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saintsenara · 7 months

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BROOOOOOOOOO. (sorry if the following is cringe, i am a little drunk at a party but i saw your ask about favourite stories. and now I'm in the loo for a second typing up this reply)

so. scylla and charybdis is a MASTERPIECE and I will review it soon.

the shack at the end of the lane makes me SOB.

sparkling cyanide is a work on language and the meaning of freedom of rare beauty (and also. how. in very few words you say the world)

your latest on merope (i won't even try to write the name from memory) but it made me UGLY CRY. that "I'm mucky" stuck in my brain and now i am severely emotional just thinking about it fuck my makeup.

bookbinding is a masterpiece of a romcom and inhuman resources made me squeal (too much time with roddy's missus lol, and my poor roddie getting his arm bitten by an inferius my poor baby)

death eaters in paradise is my most re-read out of yours (I ADORE IT)- then again, roddy slander which i cannot tolerate but there's lots of lucius slander too and CAGA makes me giggle every time i read it (and also the poor bell boy, and druella is a bitch and the gaudy cocktails and oh my god i love your writing so much)

i haven't read everlasting ink yet but as soon as i review all the others i will get to it, you deserve it.

all of this being said. my favourites of yours? atramentum. and other women and of purer blood. i. love. them. think about them maybe once a day each, every day. love them. you deserve 29307945 views and kudos. and a kiss. and one of my martinis❤️

oh darling. i hope your hangover wasn't too awful after this. not least because i'm chuckling.

and also preening, because i love attention and the opportunity to talk about myself. although not to repeat myself - i've talked about some of these already: scylla and charybdis here, the shack at the end of the lane here, sparkling cyanide here, bookbinding here, inhuman resources here, and other women and of purer blood here.

of the others...

we can't discuss bó na leath adhairce without having the song on in the background.

as i've said elsewhere, merope gaunt has become one of my favourite characters to explore this year, in particular because she provides an excellent insight in how the series thinks about things like motherhood, desire, love, and death.

in this piece, she is the lens through which we can examine how the series thinks about a theme which is surprisingly prominent in it, given that it's a story about a not-particularly-observant teenage boy: beauty.

the harry potter series is suspicious both of those who are unnaturally beautiful and those who are unnaturally lacking in beauty. harry is a physical everyman - neither too good-looking nor identifiably unattractive - and the female characters the book likes, especially ginny and hermione, are hot enough that we know they're not bad or unsympathetic people (not like ugly old rita skeeter, or pansy parkinson, or moaning myrtle, or dolores umbridge) but also not so hot that they need to be considered bad in a different way (like fleur, until the point she proves she has inner beauty too and ginny and molly accept her...)

this isn't only a spectrum reserved for the female characters (lockhart gets the fleur treatment - the idea that being good-looking or vain is indicative of some deeper moral weakness; peter pettigrew is unattractive as well as a cunt), but it intersects with one of the series' main gendered aspects: that stereotypically feminine interests are silly, and that women who wish to be considered substantial in some way don't care about them.

the main example of this is, of course, the difference between lavender and hermione. the one is silly, giggly, and girly, the other is clever, sensible, and authentic. the one is the sort of girl you have a fling with, the other is the woman you marry.

merope is an ugly character - and, therefore, one which the narrative is not particularly sympathetic towards - but her ugliness also comes accompanied by a jealous desire for beauty she cannot attain, in the forms of tom riddle sr. and his pretty girlfriend, cecilia. neither of these two are shown to be nice or sympathetic people either (tom sr. is a dick in his only canon appearance, and the narrative emphasises at other points that the riddles are rude and unpopular). merope and tom exist, then, at the two extremes of attractiveness which the series regards as negative.

but merope is also someone whose life is unrelentingly miserable. in the fact that it is devoid of beauty, it is also devoid of comfort, pleasure, safety, opportunity and so on. much as the series is critical of love that is not sacrificial, it is critical of covetousness, frivolity, or silliness. but these things are not simply morally neutral, but morally good. and a girl who is clearly - if we read between the lines of canon - the subject of degrading and violent abuse at the hands of her male relatives should be able to find comfort in the pretty ephemera of womanhood. sometimes a lipstick is a lipstick and a unicorn is a unicorn. sometimes they're a lifeline.

death (eaters) in paradise and atramentum come together (bellatrix: i'm listening), because the latter is in very many sense the serious version of the former.

my justification for why bellamort are a good couple is consistent across things that i write with them in: that he is one of the only men in her life who sees her as a real person, and who understands her desire to escape the rigid conventions of her gender and social class; that she understands his need for love and attention, and that she is far more sympathetic to his childhood trauma than he is willing to admit. the idea that this is the only authentic relationship in either of their lives is one i sincerely believe in, in contrast to the assumption from outside the ship that they can have nothing in common or that there is no honesty there.

