#the only classes i feel like i may have issues with are sts and writing. mostly sts tho
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Menstruation Deliberation
This is my first tumblr post so please be kind but any constructive criticism is welcome. I have been writing stories for myself for many years but decided I wanted to start sharing them so here’s my first one.
Warnings: Talk of periods/menstruation which in my opinion shouldn’t need a warning but here you are just incase.
Summary: You are a Slytherin in 6th year and get your period in potions class but have nothing with you and have no choice but to talk to professor snape about it.
I watched as I stirred my potion and watched the cauldron bubble as it brewed. I pray this stomach ache that I’ve had all morning goes away soon, I wonder if the chicken I ate at dinner last night is to blame. I have a feeling that this potion is going to go horribly wrong as I can barely concentrate on what I’m doing with it. Oh well at least I’m in Slytherin so Snape won’t bother taking away any house points, everyone knows he’s extremely biased towards us anyway.
That’s when I felt it, I realised now the stomach ache I had is not because of the chicken. “No, no, no,” I mutter.
“Something wrong y/n” Draco Malfoy asked from the next desk over.
“No it’s okay, I just thought I stirred the potion clockwise instead of anti-clockwise but turns out I was right after all” I lied. He seemed to buy that answer as he turned back to look at his own potion with a nod.
Okay y/n don’t panic I thought to myself. But who am I kidding I’m definitely panicking, I wasn’t expecting it until Saturday and I haven’t had a chance to get any supplies from Hogsmeade like I usually do I was planning on doing that tomorrow.
Okay it’s fine I’ll just go to Snape and feign like I’m about to throw up or something and he’ll send me to Madam Pomfrey, I’m sure she’ll have something I can use until I can get my usual tampons tomorrow. Oh wait what was it Dumbledore was saying at lunch, Madam Pomfrey is out until tomorrow at St Mungo’s on a course about potions to reduce the effects of mandrake poisoning. Oh no, I thought as I also remember what else he said “Any issues in the meantime please visit professor Snape in the potions classroom where he will be able to assist you the best he can”.
Crap, this means I’m gonna have to one tell Snape I’m on my period and two also ask him for tampons for dealing with said period. Oh lord I’m never going to be able to look my head of house in the eye again.
I get up from my seat and slowly start making my way to the desk. I may as well get this over with it’s only going to get worse if I wait and I’d rather everyone not find out by me bleeding through my skirt especially not someone like Draco Malfoy. He’d surely ridicule me for months about it and probably make up some awful nickname for me and be sure to say it loudly every time I walked in the common room.
As I reached Snape’s desk he looked up. “Have you finished your potion Miss y/l/n” he said calmly.
Oh crap, I’d completely forgot about my potion, I turned round and to my relief it was not overflowing or bellowing some horrible green smoke like Neville’s seemed to be over the other side of the room. “ No sir, I kind of have a little bit of an issue”
“Oh, really? And what may I ask would that be?” He asked and I was pleased to see with no trace of mockery or a sneer like he would if it was one of the Gryffindors asking or maybe it was just because he could see the look of pure panic and dread in my face as I spoke and he was afraid if he said the wrong thing I may burst into tears.
“Well sir, Professor Dumbledore mentioned earlier that we were to come to you if we needed anything that we would usually see Madam Pomfrey for” I said awkwardly not looking up.
“Yes that is correct, are you in need of medical assistance? Did you burn yourself on the potion apparatus?” He asked again sounding confused not understanding my awkwardness.
“No it’s not that Sir, it’s just I…umm I well I umm” I said wanting to bury my head in the pumpkin patch and never pull it out.
“Come on girl spit it out, if you need help I can only assist you if you tell me what the problem is” he said losing patience with my beating around the bush.
I took a deep breath and looked up, maybe if I can act confidently this won’t be as awkward as it inevitably will be I try to kid myself. “Well you see Sir, I just started my period and…”
He interrupted me then “You can be excused to the lavatory, just hurry back so you don’t miss the rest of the lesson”. He didn’t look embarrassed or awkward like most males would at the mere mention of such things , he seemed to be trying to spare me from further embarrassment by letting me go quickly. But then again it is Snape, can you ever tell what he’s feeling, he’s so straight faced all the time.
“That’s very kind of you Sir but that’s my issue and why I would have needed Madam Pomfrey. You see I haven’t had a chance to visit Hogsmeade yet and collect my supplies because it wasn’t supposed to come yet and I just…” I drifted off embarrassed by my rambling.
“Ah I see, wait here one moment” He stated as he walked away into the potion store room. I nervously moved from foot to foot as I waited for him to return and looked around to see if anyone had noticed our interaction. To my relief everyone was deep in concentration reading the instructions to the potion we were brewing. I sighed, yeah I’m definitely going to fail with this potion since I had been distracted and I hadn’t noticed how complicated the instructions obviously were since everyone seemed to be struggling I obviously skipped a few steps, even Hermione Granger had her brow furrowed in what looked like confusion.
Snape walked back in then and handed me a brown parcel. “Off you go, sort yourself out quickly. I will watch your potion while you’re gone.”
When I reached the bathroom and enter the cubicle I open the package and it’s full of a mixture of tampons and pads of different absorbencies. Once I’ve fixed myself up I breath a sigh of relief that I’ve narrowly missed public humiliation in front of my class but can’t help wonder why Snape was so calm and why on earth did he have all this in his store cupboard?
I get back to class and slide back into my seat, it looks like no one noticed my absence and I subtly slipped the brown package into my school bag and look again at the potion instructions as Draco turns around and asks “Hey, where did you go? Do you know what the hell the last line of this potion means?”
He had pointed to the line that said “once stirred add the ingredient that is most vital to all life”
“She was running an errand for me, and yes of course she does since she’s managed to brew the potion perfectly” Snape said as he approached our desk and gave me a knowing look, not quite a smile but as close to a smile as you could possible get from Snape I expect.
Snape gestured for me to look down at my copy of advanced potion making and I could see written very faintly in seemingly magical ink that if you didn’t know was there you wouldn’t even look at the page twice “this idiot was most melodramatic, he just means water, add water. I took the liberty of doing that for you while you were occupied”. The writing then disappeared I looked up at Snape but he had already walked over to the Gryffindor side of the room and was taking 10 points off Ron Weasley and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
As the lesson drew to a close and everyone packed their bags and stood up to leave I hear “Miss Y/L/N could I see you before you leave please?”.
“Oh damn what did you do? Good luck” sniggered Draco as he left the classroom.
I approached the desk warily as Snape said “Do you have everything you need? I can provide some pain remedy if you are experiencing any cramps. I would have asked before but I thought it’d be best to let you get yourself cleaned up first”. It’s like the embarrassment of having to ask Snape had distracted me completely from the dull ache in my stomach but now he’s reminded me so it’s come back with a vengeance and I wince.
“Something to help with the pain would be great, thank you professor. Can I ask how you’re so chill about this? Most men would be weirded out and would have tried to push me out the door as soon as they could.” I say and then realise I probably should have just stopped at saying yes to the pain potion.
Snape chuckled which was such an odd sound to come out of my head of house’s mouth that I almost thought for a second I was imagining it. “ I’m so “chill” as you put it because I’ve been working as teacher for 15 years now, do you think it’s the first encounter I’ve had with a student who has been caught short at such a time? It’s my duty as a head of house to ensure the members of my house are properly cared for while they are boarding at Hogwarts. If I were to ignore the needs of female students or make them feel ashamed in any way for a natural bodily function then I would not be doing my job effectively and would not be worthy of my job title. Also you will find that although those your age who happen to be members of the male gender may be repelled by the idea of menstruation and act immaturely in relation to the subject, as they age they will slowly learn that it is a normal part of life and it should no longer bother them”.
“Oh…” I didn’t know what to say now, I didn’t know Snape actually had a decent side to him. “Thank you for helping me with my potion by the way”.
“I feel like it’s the least I could do considering the suffering you’re currently enduring. Like I said I make sure the students of my house are fully cared for just don’t expect me to do it again, we wouldn’t want you falling behind or people thinking I favoured you now would we. Now here is a potion to help with the pain, if you need any more you know where to find me” then he smiled, like a real actual smile.
At that moment Ernie Macmillan walked into the room with a pretty nasty wound to his right leg. “I got too close to the whomping willow during care of magical creatures sir”
“If you’ll excuse me Miss y/l/n I must see to Mr Macmillan here” he said as he pulled some essence of dittany out of his desk drawer and walked over to where Ernie was hobbling into the classroom with Justin Finch-Fletchley failing to hold him up.
I walked out the classroom and down the corridor toward the girls bathroom ready to take a nice hot bath and hopefully ease the cramps. I couldn’t help think about what Snape had said “wouldn’t want you falling behind or people thinking I favoured you now would we,”. He couldn’t have meant that he did favour me surely? That would be ridiculous, but I couldn’t help wondering well hoping really that’s what he did mean. God damn it I can’t be getting a crush on Snape can I? No that would be absurd. I shake my head, no it’s just the period hormones I think they’re making me crazy.
A crush on Snape would be absolutely preposterous.
#period#imagine#severus snape#professor snape#harry potter#slytherin#tampons#menstrualawareness#hogwarts#potions#story#snape x you#snape x reader#menstrual cramps#these cramps are killing me#snape
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Is Starbucks really sending money to Israel?
I understand that so many people have been concerned over the welfare of Palestinian citizens and whether or not specific companies are supporting the wrong cause, but has anyone actually checked for credibility? I always see people claiming that Starbucks has specifically sent money to the Israeli Government but they never have proof to support those claims.
If you take a few moments to look up whether or not this is true there's a lot of evidence that actually supports the opposite.
In an article dating back to 2014 by "Starbucks Stories", neither Howard Shultz (Former Company President) or the company itself have claimed or been proven to have spent any money regarding political climate or warfare.
Upon being asked: "Is it true that Starbucks or Howard Schultz provides financial support to Israel?" the reply was,
"No. This is absolutely untrue. Rumors that Starbucks or Howard provides financial support to the Israeli government and/or the Israeli Army are unequivocally false. Starbucks is a publicly held company and as such, is required to disclose any corporate giving each year through a proxy statement."
Additionally any rise of hate towards the company allegedly stems from a now-deleted "X" post and the fact the company had sued its union for publicly standing with Palestine. I personally do not find this as a means to cause an uprise and boycott, though, because the company has stated that they are not affiliated with anything political nor do they interact with issues of that nature. Realistically, the Starbucks Union posting of their stance on a government issue was most likely a breach of contract or company policy regarding their disdain for "political matters".
Sara Kelly, executive vice president for the company said:
"We strongly disagree with the views expressed by Workers United, including its local affiliates, union organizers and those who identify as members of 'Starbucks Workers United' -- none of these groups speak for Starbucks Coffee Company and do not represent our company's views, positions, or beliefs,"
Again, this isn't necessarily a means to provoke a boycott. If she were to openly speak out for or against any government issue, especially as a world-wide company, this could cause many problems, such as loosing money and buissiness partners, which may be selfish to the public eye but financial disputes between companies and keeping the company afloat is probably more important than responding to the general public's accusations.
Also, the company is ran by so many different people all of whom share their own beliefs.
Sarah Kelly also stated:
“As a leadership team, we want to again express our deepest sympathy for those who have been killed, wounded, displaced and impacted following the heinous acts of terror, escalating violence and hate against the innocent in Israel and Gaza this week. Starbucks unequivocally condemns acts of hate, terrorism and violence,”
Starbucks stands against violence and with the innocent people being harmed. The boycott should be called off, as the evidence stating the company does not support Israel heavily outweighs what does say they support Israel.
I think that the boycott should be called off under the notion "innocent until proven guilty" and that people should stop attacking others for buying from the company; also don't join the bandwagon and believe everything you see on TikTok...
I wold write a more in-depth debunk but class is almost over. And, I feel like I may sound like a very problematic person but if I'm going to be honest I felt like I had to clear the air around this controversy as a freshly-turned 16-year-old who needs a job (there aren't very many choices for me). I personally only want for the bloodshed to stop and do not side with either or any government.
SOURCES
https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2014/facts-about-starbucks-in-the-middle-east/
https://money.cnn.com/2014/08/08/news/companies/starbucks-israel/index.html
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/10/13/business/starbucks-israel-palestine-workers/index.html
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/companies-starbucks-mcdonalds-face-controversy-amid-israel-hamas/story?id=104219615
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Wot does a Library Technician do?
I don’t have my Master’s degree yet; I am trying my best. I always feel like I’m not doing enough...this is to prove myself wrong, and also to share info on what a career in library science might entail for those who may ever consider it.
Things I do/have done for my job as a library technician so far (I’m just under two months into this position):
Check out/return books - the standard stuff.
Find relevant and reputable information to aid someone in their research/projects - also standard stuff.
Provide technology support to the best of my ability, and/or direct people to more qualified help as needed.
Analyzed my library’s current shortcomings and wrote a 16+ page report/informal strategic plan (with graphics) on ways to address issues and implement projects and initiatives with the central goal of revitalization and growth.
Broke down the library’s issues into five categories, and documented detailed ideas to combat each one individually.
Decided on three primary projects to focus on this school year.
Added budgetary estimates to projects that would have costs.
Renewed a couple of our eResource subscriptions.
Established lines of communication with various offices across campus through signage, regular emails, a virtual discussion group, and personally attending events, and student org meetings, even outside of my paid hours.
Reorganized most of the pitiful remainder of our physical collection.
Made a significant dent in vetting the remnants of our former collection and am continuing to work on this as frequently as I can. (I’ve found some real treasures in the old library space y’all TvT)
Drafted (like literally sketched out) a plan to reorganize the current library space to make it more functional and inviting.
Created artwork on my whiteboard and collaborated with my work study students in making themed decorations with supplies I purchased with my own personal funds (I know this was overboard, but I couldn’t stand another day of how lifeless this room feels so I took matters into my own hands -.-’).
Created a spreadsheet to keep track of our eResource links and subscriptions; trained my work study students in link-checking.
Joined an Electronic Resource Management policy group with other librarians in my state to try to learn via osmosis.
Applied for a grant to get a small, modern Reference Collection (something I believe is a bare minimum for every library).
This also involved days of researching and vetting materials to make sure they were relevant and inclusive of students in ALL of our program divisions - even the trade divisions - as well as writing a one page essay and a detailed budget of the materials I desire this library to purchase.
Spoke with library support service providers (whose help we pay big $$$ for so we may as well use it) only to find out that we have always had Interlibrary Loan capabilities, through not one but two different state programs. Our ILL services were apparently completely forgotten about during the pandemic...
Created a customizable presentation on the library’s services/information literacy and a form so faculty can request educational sessions on precisely what they think will be most useful to their classes (unfortunately, while many have verbally expressed interest in this, I have not actually gotten to give any presentations yet :c ).
Began reworking this concept into info sessions that I will host as events in the library space; I just need to adjust my materials, plan dates, and advertise them.
Got us access to a free, open source application to make “LibGuides” and began creating the framework for a guide for each of our program divisions.
Joined the campus Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee as part of the event-planning sub-group in addition to accessibility/inclusivity improvements I intend to kick-start in the library specifically.
Was then invited to join an EDI campus training sub-group, which I accepted.
Tried (and am still trying tbh) to establish lines of communication with our various eResource vendors, as well as with orgs at my former university to initiate collaborative events between our institutions.
(Admittedly minor) management of our bibliographic records.
Started vetting and collecting Open Educational Resources.
Started teaching myself standard library-related protocols and procedures like RDA (Resource Description and Access) guidelines and MARC records, as well as the complexities of copyright laws, both on and off the clock.
A bunch of other little things as they come up.
Things I haven’t done (yet) but that are also the bread and butter of library worker duties:
Un/Cataloging of materials - I have been previously trained in the Library of Congress sorting system, but I have yet to catalogue anything, probably considering we’re not doing acquisitions at the moment (if I/we get the Reference Collection grant, we probably won’t even be cataloging that stuff; I am working on a means to acquire that small collection without cataloging it so we don’t risk being ordered to uncatalogue again within the next couple years -.-).
Probably a bunch of other stuff that I don’t know about yet. I’ll add to this list as I learn.
#chronicles of a queer library tech#libraries#long post#for future reference#i s2g i better come back and look at this whenever i feel like i'm failing at my job
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any girls! dark academia movie recs? i really struggle to find anything not about a group of boys (as much as I love them)
SO MANY!!! This is probably a far more detailed answer than you were expecting but this is a popular question and I want to keep a list for myself and others.
Feel free to add to it/give opinions. I've tried to give a tw for anything I can remember
Girls! Dark Academia Movies/TV Shows
Mona Lisa Smile (2003)
1950s Women’s college
Art professor! Julia Roberts
She’s legit the female Mr Keating of the art & college world
Feminism vs. Tradition
Maggie Gyllenhall x Ginnifer Goodwin; their characters were more than friends. Fight me.
Does not end how you expect
Strike!/All I Wanna Do/The Hairy Bird (1998)
MY FAVOURITE!!!
Free on YouTube under one of its various names
Comedy
1960s all girls boarding school
Young Kirsten Dunst
Group of girls plot to sabotage a merger with a boys school less prestigious than their own
Secret attic clubhouse meetings of the D.A.R aka Daughters of the American Ravioli (eaten cold, ew)
girls get political & advocate for their rights using ANY elaborate and chaotic scheme
TW: eating disorder, vomiting & creepy male teacher but the girls plot against him too
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)
based on a short book I read for uni by Muriel Spark
1930s girls school in Edinburgh
Scottish teacher! Maggie Smith, controversial with a focus on romantic ideals
Spoiler alert, the liberal teacher is actually a fascist
Her group of fave students has cult- vibes and it’s fascinating
Picnic at Hanging Rock
1970s movie or 2018 mini series
Never watched either but I plan to
Wild Child (2008)
00s romcom every UK teen girl loves
Emma Roberts as the spoiled rich American teenager sent to a strict English boarding school
Plots to get herself expelled but oh no she’s making friends with the girls who help her
And the headmistress has a hot son, and he’s nice??? Double oh no
ICONIC SCENES
Everything! Goes! Wrong!
omg she burns the school down
Feel good, comfort, nostalgia
St Trinians (2007)
English girls boarding school
The kids are all criminals, no joke
So are the teachers
CHAOTIC
gay awakening for british girls
Art heist pulled off by school girls
Government tries to shut them down but oh no, the education minister & the headmistress are ex-lovers
Colin Firth x Rupert Everett in drag
Superior cast: Jodie Whittaker, Gemma Arterton, Juno Temple, Stephen Fry, Colin Firth, etc...
embodies the phrase 'problematic fave'
St Trinians 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold (2009)
Mystery, pirate ancestors, hidden treasure
omg Shakespeare was a woman
girls disguised as boys to infiltrate and rob the posh boys school
Villain! David Tennant in that ICONIC boat scene
Teen girls vs. ancient misogynist brotherhood
like the first film but MORE chaotic and BETTER!???
The Falling (2014)
1960s all girls school
best friends! but its unrequited love
Agoraphobic + distant mother aka mommy issues
Sudden death and the school suppresses/ignores the students grief, sparking mass hysteria & a fainting epidemic in the girls
Cast: Maisie Williams (GoT) & Florence Pugh (Little Women) & Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders)
TW: teen pregnancy, death, vomiting, underage s*x, sibling inc*st, past s*xual assault
READ THE PLOT SUMMARY FIRST
The Book Thief (2013)
Based on an amazing book by Markus Zusak
set in 1940s Nazi Germany
Daughter of a communist whose family were taken by the Nazis/died is fostered by an older couple who teach her to read & she paints a dictionary on the basement walls
Coming of age story about a compulsive book thief. No joke, this kid steals books from banned book burnings and breaks into the mayor's library through the window
Family hides the Jewish son of an old friend in their basement and he helps her to start writing about her experiences in the war
TW: death, bombings, WW2 anti-semitism
Mary Shelley (2017)
Overall good & roughly biographical
Pretty costumes and aesthetic
Modern feminist take on Mary Shelly in her own time period
So many INACCURACIES for the drama so don’t take it as truth
Percy Shelley slander and not all of it is justified
Cast: Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, and Maisie Williams
The Secret Garden (1993)
Based on a fave childhood book
1901 colonial India & Yorkshire, England
Orphaned, spoilt & neglected girl sent to live with her reclusive Uncle in the English countryside
Gothic elements, mysteries, secret doors/passages/locked gardens
local boy with a flock of animals, magic, kids chanting around a fire and all around immaculate vibes
Happy ending!!!
