery Draco is determined to solve. Something’s going on with Potter. He can deny it all he wants. Draco is going to find out what it is. Unfortunately, trying to get to the bottom of it has some unexpected consequences and if Draco isn’t careful, he’s going to jeopardise their mission. Word Count: 54k

Advance Notice: Behold, for this is my first monthly review for "Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger"...

I had planned on publishing a First Impression post when this show premiered on February 11th, 2018, but I ended up scrapping that idea due to several reasons. I figured I should just go ahead with the review for the first episode having seen it with subs, but another hurdle came barging on my way (forcing me to be off the grid for a brief amount of time prior to my latest post) to the point that now I practically have watched 3 subbed episodes already. LOL. So as you can see, I've finally decided to just convert it into a monthly review (consisting of episode 1 to 3 that aired Sunday, February 25th) for the series anyway. Not unlike what I did with "Kamen Rider Build", of course. But there's a catch! Since I don't want my efforts for the First Impression to go to waste, I'm going to start with them first before heading directly to my Overall thoughts on each episode. Okay then, here goes...

First Impression

NOTE: Another reminder before I start. This list was written as soon as I finished watching the first episode. It contained my personal notes and INITIAL reactions to the story, theme, and also characters, some of most definitely have more or less evolved since then. So if it might sound a bit outdated, that's just the way it is. Can't help it, these were from three weeks ago... XD - Phantom Thief? More like... burglar. I'm talking about the premiere's opening sequence, that is. While it was designed to be cinematic, to me it also felt like a missed opportunity. The writer for this episode (was it lead writer Junko Komura?) probably forgot or got him/herself confused on the basic rule of a 'Kaitou'/Phantom Thieves. What made a Phantom Thief different than regular thieves or pickpockets, was in their modus operand of sending/handing out notice way ahead of their operation in order to challenge the owner of the item. Hence why it is called ADVANCE NOTICE. Moreso, they would infiltrate the target location meticulously and secretly using tricks and deceits while naturally avoiding to cause too much of a fuzz as much as possible. Those are the basics of a Phantom Thief. If you're uninformed and curious to see how this plays out, look no further than towards the many Kaitou Kid-centered story arcs in "Meitantei Conan", or the children show "Mysterious Joker". Even the heist aspect of Marvel Studios' "Ant-Man" fit in perfectly in this method. - This show DID capture the extravagant and stylish flairs of Phantom Thieves in this opening sequence. It was undoubtedly a flashy scene. But the biggest issue here was they did NOT give off an advance notice to the Casino boss, who was, in fact, the first Gangler or MotW of the show. A missed opportunity, because they could have easily inserted that bit in a quick dialogue or two. Breaking and entering, proceeded by shooting randomly at things to retrieve their target was clearly NOT the style of a Phantom Thief. Nope, this was plain robbery or burglary at play. Huge difference, right there! LOL. Handing out a calling card afterward would be considered pretty much useless because it could no longer count as an 'Advance' notice (get it?). The later mission of the episode was better, as it required a good amount of sneaking and sleuthing. No sign of advance notice though, so what a shame *sigh*. Even if this show hasn't managed to get the thieving part correctly, it was pretty apparent that the source of inspiration for the Lupinrangers was the iconic series "Lupin the 3rd". At the very least, I'm instantly reminded of that series every time they got out in action, both in or out of suit. - Oh yeah, there's another missed potential regarding that opening sequence. In this case, it's a bit technical. Debuting the theme song of "Lupinranger VS Patranger" in the first episode sounds natural, right? Well, that should've been the case. Yet when it was played WITHOUT having the Patranger around... it bugged me big time. I personally think they should have either: used the Lupinranger-only version in that scene. Especially because the Patrangers didn't even have the ability to transform until the closing scene. Or...; rewrote the scene and have it showcase both teams at the same time, fully in costume. I know the Lupinranger is first-billed, but if I were this episode's writer, I would totally use the theme song during an actual kerfuffle between the two teams. For example, in that brief part before the episode wrapped? Heck, the episode could've started with that before going into flashback mode or some sort. It would have made a major difference if you ask me... - Characters!!! I know I should never judge a book by its cover, but seriously, Kairi Yano (LupinRed) is unappealing and squeaky. No wonder some folks were surprised that his actor Asahi Itou could be appointed as Red. Plus, it's clear he still needs to improve his acting skill, with all those constant unnerving glares. Touma Yoimachi (LupinBlue) is the usual cool type, who this time gets mixed up with the chef trope. Think of it like Kyuranger's Stinger and Spada in one body. For some reason, Shougo Hama reminded me of Kamen Rider Ibuki or Mamoru Chiba from the live action "Sailor Moon" series. I think Umika Hayami (LupinYellow) is the most likable member of the Lupinranger, albeit being the usual bumbling 'my pace' girl. It felt that graduated Morning Musume member Haruka Kudo's deep affection to tokusatsu really showed, as she looked the most comfortable in her shoes. Their names combine into 'Kai-To-u'. - Keiichirou Asaka (Patren 1-gou) is undoubtedly the better Red for me so far. I sensed that Kousei Yuuki was also more convincing as an actor than Asahi. Unfortunately, Keiichirou is also the loud brash stereotype (kind of reminds you of Go Yellow, huh?), so he and his mysterious endless rage and anger will either impress you or grate on your nerves. The same couldn't be said about the other Patranger members. Sakuya Hikawa (Patren 2-gou) and Tsukasa Myoujin (Patren 3-gou) are nothing more than... generic stereotypes in the premiere. For now at least. Which was disappointing, because Ryo Yokoyama and Kazusa Okuyama (who somehow reminded me of Red Racer and Go-On Silver) could only do so much with the limited materials they were given. These two are likely the lesser important characters (Super Sentai always have ones), which says a lot about the Patranger's position. None of these three managed to... grab my attention, because aside from a stubborn hot-blooded Keiichirou, the other two could be considered as bland. Just like the Lupinranger, their names combined into 'Kei-Sa-Tsu'. - Youichi Nukumizu's Kogure and Ike Nwala's Commisioner Hilltop are the show's MVP for me thus far. In Kogure's case, the air of mystery and elusiveness easily stole my attention and made me want to see more. I think he could work as a secret big boss vibe pulling the strings behind the scene, though it would likely end up as some kind of Alfred Pennyworth scenario instead. Likewise, Hilltop showed hints of eccentric personality due to his Japan Culture-obsessed hobby (mirroring "Sakura Taisen V"'s Sunnyside). I can't help but wonder if he's meant to be the Jim Gordon of the show? It also helped that he joined the limited list of foreign actors who played a crucial role in a tokusatsu show. I hope these two will have bigger and more important roles in the future... as suggested by that recent rumor. Sadly, I couldn't praise the same about Jim Carter (voiced by Rie Kugimiya), the Global Police's mascot robot. I disliked its design, and see no actual use of it. Not to mention that name. Why TOEI, just why? - Comparing these two teams have always been an ordeal since I saw their first images. Each one has their pros and cons that sort of balanced my impression on them. I liked the Patranger cast better, but those suit design totally threw me off the table. I dig the style of the Lupinranger suit, but feel mixed about its actors. It's clear however, that the Lupinranger was put center front in the premiere (as evident by the flashy top-hatted transformation sequence and cool silhouetted roll call), to the point that the Patranger was basically just... there. Thus it felt somewhat premature and unfair to compare them due to the state they are right now. Not surprisingly, the scene in the Bistrot Jurer was executed better than the one in the GSPO's Tactical Unit Operations Room. The latter just looked more... fake somehow *sigh*. - Speaking of suits, Patranger likely had inspirations from "KyuKyu Sentai GoGoFive", "Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger", with a hint of "Go Go Sentai Boukenger". Sadly, these are not as good as those three. The Lupinranger ones are clearly a "Mirai Sentai Timeranger" nod, complete with that giant hands of clock-shaped swords that reminded me of the Vector Swords. Still, they should've gone with a long coat tail like in the transformation sequence (Zyuoh Whale and Draco Commander style). That would've made for a more elegant look. - I'm not that fond of the design for the show's main antagonist (a mixture of dinosaur and... guns?). Not the grenade-inspired but watermelon-looking Destora Mazzio (voiced by Pokemon's Brock himself, Yuuji Ueda), and particularly the hideous Goshu Ru Medu (voiced by "K-ON!"'s Ayana Taketatsu). Perhaps it's the way that every Gangler needs to include a safety box on their body that made them look... I don't know, silly? On the bright side, it does have this interesting mafia family style that would provide great potentials assuming it's explored properly. Cues from "The Godfather" movies can be felt from their so-called leader Dogranio Yabun (voiced by Mitsuru Miyamoto), as well as an obvious nod to Don Dolnero of Timeranger. In the case of those Lupin Collection, I'm sure Super Sentai fans would easily be reminded of Boukenger's Precious. - Neat camera works for the action scenes. Some... inventive movements that involved plenty of 360 shots taken from kinetic angles. Unfortunately, they would work much better in a fast-paced viewing. When you slowed the sequence down, it's more than obvious that the transitions between the different cameras (the regular huge and docked one, and possibly a drone/hand-held for the moving parts) aren't exactly as smooth. The switching was more than apparent, because there's an easily noticeable fluctuation in video quality. Not to mention, it did feel confusing to see after repeated viewings. - Last but not least, the absence of an ending sequence could be a make or break situation for the show. Many audience particularly Japanese kids genuinely loved an ending song that they could dance along with. I know that this one felt more mature already without one, but is that really a good thing? We'll just have to wait and see...