both of these pieces have that idea of authenticity - of something real existing underneath pretty set-dressing - as a key theme, alongside the idea that voldemort admires anyone who is interested in making their own life.

atramentum is obviously the sadder of the two, looking as it does at the comfort bellatrix finds in a draughty attic bedroom as the dark lord prepares to go to the potters.

death (eaters) in paradise features bellamort on a package holiday in marbella. and true, we do have to say rip to the bell-boy, killed in the service of trying to wingman for the dark lord.

everlasting ink deals, of course, with what bellamort leave to the world.

i'm a delphini stan account (let me live!), and i think she's a hugely interesting cipher for all sorts of people's neuroses. normally in my writing, those people are her father and her father's various boyfriends, but here it's harry and ginny.

hinny's divergent relationships with lord voldemort (harry loves the hot one, who's also an orphan; he's the one that ruined ginny's life! the snake-faced one literally doesn't realise ginny exists; he's the spectre haunting harry's entire world!) is one of the reasons i don't think they're a particularly good or interesting couple, but here they're dealing with their own baggage and making it work.

with the help of an only mildly sinister toddler, who has big brown eyes, the ability to speak to snakes, and a love of custard she certainly didn't get from bellatrix...

delphini grows up to be a hot slut with a foul mouth. ginny's influence, i'm sure.

[now, for a little sneak peek...]

it is true that poor, useless rodolphus isn't having a great time in my stuff, i'll admit to it. (although i do think he'll put in a better showing in scylla and charybdis than he has in many other things, not least because the main character assassination happening there is to regulus.)

the issue, i fear, is that he doesn't have much interest in witches. maybe he and bella both like tall, thin men with blood on their hands? or maybe roddy's more inclined towards a ginger - we'll have to see if the tawdry little romance he'll be having with percy weasley as per a prompt i'm filling for rare pair fest will make him any cheerier...

#asenora fics #bó na leath adhairce #death (eaters) in paradise #atramentum #everlasting ink #attention seeking behaviour

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ladiesofhpfest · 8 months

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Weeks 15 & 16 Roundup

In the last two weeks of the fest, we had TEN new works! Give it up for the authors and all their wonderful writings. Make sure you leave all the kudos, comments, bookmarks, and love!!

Week 15 - Girly Girls

Look Like the Innocent Flower by @midnightstargazer

The Harry Potter Expert by @lumosatnight

Bó na Leath Adhairce by @saintsenara/Asenora

Week 16 - Sisters Before Misters

Sisterly Bonding (or something like that) by @thecasualauthor18

Behind the Burn Marks by @midnightstargazer

Starcrossed siblings by @artemisia-black

Ginny Weasley character study by @diana-bookfairchild

There's more to life than stupid boys by @abihastastybeans

What Fleur Misses the Most by @nena-96

Ecclesiastes 3 by @saintsenara/Asenora

That's the end of the fest! Stay tuned for the announcement of the 2024 fest themes!

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awordwasthebeginning · 1 year

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9 songs on repeat tag game

thank you for the tag @partly-truth-and-partly-fiction <3 and apologies for taking so long - RL, etc, you know it. 😊

so:

WIZO - Chaostage94 (thank you for this one!)

Alessandra - Queen of Kings

Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh - Bó na leath-adhairce

Marteria - Scotty beam mich hoch

The Killers - Mr Brightside

Kalush Orchestra/Alexander Rybak - Stefania x Fairytale (Tiktok Remix)

Radwimps - KANATA HALUKA

Wise Guys - Teufelskreis

Ashnikko feat. Princess Nokia - Slumber Party

tagging, if you want: @somenamewithepineapple, @whisperingwordsofwisdom, @doubledenimcrew, @himbo-crimes and @olgalenski

#tag thingy #as always: tagging is a love language #music #loquor

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krool-gwooptsoov · 5 years

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This is a song about eating a cow. And yet...it is extremely relaxing and soothing. Irish sure is something, ain’t it?

#Irish #Gaelic #Irish Gaelic #Bó na leath-adhairce #Ireland #Celts #Music #I should be finishing my lab report #vegan

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squarefriend · 3 years

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Alrighty how about 14 with Mettaton and 9 with Toriel?

This is a long ass post, so buckle up buttercups >:)

So, if you really think about it, Mettaton IS a robot now. He fused with his body, considering he can die in Stabby Stabby/Nuetral routes. Robots can’t absorb alcohol, therefore they can’t get drunk.