Hidden Figures (2016)
African-American women as mathematicians for NASA
1960s space project
Women balancing a career and family obligations
Deals with racial & gender discrimination
Loosely based on the lives of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan who worked for NASA as engineers & mathematicians
Anne of Green Gables (1985) & sequel (1987)
Adaptation L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books
Canada (late 1890s/early 1900s)
Highly imaginative & bookworm orphan is adopted by a reclusive elderly brother and sister duo
Small town & school years comedic drama
Unrequited Enemies -> Friends -> lovers
Inspiring new woman teacher
Girls re-enact Tennyson’s poem and nearly drown for the aesthetic™
Dramatic poetry reading with INTENSE 👀eye contact👀
Writer! Anne & English teacher! Anne dealing with unruly girls school antics
Collette (2018)
biographical drama on french writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette
Victorian & Edwardian era France
More talented than her husband so she ghostwrites for him
Fight for creative ownership of her wildly successful novels
Affairs with a woman called Georgie and also with Missy, born female but masculine presenting
Cast: Keira Knightly, Dominic West, Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark)
Enola Holmes (2020)
Netflix book adaptation
Younger sister of Sherlock Holmes
Victorian era! feminism/suffragettes
Mother-daughter focus
Mystery, adventure, secret codes, teens running away & escaping from (and eventually fighting) assassins
Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin, Fiona Shaw, Millie Bobby Brown
Ginger & Rosa (2012)
1960s England
best friends since literal birth navigating troubled teen years
poet & anti-nuclear activist! Ginger
off the rails but also catholic! Rosa
Shout out to Mark & Mark the gay godfathers we all want
family troubles
TW: older man has an affair with a 17 yr old
Testament of Youth (2014)
based on WW1 memoir by Vera Brittain
young woman (writer & poetry lover) escapes traditional family & goes to study at Oxford University
abandons to become a war nurse
romance, tragedy and war trauma
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Kit Harrington (GoT), Taron Edgerton (Rocketman), Colin Morgan (Merlin)
Little Women (2019)
Writer! Jo & Artist! Amy
Mother/daughter focus and sister dynamics
the March sisters’ theatre club is *chefs kiss*
champagne problems edits of Jo x Laurie are a mood
Ambivalent ending perfectly captures Louisa May Alcott’s dilemma with the book the movie is based on
set in 1860s America
ALL STAR CAST and a Greta Gerwig masterpeice
Lady Bird (2017)
coming of age in early 2002/2003 Sacramento, California
all girls catholic school
writer! Christine aka Lady Bird wants to get outta town and start her life again at college 'in a city with culture'
Mother/daughter dynamics - so realistic!
I live for that Jesus car stunt & the nun's reaction
school theatre program
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Timothee Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein
Another Greta Gerwig gem
Beguiled (2017)
Virginia, civil war era
Girls school with only five students and two teachers left
Find an injured Union army soldier & bring him inside
Women & teenagers want his attention (v. problematic) before uniting against him
(tbh you'll either love it, hate it, or watch once & forget it)
Sofia Coppola film so its very feminine gaze
TW: violence, death, underage
Legally Blonde (2001)
No questions will be taken
Elle Woods was the blue print
TV series:
House of Anubis (2011-2013)
I know it’s a kids/young teen show but I still unironically love it
ANCIENT EGYPT!!!!
Modern day with Victorian era links to treasure hunters & Egyptian research expeditions (stealing from tombs)
Chosen one plot lines, curses, kidnapping, mysteries, secret tunnels under the school, elixir of life
Teens have investigate & protect themselves cus oh no the TEACHERS are involved in some shady stuff
new American kid at British boarding school is the actual premise not just a fanfic au
Nostalgic, light-hearted, funny, and kinda cheesy but I will accept no criticism
The Alienist (2018 -now)
Mid 1890s, New York
Woman’s private detective agency (Season 2)
Serial killer mystery
Woman secretary turns detective and teams up with a criminal psychiatrist and a newspaper editor to solve crime
TW: violence, child pr*stit*tion
Cast: Dakota Fanning, Luke Evans, Daniel Bruhl
The Queen’s Gambit (2020)
Woman chess prodigy
1950s & 1960s
TW: drug & alcohol abuse
Gentleman Jack (2019 - now)
Based on the diaries of Anne Lister
Victorian Yorkshire, England
Upper-class lesbians
Confident, suit wearing! Anne Lister x shy! Ann Walker
Business woman! Anne running the family mines
Cast: Suranne Jones (Doctor Foster) & Sophie Rundle (Peaky Blinders)
TW: violence
Gilmore Girls (2000-2007)
bubbly/ambitious single mom + intelligent daughter
bookworm! Rory Gilmore gets into a prestigious private school and then an Ivy League college
Small town drama is comedic gold
Fast dialogue packed with pop culture and literary references
Comforting & nostalgic
TEAM JESS
Anne with an E (2017-2019)
Loose adaptation of L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books
they completely change the plot lines but it’s still very good content!
Orphan girl with trauma and a love of books/poetry is adopted by an elderly brother & sister duo, bringing light and fresh ideas to a rural community
Feminism, girls writing club, lgbtq safe spaces, girls eduction, black/indigenous representation
Miss Stacy as THAT inspiring teacher
Aunt Josephine’s lavish gay parties have my heart
TW: creepy male teacher tries to marry a student, racial discrimination, indigenous assimilation school
Victoria (2016-2019)
Adaption of Queen Victoria’s life
Victoria navigating her political, royal, and personal life
Albert’s involvement with The Great Exhibition, 1851 (on cultural + industrial innovations)
Alfred Paget x Edward Drummond is exquisite
Gorgeous costumes and aesthetics
TW: bury your gays trope
Derry Girls (2018-now)
1990s Northern Ireland during the troubles
Comedy, episodes 20-25 mins long
English boy sent to an all girls Catholic school with his cousin
✨Dead Poets Society parody episode ✨with a free-spirited female teacher
Sister Michael, the sarcastic nun who hates her job & reads the exorcist for giggles
Wee anxious lesbian! Clare Devlin (plus her friends wearing rainbow pins)
Badass with bad ideas! Michelle Mallon
Main Character! Erin Quinn
Lovable weirdo who would fight a polar bear! Orla McCool
Wee English fella & honorary Derry girl! James Maguire
Dickinson (2019-now)
Loose adaption of the poet Emily Dickinson’s life
Set in 19th century Massachusetts, US
Historical drama with modern dialogue & music that works SEAMLESSLY
gives a great understanding of Emily Dickinson’s poems
💕Vintage gays! Emily x Sue💕
Theatre club, writing, poetry, dressing as men to sneak into lectures, love letters, teen drama, feminism, and an underground abolitionist journal as a brief side plot in season 2
Wiz Khalifa plays death in a horse drawn carriage
TW: opium use
A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017-2019)
Based on great childhood books
Bookworm! brother, Inventor! sister, and baby sister with sharp teeth
Mystery, secret organisations, orphaned siblings figuring things out & fending for themselves against the villain after their fortune
Adults either cartoon evil, comedically incompetent, or SPIES
Boarding school, library owner, scientific researcher, and theatre episodes
Ambiguous time period which is really fun to try and pin point
Killing Eve (2018-now)
Classic detective who has homoerotic tension with the assassin she is tracking down
British Detective! Eve Polastri figures out the notorious assassin MI5 are investigating is a woman, is fired & then put on a secret MI6 case with a small team
Assassin! Villanelle, a psychopath with a tragic past and a mastery of both accents & fashion
Woman MI6 boss! Carolyn Martens, head of Russian section
Travel Europe following Villanelle’s killings and escaping the assassins sent by Villanelle’s organisation
‘You’re supposed to be my enemy and moral opposite but omg you’re the only one smart enough to get me and why am I obsessed with you????'
🚨 GO IN FOR A KISS AND THEN STAB YOUR ENEMY 🚨
Cable Girls/Las chicas del cable (2017-2020)
Spanish drama set in 1920s Madrid
Four young women at a telecommunications company form a group of friends and help navigate the difficult situations they are all in
Secret identities, dangerous pasts, murder, crime, lgbtq couple & throuple, trans man character, feminism/suffragists
girls commit crimes for humanitarian reasons and cover! it! up!
UNDERRATED SHOW!!!!
Gorgeous costumes and set
Haven’t finished it yet and I’m catching up
TW: abuse, violence, death
Outlander (2014 - now)
haven’t watched yet but plan to
Woman time travels to Scotland, 1743
Rebel highlanders, pirates, British colonies, American revolutionary war
Time jumps between 18th & 20th century
#CO posts#answered asks#asks#dark academia girls#dark academia recommendations#dark academia recs#dark academia women#dark academia movies#dark academia tv
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In Ian McEwan’s 1987 novel The Child in Time, Stephen, a children’s author, is rebuked by his scientist friend Thelma for his lack of interest in theoretical physics. “Shakespeare would have grasped wave functions, Donne would have understood complementarity and relative time,” she chides him. “But you ‘arts’ people, you’re not only ignorant of these magnificent things, you’re rather proud of knowing nothing.” She laughs at him for imagining modernism – “modernism!” – is anything more than a “passing local fashion” compared to the wonders of modern science.
It is a position with which McEwan clearly has some sympathy – Enduring Love (1997), Saturday (2005) and Solar (2010) are intensely interested in psychiatry, neuroscience and climate science respectively, though not so much in modernism. In his tenth novel, Edward St Aubyn is similarly determined to show that he has diligently digested a decade’s worth of Nature journal. Double Blind is a cerebral, large-canvas novel about a loose group of upper-class friends engaged in neuroscience, genetics and ecology. It seems to offer a riposte to Thelma’s arguments, 34 years later.
At the novel’s heart is a touchy defence of Freudian psychoanalysis – which of course formed the subsoil from which that “passing local fashion” for modernism grew, and which St Aubyn feels has been unfairly maligned by hard-science types. St Aubyn himself went through years of psycho-analysis, as did his most famous character, Patrick Melrose, who is raped at the age of five by his father in Never Mind (1992), the first novel in the Melrose quintet. It’s no coincidence that Patrick’s best friend is a psychoanalyst, nor that the characters who express cynicism towards the practice are usually the most loathsome.
Throughout Double Blind, there is a distinct thread of nostalgia for the “anecdotal end of science” – for science as a gentlemanly business of simile and symbolism, language and narrative. There are two scientists of this sort at the novel’s heart. One is the avuncular psychoanalyst, Martin Carr, who is frustrated by the limitation of modern approaches to schizophrenia, which lean too much on anti-psychotic drugs. We see these problems manifest in his patient, a young, working-class man called Sebastian, who suffers violent episodes of mental illness but who benefits from Martin’s attentiveness to his disordered language.
The novel’s hero, though, is Martin’s prospective son-in-law, Francis, a philosophically minded, mid-30-something naturalist, who is working to rewild the private land of some enlightened aristocrats. Francis’s quiet wisdom, big-brain and “impressive calm” in the kitchen have charmed Martin’s adopted daughter, Olivia, a biologist writing a book about epigenetics. Her best friend from Oxford University, Lucy, has been head-hunted by an ex-hedge-funder Hunter Sterling, who wants her to run his new venture capital firm, Digitas. Hunter – a Westminster School alumnus with a raging drug habit – has made investments in biotech, AI and robotics, but also wants to get into philanthropy. “For a man as rich as him to show his face in society without a Foundation would be like a construction worker not having a hard hat on a building site,” writes St Aubyn – and that’s one of the novel’s better similes.
As Double Blind veers between jet-setting farce and musings on recent issues of Current Biology, it soon becomes clear that St Aubyn’s main objective is to critique the exalted position of hard science – using his characters as mouthpieces. Martin’s pet peeve is that hard science denigrates the “fanciful realm of emotion… symbolic language, psychological conditioning and cultural context” in favour of “the proper objects of scientific enquiry: brain mapping and biochemistry”. As the novel’s title suggests, St Aubyn has some beef with funding, peer review, publication and the randomised double-blind placebo control trial, an experiment in which both doctor and patients are unaware whom has been given a placebo and whom the real drug. This model has long been held up as the “gold standard” of scientific research as it supposedly eliminates bias. However, those who thrive within this culture, argues St Aubyn, are no less biased or corrupted than the “arts” people; they are “rotten by their own ‘double blind’ standards”.
Ask many scientists and they will complain about the shortcomings of academic publishing, funding models and so on. But is corruption as endemic as St Aubyn seems to think it is? I’m not so sure – and St Aubyn isn’t the writer I’d trust to explore it anyway. He seems too nostalgic for the days when science was just about viable as an aristocratic leisure pursuit.
To make his case, he repeatedly returns to the importance of “symbolic language” and how scientists don’t understand metaphor. All except our hero, Francis. As he ponders the nature of awareness, he reflects on how his own mind “continually generated metaphors to remind himself of a natural state that should have come, well, more naturally, but in his case, came with a caravan of similes and arguments”. It’s a peculiar line of argument (as well as a peculiar metaphor). Science is hardly devoid of symbolic language. I do not pretend to understand string theory, but I assume that it involves metaphorical rather than literal string. The irony of St Aubyn’s defence of symbolic language, though, is that his own metaphors and similes are howlingly bad.
At one point, Francis compares “Occam’s Razor, the minimalist aesthetic that was supposed to adjudicate over intellectual life for the rest of time” to “a fashion editor in a black pencil skirt who simply refuses to retire, decade after decade, despite the screams of protest from an art department longing for a little moment of baroque excess and a splash of colour”. I’m sorry, what? When Lucy discovers, a few days into her new job, that she has a brain tumour, she thinks it’s “like being raped while you’re in a coma and only finding out when you see the CCTV footage”. Is it really? Must we imagine the uncommon horror of being raped in a coma to appreciate the shock of being diagnosed with a brain tumour? I began to flinch every time I saw the word “like”.
In the spirit of scientific enquiry, I reached for the Melrose books to run the same test again. St Aubyn’s best similes are exhilarating in their precision. “Dull, dissolute, and obscure [club] members felt buoyed up by this atmosphere of power, as little dinghies bob up and down on their moorings when a big yacht sails out of the harbour they have shared.” Vodka cracks ice in a glass, “like a spine in the hands of a confident osteopath”. However, many others feel lazy. A pompous, overweight man looks “like a hippopotamus with hypertension”. When David Melrose is drugged, “The armchair felt like a cheese fondue.”
St Aubyn has said that he can have “20 or 30 goes” at a sentence before it’s any good – except dialogue, which comes more naturally. I don’t believe he has had 20 or 30 goes at any sentence in Double Blind. And I wish he had gone several more rounds with his dialogue, which feels stagy and forced, like a Tom Stoppard play reworked by Dan Brown. In one scene, Hunter arrives unannounced at Francis’s cottage by helicopter and, over a caviar lunch, Olivia compares the “circular” arguments of scientists trying to prove the genetic causes of schizophrenia as “like a wagon formation protecting beleaguered dogma”. Olivia, Lucy and Francis may have zeitgeisty concerns – rewilding, psychedelics, epigenetics – but none of them sound like any mid-30-somethings around today. The women, supposedly great scientific minds, aren’t allowed do anything with them; they seem little different to the Alice-band-wearing Sloanes and predatory vixens St Aubyn depicts in the Melrose series. In fact, the whole novel has a peculiar late-Eighties atmosphere.
The most natural and affecting interactions are between Martin and his patient Sebastian. We are reminded that St Aubyn is at his best when he’s exploring deep psychological pain. But for much of the novel, it feels as if he is hiding behind a wall of intellectual discourse. Consequences rarely carry from one chapter to the next. Tension dissipates. If emotions, anecdote, psychology and narrative are so important, where are the deeper registers of empathy and pathos that made the Melrose novels so rich and memorable? As it is, Double Blind fails to convince either on the science or on the human drama. Maybe Thelma had a point.
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“For whatever reasons—the difficulty of predicting the moving target that was age at menarche, the reluctance to discuss it, the desire to fend off precociousness, the unwillingness to lower the boom on free-spirited daughters— parents and advisers did not agree on when girls were grown, and marked the coming-to-womanhood at a range of different ages, through different social rites of passage.
The English writer Charlotte Yonge marked one end of the continuum. In 1876 she encouraged great freedom for young girls—‘‘a wholesome delight in rushing about at full speed, playing at active games, climbing trees, rowing boats, making dirt-pies and the like’’—which she declared must end at age twelve. Most parents granted girls status as children for considerably longer. The literary figure of the tomboy, which some scholars have seen as ‘‘disruptive to rigid taxonomies of gender identity,’’ in fact reflected a reality in Victorian child rearing, freedoms granted to girls whose parents had yet to rein them in.
The end of youth arrived conclusively with the leaving of school, mandating a new way of allocating girls’ time. Between twelve and twenty, there were harbingers ranging from putting up hair and lengthening dresses on one hand to the prodding toward religious commitment on the other. Different families chose different ages to signify maturity, suggesting a continuum which would not be named until G. Stanley Hall published his stage-constructing treatise Adolescence in 1904.
At the time, contemporaries vacillated between the languages of childhood and adulthood to define the teenage years. The elite children’s magazine St. Nicholas claimed readers up until the age of twenty, and conventional wisdom encouraged the consignment of youth to childhood as long as possible. At the same time, Louisa May Alcott’s famous girls’ book Little Women advanced the premise repeated in endless moralist literature that girls should learn early the self-discipline and control demanded of adult women. Small wonder that actual girls were confused.
The markers of impending adulthood arrived unheralded in the surprising denials or demands of adults. At the age of eleven, Mary Boit, as she always had, wrote to Santa Claus. ‘‘Papa thinks I am too old but I do not,’’ she reported. The next day she repeated the exercise. ‘‘I had supper and wrote a letter to Santa Clause as papa burned up the other.’’ The strength of her father’s denial was matched only by the daring insistence of Mary Boit on her rights to childhood.
Two years later, however, the generational roles in the Boit family were reversed. It was thirteen-year-old Mary who was insisting on the marks of adulthood and her stepmother who was holding her back. ‘‘I think it is just as mean as it can be that I can not have my dresses longer as they are nearly up to my knees and all the girls of my age wear there dresses longer.’’ The gradual transition to adulthood was marked by these regular games of tug-of-war.
Dress length was an interesting issue both for advisers and the mothers who attempted to comply with them. On the one hand, long dresses signified adult status and therefore should be resisted as long as possible. On the other hand, long dresses covered girls’ legs and therefore should be adopted as soon as such legs might invite unseemly attention. Lillian Boit took the former position, the writers of Ladies’ Home Journal the latter. Isabel Mallon, writing under her own name rather than her famous pseudonym Ruth Ashmore, noted that she could ‘‘hear the dress reformers objecting to this’’ but declared that ‘‘keeping our girls modest is of very much more importance.’’
Emma Hooper’s descriptions of ‘‘A Schoolgirl’s Outfit’’ in 1894 recommended that skirts hit the leg halfway between knee and ankle at age ten. At age eight, they should be from one to two inches shorter. Several advisers agreed that at age thirteen a girl’s skirts should reach her ankles, while at fourteen through six- teen they should go just below her ankles. Seventeen marked full adulthood for purposes of dress length, for a girl should wear her dresses ‘‘the length that any lady does.’’ In essence, fashion advisers on hem length were gradual- ists, suggesting that hems travel steadily down a girl’s leg in accord with her increasing years.
According to the Ladies’ Home Journal, hair had its own separate clock; with no implications for modesty, hair should be kept off the top of the head throughout most of the teen years, the Journal urged. At separate times advisers staved off readers’ suggestions that fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen might be appropriate times for a girl to begin wearing her hair up. At fifteen, it might be worn ‘‘braided, looped and tied with black ribbon’’ for novelty, one writer suggested. Only at nineteen might a girl earn the right to arrange her hair ‘‘in any way she wished.’’ As in the Journal ’s recommendations for other kinds of conduct, though, it seems likely that few readers actually complied.