01 - "Here Comes the Flashy Burglar / Off-Beat Arrested Development"

Overall: I admit, after seeing this episode again with English subtitle, it was better than my first initial watch. Unfortunately, many of its issues (that I have pointed out above) are hard to overlook and still render my overall judgment. This was meant to be a groundbreaking series that actually features two existing Super Sentai teams at once, yet in my opinion, it ended up feeling more or less like your standard Super Sentai show. It didn't feel that much 'different', despite being taunted/promoted as such. Same old, same old. Most of that is likely due to the fact that the Patranger didn't have equal footing in it when they really SHOULD. Everything this police unit does (always-late appearance, bland characters, unimpressive significance, etc) didn't account much, giving off a distracting vibe that they were merely a set of supporting characters in a Lupinranger show. Seriously, they didn't even have a proper transformation scene and roll call because of how heavily Lupinranger-focused this has been. I'm not fond of police-themed Sentai, to begin with, hence why I already liked it less than other Super Sentai fans. Not saying this debut episode was bad, but more like... not my cup of tea? Didn't win me over? I do get why many are loving it though. This was a breeze of fresh air, especially when compared to the recent WEAK (I'm being NICE here) seasons of "Power Rangers" adaptations. Still, in my opinion, it's a pretty standard premiere, heavy on expositions, and due to its minor flaws, wasn't really on par with previous Super Sentai premiere episodes. On the bright side, if the show's future development is consistent with a recent rumor flying around the internet, then they will be enough to keep me watching this show. Here's hoping...

02 - "Frozen Back-Story / Fudging-Sweaty Fusion"

Overall: If I have to choose one word to describe this episode, that would be easy: HECTIC. Yes, as fittingly represented by the official opening sequence that... in my honest opinion, could have used better editing. The action parts felt busy and rushed, to the point that when it slowed down for the dramatic parts, the episode became uneven. I have this feeling that the debut of the vaguely disturbing Patren Union (defying all kinds of real life logic) was meant to put or even push the Patranger into the spotlight. Heck, they finally got their own flas... er generic roll call now (it still looks bland compared to the thieves no matter how you put it... *sigh*). Unfortunately, it's the drama part that pretty much stole every attention and became the major highlight of this episode. And sadly, it was particularly shining a light towards the Lupinranger... all over again. Yes, Kairi, Touma, and Umika remained to be the first-billed characters, as the show decided to reveal their real motives/goal to collect the Lupin Collection. Which was emotional and VERY personal at best. Hence our supposedly good officers were still being relegated as second fiddle, showing that the show hasn't managed to divide the focus evenly between the two teams. But hey, the Patranger also helped debuted the sentient-chatterbox Good Striker/Goody (voiced by legendary Virgo Shaka himself, Yuuji Mitsuya), right? Only to jumpstart the arrival of Lupin Kaizer when the Collection Piece combined with the Lupinranger's Dial Fighters instead. And while the show's first mecha (which didn't look as good as its design, I can't tell why) dealt with the Gangler in a flashy way, Keichirou, Sakuya, and Tsukasa only stared blankly into the night sky. Oh Patranger, I feel truly sorry for you... Ignoring the fact that it's still an uneven affair, it's indeed a much better episode than the first. It's not perfect by all means, and probably could do with better editing, but that genuinely intriguing backstory honestly did much of the heavy lifting. It's probably the show's best episode so far, though I'm hoping it's not the extent that this show has to offer.

03 - "Fiance on Ice / A Sticky Reinforcement"

Overall: LOL, did anyone actually expect some secret identities to be exposed, just 3 episodes in? That's NOT how Super Sentai works, especially in a full-year extended version of a Versus movie like this. So in that sense, what a pointless cliffhanger that was at the end of episode 2, huh? This intro scene basically answered one lingering concern I had since episode 1. Remember how Keiichirou and Kairi had a civilian stand-off about that newspaper ball in the park early on? If Keiichirou has good photographic memory and critical analysis skill as a competent police officer, he would've instantly recognized Kairi in Jurer. Not just that, he should also recognize LupinRed's voice coming from his mouth. But noooope, that did NOT happen. Frankly, I'm not sure how I feel about this. I just hope this didn't simply mean that Kei, as well as Sakuya and Tsukasa, are being written off as a bit... slow. That would be a disaster! How could one root for them if they are so unreliable? We got more insight into Touma's character concerning his fiance Aya. Not much of a surprise, because the previous episode had openly shown the identities of the frozen closed ones *sigh*. His character now reminds me of Joe Gibken from "Kaizoku Sentai Go-kaiger", who so happens to be sharing a similar cool-blue stereotype. But I'm not sure why there's something off with Touma that I couldn't really put into words. A relentless darkness that is rubbing me the wrong way. Which is strange, because Joe is my favorite Go-kaiger. It felt like Sakuya was probably meant to be the 2nd focus here, or at least meant to have his share of the spotlight. But since the execution was still uneven, still favoring heavily on the Lupinranger side, inevitably the rookie member of the Global Police ended up being eclipsed by both Touma and also Kairi. On the bright side, him showing instant attraction to Umika at the end implied that he's destined to be the awkward but likable goofball of the series. Assuming this angle will be explored in the future, of course. I might be wrong in this, but it felt like the Patranger has gotten the short end of the stick... again. Three times in a row! I mean, when the whole episode established that the Lupinranger will now be using the Patranger as tools to do their bidding, that... kind of says A LOT, right? The thieves (true to their namesake) kept on stealing attention from the public servant (fittingly so), always acting one step ahead of them. And their version of Good Striker's Finishing Move wasn't even better (lamer IMO) than Union to begin with. Even Kogure singlehandedly stole the scenes with his elusive appearances and mysterious relationship with Goody! Marvel Studios carefully constructed a story that enabled "Captain America: Civil War" audience to be divided between the two conflicting teams, but there's none of that here. For the time being, the Patranger only feels more and more like an afterthought, a lesser team that probably shouldn't even get a mention in the title. I don't think that's fair... Oh well, at least their Pat Kaizer debut was great. I can't say why, but it honestly looked much better in action. That's a hugely pleasant surprise! Was it because Lupin Kaizer's battle relied too heavily on CG to showcase its fluid movement? Not really, because Pat Kaizer also had its fair share of CG. Because the battle took place in the daylight? Regardless, the combined Trigger Machines was sturdy and strong. And though I could do without that pink pole stick, this mecha looked impressive overall and just more fun to see in motion. Next Episode: A Closed Room Case...