Now, the argument could be made that he just absorbs the magic that makes up the drink then sends it to his power core, like an organic body. The that funky drunky flow intoxicates him.... But that also contradicts my personal head cannons on how Metta’s body works.

I’ll make this brief (if that’s possible in a post of this length lMAO), but how I think that MTT gets his power is either through electricity or, in a worst case scenario, gasoline mixed with magic. While I believe he can eat and drink monster food, it’s stored in an internal compartment before being broken down into manageable magic chunks over a series of several days. So, alcoholic beverages would give him at most a buzz over the course of like a couple of days.

That being said, there’s hope!!!

Remember when I said that I headcannon Metta runs on gasoline if he can’t get any electricity? Well, the means he can switch between which tank he’s drawing from. And, there is a type of gasoline made with a base of Ethanol! Which is the compound used to make drinks alcoholic! Therefore, the alcohol would be going to his core at the rate needed to actually get drunk.

Which means, if he wants to be drunk he can just switch into gasoline mode and slip into whatever tipsy needs he has! As long as he’s filled up on ethanol!

Now I’m not saying that this was found out by complete accident with Alphys testing out a new fuel type but.....

That’s exactly what I’m saying.

But!!! Yall didn’t come here to hear about Mettaton’s autonomy, so let’s talk about his drunken habits!!

I like to think he doesn’t drink often, mostly because of the aforementioned not actually realizing he could till he was on the surface. But, some of the best examples of how he is in a drunken state would probably be back when he was a ghost.

It was probably some rough times back then. Shyren’s sister had just fallen down, and it’s inplied the cousins are rather close with the family. Add in a healthy dose of dysphoria and yearning for a greater audience- no, purpose... It must’ve been rough for Metta.

Mabey to cope, the cousins invested in some ghost ale?

I like to think when buzzed, Mettaton is just a (somehow) more confident and showy version of himself. Just with less motor control and a higher chance of making impulsive decisions.

Once we pass into drunk territory... things start getting more emotional. There will be tears. Probably a lot of them. He’s very emotional and can and will state his mind. Heartfelt confessions might happen, rivalries may happen, or he may just tell you what you already know.

If the cousins cracked open a cold one.... Well.... That may of been the first indications (aside from behavior they’d picked up but not said anything about) of what was really on Metta’s mind. About how desperate he was.

Metta didn’t remember it in the morning. Blookie never told him what they talked about. It was never spoken of again.

Ok!! On a slightly higher note: Toriel!

I’ve always seen Toriel as having a very smooth sounding, mezzo soprano voice. It’s nothing remarkable. She doesn’t belt often, she doesn’t have much of a verbrato, she just sounds like your normal 50ish woman who sings abit too much in the car. But, her voice is warm and soft and perfect to fall asleep too, especially when a smile gets in the way of her vowels.

She sings fairly often, probably the most in the main cast (aside Mettaton and MABEY Papyrus). Be it in the car, or when she has too much to drink, or when singing a lullaby to her kids.

I’ll start with lullabies since I believe they’d be the most personal to her.

We don’t know exactly when the monster human war happened, but I’m of the belief that it happened sometime in the Middle Ages, which would place Toriel’s childhood in medieval times. While she wasn’t born there, I also think both Toriel and Asgore’s families hail from Ireland. Her mother would sing to her every night, sometimes mixing in ancient tales of wild beasts and faeries.

It’s a sentiment she’s passed down to her own children.

Albeit, she changed a few lyrics or scenes in the stories to make them less terrifying, besides when she was caring for some of the older souls. There may also be a touch more happy endings than there were in the older days, and mabey a couple more injuries instead of deaths. But for the most part, they stay the same.

The pieces she dare not change though, are the ones she sings in Gaelic.

Frisk hasn’t learned the language (yet), so Toriel finds no need to change any details to such relics. Plus, they have a lot more of an emotional connection than most of her other songs or stories. Her eldest two children were incredibly fond of them

(Also the song I used for these doodles is called Bó na leath-adhairce (One Horned Cow). The woman who sings it (Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh) sounds a lot like how I imagine Toriel sounding. But like. With a lot more vocal training. She still sounds like she’s singing through a smile and I love it)

On a much more fun note, let’s talk about Toriel’s drinking songs!

So, this doesn’t happen often, but if the moods right and Toriel’s had JUST enough to drink.... She might attempt to start up a drinking song with whatever crowd she’s got around her. She doesn’t know many songs, and she only half remembers the rest, but goddamn it if she’s not gonna try it.

It’s awful. Any recognizable lyrics are either slurred, butchered, or in a language no one else can understand.

But she looks like she’s having so much fun, no one ever tries to stop her.