Margaret Tileston, who was brought up conservatively, noted her gradual adaptations to more adult pre- sentation, beginning in 1881, when she was thirteen, with the decision that she and her older sister would begin to wear ‘‘corset waists.’’ (The same year, Agnes Garrison at fifteen noted her astonishment that a new acquaintance wore ‘‘corsets.’’) The next year, at the age of fourteen, Tileston noted, ‘‘I did my hair up myself behind for the first time.’’
A month later, wearing her hair up and behind had evolved from noteworthy event to planned habit. ‘‘I intend to generally now,’’ she reported. At the age of seventeen, after her graduation from high school, she began wearing a bustle, another contested arena of maturity. As with dress length, bustles came calibrated for age and sophistication, with the progression left to family decision. ‘‘Misses’’ bustles had two or three coils, while those allowed to older girls had four, and bustles for fancy wear sometimes had six.
In the incremental adoption of the marks of adulthood, some ages were more resonant than others. In Louisa May Alcott’s novels the age when childish high spirits must be put aside for young adulthood was fifteen. On the eve of Julia Newberry’s sixteenth birthday, she imagined herself saying farewell to childhood, for ‘‘when once a person is sixteen, though they are still very young, they can never be called, ‘child.’’’ Fond parents might grant girls freedom to ‘‘run wild’’ longer.
Frances Willard’s parents chose her seventeenth birthday as ‘‘the day of her martyrdom,’’ as she recorded it in her diary. ‘‘My ‘back’ hair is twisted up like a corkscrew; I carry eighteen hair-pins; my head aches miserably; my feet are entangled in the skirt of my hateful new gown. As for chasing sheep . . . it’s out of the question.’’ Altogether, Willard felt she had lost her ‘‘occupation’’ as a free-spirited and adventurous child. Emily Eliot was allowed to hold on longer, announcing on her nineteenth birthday, ‘‘It is so horrid to get out of your teens and when you are 20 you must leave girlhood behind you and become a woman. I like teens ever so much.’’
The age of eighteen seems to have borne the most cultural freight, though, indicating the time when a girl simultaneously came into possession of herself and became eligible for possession by someone else. If her parents martyred her at seventeen, at eighteen Frances Willard claimed her own destiny, if only in choosing her reading material, declaring: ‘‘I am eighteen—I am of age— I am now to do what I think is right.’’
In elite society, as well, eighteen was a common age for a girl to ‘‘come out’’ into society, and become eligible for courtship and marriage. Birthday gifts of money to serve as a dowry and of tokens befitting young ladyhood suggested these implications. A Paterson, New Jersey, manufacturer gave his daughter yellow roses and pinks ‘‘36 in all,’’ and Lucy Breckinridge’s father gave her $200. Margaret Tileston received a $1,000 savings bond from her grandfather, as well as the news that she would have a regular allowance, a privilege enjoyed earlier by some of her class. The age of eighteen in fact was often thought to be the conclusion of a process of growing up which had commenced years earlier.
Some fond—or negligent—parents demonstrated little relish even then for moving girls from carefree childhood to responsible adulthood. Such girls were lucky. Annie Cooper grew up the youngest daughter of a retired boat builder in what she described as a near-idyllic rural setting in eastern Long Island. When she turned eighteen in 1882, she still found herself enjoying exuberant girlhood. ‘‘I am still spared, well and happy, no care yet hath been put upon me, I am still a happy, joyous, merry, hearty, and healthy, school girl, girl of 16 in feeling, but eighteen in years.’’ In reflection, she imagined the consequences of her new age.
‘‘I can’t bear to think how fast my happy youth and childhood is slipping from me, that I soon will be too big to climb trees and ride horse back straddling, etc. yes, that in fact I am too big already, it makes me feel badly, for although I love the deeper and more sound stuff, yet too I love nature, in all its phases, I love the woods the air, the birds, the storms, the water, the animals of every description, and I love nature’s sports, and I feel that in advancing age I am getting too big to do with propriety all the sports which belong to nature.’’
Her concerns for propriety encouraged her to imagine cutting back her activity, but she felt reassured that some activities were still left to her. ‘‘Thank God who has given them to me, that I still can ride horse back and go boating as much as I please, with propriety, if I can not climb trees (in the front yard.)’’ Of course there was always the back yard, where it was clear that Annie Cooper would continue to retain the entitlements of a girlhood that she remembered in later days as being ‘‘full and rich and innocent and happy.’’
Yet for every such memory of girlhood seized and held, there were other memories of entrapment, of moments when the meaning of maturing was frozen in claustrophobic anxiety. One such memory was recorded by Elizabeth Coffin, writing about her girlhood in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in the 1890s:
I can never forget my first long dress. It had an overskirt, too, which was insult added to injury. I felt ‘tied and bound’ with it, and it seemed as if, on account of it, my old life with its care-free associations had come to an end. . . . When I found myself robed in it, with my pet dog Koko I went to the garden and told my story of woe to the great cornstalks, who I felt understood me as nothing else in nature did. It seemed to me that the cornstalks waved and bowed their heads in sympathy. . . . There would be no more boiling of corn in the old kettle, climbing trees, coasting with other girls and boys, hitching my sled to the backs of sleighs or romp- ing with the dogs. I was grown up now and serious duties were expected of me.
The donning of a long dress was only the beginning of more profound changes accompanying the arrival of adulthood. Girls used available explanatory systems to describe and acknowledge their metamorphosis into adulthood, often slipping into alternating romantic, social, familial, and spiritual narratives. In the early and midcentury, girls’ diaries strove for an appropriately spiritual analysis for such changes. Later in the century, girls were less reliably successful in finding religious justification for their states of mind in an environment of increasing religious skepticism. Whether successful or failed, however, girls’ spiritual quests encouraged them to scrutinize their emotional lives and provided them with the vocabulary to do so. Unlike the keeping of diaries, however, religious commitment often required a public profession, which brought private feeling into public display.
Agnes Lee’s 1850s journal described an intense malaise which evolved through several rhetorics of understanding until resting in a religious crisis. She first considered the possibility that she was homesick, and then wondered whether her longing was ‘‘to be loved, to be worshipped by something or someone?’’ Once out, this thought provided the occasion for a final resting point for the evening’s reveries. ‘‘No—that is sinful, silly and impossible. I hope, I pray my yearnings . . . may be for something holier higher than I have yet felt. . . . I am told and I know I can, I must find it in the bosom of my Saviour and only there. I have tried, but my heart seems shut up, it is so hard! . . . Some- times the awful thought comes to me, I am one of those who are never to be good—one of the doomed.’’ Agnes Lee’s progression, all documented in the pages of her journal, ended by dropping her in the center of a traditional and appropriate script for a girl her age, especially in the early to midcentury: the quest for a conversion experience.
By midcentury and beyond, the expectation of a moment of sudden epiphany had been muted a bit; it was no longer necessary to have a moment of mystical communion to signify an indwelling Christ. Nonetheless, the anticipation of a mature coming-to-God pervaded and sometimes shaped the experience of youth. Sometimes the signs were overt.
Emma Hidden got a severe case of chicken pox during her teenage years and nearly died. On January 28, 1869, she noted the anniversary of her illness. ‘‘One year ago today I was taken sick with chicken-pox—What changes has that year brought to me. One year ago I was so silly and thoughtless—and now I have a sweet hope of a change.’’ Several weeks later she gave thanks to God ‘‘that he has made me pass thro’ the fire to purify me.’’ The loss of ‘‘silly’’ girlhood through spiritual ‘‘change’’ was a clear formula which was applied in anticipation and description of religious commitment.
Ideally, a religious quest had institutional consequences. A religious experience was formalized by joining a church. Parents were centrally involved in encouraging, promoting, and celebrating this process as a critical part of their responsibilities. Sally Dana’s letters from seminary in the late 1850s made it clear that under her father’s oversight she was to have established a connection with a local minister, an acquaintance of her father’s, to facilitate her confirmation.
She wrote, ‘‘Has Mr. Wilmer said anything about me, I have not seen him to talk to for two weeks and that on Sunday a little while after church (he has been here to see me two or three times, since I have been here) but I feel as if I wanted to see him, or his wife more but, perhaps I expect too much of a minister.’’ Dana went on to ask ‘‘God my Father, Friend’’ ‘‘to give me strength that I may continue my efforts and not disappoint my very dear parent and friends.’’ Obligation and succor were reciprocal, with Sally Dana asking God for help so as not to disappoint her father, just as her father asked her to seek help from her local minister so as not to disappoint her God.
Perhaps as early as several weeks later (the year of this letter is not noted), Dana wrote about greater resolution to this crisis. Her letter commenced with a description of a calm joy and serenity. ‘‘Father, I cannot tell you what a pleasant day last Sunday was to me, particularly after church, and after talking with Mr. Wilmer a little while. I felt so quiet and calm and peaceful, I had my Bible lesson early and I had time to read a little and then. I really loved that Sunday I wish I could have others like it.’’
Dana’s description of her state of mind had particular significance, because it accompanied a moment of commitment: ‘‘I am so glad I can be confirmed, I look forward to it with pleasure, I think of it (if I can express my self right) as being a kind of shield and defense from the world and its lusts, as if I should be nearer my Saviour friend.’’ Sally Dana’s confession of religious calm and commitment to her father represented her fulfillment of youthful obligation to both earthly and heavenly father, even without a moment of spiritual epiphany.
If girls sought commitment at parental directive, they often experienced conversion within a youth cohort. Agnes Lee wrote lengthy journal entries about her personal and spiritual journey to God, seemingly an individual in- ternal odyssey out from under ‘‘an angry black cloud that [was] ever over me,’’ which left her feeling and acting ‘‘so strange.’’ This intensely spiritual experience did not happen in isolation, however, for ‘‘Annie, Mary, Ada and Annette took the same step.’’
Individual quests under parental guidance often took place in company—sometimes of family members, sometimes of school- mates, even sometimes in classes. When Sally Dana was attempting to pro- cess her confirmation, she noted that she ‘‘was not in any class yet,’’ an acknowledgment by the churches themselves that routes to salvation might run through education and preparation, rather than through the spontaneity of random epiphany.
…Professing faith, like being good, was emotional work which required the acquisition of appropriate feelings. Unlike the quiet display of pleasantness, though, loving God required girls to verbalize their feelings to parents, ministers, and congregations. Evangelical culture encouraged a language of feeling often embarrassing to girls still trying to get their emotional bearings. Annie Cooper had delayed until what she seemed to think was the last acceptable moment—the week of her twentieth birthday—perhaps partly because she found public acknowledgment of her faith to be excruciating.
When a minister asked Annie Cooper to help with a female prayer meeting, she was thrown into a panic. ‘‘Oh! my God! how can I? I do wish I could but have not the gift of ‘gab,’ I don’t see how I can. I, who can not even, to save my life, say a single word at home, how can I brake through the barriers of timidity and natural diffidence to such an extent as that?’’
Annie Cooper’s worries about her ability to articulate religious feeling came allied with worries of all kinds about her emotional depth, especially her ability to be the kind of understanding, helpful daughter who could assist her parents in their old age. Speaking about religion meant speaking sincerely about feelings; speaking about either constituted a substantial challenge to late-Victorian girls still trying to manage complex emotional protocols.
…By its very nature, the experience of religious conversion, or even the reconfirming of religious commitment, depended on private, personal feeling. What was at issue was not what or how much you knew, or how you acted, but instead what you felt. However, unlike most other circumstances, in which private feeling was appropriately closeted in one’s heart, religious profession meant speaking of that feeling in a compelling way. Just when girlhood’s lessons had been learned, religious profession required that they be overturned in a potentially embarrassing confession of religious enthusiasm. Coming in the context of a life defined by being good and subordinating selfish desires, such public self-revelation was anathema.
…To the extent that Victorian parents and advisers demanded religious profession, they were asking that girls look deep inside themselves and come up with something profound, sincere, pure, and winning. This, of course, was what girls brought to romantic relationships as well, an alliance that brought possibility as well as danger. One mother explained to her constrained daughter the relationship between religious and romantic spontaneity, suggesting that the expression of religious feeling might itself lead to more genuine communion with those around—perhaps even a more direct route into the hearts of men.
Though they may be ‘‘apparently thoughtless young men,’’ Ella Lyman wrote, a woman’s ‘‘carrying into life the life-giving idea’’ might lead men to ‘‘show their best deepest side and one immediately establishes real trust and friendship.’’ With a young woman’s expression of religious sensibility might come the realization of oneness, ‘‘that we are God’s own children with one aim one hope one aspiration.’’
But this experience of spiritual and romantic oneness was just what Annie Winsor’s mother feared. Ann Winsor put off the matter of her daughter’s soul until just a few weeks before Annie’s twentieth birthday. At that point she sent a letter of gentle inquiry to her daughter at college, revealing her sticking point: a need to reassure herself about the role of feeling in her daughter’s life.
Although she urged Annie to express religious enthusiasm, she feared feelings of other kinds, warning about the lamentable career of George Eliot, another intellectual daughter. George Eliot’s extramarital affair with George Lewes gave Ann pause. Without ‘‘clear sight to guide it, and strict ‘puritan’ principle to strengthen it,’’ such feeling could lead a girl directly into the biggest kind of moral trouble.
The cultural critic Nancy Armstrong has argued that the development of a specifically feminine identity in nineteenth-century England rested on the construction of a psychologized, feminine protagonist in the romantic novel. According to Armstrong, the drama of the domestic heroine lay in the richness and the interest of her feelings and her sensibility, not in the interplay of bold actions on a large stage.
What Armstrong’s theory overlooks, which was especially significant in the United States, is the central role that the search for a religious self played in the development of a feeling and romantic self of any kind. Not all advisers agreed about the need for girls to demonstrate engaged spirituality. Some moralists feared excessive piety in the same way that they feared sensational fiction: it might divert girls from their little duties at home.
…The expectation that girls speak about religion, like the expectation that girls like or dislike books, was a cultural demand that girls have and then be able to communicate an interior, private being. When girls like Ellen Regal, daughter of an itinerant minister in Michigan added ‘‘secret divotion’’ to her attendance at family worship and her memorizing of the Bible, she was exercising a private, personalized religion which would pay dividends in the development of an enriched sense of self. Girls’ reservations in speaking about such a private subject as religion revealed their discomfort in speaking about, or perhaps even in having, feelings they could trust and report on. Once mastered, though, religious profession might lead to emotional assertions of other kinds.”
- Jane H. Hunter, “Interiors: Bodies, Souls, Moods.” in How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins of American Girlhood
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( * 💀 / aria shahghasemi, cis man, he / him ) — is that alastor moody i just saw rushing down the corridor ? i hear they’re a twenty-one year old hufflepuff, returning for their seventh school year, but their friends would tell you that they are protective & astute as well as paranoid & disagreeable. if you want to know more about them, i guess i could tell you that they’re pureblood, and from what i hear, they’re currently allying with the order. when our divination professor looks into their crystal ball, they see: a well-worn journal, locked & spelled shut; empty firewhisky bottles lined up along the windowsill; dark circles beneath suspicious eyes; the fading shadow of youthful bravado; a supple leather coat that still smells like home. — ( kit, she / they, 23, cet. )
tw — parental death ( murder ), assault & violence, mourning, alcohol mentions, allusions to mental health issues & addiction, hospital mentions.
basics ,
full name. alastor jawed moody.
known as. alastor, moody, al only to select friends.
age / date of birth. twenty-one / september 19th, 1958.
year. seventh year.
blood status. pureblood.
house. hufflepuff.
alliance. the order.
gender / pronouns. cis man, he / him.
orientation. bisexual.
extracurriculars. beater for the hufflepuff quidditch team; member of the charms and toothill duelling clubs.
additional stats. click here.
pinterest. click here.
early life ,
alastor moody is born at home, in a small brick house by the seaside that has been in the family for generations; the yard is quaint, if somewhat overgrown, the wooden window frames spiderwebbed and peeling white paint, the chimney billowing smoke in the winters. although he often longs for a sibling, he remains an only child all his life. at the time of his birth, his parents are early in their careers as aurors, and thoughful, foresightful people above all; with their demanding schedules they think no more than one child is best. it’s not a terrible decision, by any means, and there is enough love in the household to go around.
he is raised with strong values, and a strong sense of duty, family, and respect; he is made aware of the weight of the world at a young age. or, his parents try to impress this upon him, making the world appear darker and heavier than it seems to the young boy. he loves and respects his parents, but he tends to disregard their warnings, to play more recklessly than they might like.
although his parents always make time for the shabbat, for birthdays and holidays, their job is by necessity demanding, and alastor learns independence at a young age. an only child, he longs for meaningful friendships, but struggles to make friends with muggle children in the village; instead, though he does his best, he spends much of his time alone or with children of his parents’ friends.
he thinks almost all his life that he is ready for death. it was a simple and honest truth in the moody household that their work, though important and necessary, was dangerous. he sees narrow brushes with danger all his young life, accompanying his parents to too many funerals to count; he learns protection charms before he learns to tie his shoes. and so he thinks of death as a family friend, a familiar acquaintance, and foolishly pats himself on the back for being so well-adjusted, for accepting reality instead of fearing it.
hogwarts ,
when he first arrives at hogwarts, he is calm, unassuming; he doesn’t arrive, like so many purebloods do, with the weight of countless expectations upon his shoulders. nor does he feel like he is escaping some restriction, and finally free; if anything, he is less independent here, under the watchful eyes of prefects and professors, and he grates a little against rules he thinks are foolish or unnecessary.
when it’s his turn to be sorted, the sorting hat only hesitates for a moment between gryffindor and hufflepuff; he is brave, yes, fearless to the point of recklessness, but when the hat poses the question, all alastor can do is shrug. his mother was a slytherin, his father a hufflepuff, and so he doesn’t really mind either way; he knows who he is, regardless of what house colors he wears, and that is enough for the sorting hat to know where he belongs.
he fits in well in hufflepuff, but doesn’t restrict himself to just that; he’s never felt particularly inclined to draw harsh lines in the sand, and makes friends across houses and even years. it helps that his name commands some respect — not from some purebloods, who sneer and consider him and his family all blood traitors, but from the rest, who read the headlines about aurors apprehending dark wizards and are pleased.
in his second year, though, the headlines change. he is called out of history of magic class — something he had almost enjoyed, at the time, and still hates himself for — and brought to the headmaster’s office, where he’s made to wait until his mother arrives. he’s sixteen when he hears of his father’s death, and it feels like the unshakeable world comes crashing in. he thinks he can prepare for death, steel himself against the pain and struggle through mourning with a straight spine and dry eyes, but he’s a fool, and just a boy at that.
he’s outgrown his childhood funeral suit, so he wears his father’s mourning robes to the funeral; they’re well-worn, mended at the hems, and alastor finds two knuts and a sickle in the pockets. he leans on his mother, and she leans on him, and she seems both stronger and more vulnerable than he’s ever seen her. they sit shiva together, the two of them in their little seaside home. alastor’s always felt distant from the muggle locals and neighbors, friendly but unable to connect, but they show up all the same. in twos and threes they arrive with their food, condolences, well-wishes, their offers to weed the yard or pick up groceries for the mourning family; it’s their good will that helps the moodys through their grief, more than the ministry’s stiff condolences and posthumous honours.
he returns to hogwarts changed; more anxious, more wary. his heart leaps in his throat every time he receives a letter, fearful it will be news of his mother’s death. he grows harder, less tolerant of snide anti-muggle comments even when they’re almost innocuous. he’s always been a relatively serious boy, but now he hardly laughs at all, and when he does, there’s a bite to it. he excels in school, working doubly hard, already certain he must become an auror and insistent upon achieving it, but there’s no pride in it, no competition; he just knows what needs to be done.
but as months turn to years the passing time lulls him into a false sense of security; at some point, the pain of loss turns from a sharp agony to an ever-present but dull ache. alastor joins the quidditch team, the duelling club ( where he quickly gains a formidable reputation ), has his first of many hogsmeades dates, and feels, foolishly, that life might simply carry on, without too much effort on his behalf. even as war brews on the horizon he assures himself it will be an easy victory, that strength and righteousness will always win out. he prepares, but with a youthful foolishness; he thinks this might be the chance to avenge his father, to protect the weak, to prove himself a warrior.