Episode 1 Score: 7,2 out of 10 Episode 2 Score: 7,8 out of 10 Episode 3 Score: 7,4 out of 10

All images are screen captured from the series, provided by the FanSubber Over-Time. "Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger" is produced by TOEI, and airs every Sunday on TV-Asahi. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

[Ask RPedia] Does the Main Character Have to be “Good” to be Liked?

Anonymous asked: Do you think a character HAS to be likeable for people to like them, if they're the protagonist in the story? I've had a lot of conflict over this, as I myself enjoy having unlikeable/mean/"villainous" characters as the main character, but I'm unsure as to whether this would go well over with the majority. Do you think being likeable is a must-have trait for a popular, or enjoyable character?

Hi yeah okay uhm, no. Never. Nope. Honestly people just love a character they can connect with, and there’s a lot of people out there who look at themselves and are guilty that they have less-than-perfect responses to situations. Seeing someone who does similar, yet thrills and interests them, can give them that hook. Let them know they aren’t alone, and give them a fictional anchor to see themselves in. That connection, be it fascination, love, attraction, or reflection is the important part. Let’s examine a few of the ‘most popular’ characters from recent shows and see why they were popular, because surprise surprise, most of them were straight up villains yet everyone loves them. ... I’m going to talk a lot about basically these two paragraphs ad nauseum as I explain, get ready for it.

So we’re going to jump right into some fandoms people have hashed back and forth to the point that, really, we want to gag. Yes. Let’s walk directly into hell and pick up BBC Sherlock, the MCU’s Avengers, Game of Thrones, and... you know what, let’s do it. Let’s go grab that Nolan version of Batman.

You probably realized who I was talking about first for each and every one of them, so let’s point at our targets. Moriarty, Loki, Joker, and Joffery come on down! Actually GoT has a lot of fucking targets let’s be real. We’ll leave that one for last because we can drain it of the most meat before we toss it aside. Anyways.

What do these characters have in common? They’re evil, yes, they’re strongly represented in their respective canons, and holy shit the fandom fucking loves them. Like everything about them, there’s fanart, and fanfics, and rewrites, and redemption arcs in every little fanish heart for miles. (peep TVtropes about this following phrase) They have more Leather Pants than Draco Malfoy, another fond favorite but we’re not gonna bother with him because he doesn’t have much hearty fulfilling canon meat on him. Fandom strongly wishes that these characters, despite their issues, were ‘good people’ and could care about another person. They want them to be a little bit goofy, and are completely willing to overlook everything they’ve done if they could get better now.

So my theory, and oh no I have a theory, is you can get away with a character being a total fuckface if you pick which part of Triumvirate of Attraction they fail at and keep the other two. It’s a triangle. The corners are: Attractive Looking, Witty/Sarcastic/Intelligent, and Relatable. So if you have a character who is relatable and funny, everyone loves them even if they are literally made out of goopy clay pasted onto some sort of twig framework. If they’re good looking and horrifyingly intelligent, no one ever has to bond with them or understand them on a deep personal level, because wow they’re funny and I can look at them! 

Seriously.

Each of these character has unlikable aspects, and I’m sure the fandom can give me a real debate about each so this is a minefield. Just remember, everyone has their own interpretations of the characters, and mine are not 100% correct, nor do I claim them to be. But my view is useful for breaking them down and explaining them as a POV to learn from, so bear with me even if I insult your favorite by accident because I’m using them for examples of assholes right now. (Hint: I've roleplayed most of them, so I love them too, I love them even if they’re horrific pieces of burning trashfire. )

So, Loki. He was raised as the second son to is King-God father and warrior son, tended towards trickery because of a rift between him and his family. He tended to be blamed for things, and then do other things. We know him as a character who has ripped people’s minds out to use them as pawns, murdered people by stabbing them through the gut, and seemed to quite enjoy warring with other planets. These, regardless of how desensitized to them we are, are not good things. That’s mind-control, murder, and murder on a team he tricked into it, and we aren’t even going to look at various things he may have done elsewise. This character is not a good man, he’s flawed, and yet people adore him. Why? Well, mostly it’s because he’s hilarious. The man turned into Captain America for a crack, he says those snappy little one-liners we all wish we could, and he’s brilliant when it comes to an extended master plan. He keeps things interesting. He’s also not bad looking, sure he might not be to your specific taste (especially after people have harped on it so long) but he’s got the kind of face that blends in with the bland circus of ‘handsome actors’ well enough. Not to mention we also identify with him, he’s got the triumvirate. The outcasts, walking in people’s shadow, who feel they’ve been pushed into being bad. Those people who want power to help others, even if it means destroying them in the process. People who need to prove themselves, and get the love they crave. They’re all seeing their reflections here, even if Loki is haughty, extremely intelligent, and out of reach as a bit of an Ice King.

Now Moriarty. Once again, we have someone who is handsome and witty! He’s sarcastic as hell, uses his voice in a certain patter to draw you in for the punchline, and then lets it rip. He knows how to keep people pulled in waiting for him to say his next memorable line. He also fucking poisoned kidnapped children with mercury, paid men to kill other people with Russian Roulette style bets, caused several man hunts, and forced people to commit suicide for kicks. Wee bit of not-good there. Is he relatable? Maybe on some shallow level, but widely, he’s too smart for us, he’s doing things we probably wouldn’t do because, well, they’s a bit mean ain’t they? He’s a mystery in many respects, and we can’t so much as bond with him, as pretend to bond with him by trying to enforce the character of Sebastian into a world he doesn’t exist in as our ‘in’, or by using Sherlock to wedge in the same ‘mirror’ so we can understand the guy who is outside of our league. We fake understanding him because we like him. So, strike relatable, keep him attractive (bisexual jokes nab a lot of looks and he’s handsome) and witty! Add as much asshole as you want the fans are snagged. He could kick a puppy and fans would croon about how evil he is, an awful sinnamon roll they want to see more of. That’s how it works. (And as a reminder, our Smart/Pretty Sherlock over there isn’t much of a relatable person or nice either.)

Why not jump to Nolanverse’s Joker now. He’s one of the first who break the ‘Handsome and Witty’ pair up, because look at him. He runs around in unshaven legs in a nurse costume with soggy makeup. He’s not clean, he probably smells funny (get it, because clown), and he’s an abusive piece of shit out to murder half the city for kicks and to get Bat-Sempai to notice him. But we find him funny and relatable, he hates how the world is dependent on money and wants to change it. He considers the world one big nasty joke being played on the people. He’s got one-liners everywhere, and frankly good advice (never do something you’re good at for free). He’s against society, against money controlling people, and wants to ‘level the playing field’. Sure, he finds that graveyards are all remarkably flat as a playing field goes, but we get it. He’s miserable and wants to do something with his life. This is how cults start to be honest. He’s an angry ugly man with a funny way of looking at the world that makes you think he’s just like you, and maybe he does have a point? So people latched onto him, he became the figurehead of a movement. Anarchy, and chaos, something they could look up to even if it wasn’t a very good thing. He is beloved, whether or not you personally like him.