Hell, some people might even join in, if there’s been enough to drink in the house. If that happens, and if she’s feeling confident enough, Tori might even get up and dance a little bit, dragging whomever she pleases in as well. If she’s drunk enough to start singing like this in public, then she’s definitely drunk enough to do some dances.

Mostly though, she just sticks to lullabies.

As for the second part of this prompt, it’s a lot simpler than all of the rest of this post. Toriel enjoys most music, especially the choral verity. She’ll let anything on the radio, so long as it’s appropriate when Frisk’s in the car.

Her favorite genres though, are Classical, Folk, and Celtic. They were the styles she grew up with and remains fond of to this day. They bring back a feeling of Nostalgia without too many memories, just how she likes it. She also quite enjoys Operas, and plans on taking Frisk to see one once she gets the hang of the internet.

She used to adore ballroom music and waltzes but....

Now they just bring back Memories she’d rather not have.

#Undertale #Mettaton #Toriel #Sorry this took so long #It deleted and I had to retype the entire thing lMAO #Also these challenges and analysis are making me grow even more of a fasination with mechanics #First it was trying to figure out how the ruins puzzles functioned #Now it’s MTTs autonomy #Y’all are gonna make me become an engineer instead of a biologist #Anyway #you can rip the head cannon that Toriel (and Asgore) speaks Irish Gaelic from my cold dead hands #askbox

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th3-cha0s-ch1ld · 3 years

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Yo l have alot of favourite songs. I CAN'T CHOOSE ONE-

So here is my list of songs that l listen to.

(There is a lot of songs that l listen to)

Enjoy.

Ghost rule (Lens growl)

Cluts - Always forever

aNTOJE - 3 Koopa Kingz

YAMEII - BABY MY PHONE

YAMEII - DREAMS++

JAWNY - Honeypie

Daughters of Eve - Hey Lover

Penelope Scott - Cigarette Ahegao

They might be giants - Stuff is way

(At this part my gorillaz is showing-)

Gorillaz - Dirty Harry

Gorillaz - Feel good inc.

Gorillaz - rhinestone eyes

Gorillaz - 19-2000

Gorillaz - clint eastwood

Gorillaz - DARE

(I think that l am done with gorillaz now-)

50 Cent - In Da Club

Aests - FIGHT!

(And now my caravan palace is showing-)

Caravan Palace - Brotherswing

Caravan Palace - Lone Digger

Caravan Palace - mighty

Caravan Palace - Russian

Caravan Palace - Aftermath

Caravan Palace - Comics

Caravan Palace - Super Sonics

(I think that l am done with Caravan Palace)

Graham Kartna - Browser History

( I heard that song from ENA. Yea l like to watch ENA)

Crystal Castles - Crimewave

(My Jack Stauber side is not that big but there is a Jack Stauber side in me)

Jack Stauber - Baby Hotline

Jack Stauber - Buttercup

Jack Stauber - Two Time

Jack Stauber - Choice

Jack Stauber - Fighter

(Okay, goodbye Jack Stauber)

Pogo - Living Island

Pogo - Forget

Pogo - Upular

Pogo - Bloom

AURORA - Runaway

The Mamas & The Papas - California dreamin'

Dark cat - Bubble Tea

LEFT BOY - Dangerous

Moe Shop - Love Taste

Moe Shop - The new non non biyori disco groove

Beach Bunny - Cloud 9

The Chordettes - Mr. Sandman

Vantage - 50//50

Adhairce - Bó na leath

Gaol ise Gaol i

(I don't know who is the creator of the song)

Navan - Hè mo leannan

Julie Fowlis - Hùg Air A' Bhonaid Mhòir

But here are my favourite songs and yes l know that l have alot of favourite songs.

And l will be adding more songs when l feel like it. <3

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linguafreund · 7 years

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Bó na Leath Adhairce

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Trad Irish music has been a big part of my life and this is one of my favorite Trad Irish songs, so I thought I’d share it here with the lyrics! I had to scour the internet before finding them in this thread

Thíos cois na toinne 'sea beathaíodh mo chaora Down by the sea my herd would graze Ag Diarmuid Ó Díoláin ó Bharra na hAoine With Diarmuid Ó Díoláin from Bharra na hAoine Mac dearthár athar dom a chuir le faill í My cousin who left her unattended Easpa tobac a bhí ar an gcladhaire. For a lack of tobacco the rogue

(Curfá Chorus) Bó, bó, bó na leath adhairce Cow, cow, the one-horned cow Bó, bó, sí an tseana chaor adharcach Cow, cow, she’s the old horned cow Bó, bó, bó na leath adhairce Cow, cow, cow with the one horn Bó dhroimfhionn dhearg is ní fheadar cá bhfaighinn í. Her fair red back, I don't know where I'll find her