the summer between his sixth and seventh year, his mother is so busy she’s barely in the house; when she is, it’s never long before she’s called to yet another meeting, yet another raid. he visits her office often, tea and sandwiches in tow, memorizing the names and faces that are pinned up around the auror office, the most wanted, the suspected conspirators, the known associates. the writing is on the wall: danger approaches. the house is reinforced, protection charms everywhere, locks re-spelled, alarms at all entrances, but at the same time, life goes on.
it’s a rare evening when the two of them are home together, barbecuing kebab in the yard in the late summer sun, a moment of peace among all the concern. they share a bottle of firewhiskey, reminiscing, and laughing together, and making plans to weed the front yard, paint the window frames, and mend the fence — helpful little things alastor can do over the summer while his mother is so very busy at work.
he crawls into bed drunk and at peace, thinking about paint swatches, warm breeze through the open window, the cat curled up at the foot of his bed — and startles awake hours later, still half-drunk to the sound of crashing, glass shattering, the very foundations of the house trembling. the smell of something burning rises from the stairs, and despite his fear he jumps up instantly. there are death eaters in the house ( alastor counts four but thinks there may have been more ), in their black robes and silver masks, and by the time he’s halfway down the stairs his mother is already dead. he fights back as well as he can, but he’s alone, unprepared, and is hit with a curse before he can do much of anything.
they leave him there, unconscious in the slow-smoking ruins of the sitting room. something about not unnecessarily spilling pure blood, and he’s only a boy, and clearly no threat. he is awakened as other aurors arrive, his parents’ colleagues and friends, and he’s so out of sorts he must be petrified and sedated before he can be taken to st. mungos. this time, he is drunk at the funeral, hiding red eyes behind sunglasses, and he sits his shiva alone, permitting no visitors. he takes what he needs from home: clothes, books, heirlooms, the sneakoscope and foe glass and his father’s old coat, and leaves, renting a room at the leaky cauldron for the rest of the summer.
he returns to hogwarts changed once more; furious, pained, burning the candle at both ends trying to find a way to win a war that hasn’t even truly started yet.
personality , hcs , etc. ,
alastor has always been confident, wavering between self-assured and simply cocky, depending on who you ask. he was raised to respect and value everyone, and that includes himself, but he has always also thought of himself as a little more clued in, a little more worldly, than most others. this is in part because his parents confronted him with the reality of the world at quite a young age, and in part because of the horrors he has himself witnessed. although he isn’t usually a dick about it, he does tend to think he’s the most aware, clued in person in the room, or the only one who really knows how the world works.
he’s also quite concerned with projecting the image of strength, not because he’s really that concerned with what other people think, but more because he believes pretty strongly in the whole ‘fake it till ya make it’ idea, and feels like showing weakness means you are weak. plus it makes you a target.
has a fat orange cat named fried egg, or just fry for short; she’s four years old, and the grandchild of the same cat his father had when he was at hogwarts. she’s a hellish little demon cat who does her best to catch rats, frogs, small owls, bowtruckles, bag charms, and pretty much anything else she can get her little paws on. can and will claim a whole couch in the common room by stretching out right in the middle. if there’s a small dead creature in the hufflepuff common room or dorms you know who to blame.
alastor enjoys quidditch, but isn’t particularly competitive; he likes playing beater as it’s a pretty good release for aggression. he plays an aggressive match especially against slytherins, and will more use quidditch as an outlet for his personal vendettas, rather than that it informs them. absolutely fearless on the pitch, and has broken multiple bones, including his nose. don’t play chicken with him, he can and will run straight into you just to prove a point.
although he’s something of a duelling prodigy ( or rather, he’s been well trained since a young age ) and excels at defense against the dark arts and transfiguration, alastor’s top favorite class is care of magical creatures. he just thinks they’re neat. is he a bit of a dragon fanboy ? maybe so.
deeply paranoid, suspicious, and untrusting, especially now. he keeps a notebook of notes, newspaper clippings, observations and overheard conversations, helpful spells and countercurses, and a running list of which classmates and families he suspects of being death eaters, and of which students he fears might become targets. it’s well-spelled to keep out prying eyes, but you can often find him scribbling in it when he should be taking notes in class.
more to be added !
plots ,
just wanted to say first of all that i love plotting, hc’ing, brainstorming, etc. so please hit me up ! if nothing here works i’m super happy to think of something else. also, every single one of these is open to all genders unless specified ! i also especially love plotting based on other connections ( i.e. muse a and muse b are friends, muse b and muse c are exes, therefore muse a and muse c do not get along, or smth ) idk i just have a lot of ideas !
best friends. any house, but preferably for seventh years ? should be either order aligned or neutral but sympathetic to the order. these would be the very few people in the world alastor is still somewhat vulnerable around, and the few who can still get him to smile these days. also the only people he will take any shit from. the people he considers family, now that he has none of his own left.
other order members. the options here are so many ! people who fully share his convictions and with whom he can share his theories, who problem-solve and discuss together. people ( particularly muggleborns or younger students ) whom alastor feels very protective of and worried about. can be annoying and overbearing or he’s just keeping an eye on them from a distance, or maybe helping them train. or people who are in the order but whom alastor doesn’t trust; pretty much any pureblood / slytherin / anyone with death eater family would fall under this. lots of options !
family friends. alastor’s parents were very well-respected in the wizarding community, upstanding citizens, well-known and talented aurors, and all around good people; they could have gone to hogwarts with your muse’s parents or otherwise gotten to know them from work or through pretty much any other avenue ! this could go a few different ways, either they can be good long-term childhood friends, or perhaps they never got along but had to suck it up because their parents were friends, etc.
enemies. listen, i’m sure alastor has a ton of these ! gimme all the baby death eaters, slytherins, and pureblood supremacists. or even just characters who are just neutral but tangentially related to anyone who might be a death eater. alastor doesn’t discriminate between hatefulness and cowardice, it’s all the same to him: two sides of the same self-serving coin that gets other people killed. he can and will cause problems for them on purpose. absolutely will not hesitate to cause physical injury, or curse someone if they are out of line; you use the word mudblood in his presence and he can and will hex your tongue in a knot or, idk, turn you into a ferret.
people involved in his family’s deaths. ok this would definitely be quite a heavy plot and would need to be discussed quite a bit, but i think it could be neat ? alastor’s father died in the line of duty and may or may not have been targeted, but his mother was explicitly killed by death eaters because of the threat she posed. that could have been your muse’s death eater parents, or the hit could have been part of your character’s death eater initiation ( and maybe even the reason why al was allowed to live ? idk man just gimme the drama ) but either way ! alastor is investigating, angry, suspicious, and there will be hell to pay if he figures it out. think it could b a cute terrible dramatic plot.
exes. gimme a handful of these, with a bit of variety, please, i love them. something short-lived and intense over the course of one semester, that ends when one or both of them gets a little too far into their feelings ! something sweet and quaint in their early years, with first little hogsmeade dates and hand-holding ! a former fwb thing with bad communication that falls apart and leaves them both with some hard feelings ! good friends that think they have feelings for each other, date for two weeks, and then give it up and go back to just being pals ! honestly especially when he was slightly younger and less paranoid, depressed, etc. alastor was definitely weak as fuck for a pretty face.
the one bad ex-ish. listen i just very specifically love the idea of alastor having some insanely intense chemistry with a death eater aligned character, that enemies to lovers ( who are still definitely enemies ) vibe. every time they hook up they both regret it intensely, and are to embarrassed to ever tell their friends. they both kinda think they hate the other person, and know they’re on different sides of a brewing war, but also. brain empty very sexy.
crushes / unrequited / un-acted-upon feelings. ok listen, correct me if i’m wrong, call me out, etc. but alastor’s a whole 6′2″ of broad shoulders, gorgeous hair, green eyes, he’s all tall dark and handsome and also tortured, also a quidditch player, intimidating, etc. and i love the idea of people having crushes on him bc he’d be either annoyed or oblivious and that amuses me greatly. what a man tbh. also love the idea of him having feelings for someone, perhaps even over a longer period of time, but absolutely not wanting to tell them bc he has a bit of a martyr complex, is afraid of losing the people he loves, and also thinks he’s no good and gonna get them killed ! also could just be someone he had a crush on earlier and no longer does, but still thinks they’re just incredibly cool and admires them. could go lots of ways tbh.
study buddy. so, honestly, alastor’s not concerned that much with school beyond needing the qualifications to become an auror. this would probably be someone with similar aspirations/goals; someone who wants to get the grade but spends more time researching obscure defensive spells and countercurses and hex reversals which will never be on the test, because those are ultimately more important. they both just help support each other academically to make sure they get where they need to be, and practice and work on more advanced combat magic together as well.
neighbors. kind of, not really ? after his mother’s death alastor’s been living in a rented room in diagon alley, avoiding his family home at all costs. this could be someone who either lives there or in london more generally who he keeps running into over that summer. he’s probably deeply unpleasant particularly at that time so forgive him in advance pls.
drinking buddies. does alastor have a drinking problem ? maybe. but he also has much, much bigger problems he has to solve first, hence the drinking. he’ll manage just fine on his own too, but that doesn’t mean it’s not nice to sit in relative silence next to someone. he prefers the quiet and general Bad Vibes at the hog’s head over the three broomsticks, but isn’t that picky.
duelling rival. a member of the duelling club who alastor absolutely hates, and who hates him. they absolutely drive each other to perform better and push each other hard, but that’s not because they’re trying to help the other improve; it’s because when they duel they are actually straight up trying to kill each other, while making it seem like an accident.
#revelio.intro#⧽ constant vigilance ∖ development .#parental death tw /#death tw /#murder tw /#alcoholism tw /#assault tw /#mourning tw /#wow lots of tags for this one oops#also this is ... not great and def will be edited/added to but i just wanted to get smth out so i can also get started plotting !
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Wizards Hearts Recs: Angst
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!
📜 remember me by hupsoonheng
Rated: Teen and Up
Words: 31082
Tags: Amnesia, Temporary Amnesia, Obliviation, Established Relationship, Established Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Legilimency, Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Reformed Draco Malfoy, POV Draco Malfoy, Good Draco Malfoy, Gardens & Gardening, Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending, POV Harry Potter
Summary: On a chilly day in October, Draco kisses Harry goodbye before he goes on yet another dangerous, undercover mission with the Aurors.
And then Harry doesn't come back.
Only Draco believes that Harry isn't dead, and pours himself into finding his husband despite his friends' pleas to move on and grieve properly. What he finds at the end of that work, though, is not at all what he wanted.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 you've got the antidote for me by Kandakicksass
Rated: Mature
Words: 20730
Tags: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Soul Bond, Red String of Fate, Heavy Angst, Terminal Illnesses, Major Illness, Angst with a Happy Ending
Summary: When Harry Potter unintentionally severs their soulbond before it can fully form, Draco Malfoy resigns himself to a slow death and decides not to burden Harry with a soulmate he's made it very clear he doesn't want.
He's never been selfless before, but for Harry, he can try.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Every Breath You Take by hephaestiions
Rated: Mature
Words: 19252
Tags: Major Character Death, Death (Harry Potter), Suicide, Child Death, Miscommunication, Angst, Angst and Tragedy
Summary: It starts and ends with Death.
Scorpius was just caught in between. Like always.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Between Myth and Man by slytherco
Rated: Explicit
Words: 16242
Tags: Veritaserum, Truth Serum, Mundane, London, Falling In Love, Lies, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, This whole story is just Draco angsting really, Sexual Content, keeping secrets, Smoking, Bad Weather, References to Drugs, Making Out, One (1) Scared Little Sparrow, And also lots of texting
Summary: Draco, lost and a little broken, navigates post-war reality convinced that people like him should not be allowed to make their own choices. To solve the problem of his self-sabotaging tendencies, he starts taking a few drops of Veritaserum every morning.
A story about the complexity of choices, repressed desires that come to the surface when we least expect them, and the utter hopelessness of truths built on a foundation of lies.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Three Boxes and a Scrapbook by dracogotgame
Rated: Mature
Words: 30493
Tags: mention of divorce, flangst, Bill is a bro
Summary: One year after being accidentally bonded to each other, Harry and Draco are free to move on with their lives. But perhaps, what they needed was here all along.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Intertwined by bluefay
Rated: Explicit
Words: 25086
Tags: Memory Loss, Memory Alteration, Accidental Bonding, Magic Gone Wrong, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Malfoy Manor, Self-Harm, Dark Mark (Harry Potter), Serious Injuries, But they're not very graphic so don't fret!, Self-Hatred, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Established Relationship, Sort Of, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Blow Jobs, Hate Sex, Childhood Trauma ,Flashbacks, St Mungo's Hospital, Sharing a Bed, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Time, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020
Summary: On May 3rd, 1998, Draco Malfoy wakes up with no memory of Voldemort, the war, or Harry Potter, his supposed boyfriend.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 I Am Not Who I Became by mab_di
Rated: Explicit
Words: 93189
Tags: H/D Fan Fair 2019, Secondary Theme: Travel Fair, Secondary Theme: Book Fair, Commercial Fisherman Draco Malfoy, Failed Writer Harry Potter, Depressed Harry Potter, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Muscular Draco Malfoy, Recluse Harry Potter, Angst, Smut, Drama & Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Wandless Magic, Boats and Ships, Finland (Country), Fishing, Redemption, School Reunion, Minor Draco Malfoy/Original Male Character(s), Anal Sex, Rough Sex, Sex Magic, Suicidal Thoughts, Near Death Experiences, Magical Theory, POV Alternating
Summary: Draco left England after the trials and has travelled the world meeting wizards and Muggles from different cultures and with vastly different relationships to magic, each other, and the natural world. Now he's a fisherman in Finland on commercial vessels. Harry has been struggling since the war and has become a recluse while trying to write his autobiography. An invitation to the Hogwarts class of 1998's 15th reunion isn't welcomed by either of them, but neither could predict how the night, and their reunion, will upend their lives.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 When I Put My Eyes On You by Zzzara
Rated: Explicit
Words: 31160
Tags: Blindness, Blind Character, Blind Harry Potter, Disability, Physical Disability, Disabled Character, Slow Burn, Falling In Love, Love, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, Dorks in Love, Friendship/Love, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Requited Unrequited Love, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Amortentia, Potions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt, Emotions, Emotional, Emotional Roller Coaster, Pining, Pining Harry Potter, Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Developing Friendships, Romantic Friendship, Best Friends, Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter Friendship, POV Harry Potter, Patronus, Spells & Enchantments, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Jealousy, Jealous Harry Potter, Male Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Spin the Bottle, Halloween, Party, Party Games, Mistletoe, Kissing, Surprise Kissing, Boys Kissing, Rough Kissing, Drunken Kissing, Gentle Kissing, Boys In Love, Drinking, Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, First Time, Explicit Sexual Content, Sex, Gay Sex, Hand Jobs, Emotional Sex, Awkward First Times, Sleeping Together, Literal Sleeping Together, Dancing, Showers, Masturbation in Shower, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Resolved Sexual Tension, Dreams, Fantasizing, Desire, Self-Esteem Issues, Substance Abuse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending, Lights Camera Drarry 2020, Lights Camera Drarry, LCDrarry, LCD - Freeform, The Way he looks, film inspired, Self-Prompt, Healing
Summary: When a hero defeats a villain, there's supposed to be a happily-ever-after... but when did anything ever happen to Harry Potter the way it was supposed to? Having sacrificed himself to the greater good, Harry is left alone in the darkness, blindly groping for the shreds of the life he knew. When the enemies meet, how is the story supposed to go, once they learn there's more to it than the eye can see? A story of pain, hope and things we discover, once we stop looking for them with our eyes.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 You open always (petal by petal) by birdsofshore
Rated: Explicit
Words: 65214
Tags: Post War, Rent Boy!Draco, Down-And-Out!Draco, Grimmauld Place, House magic, Portraits, First Times, Antagonism, Hurt/Comfort, Coming Out, Pining, Angst, UST, Kissing, Frotting, Blow Jobs, Rimming, Intergluteal Sex, Anal Sex, Homophobic Slurs And Attitudes, Internalised Homophobia, Derogatory Attitudes To Sex Workers, Some Mentions Of Sadistic Violence, Brief Thoughts Of Sexual Activity With A Sleeping Partner, Rough Sex, Brief Mention Of Harry With A Woman (Past Relationship), Mentions Of Dubious Consent In Connection With Sex Work, Community: hd_erised, Inexperienced Harry, Top Harry Potter, House Elves, Masturbation
Summary: Harry’s not the kind of person who pays for sex. He really isn’t. Until he is.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Solder by Oakstone730
Rated: Explicit
Words: 34547
Tags: potion/alcohol addiction, Recovery, Nipple Play, Rimming, Dirty Talk, Angst, PiningUST, Reconciliation, LoveForgiveness, Cursebreaker!Draco, Artist!Harry
Summary: Seven years ago, Harry disappeared out of Draco and Scorpius's life without a trace after Harry's addictions destroyed his and Draco's marriage. Now, Harry’s back, and Draco wants to believe he’s changed. But Harry isn’t the only one haunted by the past.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Three Months, Eleven Days and Nine Hours by sassy_cissa
Rated: Teen and Up
Words: sassy_cissa
Tags: H/D Food Fair 2018, Angst, Romance, Paroled Draco Malfoy, Rebuilding Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy/, Harry Potter Friendship, Down and Out Draco Malfoy, Food Forager Draco Malfoy, Soup Kitchens, Happy Ending, Post-Hogwarts, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hungry Draco Malfoy
Summary: Broke and living in a one room hovel in Knockturn Alley, Draco hunts in rubbish bins for food. Nothing could be more humiliating, right? Unless you're Draco Malfoy...
❤️ 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
📜 Wake Up In The Night by p1013
Rated: Explicit
Words: 10483
Tags: Angst with a Happy Ending, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Explicit Sexual Content, Face-Fucking, Public Sex, Blow Jobs, Versatile Draco Malfoy, Versatile Harry Potter, Anal Sex, Rimming, Anal Fingering, Dirty Talk, Facials, 69 (Sex Position), Coming Untouched, Love Confessions, Curses, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Drinking, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, POV Draco Malfoy, Voyeurism, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020, Emotional Manipulation
Summary: In the days after the War ended, there were a great many things that were changed or changing, a great many things that somehow slipped beneath the notice of Ministry officials and healers from St. Mungo's and Aurors that were tasked with capturing fleeing Death Eaters. It was, after all, the end of the War, and much like war itself, the clean up was heartbreaking. Lives had been lost. The world as they knew it had been changed irrevocably. In the grand scheme of things, there were more important things to worry about than Draco Malfoy's sudden, inexplicable inability to feel love.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Coated in Rust and Blood by crazyparakiss
Rated: Mature
Words: 2429
Tags: Mpreg, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy, Break Up, Post-Break Up, Angst, Violent Sex, Self-Hatred, Grief/Mourning, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020
Summary: No one escapes the nightmares. That’s what his headshrinker tells Harry every time he tries to unpack the baggage he was handed from infancy.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Here Without You by gracerene
Rated: Explicit
Words: 26869
Tags: Post-Hogwarts, War, Canon-Typical Violence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Death, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Background Het, Non-Linear Narrative, Flashbacks, Epistolary, Love Letters, Dirty Letters, An Ode to Draco's Bum, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Top Harry Potter, Implied Switching, Auror Harry Potter, Healer Draco Malfoy, Explosions, Harry Potter & Parvati Patil Friendship, Loneliness, Denial, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020
Summary: It's been seven years since the end of the Second Wizarding War with Voldemort, and a new Dark Lady has taken over in nearby Ireland. Harry feels compelled to volunteer to fight on the front lines, but war is never safe, and Harry has a lot—including his blissfully happy relationship with Draco—to lose.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Orion in the Sky by space_wingding
Rated: Explicit
Words: 30709
Tags: Bookshop Owner Draco Malfoy, Coffee, Village life, Slow Burn, Pining, Denial, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Jigsaw Puzzles, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Post-Hogwarts, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Harry Potter, Fatal Curse, Serious Injuries, Suicidal Thoughts, Hospitalization, Death, Character Death, Unhappy Ending, St Mungo's Hospital, Grief, mentions of anal sex, Chronic or Terminal Illness, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020
Summary: Draco Malfoy owns a bookshop in the Lake District. He’s also cursed. Enter: Harry Potter.