Then there’s Joffery. I want to make an agonizing groaning noise over him because he’s got one trait: he’s not bad looking. If he wasn’t a raging shitstorm of pubescent narcissism bent on destruction for kicks, he’d be kind of hot. He’s not very smart, he’s not witty, he’s just cruel. If he’s relatable, it’s not through direct relation. It’s through knowing that one little prick you had to deal with your whole life who was just like him but without the power. Or I guess, there’s a lot of power fantasy loving folk who probably just liked him for him. I’m not judging. ... I’m judging a tiny bit. There’s some judgement. He’s a little shit okay, he’s a pretty nasty little shit. But was he popular as fuck? Hells yes! Everyone knows Joffery if they’ve watched the series! He’s bigger than life, people groan loudly at his name, he’s got a fandom supporting him and his tragic life. Tragic in part because he had one. People looked forward to episodes with Joffery to see what evil stunt he’d pull next, to see what happened to his victims, and most importantly to see the evil little booger meet the finger that picks him. We couldn’t wait for something to happen to Joffery, whether it was a slap to the head, a stabbing, being shoved off a building, being eaten by dire wolves... the list goes on, everyone wanted to see his comeuppance more than anything. He was also, somewhat, creative and stylish about how he went around shit. Not clever, but creative, and he made evil look descent. 

Now here’s where we turn on GoT In full force, gimme a second. So we have Cersei, and her twinsie-lover Jaime. Both assholes, but we love them too. They’re pretty, and immoral, and actually witty as fuck honestly. We watched fervently to see what would happen to them, but were they specifically likable characters? Hell no! Especially not at the beginning when they started really being massive tossers. How about Littlefinger? Oh no, he was nice once. But he’s witty, and pretty, and relatable, but a total fucknard too. The Mountain? We love his rude, violent, smouldered off face. He’s not pretty, but he’s his kinda street-smart, and he’s relatable. See how this is working out? My triumvirate of interest is proving out in our illustrative pudding. It doesn’t even have to be bad guys, look at Tyr. He’s fucking smart as hell, hilarious, people adore the shit out of him. He’s not supposed to be that pretty, but he is. He’s a total cock to people a lot, but he’s funny, and relatable. Everyone relates to Tyr. This is why Tyr is so beloved.

... now that I’ve nattered uselessly on that for a while, let’s look at the other reasons these characters were delightful. Because believe it or not there are totally other reasons beyond my theory.

If you look at everyone I’ve suggested here, there’s another reason people watch shows with them. Morbid, or entirely reasonable, curiosity what the fuck is going to happen next. So you need to set up a story that draws people in not with your characters, but with what their future holds. Is the testy little jerk going to die? Are the demons going to eat him? What horrible thing is he plotting next? God, I just want to see if it gets worse actually... These are the thoughts in the back of people’s heads. This is why Clockwork Orange went over so well, the surrealist batch of malarkey, sex, and ultraviolence that was. This is why Neil Gaiman’s American Gods has so much pull, when the protagonist was drawn on by events, rather than being an excessively fleshed out and interesting character. He was surrounded by interesting things and characters, he didn’t need to take that away from them. Sure he had interesting moments, but he wasn’t in and of himself extremely out-there and trying to take the spotlight and yet he was the main character. And I still couldn’t put the damn thing down. Thank you Neil.

So if your character is lacking in ways for people to be attracted to them, if they’re mean, ugly, horrible little people, who want nothing more than to hurt others, who aren’t funny, or even very smart. Who are disgusting wastes of flesh, who are too violent to live, and empty hollow unrelatable characters-- you have to compliment them with the most excessively interesting plot anyone as ever made, with fantastic background-characters and a shout-outloud-at-the-library ending. Something’s gotta be palatable if your characters aren’t, but do they need to be? No. Not at all. 

Can you think of any characters that have had a complete failure even though they’re marketably pretty, supposedly witty, and but-we-made-them-relatable? You’re probably, through no fault of your own, going to think about lots of mass produced strong women characters written by people who don’t ‘get it’. They assume that prepackaging the deal will instantly catch them views, I mean, she’s got sex appeal right? That’s what sells! That’s all that matters! We gave her little quips, and made her fall in love or out of love or something to do with love or the usual standard ‘I’m just as good as the guys!’ storyline, so why aren’t you falling for her yet? Because, consumers (that’s you readers!) know when something tastes like plastic. It’s fake. 

So yet another thing to keep in mind is making sure your characters steam with realism. Balance your traits, good and bad. Make sure that their reactions aren’t forced or canned or seen in every version of that character ever. It’s surprisingly easy to write characters once you treat them as 3D human beings with entire lives we’re just dipping a tow into, rather than a 2D story helper to act out our little head play and then go away. Hint at their lives, draw people in. Make them realistic. Give them reasons to say the things they do, and show those reasons if you can instead of just telling them. Avoid serious stereotyping and handwaving characters as unimportant because they’re fictional.

You are a writer have one job. Make them real. If they’re real enough, it doesn’t matter what kind of a person they are. You’re telling a story, telling something that should feel real and thick like some sort of reality soup you’ve made special. Unlikable protagonists tend to be plastic cutouts, that’s the real big issue writers face. So, even if they are horrible, make them. Tell their story. Tell all their stories. Express them like the finest of anal glands. It’ll touch someone, in their heart we hope, and it’ll grow their vocabulary. People read to expand their horizons, not to fall for the same cookie cutter good guy everyone’s afraid to break the mold of.

Remember, you can write anything. Anything. Everything. It doesn’t matter if someone will find it offensive. It doesn’t matter if it grosses someone out, or someone hates it. It doesn’t matter if it looks like a first grader should have written it in crayon. Nothing matters except getting it down on paper. After that, you can pick through it with a fine tooth comb and clean it up. Then leave it alone for a while, reread it later. If you love it and feel like it’s something that can be shared without people throwing a fit? Share it. 

But before that, you have to write it, and you don’t need anybody else at all to tell you what’s good enough’ when you’re trying to birth a word baby at 3AM in a mad dash of typing. Story now, let the true thing out even if you’re embarrassed, guilty, ashamed, threatened, and upset by it. You know it will hurt others, but you’re already thinking it. Get it out of you, like a poison and onto the paper so it stops bugging you. 

You aren’t breaking your morals, or doing something that anyone else matters in by letting a story out, if you don’t share it with anyone you know it will hurt. You’re just helping yourself. It already exists in your head, and once you accept it and let it go on the page, finally, you can pick to delete it, or just save it and never share it and die off before it gets published, whatever. Think about the details and fixes later, let the story flow, and do not let the judgement or enjoyment of some other fucker ruin that flow by making you second guess everything. 

You got this. Write that less-than-stellar character, and see where they lead you. Good luck.