B'fhearr liom ná scilling go bhfeicfinn mo chaora I would prefer to a shilling that I would see my cow 'Teacht go dtí an doras ar maidin nó istoíche Coming to do the door, morning or night Thálfadh sí bainne orm, bheathódh sí uan dom She would give me milk and nourish me Chuirfeadh sí jacketeen deas ar mo ghualainn. She would put a nice wee jacket on my shoulders

(Curfá Chorus) Chonacsa beirithe í, chonac á roinnt í I saw her being born, I saw her shared Chuireas-sa dúil inti ach blaise ní bhfaighinn di I got to like her, but a taste of her I wouldn't have Ó nár dheas í, ó nár mheidhreach Wasn't she nice, full of life Ó nár dheas í an tseana chaor adharcach. Wasn't she nice, the old horned cow

(Curfá Chorus) Dá mbéinnse i rachmas, i ngradam is in oidhreacht If I were rich and of high birthplace Thabharfainnse gini ar chúpla sladhas di I would give a guinea for a couple of slices of her Ó nár dheas í, ó nár mheidhreach Wasn't she nice, full of life Ó nár dheas í an tseana chaor adharcach. Wasn't she nice, the old horned cow

(Curfá Chorus)

#music #gaeilge #irish

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finasol · 6 years

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Tagged by the lovely @divinitions! Thanks for the tag, I enjoy these lol

Relationship Status: I’m in a committed relationship with my education. I'd love to date but realistically I don’t have time

Favorite Colour: Any shade of purple really, but I prefer bluish-purple shades

Lipstick or Chapstick: Lipstick, but I can’t wear them often as a flute player *cries*

Last song I listened to: Bó na Leath-adhairce by Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

Last Movie I 👀: The first Lord of the Rings movie

Top 3 📺 Shows: Steven Universe...idk, Naruto and Soul Eater? I don’t watch TV much anymore

Top 3 Characters: These are my faves atm - Connor/Ratonhnhaké:ton (AC3), Akira Furusu/Ren Amamiya (Persona 5), and Chrom (FE Awakening). faljkd I hate questions like these, there are too many!

Top 3 Bands: Just Celtic Woman at the moment. I’ve said in the past that I don’t really listen to specific bands, much less more than one at a time haha

📚 I’m Reading: Re-reading the Leviathan trilogy backwards (in the little spare time I have rip); I’m currently on the 2nd book, Behemoth. This series is just as amazing as I remember :D

Tagging (4): @theroguequeen, @dragonswithjetpacks, @screamingvikings, and all of my lovely followers!

#of course don't feel like you have to do this if you don't want to #thanks for the tag divi!#tag meme

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saintsenara · 8 months

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the unicorn licked her hand again, and she reached out to stroke its nose - soft like newly-spun wool - with her small fingers. it gave a satisfied little whinny and bumped its head against her shoulder, until she put her arms tentatively around its neck.

and they stayed there a while, horse and girl, with bluebells underfoot.

a coming of age story for an invisible girl.

bó na leath adhairce merope gaunt teen | 6.6k words

this piece was written for week fifteen of @ladiesofhpfest, on the theme of girly girls (you can find the masterlist of the week’s fics here).

i seem to have a habit with this fest of taking the themes, smashing them to pieces with a hammer, and then reassembling them into a poorly-sellotaped wodge of sentences, because - i think we can be frank - merope gaunt is not the first character who might come to mind when one hears the phrase ‘girly girls’.

but i think that skewering those expectations is important. as with moaning myrtle in bookbinding - written for the theme of ‘heartthrobs and heartbreaks’ - i wanted to delve into an aspect of the harry potter series’ approach to its female characters which has always annoyed me: how it uses both an interest and a lack of interest in stereotypically feminine things, and how it uses both the possession and lack of conventional physical attractiveness, as an indication of negative character. the beautiful - fleur, narcissa malfoy - and the vain - hepzibah smith, pansy parkinson - and the fans of glitter and glamour - lavender and parvati - and the ugly - myrtle, petunia - and the unfeminine - millicent bulstrode, rita skeeter - are treated broadly similarly by the narrative: as lacking something possessed by the female characters we are supposed to root for, especially hermione, who is the perfect ‘not-like-other-girls’ storm of so good-looking she can pull an international quidditch star but not obsessed with her looks, like silly girls are, because she’s clever instead.

with merope, the text makes a little effort to present her physical condition as something which should be pitied - harry notes that she looks ‘defeated’, rather than ugly - but it still serves to render her as essentially a negative space in the canonical story.

so i have written merope a story about being a girly girl.

or, at least, wanting to be one.