❤️ Read on AO3
📜 Forgot to remember you by Andithiel
Rated: Mature
Words: 1753
Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Auror Partners, Magical Accidents, Memory Loss, Partial Memory Loss, Getting Together, DreamsPining, Light Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drarropoly 2.0 - A Drarry Game/Fest, Rated M for language, There's not any real stuff going on
Summary: Harry was hit with a spell that made him forget the week before he was hurt. Most of his memories have come back, but he has a niggling suspicion that he did something wrong. Why else would his Auror partner (and the object of his desires) go from friendly to hostile?
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📜 On the Last Day by trishjames
Rated: Explicit
Words: 53481
Tags: Mystery, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Unreliable Narrator, Drama, Dramatic Irony, Flashbacks, Non-Linear Flashbacks, Memory Loss, Horror Elements, Suicidal Ideation, Depression, Occlumency (Harry Potter), Occlumency as a Coping Mechanism, Panic Attacks, Discussion and Depiction of Mini Seizures, mention of overdoses, Revenge, Repression, Science, Neurology & Neuroscience, Neurological damage, Medicine, Potions, Original Characters - Freeform, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Somewhat Bond!Fic, Strong Friendships, Strong Women, Maternal love, Department of Mysteries, Unspeakables (Harry Potter), The Love Chamber, The Death Chamber, Death Potion, Amortentia, The Veil, Near Death Experiences, Souls, Major character death - Freeform, Death, forced drugging, Mind Control (Imperio), Murder, Vomit, Medical Procedures, Consent, Amoral Behaviour, Unethical Behaviour, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Possession, Ghost Sex, True Love Conquers All, ghost!harry, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Auror Harry Potter, Unspeakable/Scientist Hermione Granger, Unspeakable/Scientist Draco Malfoy, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020, Psst...angst with a happy ending..
Summary: Draco is still mourning the recent loss of his mother when the Wizarding World is struck with the tragic news of Harry Potter’s untimely death. It’s just his luck that Potter not only comes back as a ghost, but seems intent on haunting Draco as he’s the only one that can see him. It’s a race against time to retrace the last few days of Potter’s life in order to find his body before he’s lost to the living or spiritual realm forever. On their journey, they’ll uncover secrets, betrayals, and a horrific truth that will disrupt both the living and the dead.
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📜 Poland | A Faint Glow of Hope by EvAEleanor
Rated: Mature
Words: 6123
Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Summer Solstice, Solstice, Curses, Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Ron Weasley, Healer Hermione Granger, Herbology Professor Neville Longbottom, Angst, Flowers, Slavic mythology, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Mythology References. Folklore, poland - Freeform, POV Draco Malfoy, Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, Community: Seven Shades of Drarry
Summary: On Draco’s 25th birthday, somebody attempts to curse him, but Harry Potter jumps between them and is hit instead, with unexpected consequences. Potter is running out of time, and they both embark on a race against time to find the only cure that could save Harry. Little do they know they will need to face a myriad of magical creatures and their own feelings on the way.
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📜 Grounds for Divorce by Tepre
Rated: Explicit
Words: 122217
Tags: Slow Burn, Pining, UST, Anal Sex, brief but all the same enthusiastic rimming, One (1) lemon tree, Accidental Bonding, And I mean like U! S! T!, Jealousy, Deals with Trauma, They both top at some point, ron is a good friend, Draco is a Good Cook, Dubious Consent due to the Accidental Bonding, The actual SLOWEST burn, Hurt/Comfort, Have I mentioned UST? Cannot overstate this it's like A LOT, First there's frottage, And then there's more sex, Anal Fingering, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, and just a lot of sex, sex on a bed, sex in the shower, sex on the floor, Sex on a settee, In other news they go to Egypt, Teddy is a Small Bean, There is one (1) cat, and one (1) happy ending
Summary: Malfoy finds a coin. Harry finds a letter.
A story about histories, a story about families. A story about a lemon tree somewhere in Upper Egypt.
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📜 At Evening's End by manixzen
Rated: Explicit
Words: 31055
Tags: Pre-Relationship, Angst, Azkaban, Hurt/Comfort, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Slow Burn, Post-Hogwarts, Friendship, Past Child Abuse, Enemies to Friends, Auror Harry Potter, Inmate Draco Malfoy, Prison, Auror Ron Weasley
Summary: When the dementors are removed from Azkaban, a compromise has to be made for the prison to remain secure and wizard-kind to feel safe. Harry and Ron find themselves assigned to a rotation as guards during their first year as Junior Aurors as a part of the new system. Harry finds his values challenged in the harsh environment, but an unexpected friendship may carry him through this difficult year.
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📜 all you ever did was wreck me by SailorChibi
Rated: Mature
Words: 10807
Tags: Post-Hogwarts, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, draco has PTSD, Harry has PTSDN, ightmares, Animagus, Harry is an animagus, prison break - Freeform, Touch-Starved, affection starved, Fear of Death, fear of touch, touch repulsed, Trauma, Aftermath of Torture, harry doesn't want anyone else to die, harry is very angry at the world, Protective Harry, harry had to grow up too soon, Possessive Harry, harry wants to protect draco, house arrest, Ministry of Magic, ministry of magic has gone power hungry, Fear of Magic, draco is scared of magic, it's been used for too much evil, Draco Malfoy Feels, Sad Draco Malfoy, Protective Draco Malfoy, Sharing a Bed, platonically sharing a bed, First Kiss, Hugging, Cuddling, Platonic Cuddling, Harry Potter is a Good Friend, death is scary, Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Endingh, appyish ending, might be a little bittersweet, but it will be ok I swear
Summary: After the war, the Ministry decides to make a clean go of it and sentences all Death Eaters to death. After a year spent imprisoned beneath the Ministry, with his mother safely in France, his father dead and only the Aurors who hate him for "company", Draco is waiting for his time to die.
Harry gets to him first.
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From Joe Morice, daughters in 8th & 10th grade in Fairfax County Public Schools' Centreville Pyramid:
To our fellow FCPS families—this is it gang: 5 days until the 2 days in school vs. 100% virtual decision. Let’s talk it out, in my traditional mammoth TL/DR form.
Like all of you, I’ve seen my feed become a flood of anxiety and faux expertise. You’ll get no presumption of expertise here. This is how I am looking at and considering this issue and the positions people have taken in my feed and in the hundred or so FCPS discussion groups that have popped up. The lead comments in quotes are taken directly from my feed and those boards. Sometimes I try to rationalize them. Sometimes I’m just punching back at the void.
Full disclosure, we initially chose the 2 days option and are now having serious reservations. As I consider the positions and arguments I see in my feed, these are where my mind goes. Of note, when I started working on this piece at 12:19 PM today the COVID death tally in the United States stood at 133,420.
“My kids want to go back to school.”
I challenge that position. I believe what the kids desire is more abstract. I believe what they want is a return to normalcy. They want their idea of yesterday. And yesterday isn’t on the menu.
“I want my child in school so they can socialize.”
This was the principle reason for our 2 days decision. As I think more on it though, what do we think ‘social’ will look like? There aren’t going to be any lunch table groups, any lockers, any recess games, any study halls, any sitting next to friends, any talking to people in the hallway, any dances. All of that is off the menu. So, when we say that we want the kids to benefit from the social experience, what are we deluding ourselves into thinking in-building socialization will actually look like in the Fall?
“My kid is going to be left behind.”
Left behind who? The entire country is grappling with the same issue, leaving all children in the same quagmire. Who exactly would they be behind? I believe the rhetorical answer to that is “They’ll be behind where they should be,” to which I’ll counter that “where they should be” is a fictional goal post that we as a society have taken as gospel because it maps to standardized tests which are used to grade schools and counties as they chase funding.
“Classrooms are safe.”
At the current distancing guidelines from FCPS middle and high schools would have no more than 12 people (teachers + students) in a classroom (I acknowledge this number may change as FCPS considers the Commonwealth’s 3 ft with a mask vs. 6 ft position, noting that FCPS is all mask regardless of the distance). For the purpose of this discussion we’ll say classes run 45 minutes.
I posed the following question to 40 people today, representing professional and management roles in corporations, government agencies, and military commands: “Would your company or command have a 12 person, 45 minute meeting in a conference room?”
100% of them said no, they would not. These are some of their answers:
“No. Until further notice we are on Zoom.”
“(Our company) doesn’t allow us in (company space).”
“Oh hell no.”
“No absolutely not.”
“Is there a percentage lower than zero?”
“Something of that size would be virtual.”
We do not even consider putting our office employees into the same situation we are contemplating putting our children into. And let’s drive this point home: there are instances here when commanding officers will not put soldiers, ACTUAL SOLDIERS, into the kind of indoor environment we’re contemplating for our children. For me this is as close to a ‘kill shot’ argument as there is in this entire debate. How do we work from home because buildings with recycled air are not safe, because we don’t trust other people to not spread the virus, and then with the same breath send our children into buildings?
“Children only die .0016 of the time.”
First, conceding we’re an increasingly morally bankrupt society, but when did we start talking about children’s lives, or anyone’s lives, like this? This how the villain in movies talks about mortality, usually 10-15 minutes before the good guy kills him.
If you’re in this camp, and I acknowledge that many, many people are, I’m asking you to consider that number from a slightly different angle.
FCPS has 189,000 children. .0016 of that is 302. 302 dead children are the Calvary Hill you’re erecting your argument on. So, let’s agree to do this: stop presenting this as a data point. If this is your argument, I challenge you to have courage equal to your conviction. Go ahead, plant a flag on the internet and say, “Only 302 children will die.” No one will. That’s the kind action on social media that gets you fired from your job. And I trust our social media enclave isn’t so careless and irresponsible with life that it would even, for even a millisecond, enter any of your minds to make such an argument.
Considered another way: You’re presented with a bag with 189,000 $1 bills. You’re told that in the bag are 302 random bills, they look and feel just like all the others, but each one of those bills will kill you. Do you take the money out of the bag?
Same argument, applied to the 12,487 teachers in FCPS (per Wikipedia), using the ‘children’s multiplier’ of .0016 (all of us understanding the adult mortality rate is higher). That’s 20 teachers. That’s the number you’re talking about. It’s very easy to sit behind a keyboard and diminish and dismiss the risk you’re advocating other people assume. Take a breath and think about that.
If you want to advocate for 2 days a week, look, I’m looking for someone to convince me. But please, for the love of God, drop things like this from your argument. Because the people I know who’ve said things like this, I know they’re better people than this. They’re good people under incredible stress who let things slip out as their frustration boils over. So, please do the right thing and move on from this, because one potential outcome is that one day, you’re going to have to stand in front of St. Peter and answer for this, and that’s not going to be conversation you enjoy.
“Hardly any kids get COVID.”
(Deep sigh) Yes, that is statistically true as of this writing. But it is a cherry-picked argument because you’re leaving out an important piece.
One can reasonably argue that, due to the school closures in March, children have had the least EXPOSURE to COVID. In other words, closing schools was the one pandemic mitigation action we took that worked. There can be no discussion of the rate of diagnosis within children without also acknowledging they were among our fastest and most quarantined people. Put another way, you cannot cite the effect without acknowledging the cause.
“The flu kills more people every year.”
(Deep sigh). First of all, no, it doesn’t. Per the CDC, United States flu deaths average 20,000 annually. COVID, when I start writing here today, has killed 133,420 in six months.
And when you mention the flu, do you mean the disease that, if you’re suspected of having it, everyone, literally everyone in the country tells you stay the f- away from other people? You mean the one where parents are pretty sure their kids have it but send them to school anyway because they have a meeting that day, the one that every year causes massive f-ing outbreaks in schools because schools are petri dishes and it causes kids to miss weeks of school and leaves them out of sports and band for a month? That one? Because you’re right - the flu kills people every year. It does, but you’re ignoring the why. It’s because there are people who are a--holes who don’t care about infecting other people. In that regard it’s a perfect comparison to COVID.
“Almost everyone recovers.”
You’re confusing “release from the hospital” and “no longer infected” with “recovered.” I’m fortunate to only know two people who have had COVID. One my age and one my dad’s age. The one my age described it as “absolute hell” and although no longer infected cannot breathe right. The one my dad’s age was in the hospital for 13 weeks, had to have a trach ring put in because she could no longer be on a ventilator, and upon finally getting home and being faced with incalculable time in rehab told my mother, “I wish I had died.”
While I’m making every effort to reach objectivity, on this particular point, you don’t know what the f- you’re talking about.
“If people get sick, they get sick.”
First, you mistyped. What you intended to say was “If OTHER people get sick, they get sick.” And shame on you.
“I’m not going to live my life in fear.”
You already live your life in fear. For your health, your family’s health, your job, your retirement, terrorists, extremists, one political party or the other being in power, the new neighbors, an unexpected home repair, the next sunrise. What you meant to say was, “I’m not prepared to add ANOTHER fear,” and I’ve got news for you: that ship has sailed. It’s too late. There are two kinds of people, and only two: those that admit they’re afraid, and those that are lying to themselves about it.
As to the fear argument, fear is the reason you wait up when your kids stay out late, it’s the reason you tell your kids not to dive in the shallow water, to look both ways before crossing the road. Fear is the respect for the wide world that we teach our children. Except in this instance, for reasons no one has been able to explain to me yet.
“FCPS leadership sucks.”
I will summarize my view of the School Board thusly: if the 12 of you aren’t getting into a room together because it represents a risk, don’t tell me it’s OK for our kids. I understand your arguments, that we need the 2 days option for parents who can’t work from home, kids who don’t have internet or computer access, kids who needs meals from the school system, kids who need extra support to learn, and most tragically for kids who are at greater risk of abuse by being home. All very serious, all very real issues, all heartbreaking. No argument.
But you must first lead by example. Because you’re failing when it comes to optics. All your meetings are online. What our children see is all of you on a Zoom telling them it’s OK for them to be exactly where you aren’t. I understand you’re not PR people, but you really should think about hiring some.
“I talked it over with my kids.”
Let’s put aside for a moment the concept of adults effectively deferring this decision to children, the same children who will continue to stuff things into a full trash can rather than change it out. Yes, those hygienic children.
Listen, my 15 year old daughter wants a sport car, which she’s not getting next year because it would be dangerous to her and to others. Those kinds of decisions are our job. We step in and decide as parents, we don’t let them expose themselves to risks because their still developing and screen addicted brains narrow their understanding of cause and effect.
We as parents and adults serve to make difficult decisions. Sometimes those are in the form of lessons, where we try to steer kids towards the right answer and are willing to let them make a mistake in the hopes of teaching better decision making the next time around. This is not one of those moments. The stakes are too high for that. This is a “the adults are talking” moment. Kids are not mature enough for this moment. That is not an attack on your child. It is a broad statement about all children. It is true of your children and it was true when we were children. We need to be doing that thinking here, and “Johnny wants to see Bobby at school” cannot be the prevailing element in the equation.
“The teachers need to do their job.”
How is it that the same society which abruptly shifted to virtual students only three months ago, and offered glowing endorsements of teachers stating, “we finally understand how difficult your job is,” has now shifted to “screw you, do your job.” There are myriad problems with that position but for the purposes of this piece let’s simply go with, “You’re not looking for a teacher, you’re looking for the babysitter you feel your property tax payment entitles you to.”
“Teachers have a greater chance to being killed by a car than they do of dying from COVID.”
(Eye roll) Per the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the U.S. see approximately 36,000 auto fatalities a year. Again, there have been 133,420 COVID deaths in the United States through 12:09 July 10, 2020. So no, they do not have a great chance of being killed in a car accident.
And, if you want to take the actual environment into consideration, the odds of a teacher being killed in a car accident in their classroom, you know, the environment we’re actually talking about, that’s right around 0%.
“If the grocery store workers can be onsite what are the teachers afraid of?”
(Deep breath) A grocery store worker, who absolutely risks exposure, has either six feet of space or a plexiglass shield between them and individual adult customers who can grasp their own mortality whose transactions can be completed in moments, in a 40,000 SF space.
A teacher is with 11 ‘customers’ who have not an inkling what mortality is, for 45 minutes, in a 675 SF space, six times a day.
Just stop.
“Teachers are choosing remote because they don’t want to work.”
(Deep breaths) Many teachers are opting to be remote. That is not a vacation. They’re requesting to do their job at a safer site. Just like many, many people who work in buildings with recycled air have done. And likely the building you’re not going into has a newer and better serviced air system than our schools.
Of greater interest to me is the number of teachers choosing the 100% virtual option for their children. The people who spend the most time in the buildings are the same ones electing not to send their children into those buildings. That’s something I pay attention to.
“I wasn’t prepared to be a parent 24/7” and “I just need a break.”
I truly, deeply respect that honesty. Truth be told, both arguments have crossed my mind. Pre COVID, I routinely worked from home 1 – 2 days a week. The solace was nice. When I was in the office, I had an actual office, a room with a door I could close, where I could focus. During the quarantine that hasn’t always been the case. I’ve been frustrated, I’ve been short, I’ve gone to just take a drive and get the hell away for a moment and been disgusted when one of the kids sees me and asks me to come for a ride, robbing me of those minutes of silence. You want to hear silence. I get it. I really, really do.
Here’s another version of that, admittedly extreme. What if one of our kids becomes one of the 302? What’s that silence going to sound like? What if you have one of those matted frames where you add the kid’s school picture every year? What if you don’t get to finish the pictures?
“What does your gut tell you to do?”
Shawn and I have talked ad infinitum about all of these and other points. Two days ago, at mid-discussion I said, “Stop, right now, gut answer, what is it,” and we both said, “virtual.”
A lot of the arguments I hear people making for the 2 days sound like we’re trying to talk ourselves into ignoring our instincts, they are almost exclusively, “We’re doing 2 days, but…”. There’s a fantastic book by Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear, which I’ll minimize for you thusly: your gut instinct is a hardwired part of your brain and you should listen to it. In the introduction he talks about elevators, and how, of all living things, humans are the only ones that would voluntarily get into a soundproof steel box with a potential predator just so they could skip a flight of stairs.
I keep thinking that the 2 days option is the soundproof steel box. I welcome, damn, beg, anyone to convince me otherwise.
At the time I started writing at 12:09 PM, 133,420 Americans had died from COVID. Upon completing this draft at 7:04 PM, that number rose to 133,940.
520 Americans died of COVID while I was working on this. In seven hours.
The length of a school day.
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Some Ways I’d Write Higurashi Gou
So one of the complaints I had with Gou was that a lot of it felt lacking. As in, some scenes are there for no other reason than to padding the runtime; otherwise filler a plenty. For what I would do in regards to most of these scenes, this is not absolutely perfect but these are kind of a blueprint to what I would do if I were asked to write the scenes.
1. First episode; probably not too much as it does establish the setting. If anything, maybe I’d shorten the discussion Keiichi and Rena have in the morning as they are going to class. Introductions would still be the same. As for the game itself they play, also shorten it to maybe a few scenes so we could get to the victor of the game and then move onto Rena taking Keiichi to the garbage dump. They get the Colonel Sanders statue in one day and while they are resting, Keiichi meets Tomitake, and he bluntly mentions a murder case. We have Rena raise her billhook ominously...and then slam cut. Also, Rika having the glowing eyes at the end would not be there.
2. The scenes featuring Rika and Hanyuu would be removed in this episode as we get to how the second episode normally plays out. Takano and Tomitake go missing, Keiichi meets Oishi, the usual.
3. I honestly don’t like Gou replicating the original question arcs, because aside from a few changes, they play out the same. Also because of the heinous lack of having Shion do anything in the arc, probably just disregard her altogether. Maybe rewrite the scenes a bit and still have Keiichi give Mion the doll. But come time for Sotsu, I feel that Shion could serve as a key of possibly turning Satoko around should the second looper reveal still be unchanged.
4. As for the saving Satoko from her abusive uncle arc...I don’t like the arc much, and it comes off as unnecessary especially because Satoko is shown without markings on her body to indicate abuse. So if you do away with the arc and just not feature Teppei, I feel that also would fix the problems that came from Eua’s explanation of the looper being closer to a person for their memories to become stronger: let’s face it - Teppei and Satoko were never that close to begin with, and Teppei’s inclusion in Gou also felt out of place.
5. The scenes with a teenage Rika and Satoko should be greatly reduced. While I know that they are there to explain why Satoko became a looper in the first place, the issue is that it also slams a break on what’s going on in the present. Maybe leave a few scenes in to illustrate the breaking up of the two.