As a Dramione shipper enthusiast, let me tell you a thing. There are writers who actually portray the two in character (me, me am one very so much yes yes) without making it subtly sexist or ignoring character flaws. Firstly, all people have major issues. Hermione, for one, expects way to much intellectually of the people around her and often regards herself as the smartest person in the room without even actually speaking to everyone in it. Draco, after all the damaging conditioning is family has done to him, winds up being a fairly broke soul with at least one or two mental illnesses. They were the top two students in their year - and it is fanon (all but approved by JKR, that ratty woman) that Draco also finished his final year at Hogwarts. The two are intellectually compatible. Beyond this, JKR (who is somehow bandwagoning her own fandom, not queen quality that woman) has said herself that in a lot of ways Draco's treatment of Hermione is due to misplaced and misunderstood feelings. It's implied that Draco actually likes and admires Hermione more than he hates her - which is the reasoning why he bullies her. It is expected of him and he doesn't want to betray the way he's been raised. Secondly, people grow and change. Draco actually ends up raising a very well mannered son who cares about the wellbeing of all wizards, something made canon by The Cursed Child. So Draco proves that he always wished to be different than his parents wished by being the father he didn't have, which is all most parents from sketchy families tries to do in the Muggle world (amirite?). Hermione changes too, of course, by showing her more human characteristics. For a good portion of the series she is cold and focused on academics, only deviating when her hunger to learn is disrupted by Umbridge. This forces her to become more assertive as a person and humbled her greatly - sort of in the way Draco's sixth year shows him what he is and is not willing to do for a family that he wants to be nothing like. Draco is theorized to have failed intentionally by Dumbledore himself - and he canonically admits that he doesn't want to do it - further proving that Draco isn't quite the evildoer and sod everyone believes him to be. ALSO, if we want to get grossly technical (which I hate to do since JKR letting the Cursed Child be a thing is painful) - Hermione isn't actually as good of a person as everyone imagines, and really is changed by the events of her fourth year for the better. Had a few things been different, Hermione may have never realized her feelings for Ron (nor Ron his) - which would have put her on the path the be an even more abusive and spiteful professor. So let's not act in any way that Hermione was this angelic princess of moral because is canon that she wouldn't have become the heroine she is without the influence of a fair few outsiders. This proves that the two are even more alike than we would have previously considered. Beyond these obvious matters that people often ignore - there are a treasure trove of tiny things that would imply that they're a perfect fit for one another. I personally believe that the fact that they're on opposite sides of the war actually helps them be better matches because Draco is fragile and scattered within himself from all that he associated with and become involved in at home, while Hermione is more whole than she'd ever been before because she'd never been apart of something bigger that gave her proper purpose. She helps people because she cares about them genuinely, not by association (which she does sort of low key admit she does in the first book - and continues with the trio because of the intellectual challenge of being friends with the boys actually poses). The woman that Hermione becomes is patient enough and loving enough to care for the man that Draco becomes. I'm not saying the relationship would be perfect - and I do believe most relationships have their fair share of great struggles in them. There would be a lot to overcome for Draco and Hermione as a couple... But JKR has actually admitted that Ron and Hermione were not a perfect couple either - and likely needed extensive marriage counseling because the amount of bullying Ron did to her in their younger years at Hogwarts! Beyond that, she's also public ally stated she thinks Harry is better match for Hermione and that it would have been more natural. Her decision to put Ron and Hermione together was out of her personal desires to see the characters she based them on together romantically (herself and some bloke she had a crush on). AND HERE IS THE KICKER, are you ready? Harry and Draco are basically the same person. This is very canon. They had every opportunity to be the same man, but because they were raised by opposing sides they developed very different personalities. It is canon that the young men are "two sides of the same coin." This implies that they are the same but different, which sounds like an oxymoron but is more metaphoric of the similarities between these very different young men. So if JKR is saying it is more far-fetched Hermione with Ron than it is to see her with Harry, then it really isn't more far-fetched to see her with Draco than Ron because of these deeper connections and observations people tend to ignore for convenience. If we are going to use these characters to represent real-life issues - then we must acknowledge more than what is convenient for us. Bullies can change, and people grow up and become better people. Ron and Draco both do that - but it is psychologically easier to forgive a bully who is not your friend than a bully that is close to you. Especially in this scenario where Ron was generally being a git to a friend of his simply because she was different than him and better than him at a wide variety of things - oh, and she expected him to be civilized. Shame on her (though she was a bit of an arse, too). Malfoy, on the their hand, was raised that way. His bullying stems from a lack of education and exposure. Nature versus nurture can make or break the ability to connect with someone. All of these posts generally assume that Draco is a prat simply because it's his personality, but he spends much of his time trying to impress his father by being like him. When Draco's own personality begins emerging in his sixth year - we can see he is dedicated, reserved, and even fragile. Draco may have been a nasty piece of work but when he starts being forced into situations he's not asked for, we as readers can deduce that he's conflicted with the expectations of him and his personal aspirations - which are generally to be great at school and fit in somewhere that people will notice him. That is not an evil thing to want, unless every celebrity on this planet is a Satan incarnate (or some other evil religious figure incarnate for all you non-Christian folk). I will stand by this ship until the very end - and I can assure you I don't have deep repressed issues where I lack self-confidence and feel the need to be controlled (my husband will certainly vouch in favor of both of these proclamations) - which is what JKR certainly would have you believe. Unfortunately, she has proven she's incapable of standing by her own work by constantly changing her opinions and shifting her canon based on the lost popular opinion of her fandoms. She is given credit for approving theories that others have come up with that likely never crossed her mind - and yet she would stand here win a holier-than-thou expression insulting shippers for seeing deeper connections and relationships between the characters she created in a story that she swore was over to her son book seven. Draco and Hermione really are not anymore unreasonable than some popular relationships that actually are canon - and actually do romanticize sexism and misogyny through abusive and toxic intimacy. I will admit when there's a ship that isn't healthy, I am mature and aware enough to do that, but don't think for a second that this is one of them. There are a gross number of Dramione writers that do portray these characters poorly with disgusting premises - but the ship is not ill-fitted simply because of a few writers DEALING WITH THEIR OWN INNER CONFLICTS THROUGH WRITING!

2, 10, 42, 47

asks for fanfic writers

well, no. 10 and no. 42 are over here, but!

2. things that motivate you

* The stereotype that autistic spectrum people are only good for STEM-related things. Like, for all of the folks on the spectrum who are good at STEM things, that’s great and I wish them all the best — but I suck at math and I can’t do anything science-related without turning it into, “how can I make a sociopolitical sci-fi critique out of this” or, “but do gay aliens believe in me,” so nah, I’m gonna pass on doing anything STEM-y.

I’d much rather give a big middle finger to everyone who has this ridiculous notion that autistic spectrum people are completely and utterly uncreative, and that we are only ever good for STEM things, and I’d like to do it by being successful in my chosen creative pursuits, please and thank you.

* Tangentially? Temple fucking Grandin. I don’t actually have any problems with her, herself — but I have a lot of problems with how allistic people hold her up as The One True Way To Be A Successful Person Who “Suffers From” Autism™ and how about fuck that, no. I want to be a successful autistic writer who is nothing like Temple Grandin, apart from both of us being white autistic women/dfab people who are going to be identified and treated as women by other people irl regardless of any wibbly wobbly messy gender feels on our part.

* Talking with people about my projects. On one hand, it’s a way of getting feelings kind of like validation. On the other, and way more importantly for me? I love getting feedback from people, or hearing the questions they come up with — like, on NYE, my aunt and I chatted back and forth about my novel while playing a weird card game with one of my cousins, and Aunt Kelly asked some questions that got me to put a few ideas I’ve been playing with into words more concretely, which was super-helpful — and I get a lot of motivation to work from getting jazzed up about things through talking with people.

* Totally a petty thing, but? Getting cranky with JK Rowling over all of the Good Ally Cookies she doesn’t actually deserve to claim, or all of the characters of hers who Deserved Better (lol, uh. today, my therapist learned that I get Upset about Percy Weasley very easily and about my longstanding hate-on for his parents, and bless her heart, when I went, “uh, I just over-identify with Percy Weasley a lot and there’s a good deal of projection going on here but I also don’t think I’m wrong,” she kinda smiled and nodded and went, “I can tell :)” — she’s great, I love her)

or how, even ignoring all of the #Problematic things about her body of work in the Potterverse, there’s SO MUCH GOOD SHIT in the HP series but she’s so clearly invested in the plot as she envisions it and the story she wants to tell for Harry, to the exclusion of all else, that she ends up completely short-changing basically every other character who is not named Severus Snape or Hermione Granger (most of the time, but not 100% of the time)

Like, I’ve said it before and I will say it until everyone is completely sick of me saying it, then I will continue saying it anyway: JKR views all of her characters — barring Harry, and sometimes Snape and Hermione — as plot devices more than she views them as characters.