[please note that this story contains references to the rape and sexual abuse of a teenage girl by members of her own family, and these themes are also discussed in the author's notes below the cut.]

that merope’s life is incandescently miserable is clear in canon, in which she is a victim of serious physical and verbal abuse at the hands of her father and brother (as well as someone whose primarily role is to serve the men of the house - the image of her sleeping like a house elf in a nest of blankets, discussed in another piece of mine for this fest, sparkling cyanide, is deliberate). but it is also implied in canon that she is subjected to sexual abuse: the gaunts are widely known to practise incest; morfin’s jealousy of tom riddle sr. has a sexual undertone to it; and marvolo’s violent reaction to the revelation that his daughter is attracted to tom sr. is similarly sexualised.

all of which provides a crucial nuance to merope’s rape of tom sr. - that she is someone who has no concept of bodily autonomy, who lacks the language and knowledge to truly understand what is being done to her, and what she will go on to do in turn.

[bó na leath adhairce also examines the fact that - to merope - there is no meaningful difference between make-up and perfumes and amortentia, all of which are designed to beguile and bewitch, and no meaningful difference between the magical happy-ever-afters in the fairy stories she has no experience of but would like to be able to read and her own coercion of tom sr. this is, after all, how the canonical text treats love potions - tom, learning about the slow death of socrates via poisonous hemlock, would say otherwise - although i prefer, as in my piece the shack at the end of the lane, to think that merope did know that tom’s love was false and her treatment of him cruel, she just didn’t know how to do things differently.]

and one reason for this lack of knowledge is the fact that other women are absent from merope’s life. her mother is dead by the time we meet her in half-blood prince, and my headcanon has always been that she died giving birth to her daughter - both as foreshadowing to merope’s own death and because i hate the implication of canon that magical women are immune to death in childbirth. [the image of marvolo snatching the locket from her dying mother’s neck is also in my piece enchanter’s nightshade - i can’t get it out of my head.]

and with her mother’s loss, merope also loses access to the women’s networks which have served throughout history not only as social spaces but as spaces in which women’s experience of violence can be discussed openly. the elderly woman who offers merope the advice about the folk-abortifacient pennyroyal is the closest she comes to gaining access to these crucial communities, and the information - passed down, like so much women’s history, orally - about women’s health, safety, and suffering which was spoken within them.

[pennyroyal is incredibly dangerous and its efficacy as an abortifacient is tenuous. please do not take it, even if you need to end a pregnancy urgently. you will die.]

and this exclusion from women’s spaces contributes to the sense - in this piece and in canon - that merope is invisible. in canon, she never speaks (her one line, ‘i hope he looks like his papa’, is delivered through mrs cole), and the moment we meet tom riddle jr. the text emphasises that he bears no physical resemblance to his mother. [although i like to believe he has her eyes.] in bó na leath adhairce, the villagers of little hangleton don’t notice her, and therefore have no way of freeing her from the horrors to which she is subjected.

merope’s invisibility exists alongside the fact that her understanding of her own embodiment is extremely complicated. she understands that she is a woman, and that puberty has made her woman’s body change - and she is aware that the sexual abuse she is experiencing has increased in violence and frequency now that she is able to bear children - but she also thinks of herself as unwomanly, owing to the lack of beauty she perceives in herself and her own life.

filth - which, to merope, is the opposite of beauty - is a running theme in this piece. this is also the case in canon, in which the gaunts’ pride in their pure blood is juxtaposed ironically with the fact that they live in squalor. this hypocrisy is part of bó na leath adhairce too - marvolo’s rage at muggles, who live, he thinks, like pigs and let their women behave like whores, is the rage of a man who is raping his own daughter.

it was tempting, then, to offer merope some sort of spectacular revenge - and i would very much like to see morfin and marvolo torn limb-from-limb - but the reason that i submitted this story for this week of the fest was because i wanted to look at the profound comfort that girliness can provide. sometimes a lipstick is a lipstick, and sometimes a unicorn is a unicorn. but sometimes these things - the pink-and-white ephemera of girlhood, sweets and sugar (a sweet tooth is a trait another gaunt will inherit, as fans of the asenora cinematic universe will be aware), flowers and dancing, a feather bed, gold earrings and pretty shawls (with poppies, her son’s favourite flower, on them) - are lifelines. i’m particularly pleased that this fic gave me an excuse to finally reference the inspiration behind the detail that the gaunts live near a bluebell wood, which i’ve been waiting to use since i wrote the snow child: the line in the 2003 adaptation of i capture the castle about bluebell-scented perfume smelling ‘like heaven’.