6. At this rate, may as well just completely rewrite Satoko’s motivations for becoming a villain as none of her motivations make a lick of sense because her actions run contradictory to what she wants. Add more depths to her feelings of abandonment and dependency issues. For instance, I had the initial idea that Satoko wanted Rika to stay in Hinamizawa because she was convinced that her staying would guarantee that Satoshi could not only live, but recover from his case of HS. But when Rika mentions wanting to go to St. Lucia, perhaps have her sabotage her chances like she tried to do in one loop, but this would be the case where it breaks the camel’s back and their friendship is shredded beyond repair. But that’s just one idea if one didn’t want to go down the route of her going to the academy alongside Rika. Say that Satoshi succumbed to it and Satoko wanted revenge on Rika for it.
7. Satoko remains in Hinamizawa trying to figure out ways to help her big brudder, which led to her going to the ritual shed where the Oyashiro-sama statue is. She meets Eua who as in the show grants her looping powers. At first, Satoko does not want to use them, but Eua gives her a false sense of comfort by saying that if she went back in time, she could prevent Rika from leaving. So, Satoko dies and this activates the loop (I don’t remember if they said that Rika had to exactly die as well to kick the loop).
8. Otherwise, Satoko’s motivations here would have nothing to do with Rika as the sudden obsession she has for her...doesn’t really make much sense due to it coming out of nowhere, and it also felt like some bad take of Homucifer. You could have it be that Satoko would not want to hurt her best friend at first until Eua puts it into her mind that it was her fault for her brother’s death and showing her being happy in St. Lucia to further the implications. But Eua would really be doing it to maintain her grip over Satoko as with any other Faustian deal. Because of her hold over Satoko, Satoko would be forced to repeat the loops over and over so Eua gets entertainment and through her suffering, she would create a loop where her brother is healthy.
#higurashi: when they cry gou#higurashi#higurashi: when they cry#higurashi no naku koro ni#when they cry
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High School AUs
College/University AUs
⭐ A+ fics (imho) | All of the recs
High School AUs
High Scores by popfly ⭐
Kaner is a DDR master, Jonny is ultra-competitive. Bollig just wants to make out with Shawzy.
Dynamical Systems by jezziejay ⭐ - math geek patrick! jock jonny!
Jonny’s plenty smart, but there’s hockey practice just before a double math period every Tuesday and Wednesday morning. He gets to class on time. Physically, he’s there. But his mind is still on the ice. Throw in a kidney infection that keeps him home for two weeks, and Jonny’s struggling. Not failing, but that C is dragging his GPA down, and his mom is making clucking noises. The same noises that mean hockey time is coming up for review.
There’s a note on the student boards advertising tutoring.
promise i'm worthy (to hold in your arms) [One and Only series] - teenage angst and american douchebags ft. ryan kesler
"So come on and give me a chance to prove I am the one who can walk that mile."
love is a contact sport by hazel, mermaid ⭐ - high school soulmates!
"And the tragic reality of Patrick's life is that even though they broke up over a year ago, he and Johnny still play beautiful hockey together."
A high school AU, featuring dream-fish, bad movie dates, and a little bit of magic.
Movie Nights or Five Times Jonny Wanted Popcorn (and One Time He Didn’t) by CoffeeKristin
Patrick had only been working at the movie theater a few weeks when a noisy bunch of boys from his high school burst through the doors just before the last showing of Captain America: Civil War and come tumbling into the lobby, whooping it up. He sighed and put down the containers of popcorn he was counting, mentally preparing himself for the asshattery he was likely to endure.
“What can I get you?” he asked the crowd, and true to form, no one was listening so he waited another moment. Finally one of the boys got pushed to the front, stumbling into the counter. “Fuck, Duncs, not so hard,” he said, and oh. That was Jonathan Toews: Captain of the high school soccer team, president of the student council, son of the mayor. Basically, everything Patrick wasn’t.
do it how you want it done ⭐
(very vaguely) grease-inspired high school au.
yeah, i went there.
kissing your honeyed eyes by forochel
The one that's the British boarding school AU.
This Is What A Love Song Sounds Like by fourfreedoms ⭐ - reunion fic but god the flashbacks! the angst!
When he came out after his freshman year of college his mother said she’d always known, and he’d had to fight down the bizarre wave of paranoia that maybe everybody knew, maybe they’d all just been letting him sweat all those years. It was crazy of course, there was only one person who’d known, who had any idea.Patrick Kane.
Ten years after they fucked around in high school, Patrick and Jonny meet back up at their high school reunion.
roll with it by hazel ⭐
The one where a bunch of Blackhawks inexplicably go to boarding school, Tazer is the world's meanest DM, and Pat doesn't know why anyone would think cutting the head off a hydra was good idea.
Light Me Up by sahiya - where they both went to Shattuck!
Being serious about hockey always meant Patrick would have to leave home. For a long time he thought it would be for juniors and a billet family. But things don't go as planned, and he finds himself at Shattuck-St. Mary's.
His roommate's name is Jonathan Toews. He can't keep his water bottles on his side of the room, and he's unfortunately, stupidly hot. Because Patrick's life sucks.
boot theory by mentalistecbm - teen angst, break up
Everyone knows that they're broken up.
glory days by liketheroad ⭐ - soulmate, teen angst
He never expected his destiny to involve anything but hockey, never thought it would show up in flip flops, but when Patrick smiles at him across the locker room, quick and surprised, Johnny lets his priorities shift and change without a hint of reluctance or regret.
There's Only Blood Running In My Veins by mikarala - pwp
Patrick and Jonny are making out in Patrick’s bedroom when Jonny says it. “I--I,” he stutters out, in between a moan, “I want you to fuck me.”
Gold Seeking Ends by liveinfury - Flipped AU
“Wanna go on the tire swing with me after?” Jonny asks.
“No,” Patrick answers.
“Oh,” Jonny says, looking deflated. “What about the jungle gym?”
“Nope."
“Um, okay,” Jonny says, shrugging before walking away.Sam giggles some more. “I can’t believe Jonny, the dirt eater, likes you.”Patrick smirks at him. “Everyone likes me.”
(or Patrick and Jonny meet in the second grade. Jonny's instantly smitten, Patrick is...not. Ten years later, things start flipping.)
Keep Calm and Don't Think of Star Wars podfic by exmanhater ⭐ - A Clueless AU
After I once again assure Abby that Johnny and I are not, NOT related (by googling the difference between half-brother and stepbrother because jesus fucking christ am I am the only knowledgeable one around here?), she agrees to help.
but i can write a song
“We’re not going to be called Jonny and the Patricks,” Jonny says, sounding entirely too put upon about a name that’s clearly awesome.
[or; the high school band au you probably didn't ask for]
lost in brightness - pat, jon and a crowded train
“You’re gonna get caught one day,” Jonny sighs, herding Pat in front of him as they squeeze onto the train, the crowd thicker than usual. It’s been raining on and off, fall well and truly taking the city in its grasp. Jonny’s already looking forward to meeting Pat by his house every morning, red-cheeked and rugged up, his face barely visible between his toque and scarf.
you're mending what's broken - a stats nerd Patrick story
The guy who sits behind Jonny in AP Stats wants to know how many shots on goal he had last Tuesday. Or at least, that's how it starts.
A high school AU featuring stats nerd Kaner and his Tragic Hockey Backstory (TM), without much time or inclination toward actual tragedy. Instead there is discussion of Corsi. And kissing.
Examine Other Beauties by kiwoa - theater kids!
"I," Jonny says, and he slips his headset up from around his neck to nestle over his ears, "am not an actor."
"Good thing I don't need you to act."
"No."
"Jonny."
"Patrick."
"Please?" Kaner cants forward and tilts his face up to blink at Jonny. In the fluttering light that filters in from the stage, his eyes look unnaturally pale. "Just read the lines, okay? I want to see how well I've memorized them."
Jonny scrubs a hand over his face. The motion knocks his mike askew. "One scene."
A/S/L ⭐ - 90s teenaged kids meeting on webcam omg
The internet is a dangerous place, or:
Patrick and Jonny meet, lie through their teeth, and fall in love. Mostly that last part.
Actual Prom King Brandon Saad by popfly ⭐
Patrick might be a little jealous of the new kid.
Sure Brandon is basically the prom king from every feel-good teenage movie Patrick’s sisters have made him watch, but that doesn’t mean Jonny wants that.
Sign it with your heart by tictactoews + podfic by exmanhater ⭐
Patrick loses a bet and is dared to plant an anonymous love letter into a random locker. It just so happens that the locker belongs to one Jonathan Toews, captain of the school hockey team.Meanwhile, Jonny finds himself in need of a math tutor, and following the advice of his teacher, he asks the new kid, Patrick Kane, for help.
a complicated kindness by liketheroad - young and figuring out d/s ⭐
Patrick still remembers how scared Sharpy looked, just for a second there. He remembers not understanding why anyone would back away from Johnny when he was like that, why they wouldn’t want to strain closer, pushing to see how much further he’d go.
What Comes Easy by impertinence - summer camp of angst
Kaner's determined to never grow up; Tazer's determined to grow up as quickly as possible. Over eleven years of summer camp, they learn to meet in the middle. Set in stlkrchk's Camp Quaquanantuck universe.
mathletes are totally athletes by ukiyo91, yukonecho
Mathlete Patrick Kane never thought that when he was assigned to tutor hockey jock Jonathan Toews that he would be swept up into a new sport...or into Captain Serious.
Toews was like the guild leader Patrick had always aspired to be in WoW, but more of an asshole.
i'll be the embrace that keeps you warm by longtime_lurker - huddling for warmth
It is like death, but it is not death; lovelier. / Cold, inconvenienced, late, what will you do now / with the gift of your left life?
Clumsy by CoffeeKristin - a short first kiss fic uwu
“Knock it off,” she hissed at him. “He’s looking at you!”
“Who?” Patrick said, his head swiveling around, resulting in Erica smacking him again. “Hey! Quit hitting me!”
“Then quit being an idiot,” she huffed. “Jonny Toews, you dunce. He’s looking over here, and you’re biting on the string of your hoodie like a moron.”
look around once in a while by achilleees
One man’s struggle to take it easy.
Based off of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” but instead of girlfriends and daddy issues, there’s hockey and pining. And daddy issues.
Summer Lovin' by CoffeeKristin - est. relationship insecurities
Patrick's home from summer camp, and Jonny's first on his list of to-do's. Somehow a little actual angst/plot worked it's way in. But mostly it's just porn.
Ninety-Nine Point Three Percent by jimtiberiuskirk - best friends mutually pining
The problem is, is that Patrick is 99.3% sure that Jonny knows all about his giant, embarrassing man-crush on him.
bring it if you really want it by staraflur - harry potter AU
It starts like this:
Well, okay, Patrick has no idea how it actually starts. But as pertains to him (in other words, the important part), it goes a little something like so:
America, being a nation composed in large part of a melting pot of immigrants who may or may not have taken over land already owned by others using less-than-savory means, doesn’t have much of a magical national identity. Much less a magical continental identity. There’s no grand heritage going back thousands of years. Magical families home-schooled all their kids until, like, the 1800’s, and tough for the muggle-born, apparently. Hopefully you got noticed by someone who knew what to do with you before you got burned at the stake. Since you probably can’t control your powers, sport.
(if you're feeling down) i can feel you up by hawkeytime
"Hey," Patrick said appreciatively from behind where Jonny stood, stoic as always, by the side of the pool. "Did you sit in a pile of sugar? Because you have a sweet ass.”Or: How Patrick Kane spent his summer hitting on the hot lifeguard with the help of some inspired (read: awful) pickup lines.
kiss and tell by hawkeytime
“Trust me,” Sharpy says, “this will be good for you.”And then, he shoves Jonny into what appears to be a mostly empty coat closet and slams the door shut behind him.
“What the fuck, Sharp!” Jonny calls, pounding at the door which is, of course, locked.
“Enjoy your seven minutes in heaven, Tazer,” Sharpy singsongs.Then, the bare bulb mounted on the ceiling flares to life, illuminating one Patrick Kane.
Fuck.
i know you are (but what am i) by booktubelover7 - always a girl!pat
Pat throws up her arms in celebration after Toews makes a beautiful goal off of Pat’s assist. She crows in celebration as Toews slams into her, shouting in her ear.
Pat’s playing, she’s playing, she’s playing. Not just that, but she’s winning too.When her line gets back to the bench, Pat leans over to speak into Toews’ ear. “Thank you,” she says. Her teammate just turns his head to look at her, a grin spreading across his face.
Love or Torture - a/b/o
Patrick Kane is too short, too Omega, and his heat too delayed for him to play hockey. Jonathan Toews has a plan to bring glory to both of them.
keep buying the stars by medusacascade22- teacher!Jonny
“Fuck,” Jonny groans. He props his elbows up on his desk and lets his head fall into his hands. It’s going to be a long fucking year.
(or, in which Jonathan Toews is Patrick Kane's teacher, and shit gets real.)
College/Uni AUs
cello suite no. 1 - THIS IS ONE IS A CLASSIC 👌
The first time Jonathan meets Patrick Kane is because he hits him with a lacrosse ball.
In Jonathan's defense, he threw a perfect pass to Seabs, who failed to just reach the one or two feet above his head to catch it.
"Oh shit," Jonathan says when he watched the ball arc across the lawn and whack a blond kid squarely between his shoulder blades.
"Heads up!" he calls belatedly.
this is how we do it series by staraflur ⭐ - frat bros AU!!!
He doesn’t think Zeus is supposed to have a sword, but their Zeus does. So now Jonny does, because of course he’s in charge. He looks, Patrick is drunk enough to acknowledge, far better than anyone has a right to in a grody old Halloween costume that’s probably soaked up the butt sweat of dozens, if not hundreds, of Theta-presidents past. Jonny wears it, Patrick gets the sword. Win-win.
AKA that time there was a frat AU (of course).
This Heart Is Not For Wasting by fourfreedoms - oblivious best friends
Patrick puts his head in his hands. “How could this get any worse?”
“Wait, it’s not like, a big deal is it?” Duncs asks, looking at him and Jonny in turn. “The way you and Jonny are weird about each other? She’s gotta have made her peace with it ages ago.”
A college AU.
love song for love songs by boodreaus ⭐ - angst, internalized homophobia
“Right,” Jonny says. “Cool.” He seems to hesitate, pausing when Patrick goes for the door handle, and then, right as Patrick’s bracing himself to run for the house, Jonny says, “You should come.”
Patrick turns back at him and is handed a piece of paper. “To our next show, I mean,” Jonny is saying as Patrick examines what turns out to be a flyer, thick black lettering taking up every square inch of space on the brilliant sunshine-colored surface. “It’s tomorrow night, at the showcase. Feel free to say yes or no or whatever. If you don’t know, it’s cool.”
“I’ll,” Patrick starts, and then stops, blinking up at him. Jonny’s just watching him, kind of, elbow resting on the steering wheel. “Maybe,” he finally says, and Jonny smiles.
yet we will make him run - some more angst, except more erudite
Kaner the English Lit major AU.
Sigma Chi series by hatrickane - frat bros hook up and then angst about it
Jonny and Patrick run into each other at a frat party. Patrick proposes a way to pass the time.
Can't Wait by LouLa - first time pwp
Pat's on a hair trigger.
when you flex like that - hookup in a frat party
Johnny isn’t drunk, but he does let Sharpy and a couple of frat-looking guys he doesn’t even know talk him into a contest of shots. It’s Sharpy’s fault — he appeals to the competitive side he knows Johnny can’t let go of at the best of times, and one of the guys, blonde curls, a lazy smirk of a grin, picks up on it pretty fast too.
Hope you don't mind by haroldslouis
“Oh, sorry, man,” the guy says, giving him a quick grin. “Thought you were someone else.” He taps the visor of Patrick’s snapback and just like that, he turns around and disappears into the crowd.Patrick doesn’t know how long he stands there, just looking at the general direction he disappeared in.
or, 5 times Jonny mistook Patrick for someone else + 1 time he definitely didn't
Room 4 Rent
Patrick stares at the ad for a while, clicking back and forth between the Craigslist page and his fantasy hockey league, chewing on his bottom lip.
3 bedroom apartment near Loyola. One room available, others occupied by two male students. Shared living room and kitchen. Two bathrooms. Rent split three ways. Email [email protected] or call 773-639-7812 for more info. No texts please.
are you buying what i'm selling? - frat party buddies
The Sigma Chi Halloween Bash is in a week, Jonny’s holding two tickets, and he has nobody to go with.
He had a somebody to go with, until that somebody decided Jonny’s student athlete life wasn’t worth hanging around for. Their relationship was already tanking anyway; Jonny’s more upset about potentially wasting a $40 ticket than that shit ending. Whatever.
Just A Spark by heartstrings ⭐ - magical realism!
In a desperate attempt to hide his feelings from the object of his affections, Patrick accidentally drinks a love potion that causes the people around him to fall for him. Too bad it seems to work on everyone but Jonny.
do you know who you are? by liveinfury - frat bros
“Sure, Cap. I’ll try to keep it quiet.” Patrick winks at Jonny. “But be honest, you like the noises I make, huh?”
“What? Of course not!" Jonny sputters. "I’m not gay!”
(or where Jonny can't figure out why he feels so uneasy when Patrick brings guys home to their frat house).
The Great Desk Assembly Project - they were roommates
“I’m going to nail some shit,” he says. “Jonny, come watch me nail some shit.”
“We share a room, I don’t need to watch you nail anything else.”
“That’s not what you were saying last night,” Pat says with a laugh in his voice. He reaches back behind him and punches Jonny in the shoulder for good measure.
No, It's Not A Secret by SimoneClouseau ⭐ - always a girl Jonny
Hey, hey, you, you, I don't like your boyfriend. No way, no way. I think you need a new one.
Jehanne Toews is dating a loser. Sometimes it takes a ridiculous awesome young star on the Blackhawks to see the light.
good form - always a girl Pat! ⭐
“Best head of your life?”
“Yes, he was better than you, you competitive motherfucker.” Hayds says it like it’s a joke, like it’s funny, like it’s not the single most devastating thing a girl could say to Pat.
“A hockey bro gave you the best head of your goddamn life? Am I in the fucking Upside Down?”
“Believe it, baby. Jonathan Toews: hockey bro and magical pussy-eating wizard.”
forever i'll try for you and i by staraflur - always girls Jon and Pat!
It’s extra great—whenever Jo’s losing, she always makes like their running point tally competition isn’t real. Tonight’s true to form: when Trish holds up three fingers and points at herself, then two before pointing at Jo, Jo actually scoffs as she pokes at a couple chicken breasts with the tongs, trying to find the best one.
remedial at love - jonny ‘i'm great at math but the math tutor's really hot so i'm gonna pretend i'm not' toews
There have been a lot of things Kaner’s done that could be considered suspect. He chose the Backstreet Boys over Nsync for the Kane Dance-Off Championship when he was 15. He opted to go to Disneyland instead of Disney World for his high school graduation present. He frosted his tips after coming out in 12th grade because he thought that was like, the obvious thing to do until he realized this was not, in actuality, the 90s.
But this one. Calling up ‘Jtoews’ and requesting tutelage in math when he was a fucking wiz at math was -- the most highly suspect of all.
Drink yourself under, fuck yourself over by Mythisea
Jonathan Toews is the sophomore captain of the college hockey team. Patrick Kane recently quit hockey before coming to college.
Jonny thinks Patrick would be perfect on his wing. Patrick would rather be drinking. Jonny does not approve.
Make The Moves Up As I Go by agirlnamedfia - tutor!Jonny with a dash of angst and pining
Patrick has his first Econ 202 class on the second day of the spring semester. It doesn’t exactly go well.
how to make boys-next-door out of assholes series by bessyboo, thisissirius - textfic
Yo man, Sharpy's having a party tonight. You up for it or you gonna be a boring shit and study???
it's only you and me by crystaljules - graduation blues
"We're so fucking stupid."