She’s a bit better about some of them (Remus, Sirius but not as much as Remus, Ron and Luna but not as much as they deserve, Neville and Draco but not in the ways that they deserve)

but she’s really bullshit about most of them (this is not a complete list, but: Cho; Ginny; Cedric; Tonks; Fleur; Albus, Aberforth, and Ariana; Voldemort — not in that I need her to be sympathetic toward him but ffs, some 101-level consistency in his characterization would be nice; Kingsley; Percy; Wormtail; James; Lily;

Lockhart — “I’m not bitter about JKR’s ableism and victim-blaming with regard to Gildylocks,” I say bitterly, with a bitter expression, while hanging up informational posters about how bitter I am; Andromeda and Ted — deserved better, this is not a question or a debate, I want to say that it’s not even an opinion, but tbh, I know that it is, so hmph; Regulus; Barty Crouch Jr. because he is my Favorite and I can’t make this list without mentioning him;

Bellatrix — again, I don’t need her to sympathize with Bellatrix because how about no? but Bellatrix Black Lestrange is one of the shittiest villains I’ve ever read, in terms of HOW she was written, and I think a lot of the flaws in how JKR wrote her could have been remedied if she actually did anything to make Bellatrix a fully realized character, which would’ve made her a more effective and meaningful villain, and not a shrieking Saturday morning cartoon caricature;

Molly and Arthur — I’m not going into full detail about why I hate them today, you lot can just go read my tag on the subject if you want to know, and I don’t think that JKR’s “plot device first, people second” method of characterization is the only problem? But I think it’s a major contributing factor to The Problem Of Molly And Arthur, because she presents them as this image of Idyllic Domestic Perfection even when their actions and the internal fabric of the Weasley Family, don’t support that claim, and it sucks)

—basically, JK Rowling motivates me by fucking up a lot, because she was one of my idols as a kid and as a teenager, and she was a relevant and immediate source of inspiration because Oh My God You Can So Too Write Novels For A Living And Make A Difference In People’s Lives, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that she saved my life a few times, albeit mostly in indirect fashions…… but she fucks up a lot, and this is motivating for me because it makes me want to do better than her.

It’s not even exclusive to HP fic, either. Like, she’s one of my biggest sources of motivation to work on my novel and put thought and love and heart into making it the best that it can be — because I want to do better than her and even if I never have her kind of money (which lol, never gonna happen), I still want to beat her at something. Once I earn it, I will happily accept beating her at artistic integrity and commitment.

Is it petty? Yes, definitely. But hey, man, fish gotta swim, dogs gotta eat, and sometimes, I gotta think about my issues with JK Rowling to remember that I need to do better than her and motivate myself to do the work

* You know those, “do it for her/him” memes based on that one thing from The Simpsons that people make with their fave characters and/or celebs? Yeah, I kind of want to make one for myself with Oscar Wilde. Because there’s a lot about him that wasn’t ever perfect (he was a white guy in Victorian England, even accounting for his Anglo-Irishness, so…… yeah), and there are several points on which I don’t agree with him (like, for example: if you are such a shit to your wife that your boyfriend, who is so completely up his own ass that it’s a miracle he hasn’t found a way to Narnia, notices and calls you out on it? I’m kinda thinking that you might want to reassess how you treat people and stop being like that, bub)

—but I also want to be a fabulous gay Slytherclaw social satirist who uses that #aesthetic and the popular tropes of the day to do my own thing and redefine outside the box, and hey, if I ever get a, “wit and wisdom of…” book published with some of my coolest quotables in it? That would be an awesome bonus.

* “Okay, but seriously: how obvious can I be that Yael and Elizabeth are a big, ‘fuck you’ to Marvel about all of their queerbaiting with Charles and Erik before I can get sued for it? Because while Yael and Elizabeth are still characters in their own right, their original inspiration was, ‘hey, what if I flipped the bird to Marvel about all of their fucking queerbaiting with Charles and Erik, and did it with extra lesbians? that’s be pretty fucking cool,’ and I don’t want to be sued, but I also don’t want for my point to be missed here”

—or more generally, “I can’t die before I finish my novel, I have a lot of people to piss off and call on their crap through the magic of the written word *makes a sparkly rainbow with my hands like Spongebob going, ‘imaginaaaaaaaation!!! :D’*”

* So, there’s this one bit in Dry, Augusten Burroughs’ memoir about the early parts of his struggle with alcoholism and addiction. In his rehab, one of their assignments for group therapy is to write letters to people in their lives and feel their feelings about these relationships. He writes to Pighead, his best friend/“it’s complicated,” who is HIV-positive.

Reading the letter at group, Augusten finds himself crying, then shares the whole tangled-up backstory that he and Pighead have together, from how they first met on a phone-sex line, to how Augusten fell hard in love with him, to how they were friends with benefits and then he told Pighead that he was in love with him and Pighead plays the, “I love you but I’m not in love with you” card (that is verbatim what he says in the book, and the way Burroughs reads it in the audiobook kills me every single time), so Augusten dates other guys and tries to fall out of love with Pighead, only for Pighead to come see him first when his HIV test comes back positive and realize that he’s In Love with Augusten only, “after he became diagnosed with a fatal disease”

—which gives us the great line, “Part of me felt deep compassion. And another part felt like, You fucker.”

(Which is seriously one of my top ten lines in all literature, ever. tbh, it’s probably top five, but the top ten list would be hard enough to come up with to begin with, and I’d have to parcel things out into Poetry, Prose [possibly split into Fiction and Nonfiction, at that], and Dramatic Writing just to get it down to ten things on each list, and? It’s just a perfect line, oh my god)

At the end of it, Augusten has a moment with Kavi, another one of the patients at his rehab, who is addicted to cocaine and sex. Kavi tells him about how he left his lover who was HIV-positive after his diagnosis, so that he wouldn’t be the person getting left for once, and about how he feels like cocaine never leaves him. And we get: “Suddenly, I want to drink.… I don’t want to drink in a jovial ‘Highballs for everybody!’ way. I want to drink to the point where I could undergo major knee surgery and not feel so much as a pinch.”

I just.

There is so much about this section of the book that fucks me up so hard, but in ways that I love so much — and there’s a lot that I love about it for a lot of reasons, but like?

Speaking entirely with my writer hat on right now?

That part is just immaculately written. Every word is perfectly chosen, and they are strung together just right. Burroughs chooses the exact right images and scenes to characterize his and Pighead’s developing relationship, and his moment with Kavi, and it’s just

This part of the book makes me remember why I write. Because I have been reading and rereading this book since high school — I have had my battered up and taped together paperback copy with the yellowing pages since Easter 2005 — and this part STILL fucks me up, every. single. time. The audiobook version of it still fucks me up every. single. time.

Back in high school when I first read it, it hit me so hard because I had a habit of falling in love with girls who were straight and/or just did not like me back (and it would get worse, because the girl I was in love with who dared me to write D*rarry just to see if I could? Would go on to put me in the position of being her Girl Friday while I got to watch her love everybody but me, and praise the creative work of everybody but me, and go on about how two of her other friends were totally brilliant and misunderstood creative geniuses because they were incomprehensible and it was totally bourgeois for me to want to write to be understood but it was okay she knows I’m ~mainstream like that, but then still call on me — which made the whole Augusten/Pighead thing hurt so much more for me because I was kind of her, “I love you, but I’m not In Love with you”)

(I will say this about that relationship: I didn’t handle it well, either. I was petty and jealous, and waaaay more damagingly? I hadn’t yet grasped the idea that you sometimes have to just let people be messed up at you about the shit they’re going though without trying to fix everything for them, especially when there’s nothing that you can actually do to fix it. In retrospect, it’s kind of hilarious that I loaned her a copy of Perks of Being A Wallflower that I never saw again, because the whole idea that you can’t just constantly put someone else’s needs before your own and call it love, and the related concept that doing this is actually kind of a form of selfishness, in a way?