there is, of course, a darker side to all this girliness. many of the things merope covets - from a watch to an engagement ring to the silvery coat of the unicorn - are mother-of-pearl coloured, just like amortentia, and her attraction to tom is driven just as much by her jealousy of the girls who get to go to the riddle house as it is by anything else. this - along with the idea that tom sr. and his friends are the archetype of louche, 1920s party animals - is also a prominent theme in the snow child, while the class difference between tom and merope (and how this is, in some senses, even more profound than difference between her magic and his muggleness) is also found in enchanter’s nightshade.

because, in terms of class, bó na leath adhairce examines the gaunts as poor farmers - specifically sheep farmers. this was for three reasons.

firstly, because i wanted to use spinning as a motif - not only for the reference to the spinning wheel which pricks sleeping beauty’s finger, which seemed like something the villagers of little hangleton (who think of the gaunts as sinisterly magical, even if they don’t know how right they are) would worry about, but also because spinning was, for most of history, one of women’s main social activities.

secondly, because - as i’ve explored in all my other writing on merope - i like the idea of little hangleton as the sort of country village you find in folk-horror or midsomer murders, a painted perfection which has misery lurking beneath its bucolic splendour. the harry potter series tends to use quite broad strokes for its non-magical locations (privet drive is the stereotype of suburbia, cokeworth the stereotype of post-industrial decline), and i like the idea of this beautiful country village having its artiface shattered by the image of the gaunt shack and the gaunt sheep hanging over the landscape, surrounded by the blackthorns which - as noted in the notes to the snow child - symbolise the evil and danger of magic in british and irish folklore.

[that it’s in lancashire is because gaunt is a name associated with the area - which i am sure is what canon means to suggest.]

finally, because i wanted to use bó na leath adhairce as a title. the term means ‘one-horned cow’ - which makes as much sense to use to refer to a unicorn as it does to refer to a whiskey still (which is what the chorus of the song of the same name - here with lyrics, so you can all learn some irish phonetics - seems to be about), but the main verses are almost all about sheep and the little pleasures they bring. merope’s desire for a nice jacket or the first piece of lamb, morfin neglecting his flock for tobacco and whiskey, the cow the gaunts can no longer afford to own, the sheep merope begs her father not to sell are all references to the lyrics of the song.

there are some slightly more sophisticated literary references too - rather than just jaunty irish songs which primarily make me remember falling over in front of the bishop at primary school because i was doing the actions too enthusiastically. the seven sisters in their silver chain comes from tennyson’s locksley hall, merope measuring her life out in lambs from eliot’s the love song of j. alfred prufock.

but if this piece has a companion, it’s my own the shack at the end of the lane, in which merope gets what she longs for - the windows fixed and painted, and blankets, and a shawl, and golden hoops, and a garden full of flowers, and just as many opportunities to reflect on magpies and ravens, and the chance to be a better person - in the afterlife.

after she was denied it for her brief time on earth.

#asenora fics #merope gaunt #bó na leath adhairce #ladies of hp fest

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saintsenara · 1 day

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as we gear up for the next round of @ladiesofhpfest, the first week of which begins tomorrow, i'm having a self-indulgent saturday-night promote of the pieces i wrote for the 2023 edition of the fest...

you can find the ao3 collection here - featuring seventy-five amazing [and completed!] female-character-centric stories and artworks - and, if the inspiration strikes you, you can find the schedule for this year's fest here.

chewing gum

remus lupin/nymphadora tonks teen | 2.1k words an auror walks into a bar and misses a werewolf.

the velveteen rabbit

mrs cole & tom riddle general | 3.2k words a boy has scarlet fever and wants his mother. he gets mrs cole instead.

five motets for a time of mourning

minerva mcgonagall & severus snape general | 6.5k words five snapshots from hogwarts castle, in that dreadful year when snape was headmaster.

the scrunchie

minor characters general | 4.5k words nobody would have let hermione granger borrow the scrunchie. but that's fine, because this story isn't about her at all.

the shack at the end of the lane

merope gaunt & lord voldemort general | 4.2k words it was an unconventional choice, on the part of the universe, to make tom riddle's victims meet his mother the moment they arrived in the afterlife.

death (eaters) in paradise

bellatrix lestrange/lord voldemort mature | 7.3k words a spanish anti-muggle group wishes to meet with the dark lord in marbella. so, it makes perfect sense for his favourite lieutenant to go with him. after all, she could do with a holiday.

leather

nymphadora tonks/various explicit | 2.9k words war looms and tonks goes on a journey.

atramentum

bellatrix lestrange/lord voldemort teen | 1.9k words two lovers pass a halloween afternoon.

bookbinding

tom riddle/myrtle warren teen | 35.5k words which will win: sixteen years of planning for brutal world domination, or one (1) teenage girl?