Overdosed on Confidence by runphoebe ⭐ - fwb, internalized homophobia
“Someone could -,” Jonny starts, breaking off when Patrick ducks down to draw Jonny’s lips against his, kissing him fever-hot and wet and desperate. Jonny’d be embarrassed by how hungrily he responds, but he knows Pat’s into it, moaning unashamedly into Jonny’s mouth when he tightens a hand around Pat’s neck. “Someone could see,” he finally gets out, voice rough, when Patrick pulls back, as if Patrick’s supposed to believe that that’s any sort of protest.
Patrick licks his lips, the hint of a smirk playing at the corners of them in that familiar way like when Patrick's got a particularly bad idea on his mind. “Guess you better be quick then, huh?” he says cryptically, waggling his eyebrows at Jonny. Jonny’s a second away from rolling his eyes and asking what he means when Patrick slithers off Jonny’s lap and onto his knees on the floor beneath Jonny’s table and - oh. Oh.
Silence Gives You Space by liveinfury - pining, misunderstandings
“Have you been avoiding me?”
“’Course not,” Patrick says. “I’m just letting you do your own thing.”
“My own thing?”
“Yeah, didn’t want to crowd your space,” Patrick blurts out. Fuck, he didn’t mean to actually say that.“You’re not…”
“Cool.”
tuck you in - getting together
“You sexiled again?" He smirks and stuffs down the fondness that rolls through him at theway Jonny’s hair is rumpled and a little bit wavy.
Jonny sits up slowly, groaning. “Yeah. Fuck, this is the third time in a week and a half.”
obvious from the start - radio DJs Pat and Jon!
It’s not like Patrick even likes radio, because he hasn’t really listened to anything that’s not on his iPod or his Pandora stations in years, but when he notices the red and white flyer advertising the student radio station on the ground, he picks it up with the excuse that he’s trying to be environmentally friendly.When he played hockey they told Patrick that he was too small, too short to be a hockeyplayer; that he’d never make it because of his size. Hockey is, was, his heart and soul, and he’d put years and years of his life into the one thing he knew he was good at; threw his very being into the best he could be to prove that he can do it, be the best, even if he was small.
Patrick supposes maybe he'll find something else that he’s just as good at.
stupid college boys series by 19trash88 - Jonny is the cute guy from Econ class
Patrick’s not one to wax poetic about a penis, but if ever there was a reason to, Jonathan Toews’ cock would be at the top of the list.
Green Light by heartstrings - friends to lovers
Patrick knows two things: he likes sex and he likes Jonny. If Jonny's newly single there's no reason not to combine the two. Right?
Everybody Wants to Touch Some(body Paragraphs) by Kerfluffle ⭐
Wherein Jonny writes the worst essay ever, and weirdness abounds.
Motivation by somethingnerdythiswaycomes ⭐ - pwp
Only Jonny could keep working on his LIT-110 paper while Patrick was getting himself off next to him. Fuck, but Patrick loved him so much.
Muse series by by somethingnerdythiswaycomes
So Jonny had applied for every damn job he was qualified for, even the "life model" one TJ goaded him into.So Jonny had received an email the next day asking for his availability to come in for a session.So, as it turned out, it wasn’t some random chick that was going to draw him. It was some random dude.
So "life model" apparently meant "nude model."
You Love Me, I Love You Harder So by leyley09 - overly competitive boys on the hockey team
Patrick circles around him at center ice. “Jonathan, my team is going to kick your team’s ass so hard your parents will be embarrassed without even knowing why.”“I’m gonna give you a lesson in goal scoring you’ll never forget.”“Toews, you couldn’t give me a lesson in long distance spitting. Anything you can do, I can do better.”“Oh yeah?”“I can do anything better than you.”
Jonathan Toews is used to be being the best. He has zero clue what to do with competition.
Especially when the competition is cute.
middle ground by boodreaus - college road trip, friends to lovers
Jonny, Patrick, and an excellent adventure.
Who Knew by themistrollsin
Jonathan and Patrick meet after they're forced to go to a party by their best friends (Adam and Brent respectively).
Night Moves by heartstrings - meetcute
After a series of unfortunate drunk events that lead him from falling into a snowbank to being laughed at by the police, Jonny meets Patrick in an elevator.
Ignite My Fire, Object Of My Desire by ThalassicThedes ⭐- theater boys!!!
A good ol' fashioned College Au in which the college itself is hardly even mentioned. Just... make of this what you will.
absolute beginners by heartstrings, thundersquall
That time Jonny walked into a diner and accidentally got himself a temporary fake boyfriend.
Like A Classic - royalty!Jonny
So: due to a series of complicated and improbable events involving some sort of life debt and signed promise from two generations ago, it was decreed that Patrick had to marry the Crown Prince of Canada.
Captain Oblivious by wantstothrill - royalty!Pat
Why would Jonny care about the American royal family visiting his university? He's Canadian. He hasn't paid any attention to Prince Patrick since he was a teenager. He's more concerned with the very hot guy he's just run into, who's name also happens to be Patrick. What a coincidence.
+
check out the high school AUs tag aaand the college AUs tag @ 1988rebloggedfic!
#patrick kane#jonathan toews#hockey rpf#blackhawks#chicago blackhawks#1988#1988 fic rec#for any corrections and suggestions DM ME!!!#i think the best part of making these reclists for me is thinking up cheesy names for a theme and creating the banner lol
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She-who-fights-and-writes Coronacation Book Rec List
I know that a lot of people are stuck at home right now in dire need of entertainment, so I decided I’d put out a book recommendations list of all the books I’m currently reading and all of my must-reads!
(Just a note that a lot of these are Fantasy because I’m a fantasy nerd haha)
Books/Series I am currently reading
1. The Folk of the Air Trilogy by Holly Black (Currently on #2, The Wicked King)
Genre: High Fantasy
Setting: The land of Faerie which is kind of historical, but in the human world it is modern day
Main cast :
Jude Duarte (white, human, cutthroat, if I saw her in a Denny’s Parking Lot at 3am I would RUN)
Cardan Greenbriar (white, faerie, the true embodiment of Bastard)
Vivienne (Jude’s half-sister, lesbian with canon gf, half-human half-faerie, I would totally try to be her friend)
Taryn Duarte (Jude’s twin sister, queen doormat, still, I would take a bullet for her she’s jUST TRYING TO FIT IN)
Rating: 5/5 Stars
These books have been on my “To Read” list for so long now and for some reason I just never got around to reading them! Hands-down, these are some of the best high fantasy books that I’ve read in a long, long while.
I finished the first book, The Cruel Prince, in just two days and rated it 5/5 stars! Even though these books are high fantasy and focus on the traditions and ways of life of faeries, somehow all of the characters seem like I could meet them in real life!
The main character actually has genuine flaws and not just “””“flaws”””” and is a Bad Bitch down with murder, and the plot had me on the edge of my seat from page one!
The summary makes it sound like it’s going to be about their romance, but it’s really mostly about a power struggle and Jude being a badass.
Goodreads summary for The Cruel Prince:
Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.
To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.
As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.
2. The Raven Cycle Series by Maggie Stiefvater (Currently on #1, The Raven Boys)
Genre: Present-Day/Realistic Fantasy (?)
Setting: The fictional town of Henrietta, Virginia
I haven’t gotten around to much of the book, so there’s not much I can tell you about the characters and I can’t properly give it a rating yet.
These books were also on my “To Read” list for a while; I was a huge fan of her book The Scorpio Races and have also been looking for something to quench my thirst for “private school/ghosts/magic” that I’ve been dealing with ever since I read The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo.
I’ve only JUST started The Raven Cycle yesterday, but so far I am hooked! I’m super worried because I’m TERRIBLE at juggling two series at a time but both of these are just so interesting!
Goodreads Summary for The Raven Boys:
“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”
It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.
Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.
His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.
But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.
For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.
MY MUST-READ BOOK LIST
1. The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 1700s Europe (England, Paris, Barcelona, Marseilles, Venice)
Main cast (I’ll try my best not to spoil anything because you find out a LOT of different stuff about these characters throughout the book):
Henry “Monty” Montague (white, bi/pansexual, attitude problem)
Percy Newton (mixed race, gay, very sweet boy, definitely got “most likely to bring home to mom” in the yearbook)
Felicity Montague (white, Monty’s little sister, headcanoned as asexual, I love her to death)
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Daring adventure, gay representation, historical setting, hilarious characters!
This book literally has it all! I would consider it one of my favorite books of all time, yet for some reason I’ve never gotten around to reading any of the sequel books! The ending is very satisfying and ties everything together, which I feel is part of the reason why I haven’t gotten around to them yet.
Therefore, it can serve as a one-shot read or a full series if you want to dive into something good!
The humor made me laugh out loud at points and all of the characters are very real and very, very relatable, not to mention the vivid settings of 1700s Europe!
Goodreads summary:
Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men.
But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy.
Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.
2. The Ninth House By Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Horror, Fantasy
Setting: Yale University and the town of New Haven, Present Day
Main cast:
Galaxy “Alex” Stern (Hispanic, sees dead people, very scary)
Daniel Arlington “Darlington” (white, rich, an angel who can sometimes be a dick)
Pamela Dawes (tbh I honestly don’t remember what she looks like, only that she’s a tired grad student with big nerd energy)
Detective Alan Turner (Black, takes shit from nobody, husband material)
Rating: 4/5 Stars
(NOTE: THIS IS VERY DARK ADULT FICTION AND CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT MAY BE TRIGGERING FOR SOME PEOPLE, WOULD NOT RECOMMEND FOR PEOPLE UNDER 16)
This book is a great read for someone who’s looking for a disturbing, gritty book with layers upon layers of secrets that you have to peel away as the mystery unfolds. I love the secret societies and the intricate magic systems that the book introduces, and it actually made me hungry for more books like it!
Alex is a three-dimensional, very real character who also serves as an unreliable narrator who witholds or warps the information that she’s telling you, making the narrative all the more riveting.
The only issues that I have with it are the fact that Leigh Bardugo kind of just dumps you in the middle of it without explaining stuff first, to the point where it kind of feels like you’re reading the second installment of a series rather than the first one, so things can get a bit confusing at first.
The book also can drag and draw things out for a bit too long, but once the plot fully kicks into gear, you will not be able to put it down!
Goodreads summary:
Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.
3. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Setting: Earth, Space, The Moon
Main cast :
Linh Cinder (Chinese, based on Cinderella, cyborg, certified badass)
Scarlet Benoit (French, based on Little Red Riding Hood, farmer who is not afraid to shoot you)
Cress Darnel (White, based on Rapunzel, nerd, I will protect her with my life if I have to)
Kaito “Kai” (Chinese, based on Prince Charming, kind of has to run a whole country, a very kind soul, deserves a nap)
Carswell Thorne (White, based off of Rapunzel’s Prince, bastard)
Winter Hayle (Black, based off of Snow White, royalty, has super special powers)
Wolf (Race unspecified, based off of the Big Bad Wolf, charming killing machine, furry????)
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Do you like fairy tales?
Have you ever wanted to know what fairy tales would be like if they took place in the FUTURE instead of the PAST?
Do you like an amazing, hilarious cast paired with a super interesting plot?
These are the books for you!
I haven’t read them in so long, but I remember how much joy I felt while devouring these pages. Definitely something you will not able to put down!
Goodreads Summary for Book #1: Cinder:
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . . .
Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.
4. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Genre: Fantasy
Setting: Ancient Greece
Main cast:
Patroclus (Greek, Gay, quiet pining)
Achilles (Greek, gay, very strong, student athlete energy)
Brisies (Anatolian, clever, literally the only one in this story who has a brain cell)
Rating: 100000/5 stars
This is basically the Iliad but if historians hadn’t completely erased Patroclus and Achilles’ relationship. “Haha yeah these guys were totally bros” they say, even though I have read the Iliad and their relationship isn’t even subtle.
This book made me cry at least ten times. It’s just so beautifully written and has such a distinct vibe to it that whenever I crack it open for another time, it takes me straight back to the vacation that I read it on. (Needless to say, sobbing your eyes out can be less than helpful when you’re on the beach)
If you can only read one book on this list, it should be this one. I could talk all day about it and write novels on just how much of an incredible writer Madeline Miller is, but I feel like you’d get my drift a bit better if you actually read the book.
Goodreads Summary:
Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. By all rights their paths should never cross, but Achilles takes the shamed prince as his friend, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But then word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus journeys with Achilles to Troy, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear.
Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.
Hope this list helps you through your coronacation, and please don’t be afraid to reblog or message me to tell me if you’ve read/will read any of these!
#books#book recs#book rec#book reccomendation#book reccomendations#coronacation#corona#coronavirus#covid-19#book rec list
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(I cannot emoji so) BOOK
( put a book emoji [or just the word book] in my inbox and I’ll explain the plot of a fanfiction that I haven’t written but daydream about )
I only emoji by copy-pasting, so. XD
Hope you don't mind more Bare fic cause you get more Bare fic. >> Let me tell you about the coffee shop AU I don't ever plan to actually write.
[be aware that it is still Bare being Bare, so *shrugs* all the internalized homophobia, religious issues, etc still exist, though nobody's dead!]
So the premise here is: both Jason and Peter went through some shit in high school, but they were not in the same school.
Jason would absolutely be the main character, because I want it. He attended St Cecilia's, and was aggressively in the closet the entire time, and never actually had a boyfriend around. Not sure if everything with Ivy regarding getting her pregnant still happened regardless, but if it did I think her parents may have taken her away and he's not even sure what happened to the baby anymore.
He went to college. Different college from Nadia, but within distance to visit each other some weekends. And without the catalyst of being outed it takes longer, but his denial, internalized homophobia, and faith issues still come to a head at the beginning of his second year, and he completely burns out.
Nadia saves him. They are even closer without Jason having an outside person to lean on, and him going a few days without contacting her is strange enough that she comes to see him before he actually acts on anything. It's her that he finally breaks down and confesses to, and her who convinces him they can shut off their parents and make things better.
So they do. Jason drops out of college. Nadia does too temporarily, but ends up going back. They cut off their parents, get an apartment together just big enough to have their own space, and Jason starts to heal unsteadily as best he can, though coming to terms with his sexuality is a process he's still trying to go through a few years later.
Nadia makes friends with Peter, possibly through college theater classes or a community theater group. She brings him in when she comes to visit one day, and Jason basically falls in love at first sight.
Peter his own issues after having been forcibly outed at his Catholic boarding school and having a rough couple of years afterwards. He is generally out these days, but he's still dealing with stuff himself.
Cue a slightly rocky, careful time where the two of them get to know each other and slowly feel each other out, followed by a tooth-rottingly sweet relationship where they both support each other's issues. Both have their own lapses and issues, but there is an unending supply of sweet, even if sometimes it's more like bittersweet in its own way.
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TRUTH BOOTH, clyde edition
GENERAL QUESTIONS
1. Please state your full name: Clyde Ephraim Aarons
2. Does your name(s) have any kind of meaning? If so, what is it? I was named after Bonnie & Clyde. My parents were police officers at the time. And Ephraim means ‘being fruitful’. I’m not really sure why my parents gave me that speficic name
3. Do you have any nicknames? Not that I know of. Other than in bed.
4. Where were you born? And in which country? Holmes Chapel, United Kingdom
5. What is your date of birth? May 5, 1996
6. Of course, the following question; what is your Zodiac sign? My zodiac sign is Taurus
7. Do you believe in Zodiac signs? Not really. It does not make any sense to me?
8. Where do you live? Violet Springs, United Kingdom
9. What is your home situation like? (ex. do you live with your family? Your partner etc.?) I live together with my wife and dogs. We have our own apartment
10. Do you have any siblings? No, I’m an only child
11. Do you have any kind of allergies? I do not have any allergies
12. Do you own any pets? If so, what kind of pets are they? My wife has a couple of dogs
13. Why did you apply to St Jude’s? The reason why I applied is because I’d like to persue a career in performing and making music. I love standing infront of a crowd and sharing my passion and story with others, through songs
14. Did you had to go through a lot audition rounds? I was accepted after 1 round
15. What is the current course you’re following? Music. Focused on songwriting
16. If you can switch courses, which one would you switch to and why? Maybe acting? Acting would be pretty interesting?
17. What is your proudest project you’ve done? Fine Line. Especially Treat People With Kindness
18. What is the proudest project that someone’s else has done? Soraya’s latest album, Romance is one of my favorites. Or also Holy by Dallas, such a beautiful song and raw
19. Do you like FanCons? I absolutely love ‘em
20. What do you like about FanCons? Personal interactions with fans
21. What don’t you like about FanCons? Since there are so many of them, I’m not able to meet them all. So, it upsets me that some fans are not able to meet their idols
22. A fan memory that always stuck with you? Can be positive or negative. When I gave away tour tickets to some of the fans. An act of my love towards them
23. Your favorite event so far? I love all the events. The ones that are a bit weird to me are the ones where you have to switch partners? I’m very loyal and to me, it’s odd
24. What kind of event would you like to see in the future? More fundraising concerts
25. Would you recommend St Jude’s to friends, family. etc? Definitely!
PERSONALITY QUESTIONS
26. What are your positive traits? Ambitious, steady and loving. I think?
27. What are you negative traits? I think that one of my negative traits that I can be over-protective in some kind of way
28. What would other people describe you as? Ask the others? I have no idea
29. What are your pet peeves? People who think that / I / talk slow
30. What makes you happy? Happiness
31. What makes you upset? Bringing up past experiences
32. What is something you love? Performing. Besides my wife, it’s my biggest love and I really don’t want to be do doing anything else
33. What is something you dislike? Disloyalty. Or being vague
34. What are you strengths? How much I’ve grown the last year? I’ve grown a lot and I consider myself strong in any kind of aspect
35. What are you weaknesses? Opening up too much and being scared that people will leave me. I’ve been left alone many times before
36. A misconception people often think of you? That I’m probably still a d*ck
37. Do you have any fears? Death scares me
38. What scares you the most? Death
39. What do you do to entertain yourself? Go for a jog or walk, write music, read a book
40. What is your MBTI? ENFP, I think?
41. How do you deal with stress? Talk to my wife about it. It helps a lot
42. Are you a determined person? Are you a stubborn person? Determind
43. Do you consider yourself selfish? When I have to, yes. It’s important to think about yourself, no matter what others think in that moment
44. Would you like to be different? No. I’m very happy with who I am now
45. Are you more introverted (focused on your inner world) or more extraverted (focused on other people and the outer world)? Extrovert
ROMANCE QUESTIONS
46. What is your sexual orientation? I consider myself as pansexual
47. Current relationship status? I’m married to Poppy Murry, who is also now known as Aarons. We married in Hawaii in 2020. It’s a priveledge to be married to her
48. When was your first kiss? Probably around 12/13
49. Do you remember your first date? If so, with who was it? What did you do? No idea. Probably snuck out of the house and went to a party? For goodness sake..
50. Have you ever experienced heart-break? I have
51. Have you ever been in love? (If yes, skip to question 53) I currently am, and yes I have
52. If no, how so? n/a
53. How do you know when you’re in love? When home becomes a person
54. What would be your ideal date? It would be old-fashioned. I love exploring new places and get to know other cultures more
55. What is your perspective on marriage? From a married man’s perspective, it’s wonderful. However, my advice is to not rush into marriage. Divorce is awful. Only marry when the both of you a one hunderd percent commited
56. (only for non-virgins) Are you a sub, dom or switch? Dom. Sometimes a switch
57. What do you think of relationships? When you find the right person, everything just clicks
58. What do you think of one-night stands? In my past, I used to see women a lot. However, now, I’m a loyal man. I don’t do that anymore
59. Are you still a virgin? No, I’m not
60. Most attractive trait in a different person? Be yourself. Don’t put up a facade just to impress someone. Be you
61. What matters most to you when it comes to a relationship? Commitment and equality. It’s important to, whenever you’re both have different views, to find a middle ground
62. Are you comfortable with PDA? Or would you be comfortable with PDA? I love to show off Poppy. So, yes, I’d say that I’m comfortable with PDA
63. Are you more of a type to be asked out or the type to ask the other out? I’d a charmeur, of course I’m the one who asks you out
64. How do you express love to the other? In music and loyalty. All of my feelings are expressed into my songs. I’m pretty much an open book, nowadays
65. Who is your celebrity crush? Jennifer Anniston
GETTING DEEP QUESTIONS
66. Do you regret anything? Yes, a lot
67. Is there something you woule like to re-do? So, start all over again? If I could rewind to my past and do things differently, I would. I have hurted a lot of people and thinking back to it, pains me. I’m sorry to all the ones that faced me and my troubled mind
68. What is something you would never share with anyone? What really happened on the night that my parents were taken from me
69. When was the last time you cried? Why did you cry? I’m not really a crier? If there is something on my mind, I don’t hold it back and I immediately go to my wife or father-in-law to talk about it
70. Most memorable event that happened in your time in St Judes? This could be anything: My time in One Direction is something I’m always grateful for
71. One thing you wish you could do all over? Once again, my past
72. Someone you miss? Elliot. He’s my best friend. I miss my pal
73. Something you wish you could forget? Anything that happened in my first couple of years of St Judes
74. Who has the biggest impact on you? Poppy
75. What is your perspective on love? Is it beautiful? Does it scare you? It used to scare me. But surrounding myself with positive people has helped me a lot
76. What has hurt you in the past that you don’t want others to go through? Losing a parent, or both of them
77. What is something you have gained, something you have lost and something you let go of during the past year? Something I gained? Confidence, happiness and success. Something that I have lost? Attitude. Something I let go of during the past year? Not to worry so much what people think
78. Have you ever lost a friend? do you wish you would still be friends? No
79. Do you have any triggers? What is the history behind these triggers and are they related to any disorders or mental illnesses? Not really. I used to struggle with a pain killer addiction a couple of years ago, and also had anger / violence issues. I went to therpay for this and it’s been years since I’ve ever become so angry.