………yeah, that was VERY relevant to how I handled that relationship, and she rightfully called me on a lot of shit related to those ideas, and I spent a lot of time having an unfair chip on my shoulder because I was jealous on one hand, and indignant about how her other friends got to be Real Artists™ because their shit was incomprehensible but I got to be a Poser Artist™ because I wanted to be understood and not just fap around with some neo-Dadaist nonsense — and as seen here, I still do have a chip on my shoulder about Dadaist anything, but in fairness, I’d have that with or without any of this story because Dada is the worst — and I’m not saying that I was totally pure or innocent in anything here.

But at the time, I cried a lot over Augusten/Pighead feels because I felt that whole, “I love you but I’m not in love with you” situation and trying to fall out of love with someone only to crumble when they needed you and resent them for needing you but hate yourself for resenting them — I felt all of that so hard.)

My appreciation for this part of the book has evolved and changed over time, and it’s deepened — as I’ve learned more about LGBTIQ history, I’ve come to appreciate the context of the story more and gain more of a sense of reverence for the LGBTIQ people who came before me and actually fought through the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and it has changed how I read this part of the book more than anything else (c.f., my passive-aggressive addition of the REST of the quote to one post of the, ‘deep compassion vs. you fucker’ part because I was really annoyed with a bunch of straight people who were reblogging it without the full context and acting like they actually had any idea what it’s like to be gay and in a situation like Augusten is with Pighead here) — and I just

The biggest thing about this part of the book that’s made it stick around for me? is that no matter how I’ve appreciated it at any point, and no matter which parts of it have been the most important to me at any given moment, and no matter WHY it’s fucked me up — it’s still fucked me up so hard every. singled. fucking. time…… but in a way that has always made me feel a lot less alone in the world

It’s sort of similar to something that one of my fiction profs in undergrad once said about creating characters: we were talking, in one of our biweekly one-on-ones, about a story I’d brought in with one of my more off-putting characters (his name is Emerson, he’s an abrasive little shit who does a lot of very fucked up things and was kind of influenced by the Kurt/Karofsky plot back in season two of Glee because that was happening on TV at the time and I had a lot of feelings about it that I didn’t have any other way to deal with because I didn’t want to write Glee fic about all of it. He was more similar to Karofsky than Kurt)

I was convinced that everyone would hate him (not least because he an asshole to basically all of the other characters and assaulted the guy he had a crush on while he was high). Instead, he was actually really popular and one of my classmates, who I admired because her writing was so lyrical and confident and she was a great person, said that she found herself identifying with him, especially during some of his worst moments in that draft. While I was boggling about this, Professor Lucy said that one of the reasons why Emerson went over so gangbusters in workshop was that, instead of going the route of creating a tabula rasa character like Stephenie Meyer wrote Bella Swan to be, I’d given him so many clearly defined character traits and behaviors

According to Professor Lucy, the specificity is what makes it easier for people to identify with characters and feel for them, because it makes them more fully realized. (The, “according to” is just for the sake of attribution because this is a point that I’ve taken to heart and that I do totally agree with Professor Lucy about.) And I feel that a lot with the Augusten/Pighead part of the book because it’s so specific and it’s so grounded and it’s so REAL

And that’s a huge part of why it’s always gotten to me emotionally, and why it’s stuck with me after all this time, and why it’s consistently made me feel less alone and irreparably freakishly weird

Anyway, this got way longer than I intended to get, but the ability to affect someone so deeply with your work — that’s a responsibility that I take very seriously when it comes to writing, with regard to all different aspects of how you can possibly do this with the written word — and this part of Dry is such a source of motivation for me because it’s such a great example, for me, of How To Do An Emotionally Affecting Writer Thingy Well

I use technical language like this because I am such a Serious Business Writer, oh yes I am

47. how many unfinished ideas/stories are you working on at the same time?

I usually don’t count, because it’s usually a lot and not all of them are really guaranteed to ever be properly finished, oops.

Colin Kaepernick’s film shows there is no excuse for him to be unemployed

There’s a lot of misinformation out there about Kaepernick’s play. Retired NFL defensive end Stephen White sets the record straight.

It’s important that we have an honest discussion about why Colin Kaepernick still has not signed with an NFL team. In order to have that conversation, we have to examine everything, on and off the field, critically and objectively.

My job in this honest conversation is to talk about his play on the field. I've made clear how I feel about his protest, so that wouldn't be breaking any new ground. While I have also talked about his level of play last season, this is my first time actually writing a breakdown of Kaepernick's 2016 film.

When I watch film and write about it, I feel like it’s my job to educate readers about what I saw. To do that as best as I can, I try to avoid a bunch of technical talk and put everything in plain English so even a casual fan can understand what I'm trying to convey. I think its even more important to do that when talking about quarterback play. Many times quarterbacks get put on such a pedestal that after reading a write-up about one of them you may come away thinking they are doing quantum physics every weekend, when that is clearly not the case.

With Kaepernick, there’s been so much misinformation put out there by "anonymous sources" that I want to take things a step further and talk about some facts that add context to his 2016 performance. I hope this can help to reset the thoughts of a lot of people who think they know how he played even though they haven't watched a lick of film.

I'm not going to try get everyone who reads this to believe Kaepernick is the greatest quarterback evaaaaaa, but rather that his play on the field last season would be worth at least a roster spot for any other quarterback in the NFL — if not a chance at a starting position — if all this was about merit.

So lets start off with some facts.

Fact: Kaepernick has had three offensive coordinators in the last three seasons. He had Greg Roman in 2014, Geep Chryst in 2015, and Curtis Modkins last season.

Fact: None of those offensive coordinators ran the same system.

Fact: Kaepernick only started eight games in 2015.

Fact: Kaepernick’s completion percentage in his last three starts of 2015 were 59.3, 54.2, and 48.8 percent, respectively.

Fact: Kaepernick’s 2015 season ended when he had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder.

Fact: He also had surgery on the thumb on his throwing hand and his left knee (the one he plants with) early last offseason.

Fact: Kaepernick wasn't able to practice much before training camp last year and didn't see on the field action until the third game of the preseason.

Fact: In spite of all of that, the Broncos tried to trade for Kaepernick last offseason to be their starting quarterback.

To recap, Kaepernck was rehabbing most of last offseason at a time when he was having to learn his third offense in three years. His injuries still hadn't healed enough at the beginning of last season for his head coach to feel comfortable starting him. So Kaepernick sat for the first five weeks, until coach Chip Kelly decided it was time to start him in Week 6 against the Buffalo Bills.

I am not going to be so tedious as to go game by game breaking down every throw. However, since most of the questions surrounding Kaepernick center around his ability to throw the football, I will focus on how he performed overall with the passing game last year.

Before I do that, how about we dispel some of the things you may have heard or maybe even assumed about his play last year.

One thing I've learned from several years of writing about the NFL is that when someone says they are an "NFL fan," what they usually mean is that they are a fan of the particular team they follow. Oh, they can usually tell you everything from Genesis to Revelation about their team, but aside from their team's opponents they typically aren't very knowledgeable about other teams around the league. Let’s be honest, unless it’s your shitty team, most folks aren't investing much time into watching a bad team play unless their team is playing them.

Let's be real here, raise your hand if you are not a 49ers fan and watched more than two full games of them last year.

...

Some of y’all lying, but that's OK!

Anyway, let’s do some quick myth busting about how Kaepernick played based on his tape.

"You have to design an offense to fit Kaepernick, which is why he wouldn't make for a good backup."