everlasting ink

delphini riddle & ginny weasley teen | 6.2k words ginny weasley has always been a magnet for dark-haired orphans. what's one more?

inhuman resources

dolores umbridge teen | 4.2k words speaking from the fire in the gryffindor common room, sirius black will assure his godson that dolores umbridge is definitely not a death eater. how does he know? well, he's seen the paper trail...

catmint

minerva mcgonagall & pomona sprout teen | 1.6k words the day after the war ends, grief is green.

the pleiades

bellatrix lestrange/lord voldemort teen | 2.6k words bellatrix learns to fly.

sparkling cyanide

hokey & hepzibah smith general | 1.4k words tom riddle had nothing to do with the death of hepzibah smith. hokey had just had enough of being a slave.

bó na leath adhairce

merope gaunt teen | 6.6k words a coming of age story for an invisible girl.

ecclesiastes three

andromeda tonks & bellatrix lestrange & narcissa malfoy teen | 9.4k words to sisterhood there is a season.

#asenora fics #ladies of hp fest

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saintsenara · 2 months

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writing patterns

[list the first line of your last ten fics and see if there's a pattern.]

thank you so much for the tag @perverse-idyll! a variety of multi-chapter and one shots here, so let's see if any similarities emerge...

subluxation - rodolphus lestrange/percy weasley

It is an ordinary day.

2. one year in every ten - harry potter/tom riddle

In the United Kingdom, a man kills a woman every three days.

3. the war of the roses - sirius black/severus snape

It begins with blood.

4. ecclesiastes three - andromeda tonks & her sisters

How bizarre, she said to herself, that the charms on the ceiling of the Great Hall should have held through a battle.

5. bó na leath adhairce - merope gaunt

The village of Little Hangleton was a cluster of houses and shops - stone walls the shimmery colour of brown sugar, gardens neat with lupins and alliums - set in a rolling swipe of bucolic Lancashire splendour.

6. sparkling cyanide - hokey the house elf & hepzibah smith

Eokhí is waking up one morning in her nest on the kitchen floor.

7. the pleiades - bellatrix lestrange/lord voldemort

The cupboard had been unlocked the day she turned ten.

8. catmint - minerva mcgonagall & pomona sprout

For thirty years, her morning stomp to the greenhouses had been marked by a crunch - crunch - crunch-ing of gravel under the stout boots she used to shield her ankles from the more nibbly plants.

9. scylla and charybdis - severus snape/lord voldemort

[this one needs two sentences, for obvious reasons.]

In 1963, Richard Beeching published a report called The Reshaping of British Railways. This has made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

10. everlasting ink - delphini riddle & ginny weasley

When she was sixteen, she nearly died.

well. it's clear we can learn that i'm not particularly fond of a long opening sentence - which is at odds with the fact that i use a lot of compound sentences elsewhere in all of these stories.

although sentence structure isn't - as i doubt it is for most people - the thing that readers particularly comment on... what gets brought up to me most frequently when people are kind enough to leave responses to my writing is the idea that each of my characters has a distinctive narrative voice, whether they're part of an ensemble piece [readers of one year in every ten have told me a lot that they particularly look forward to sections from ron's perspective as a emotionally mature respite from harry being reckless and tom being a dick] or the sole focus of the piece, and i think you can see that in these lines.

and - y'know - hopefully they're a good hook...

[i'll tag @ashesandhackles, @cealesti, @midnightstargazer, @celestemagnoliathewriter @incalculablepower and anyone else interested in playing.]

#asenora fics #asenora on writing #for someone who doesn't shut up i can be surprisingly restrained when it comes to the written word...

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ladiesofhpfest · 8 months

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Bó na Leath Adhairce by @saintsenara/Asenora

Our third work of the week is here, brought to us by Asenora! This time we're looking at a certain Dark Lord's mother . . .

Summary: A coming of age story for an invisible girl.

Warnings: Please note that there are non-graphic references to child abuse, sexual abuse, and non-con activities in this story, as well as underage pregnancy and abortion.

What's to love: Asenora knows how to set a mood right from the beginning, and the poetic prose continues throughout the piece. Merope's longing is palpable - she wants, and is denied, all the sorts of feminine things she sees on the Muggle girls who get to visit Tom Riddle (Sr.). You'll ache right with her as she yearns for more, only to come up short. Despite all this, there's hope. Merope hangs onto hope, still sees beauty, and dreams of a better tomorrow.

Thank you Asenora/@saintsenara!

#merope gaunt #tom riddle sr #morfin gaunt #marvolo gaunt #ladies of hp #ladies of hp fest #girly girls #fic rec

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saintsenara · 1 year

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