80. If you could meet your 16 year old self, what would tell them? Well, little Clyde, this is the start of a huge journey for you. Life isn’t going into the direction the way you want it to go and along the way, you lose the two biggest loves of your lifes, your parents, who will be taken from you during a robbery. You are going to find yourself in a deep and dark place that you won’t be able to get out of. Drugs will numb you. Alcohol will help. However, there are people who really care about you and no matter what, you’re going to be ok
RANDOM QUESTION ROUND
81. Summer or Winter? Summer
82. Cats or dogs? Dogs
83. Beach or mountains? Both, I love both
84. Phone calls or texting? Texting
85. Have you ever skipped class? No
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Drop the Evie essay you wrote
okay so first of all it wasn’t really an essay the way some of my ramblings are, more like just me writing down all of my thoughts in a vaguely coherent manner bc my brain was running too fast to really organize it
and second of all, just to be on the safe side, these are the potential trigger warnings that I would give for the essay — I don’t know if they all actually come up or not, but better safe than sorry, so proceed with caution!
Potential TWs: being outed, parental neglect, character death (canon), suicide attempts (semi-canon), eating disorders, lots of mental health issues, and lots of general trauma and feelings of never being good enough, and canon typical references to drinking/drugs/partying/etc
so just like a fun fact, Evie’s vitamin water of choice is zero sugar strawberry lemonade and yes i spent too long reading reviews on different flavours all because gossip girl did an entire product placement episode
anyways now onto real thoughts let’s go lesbians let’s go
so okay evie has a... very negative experience with Lily’s various boyfriends and husbands. When Evie was younger she was always hopeful that this time would be different, that they’d be a family, that her mom would actually stick around, and every single time she’s been let down and left heartbroken. When her mom starts dating Bart, Evie is very against it but she just can’t be bothered to even try to talk to Lily — Lily will date him, maybe get married, play house, abandon her children, then get divorced, and the cycle will repeat, and Lily will never give a shit about how her children feel about it. Bart is just the latest rich man for Lily to set her sights on. Given the overall shittiness of most of Lily’s exes, Evie had figured she would be a lot more vocally against Lily dating again, but Bart...
Bart himself may terrify Evie, but Evie’s unwavering faith that Chuck will always protect her outweighs that fear, and Evie has long since given up on her mom caring about her opinions so she just takes comfort in the fact that Chuck will be there and tries to just ignore the rest — and the fact that Bart is pretty much always away does help with that. That being said, she was very distraught when Bart spends season 1 christmas with them, but then Bart’s “present” for her was flying Chuck home for a few days because Lily mentioned that Eric was teasing Evie about being excited about having Chuck as a brother, and he's trying to semi-win over the kids (aka bribe them into accepting him as Lily’s fiancé)
Evie speaks several languages! She started learning French and Spanish at a very young age, and then picked more up from Lily’s various husbands. She’s not fluent in all of them but she can hold conversations in eight languages — and four of them were from Lily’s boyfriends (and italian was half pieced together from French and Spanish), and she just keeps learning more because she tries to keep herself too busy to think at any given moment
Rufus is her favourite step-dad by far, but Chuck is her favourite step-sibling (and second favourite sibling, after Eric). That being said, Bart was surprisingly decent to her because even he quickly figured out that Evie has the innate ability to get Chuck to do basically anything, and he wanted her on his side, only he underestimated how much Evie hates him for treating Chuck like shit — as she says in 2x07, “if you want us to be a family, you should learn how to be a dad”
Evie has a bit of a thing for stealing coats lmao — it’s not unusual to find her stealing Chuck, Eric, Theo, or even Nate’s jackets when she gets cold or starts feeling particularly self conscious. At the housewarming party she actually gets to bothered by all the media watching her constantly that Chuck goes and gets her one of his blazers to replace the cropped one she was wearing, and she immediately feels a bit more at east
Evie is a jock like it’s understated but she’s on multiple sports teams at school and plays outside of school too — she’s also in dance classes several times a week, along with private vocal lessons, and being part of every theatre production at Constance Billard (musicals and plays), and is on the yearbook committee. Basically, Evie needs a fucking nap, and with a lot of pushing from Chuck and Eric and Theo (to balance out Blair “do absolutely everything in the name of Yale” Waldorf) she does eventually ease up on her extra-curriculars
She holds far too much power in the Constance-St Jude hierarchy. She’s a freshman, but it’s well known that Evie is completely untouchable. Some people (cough Jenny) might try to cross Blair, but no one is stupid enough to go after Evie — she’s not just Blair’s protégée, she’s also under Chuck’s protection. And when Jenny does try to cross her in season 3 (physical and emotional bullshit, public humiliation, telling the entire school she’d tried to kill herself and had been at Ostroff not “in florida”), well... she learns that even being family won’t stop her entire life from being destroyed
Speaking of Jenny... that’s a very messy relationship — I want to like Jenny, I really do, but I just... don’t so far. They’re a very sweet relationship early on, neither of them had dated before and they were just really smitten with each other and things were good. There were definitely some issues because of the Jenny-Blair war, but they’d been okay — or so Evie had thought, until Jenny dumped her by means of introducing everyone to her new boyfriend, Asher. Then of course there’s the party and Jenny outing her, and then just not talking to her for months until she needs something from them (an in to the White Party). Eric manages to convince Evie to play nice, but he does so under the impression that Jenny had apologized to Evie — he didn’t know she’d only apologized to him. Eventually Jenny does apologize and Evie tries to forgive her, and she keeps giving Jenny more and more second chances (especially once they become step sisters), but Jenny really just keeps hurting Evie to get on top because with Blair gone, Evie immediately becomes the new queen, and Jenny cares more about being queen than being nice. Little does she realize that part of why Evie became queen with no challenge is because she’s nice.
and regarding Evie’s other relationships... so serena was a really good big sister when Eric & Evie were kids — Blair was the responsible sister and Serena was the fun sister, but it was a good balance and it worked. But when the twins were around eleven and Serena was around 13, she became besties with Georgina Sparks, and everything went to shit. Serena started getting into partying and drinking and drugs and became just as flighty and unreliable as Lily, which takes a significant toll on the twins’ mental health — side note, one of their therapists at the Ostroff Centre believes that their significant codependency stems from the abandonment issues they have as a result of Lily and Serena just up and leaving them whenever anything “better” comes along.
And unfortunately for the twins, this was around the same time (grade 6) that Theo got sent to boarding school, so really they lost both their sister and their best friend at the same time, and Theo leaving also messed up the overall group dynamics and they half lost Nate too — he was still in their lives but he went from being the dad to Blair’s mom to being more of a big brother, and there was this sort of hole that didn’t get filled until a couple of years later.
And of course, a lot of it then fell to Blair to try to fill that hole and the holes left by Serena and Lily and went from being sort of “mom friend big sister” to “literally the closest thing we have to a mom”, which is also just a lot of pressure for a thirteen year old girl and part of why Blair and Chuck got a lot closer after he ended up becoming their dad was because she finally had someone that she could talk to too.
Also like full disclosure, Chuck never really intended to become their dad. He started off as a reluctant big brother because he was Nate’s best friend and Nate was the dad friend when they were younger, and Evie just kind of decided that she loved him and like no one can argue with Evie so all of a sudden he was part of the family. He doesn’t really become dad until the van der Woodsens move into the hotel because suddenly Eric and Evie are just always there, and he doesn’t even realize it until months later, after Serena is gone and he realizes that he’s been skipping parties to like play mario kart and shit with the twins and Blair is just like “lmao yeah buddy you’re the last one to get this memo”
and then there’s this list that I made of the NJBC’s roles in raising the twins and theo back when they were younger
Blair: holds their hands to cross the street, teaches them not to talk to people who wear sneakers or to strangers, teaches them how to dress themselves like respectable people, makes them finish their homework before watching tv, hates all of their nannies and only trusts dorota to take care of them
Nate: teaches them to tie their laces and their ties, plays video games and sports with them, helps them with homework and doesn't get impatient when they struggle, lets them use his notebooks to draw in when they're bored
Chuck: will destroy anyone who hurts them, teaches them street smarts and how to tell when someone is lying, is the one who lets them do dumb and reckless things because he'd rather they do them when he's there to get in trouble, still refuses to believe that they know what sex is
Serena: reminded them that it's okay to have fun and draw outside the lines, stood up for them when lily was being a shit mom and always tried to protect them from the worst of her neglect, came up with games to play when they were sad to take their minds off whatever is upsetting them
And Theo!!!!!! Theo has been their best friend for their entire lives! They’ve known him since they were babies and the three of them have always been inseparable! Like highkey they were just a more functional NJBC lmao, and we love them for it! Theo getting sent to boarding school was really hard on all three of them but they stayed in constant contact and whenever Theo is back in the city, it’s almost impossible to see them not together. Theo does know that they were in the Centre, so once he’s back full time, he’s spending as much time visiting them as he can! Even when Eric and Theo are dating (and later when Evie and Theo are dating), the group dynamics really never change! It’s still always the three of them, and sometimes Jenny in s1, they’re still each other’s family, and they’re still just a bit too interdependent to be entirely healthy (it’s the trauma and neglectful parents)
on a slightly related note, neither of the twins drink anything other than champagne and sometimes wine, and neither of them touch drugs at all, and it’s entirely because of Serena. They’ve both seen how much she’s changed since she got into that scene, and especially since ‘liking partying’ turned into ‘alcohol addiction’, and they’re both too afraid of ending up like that to even take the risk. It’s something that definitely sets them apart from pretty much any of their peers, but they’ve gotten very good at just laughing it off with a “hey, I just don’t want to end up on Gossip Girl tomorrow” which people generally accept
(that being said, Evie did smoke for a while pre-canon bc cigarettes curb hunger, but she hasn’t smoked at all since ending up in the Centre, and once she’s out too many people have an eye on her for her to even try, and she does want to stop)
(TW ATTEMPTED SUICIDE, fairly detailed discussion) so okay the breaking point for the twins... lily had just gone awol again and Blair was away visiting her dad and evie was at the archibalds’ house hanging out with theo, who was home for a weekend, and eric didn’t want to call anyone because lily’s disappearance had left him in a spiral of feeling annoying and like people didn’t really want him in their lives and there wasn’t a specific trigger but instead of the spiral slowing down or evie/chuck/blair being able to pull him out of it, it just kept getting worse until he was slitting his wrist in the bathroom — only Evie had just gotten home and when he didn’t reply to her calling his name, she got freaked out and started looking for him and when she saw him, she just... couldn’t deal. She called 911 for eric but then she was just in the bathroom and covered in his blood and she didn’t know what to do and she needed to calm down so she grabbed a bottle of valium that she thinks was Lily’s but instead of just taking one pill she ended up taking all of them and downing them with a bottle of vodka serena had hidden — once she realized what she’d done she called Chuck and basically just said “I think I fucked up” and Chuck freaks out (understandably) and rushes to their suite and gets there basically just in time to see both of them being loaded into an ambulance; he claims he’s their brother and rides with them to the hospital where he calls blair, and arranges for his jet to pick her up asap, and then tries (unsuccessfully) to get in touch with lily
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Space Sweepers and the History of Working Class People In Space
https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
This week saw the release of Space Sweepers, Korea’s first big budget special effects space movie extravaganza. There are a lot of interesting things to say about this movie, but one of the things that makes it stand out is it’s an excellent portrayal of people in space who are skint.
See, I hate to break it to you, but you’re probably never going into space. Unless you’re a highly trained technical specialist (well done!) or a billionaire (pay your taxes!), your best shot at seeing Earth from space within your lifetime is the development of realistic-yet-cheap VR headsets.
And the thing is, a lot of the time this holds up in sci-fi as well. Space travellers are either living in a post-scarcity utopia, are part of the military, or are some kind of genius scientists.
Even where we see supposedly salt-of-the-Earth relatable types, like Han Solo or Mal Reynolds, their scruffy outfits and roguish ways can’t quite cover for the fact that they own and live in the equivalent of a massive luxury yacht or private plane. Serenity may look like a rust bucket, but it’s far from the equivalent of a white van, and while Mal is constantly complaining about the costs of fuel and repairs, that doesn’t change the fact that he seems to own the ship outright, and in “Oxygen” he appears ready to buy the ship for cash.
As for Han Solo, leaving for a moment his humble origins and that he won the ship in a card game, within the Galaxy Far Far Away the ratio of space travellers to non-space travellers doesn’t seem that different from the one on Earth. Yes, there are lots of smugglers and Tie-fighter pilots and interplanetary bounty hunters, but for every one of them there are millions of Tusken sand raiders, Jawa scrap merchants, moisture farmers and Corellian street rats. Spacecraft might come and go from the spires of Coruscant as regularly as buses, but the population density is such that most people on that planet will be lucky to see sunlight, let alone the stars.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the chances of an ordinary person getting into space even in the foreseeable future vary between Willy Wonka Golden ticket level lucky, or truly dystopian. On the one hand, Elon Musk has announced the first all-civilian mission to space, led by billionaire Jared Isaacman (so, not what you’d call an everyman), two seats given to people who have won a place by donating to St Jude’s Hospital (it probably won’t be one of the smaller donors), and finally, one lucky front-line health worker.
But Elon Musk wants to colonise Mars, and sadly billionaires still need people to clean the toilets, so Musk has other ideas for how ordinary people might get into space. Unfortunately that idea is indentured slavery, demonstrating that the most prescient science fiction writers of our generation are the writers of first-person shooters.
This is why, outside of post-scarcity-fully-automated-luxury-space-communism, and the military, science fiction is always oddly quiet about money. With a few honourable exceptions.
We Just Work Here
The first and most obvious reason why any ordinary working-class person would end up in space is “they’re paid to”.
Pretty much the codifier of working-class people in space is Alien. The crew of Nostromo aren’t scientists, they’ve not got The Right Stuff. Nobody on that ship is getting a high school named after them. The crew of the Nostromo are basically truck drivers who venture off the highway and run into something nasty. Yes, ironically they show a great deal more competence, professionalism and intelligence in encountering an alien threat than the actual scientists in the prequel movie, but the first conversation these characters have when they come out of hyper sleep is about money. From the outset, these are people in a place of work.
It’s a model that set the format for gritty-industrial-working-class-people in space movies going forward for better or worse. Event Horizon just lifts Alien’s aesthetic completely for the rescue ship Lewis & Clark, as does the videogame series Dead Space, like Alien, set aboard a mining ship.
Away from the horror genre, Outland sees Sean Connery play sheriff in a final frontier mining town that could have taken place in the same world as Alien.
And of course, Red Dwarf, which not only made good use of the Alien aesthetic, but also cast the colony commander from Aliens as their Captain, to tell the story of chicken soup repairmen in space.
Across all of these stories, and of course the aforementioned videogames, the life of the blue collar space traveller is an unpleasant one, exploited by a company that not only controls your life while you work, but also owns all of your food, water and air. Indeed, it’s not rare for them to go further. In Moon, another film where the spacemen-to-earthmen ratio seems not far what it is now, Sam Bell’s employer decides to save the cost of training employees and ferrying them back and forth from Earth to the Moon by taking one employee and filling a cellar full of his pre-programmed, short-lived disposable clones.
Space Sweepers
Public Transport
But maybe you don’t want to work for “the Man”, not an unwise call given the Man is probably trying to feed you to something horrible in the hope of creating a new bioweapon. One surprisingly under-utilised method of getting into space is public transport.
In The Fifth Element, Bruce Willis plays a special-forces-operative-turned-cab-driver who, as part of his cover, wins a ticket to go on a space cruise. Although looking at the sets and the extras in this movie, as well as the packed-in-as-tightly-as-we-can apartments back on Earth, one gets the impression this is not an option open to the majority of working joes.
Perhaps the best example of this is in the shockingly under-loved 2018 flick, Prospect, featuring future Mandalorian Pedro Pascal.
In Prospect, the spaceship is little more than a rotating framework filled with cargo containers in front of a massive engine. The father and daughter prospecting team are on board a lander that resembles nothing so much as an old Apollo Lunar Lander on the inside, and as the mothership approaches their destination the ship doesn’t even stop, it just releases the lander, tells them when the ship is going to be passing back that way and warns them the line is being terminated, so there won’t be another ship passing that way.
This is a model it would be fantastic to see more of. The landing module is small enough that it’s entirely plausible that even these not-very-well-off characters could buy, hire or rent one. Rather than having the freedom of the space ways like Mal or Han, their travel options are entirely restricted by what destinations are profitable for large shipping companies and whether they’ll let you tag along. And while on the surface the aesthetic looks a bit Alien, in truth it feels far more like it’s cobbled together from relics of the actual space age.
Borrow Your Way Into Space
And finally, of course, there’s the Elon Musk solution. Borrow your way into space. One of the early places to use this idea was Gateway, by Frederik Pohl. Frederik Pohl in particular is fantastic at writing science fiction worlds where people actually have to worry about money. In Gateway and its sequels humanity has discovered Ancient Aliens left a space station nearby, stocked with a lot of spaceships. Being alien technology, humans can’t control the ships accurately, they’re limited pretty much to pressing the “Stop” and “Go” buttons, and when the ship flies off it might land on a world of fabulous riches, or it might chuck you into the heart of a star.
Prospectors who want to try their luck in these ships have to take out a loan to get to the station, and throughout the novel the protagonist is constantly aware of how many credits are in his account.
Which brings us back around to Space Sweepers. At first glance the Space Sweepers set-up might seem similar to that of the Millennium Falcon or Serenity – an extremely “used” looking ship run by a rag-tag bunch of misfits. But the first time we see the protagonist, Tae-ho, he’s in a pawn shop. As soon as he gets back to the ship we learn the crew are still paying off the cost of the ship, as well as the costs of repairs and parts.
We see an awful lot of “Space sweepers” throughout the film, junk collectors gathering up salvage from Earth’s orbiting collection of derelict spacecraft and defunct satellites. But these people don’t seem like roguish space pirates, the impression they give is more akin to app-based gig workers.
This is compounded by another issue – that to work in space you need a visa, with citizenship limited to the wealthy few who are able to afford a place on the deluxe orbiting space habitats.
Everything in Space Sweepers is driven by money, whether it’s Tao-Ho’s attempts to raise enough money to find his daughter, the robot, Bubs, and her attempt to get a humanoid body that reflects her gender, and of course, the $2 million reward for “Dorothy” which drives the whole plot.
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Often space-based sci-fi is about the fantasy of freedom, of exploration. Even shows like Star Trek give us characters whose job isn’t much more than to fly around having adventures. But there is rich storytelling to be done about the people who have to clean the space toilets.
Chris Farnell’s novella series, Fermi’s Progress, is about a ship whose FTL drive vaporises planets, and features at least one space traveller who isn’t a scientist, super soldier or billionaire (although to be fair the other three characters are exactly that). You can find part one here.
The post Space Sweepers and the History of Working Class People In Space appeared first on Den of Geek.
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