You know, most of the people who say this can never answer if you ask them to explain what they mean. Besides the fact that many, many teams have incorporated a lot of the college spread concepts that some folks think are the only things that Kaepernick can do well, there is also the fact the overwhelming majority of passes that Kap threw last year came from the pocket.

No, seriously.

I had a former GM tweet to me that Kaepernick was basically a quarterback who only excelled at throwing on the move. I wonder how that squares with the fact that Kap only ran 38 bootleg/half roll/waggle plays in 11 games.

Or the fact that of those 38 plays, only 30 of them resulted in a pass attempt.

Or that of those 30 pass attempts he only completed 16 balls for a 53 percent completion percentage, well below his overall completion rate of 59.2 percent for the season.

Mind you, Kaepernick attempted 331 passes last season.

Oh, and 282 of those passes came while he was in the pocket.

"Well they probably had him throwing a lot of screens to get his completion percentage up."

Yeah, not so much.

I combined all of the screens, speed sweeps, and shovel passes that he threw last season. You wanna know how many passes that added up to?

Guess.

No, really. Guess.

Twenty.

Two. Zero.

Out of 331 passes Kap had a grand total of 20 "gimmie" passes.

And three of those weren't completed because they were knocked down at the line.

I don’t know man, that kinda sounds like a "normal" passing game to me.

I’m just sayin’.

"He took way too many sacks though."

I mean, I'm not going to shit on his offensive line even though they weren't all that good. And I'm not really sure whether the 36 sacks Kaepernick took last year would be considered a lot. What I do know is that most of those sacks were due to nobody being open and the pocket breaking down, rather than Kaepernick just holding onto the ball.

He did better with his movement in the pocket and keeping his eyes downfield looking for available options than he had for most of his career last season. I also know from watching the film he had 35 scrambles on passing plays that resulted in positive yards including 24 which went for five yards or more.

Sometimes it was a lot more than five yards.

I'm not saying those scrambles offset all the sacks, but if it’s me, I think I can accept those 36 sacks with that context in mind.

"All he threw was short routes, even if they weren't screens."

OK, so this one has at least some validity to it, but again it needs context.

First of all, who in the hell was Kaepernick going to be throwing deep to as far as his wide receivers go?

Wait, before you answer that, imagine someone just put a Draco to your head and promised to blow it smooth off if you couldn't name the 49ers’ top three wide receivers from last season.

A bunch of y’all just whispered a final prayer.

Look, one thing I don't see nearly enough is folks admitting that the 49ers had a bunch of No. 2 and No. 3 receivers last year at best, without any guy at the position who could credibly be considered a true No. 1 receiver.

Torrey Smith was supposed to be the big-play guy, but you rarely see him pulling away from anybody on film, and with his six drops in Kaepernick's 11 starts he might as well have had feet for hands.

Jeremy Kerley only had two drops, but he couldn't beat man coverage to save his life, and he was not a guy who was going to make a lot of contested catches last season.

Quinton Patton was basically the No. 3 guy and still managed five drops during those 11 games. To say he was an unreliable option in the passing game is probably being generous.

The truth of the matter is the only real weapon Kaepernick had at his disposal in the passing game was tight end Vance McDonald, but he came out of the Jets game in the second quarter in Week 14 with a shoulder injury and never touched the field again the rest of the season.

The backup tight end, Garrett Celek, while decent at getting open, also had six drops.

I've said previously that at times Kaepernick would've been better off with literal garbage cans on the field rather than his eligible receivers, and perhaps that was a bit harsh. However, when you have a situation where guys are dropping the ball and rarely making any tough catches, damn near any quarterback is going to have a hard time succeeding.

At the same time, while Kaepernick did not throw a lot of deep balls out wide, he did throw plenty of deep digs, corner routes, and post routes.

Those count as big plays, too, no?

I'm not making the case that Kaepernick was the best thing since sliced bread last season. He certainly still has some things he needed to work on. I charted 31 of his passes last season that were obviously bad, meaning off target, and early on he seemed to have some issues throwing to his left. Most of that had to do with mechanics and footwork, stuff he’s had a full offseason of being healthy to work on.

What’s most important about how Kaepernick played last year is recognizing how much he improved over the course of the season.

The simplest comparison is to look at his completion percentages his last three games. He posted completion rates 60.5, 75.7, and 77.3 percent. Contrast that with his aforementioned last three starts of 2015. But even that eye-popping difference doesn't come close to informing you about how much the guy improved.

In his first two starts, against the Bills and Bucs, Kaepernick threw seven obviously bad balls. In his last three games — against the Falcons, Rams, and Seahawks, three teams with pretty good defenses — he only threw a total of six.

When you watch him go through his progressions in those last three games, he does it so much quicker than he did in the first two that it might as well be night and day. The 49ers might have only won one of those three games, but I think anybody who actually watched the film, even a novice, would be hard pressed to say he didn't look like an NFL starter.

And then there was the Miami game.

Listen man, Kaepernick put his team on his back in that game and damn near at least tied it at the end all by himself. Yeah, he had the one interception, but that was on a drop by Smith, a ball that went through his hands on a drag route. (Here is where I mention one of Kaepernick's four interceptions on the season was on a bootleg. But you know, that's all he runs — LOL.)

The rest of the game, the guy was putting in major work.

I'm talking 63 percent completion rate on 46(!) throws, even though there were five drops. He had to throw the ball away five other times, and only one of those passes was a screen.

I know I said I wanted to focus on his passing, but I just have to mention he ran for over 110 yards that game as well?

And I'm telling you, as good as those stats sound, they still don't do his performance that day justice.

But for Ndamukong Suh destroying the right guard at the end of the game and forcing Kaepernick into what was essentially a game-ending scramble with nobody open, this game was more than likely going to overtime at the very least because of his performance. That's why it’s so problematic to talk about wins and losses as a measurement of a QB's worth because if the rest of the team was on his level that Sunday, they would've have blown the doors off the Dolphins.

You can't really throw out the Bears game because, hell, it did happen. Aside from that disaster, Kaepernick's season was one of steady progress on the field. By the end of last season, he was throwing the football and going through his reads better than I have ever seen him do in his career to that point.

One thing that also stood out to me was ball placement. In previous years it was enough for Kaepernick just to throw a catchable ball to his eligible receivers, but last season I noticed him throwing guys away from the nearest defender.

That is a small thing you can only see from watching film, but it makes one hell of a difference when you talk about cutting down on PBUs and not getting your receivers killed on a regular basis.

I will leave it up to you to decide why he had a team like Denver, coming off a Super Bowl win, trying to trade for him last offseason after his miserable 2015 performance. This year after he played markedly better, especially at the end of the 2016 season, and threw the ball better than he ever has in his life, the guy hears nothing but crickets.

I think I'm going to end things here because at the very least I think with the GIFs and the context and the stats, I’ve made a strong case to any impartial observer that Kaepernick played well enough last year that he should be on an NFL roster. That is my only aim.

You don't have to agree with me that he could easily be starting somewhere like the Jets or the Browns, but if you are still convinced he "isn't good enough," then I'm not sure you could ever be convinced otherwise.

All I really want is for us to be honest about why he isn't on a roster right now. Then we can debate whether he’s blackballed or not, which is the much more pertinent debate to have right now.

Unfortunately, the misinformation about Kaepernick’s play started early this offseason and has shown no signs of slowing down. Myself and other analysts who have spoken out about his actual film have been fighting an uphill battle.

So for once I'm going to ask you, the reader, to do something I've never asked before: Even if I haven't necessarily convinced you, but you think this was fair assessment, I want you to share it with your friends who also enjoy football so they can be more fully informed about Kaepernick's play as well.

The more people I can get to recognize his ability, the more likely we can actually start talking about the real issue here.