Happy Mother’s Day To Tonks💗

i just don't think that people should have to disclose their deepest and most life-ruining traumas as a requirement to write about sensitive topics

House elf speech patterns and the ‘happy slave’ trope

The way house-elves speak with their exaggerated, broken syntax, subject verb disagreements, and deferential tone bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the way enslaved people have been depicted in film, particularly in movies that glorify the antebellum south.

Take Winky’s syntax :

“But I knows Dobby too, sir!” squeaked the elf. She was shielding her face, as though blinded by light, though the Top Box was not brightly lit. “My name is Winky, sir — and you, sir — ” Her dark brown eyes widened to the size of side plates as they rested upon Harry’s scar. “You is surely Harry Potter!”

Then there’s Dobby:

“Dobby has traveled the country for two whole years, sir, trying to find work!” Dobby squeaked. “But Dobby hasn’t found work, sir, because Dobby wants paying now!”

Even Kreacher, who has a slightly different speech pattern still broadly speaks in the similar affected way.

“Kreacher did not see Young Master,” he said, turning around and bowing to Fred. Still facing the carpet, he added, perfectly audibly, “Nasty little brat of a blood traitor it is.”

This linguistic pattern is not unfamiliar. Compare it to:

Mammy from Gone with the Wind: Miss Melly, this here's done broke her heart. But I didn't fetch you on Miss Scarlett's account. What that child got to stand, the good Lord give her strength to stand. It's Mr. Rhett I's worried about. He done lost his mind these last couple of days

Or Uncle Remus in Song of the South. “Oh, I knows. I knows. I’m just a worn-out ol’ man what don’t do nothin’ but tell stories. But they ain’t never done no harm to nobody.”

The same tropes are at play. Stilted, infantilising speech. These films, particularly Gone with the Wind and Song of the South, glorify the antebellum South by presenting enslaved characters as devoted, content, even protective of their oppressors.

This is where the argument that house-elves aren’t slaves but brownies falls down. If house-elves were truly just magical beings with their own culture, their speech wouldn’t so closely mimic the linguistic markers of servitude used in films that softened the horrors of slavery.

Also intended or not this is a racialised coding that was once used to uphold and justify the absolute abomination of slavery and we should be critical of it.

bonfire night

I need all my American friends to consider this because I need more of it in my Wolfstar fics — bonfire night. 

Bonfire night is, obviously, a nightmare. Your whole town squished into a small space, usually a field, but as a queer teen it’s great. ( My first queer experience was holding hands with a girl on bonfire night.)

Imagine for a moment — Sirius Black experiencing that muggle tradition for the first time. Pressed up against Remus cause there really is no room when your whole town is smushed together in one place, an opportunity for him to get close to Remus. Bundled up in a dozen layers and still cold, James’ arm wrapped around him, pitch black sky and seeing nothing but his own breath until suddenly, as the chanting crowd gets to ‘one’ the sky lights up in colour. Remus’ face glowing with reds and blues and purples, Remus glancing at him, hands brushing, fingers intwining because, again, it’s a tight crowd. No one to see this moment between them. Magic for a very different reason. Going home to light sparklers and eat good food and watch tv and the phantom feelings of someone’s hand in his.  It’d be his favourite holiday.

we need more bonfire nights!

Get to Know Me!

This is just a fun little thing I’ve been wanting to do since the dawn of time but could never find a post to reblog that satisfied what I wanted. So I made this, feel free to reblog and use it yourself!

❤️ how tall are you?

🧡 what is your sexuality?

💛 what is your favorite feature on yourself?

💚 where are you from?

🩵 do you have any pets?

💙 do you have any siblings?

💜 describe yourself in five words or less!

🩷 dream job?

🖤 favorite hobbies outside of your blog

🎂 when is your birthday?

🌙 your zodiac (Sun, Moon, Rising)

💉do you have tattoos and/or piercings

🚗 can you drive?

✈️ favorite place you’ve traveled

🎤 have you been to a concert

🎵 favorite artists

🎧 last song you listened too

📺 last show you watched

📝 last thing you wrote

🔐 something no one would guess about you

🧟‍♀️ scariest thing that’s happened to you

🔥 craziest thing that’s ever happened to you

🍓 favorite food

🍅 least favorite food

🍊 favorite season?

🍋 favorite genre to read / watch / write

🍐 if you could make one character real, who would it be

🫐 some place you’d love to visit

🍇 a word your friends would use to describe you

🍒 what is your earliest memory

🍌 what is one talent you wish you had

💌 why did you start this blog?

✏️ when did you start writing fanfic

🖇️ what are your favorite asks to answer

📚 how do you come up with the fics you write

📌 what is the fic you’re know for

🔍 what character do you enjoy writing for the most

🖊️ what character do you not enjoy writing for

💔 is there a fic you wish you didn’t write

❤️‍🔥 what character do you simp for most often

🧚‍♀️ favorite characters of all time

🪐 favorite shows / series of all time

🌝 a show you would recommend to anyone

🌚 a show you’d tell people to stay away from

🌹 favorite kinks to write for

🥀 kinks you would never write for

🌊 a kink you would like to write but you think you’d be judged

❄️ full fics, imagines or head canons

☂️ your favorite fanfic from another writer

A couple of in depth questions!

🍄 what is something that’s happened in your life that you wish you could go back and change?

⭐️ what is one of your biggest accomplishments? Why is it so important to you?

🪻what is the toughest thing you had to go through, but can say you’ve successfully overcome?

🌺 what is the best gift someone has ever given you and why is it so important

🍀 what is your comfort show/series and why is it your comfort show? How has it helped you?

Countdown - 430 words

Got inspired and wrote a little something for @wolfstarmicrofic! CW: (mild) internalized acephobia

11:52pm

Remus is panicking, just a bit. 

Maybe more than a bit.

He’s been dating Sirius for eight months, a relationship record for Remus. Embarrassingly long-held feelings for Sirius aside, Remus has never met anyone who was okay with the lack of kissing and sex that dating him entailed. Sirius has been nothing but accepting and even loving; he says he’s fine with not having sex, not kissing on the mouth, even with Remus not sleeping in the same bed some nights.

But Remus can’t stop thinking about New Year’s traditions, and expectations.

The whole kissing thing is just…gross. He can’t. He won’t. And a corner of his brain is adamant that Sirius wouldn’t want him to if he didn’t want to anyways.

11:56pm

James and Sirius rush in from the kitchen, balancing glasses of champagne. James joins Lily and Peter on the floor while Sirius nestles into Remus’s side on the couch, nudging their glasses into his hands. He wraps Remus up in his warm, strong arms and Remus relaxes, feeling the anxiety brewing in his chest lose a bit of its fizz.

“Hi, my Moony. What’s going on in that silly head of yours?”

Remus sighs. “I just, just—you know I can’t kiss you at midnight right? I can’t, it’s…icky and it makes me feel bad and it’s not fair for you to miss out because of me, you’re supposed to kiss the person you want to spend the year with and I can’t—”

Sirius squeezes him tighter, rocks him just a little. “Shh, baby. It’s okay.” His mouth is right by Remus’s ear, voice hardly above a whisper. “You’re being silly. I don’t need a kiss, I just need the year with you.”

Remus tips his head back to look at Sirius. “Promise?”

Sirius smiles at him fondly. “Promise.”

11:59pm

“Guys! It’s 11:59!” shouts Lily. Everyone leaps up and piles onto the couch, Sirius squishing even closer to Remus to make room for all five of them. Lily ends up on James’s lap.

When the countdown begins, they scream along, and when the clock turns to midnight they all cheer. Sirius leans in and presses his cheek against Remus’s with a satisfied sigh. “Happy New Year, Moons.”

Warmth creeps into his cheeks, and Remus is sure Sirius can feel it. They stay there until Remus has gathered the courage to turn to his boyfriend and gently kiss the top of his head. “Happy New Year, Pads.” Sirius looks up at him with a sleepy smile on his face, and Remus smiles back.

Umm also remus lupin buys a flowy dress to wear for his first date with Sirius because it's comfortable and makes him feel confident, but then gets too self conscious to wear it, and when Sirius finds out, he takes him out again (this time in the dress) and tells him over and over how gorgeous he looks ❤️

Write it shitty, write it scared, write it without a clue but don't you be so spineless and have an AI write fanfic for you.

Remus Lupin and Lily Evans, 1979

little spoon remus but he sort of just suffocates himself in sirius' chest while he strokes remus' hair

Writing Tips

Punctuating Dialogue

✧

➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.

“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”